Monthly Archives: June 2020

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Cook’s Tour of Italy Menu 44 (Pgs. 138 – 139): Chicken Risotto with Vegetables, Venetian Style (Venice)

Menu: Risotto with Chicken and Vegetables

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Heading northeast, we cross Emilia-Romagna to the Veneto region, most well-known for Venice, but also home to Verona, Vicenza, Trieste, and other notable cities. Unlike Rome, Florence, Milan, Naples, or their historical rival Genoa, Venice was not an established city in the Roman era. Exact dates of foundation vary, but the most common story seems to be that the city was established in the 5th Century AD by those fleeing barbarian raids on the mainland. After a century and a half or so of Byzantine rule in the 6th and 7th Centuries, the first Doge was elected either at the end of the 7th or start of the 8th Century (the jury is still out on whether the first Doge was real or legendary) and the republic began its rise.

From its earliest days, Venice relied on trade, and in his work The Venetians, author Paul Strathearn explains why. Essentially, it boiled down to the fact that space was limited on the islands in the lagoon, limiting how much food could be grown and, to a lesser degree, how many goods could be produced. Trade both provided the necessary food and made the republic wealthy. For centuries, Venice was the main point of import for “exotic” goods from Asia, including spices, sugar, incense, and silk.

Another luxury import during the Middle Ages was rice, which gradually began to be cultivated in Italy as its popularity grew. The wealthy loved it, particularly cooked in almond milk. As supply expanded, the price dropped, making rice widely available to all classes. Today, in many parts of Northern Italy, risotto and polenta are more popular than pasta, and this includes Venice. Rice, polenta, vegetables, and seafood in various combinations are staples in Venetian cookery, which is very different from what is typically thought of as “Italian.”

The best way to think of this dish is probably “Venetian chicken and rice.” With a flavoring base of carrot, onion, and celery, which occurs in many recipes in the book, the risotto includes chicken, chicken broth, tomato puree, butter, and parmesan cheese. The end result is creamy but not too rich, and flavorful without being overpowering. The tomato flavor is present but not dominant, melding into all the other flavors. Additional virtues for this recipe are that it is not very difficult to make and uses easy to find, affordable ingredients. I would definitely make this again.

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Cook’s Tour of Italy Menu 19 (Pgs. 69 – 70): White Beans and Mushrooms (Tuscany)

Menu: White Beans and Mushrooms, Orange and Grapefruit Salad

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Remaining in Tuscany, we have another bean-based stew, served with bruschetta and parmesan cheese. Like elsewhere in Italy, the pre-modern population of Tuscany ate little meat, getting much of their protein from legumes. Even now, when meat is more widely consumed, beans remain a central part of the diet. Prior to Columbus, this would have been mainly peas, lentils, and fava beans, with white navy and cannellini beans becoming favored after their introduction from the New World. They are part of antipasti, side dishes, and most of all, soups and stews with a variety of ingredients. Here, they are included in a vegetarian stew with fresh and dried mushrooms.

This has to be one of the most satisfying meatless entrées I’ve ever tried. After the beans are cooked with celery, onions, garlic, and vegetable broth, some are removed and marinated with vinegar, olive oil, and rosemary. The rest are mashed or partially pureed in the pot before adding sautéed mushrooms. Each dish of beans and mushrooms is served with a spoonful of the marinated beans, a couple pieces of garlic-rubbed toast, and a sprinkle of parmesan cheese.

All of the flavors were balanced, with a nice contrast between the somewhat rich “stew” and acidic and herbal qualities of the marinated beans. The mix of protein from the beans, carbohydrates from the bread, and fat from the olive oil made the dish filling and satisfying, with the toasted bread adding a crunchy contrast to the otherwise soft dish. Really, I can’t praise this dish highly enough. It’s great as is, but the optional orange and grapefruit salad is a good accompaniment.

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Cook’s Tour of Italy Menu 17 (Pg. 68): Chicken, Kale, and Chickpea Stew (Tuscany)

Menu: Chicken Kale and Chickpea Stew, Bruschetta

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Traveling back south but not quite to Rome, we reach the region of Tuscany, a name which conjures up images of picturesque towns atop rolling hills, their sides covered in vineyards and olive groves, dotted with cypress trees. Or perhaps one imagines the Florence’s iconic Duomo, the works of Michelangelo, Da Vinci, and the other Renaissance masters, or the strife between and even within city-states featured so prominently in the works of Dante. Tuscany is all of this, and more.

The first recorded inhabitants (though there is archaeological evidence of others previously) were the Etruscans, whose presence is attested from around 1000 BC or slightly before. Though they lived only a short distance northwest of the Romans and other Latin peoples, they were a distinct people with a completely unrelated language. Only a handful of Etruscan words have been deciphered, though they wrote extensively, so most information about them comes from Greek, Roman, and Phoenician/Carthaginian records. What is known is that they made fine pottery, were skilled metalworkers, and greatly influenced the early Romans.

Despite gradually assimilating into Roman culture and adopting the Latin language, the Etruscans’ descendants never lost their importance. As with Venice and Genoa, trade and banking brought great prosperity to Tuscany during the High and Late Middle Ages. This prosperity, along with the feuding cities’ constant desire to outdo each other, both on and off the battlefield, led to a blossoming of arts and culture from the 13th century onward.

Piggybacking off of the continent-wide cultural and economic boom in the 12th century, which brought, among other things, chivalric romance and Gothic architecture from France, the cultural dominance of Late Medieval Italy began to emerge in the 13th. The artistic innovations of Duccio, Giotto, Cimabue, and Bernini paved the way for the artists of the Renaissance. The works of Dante, Petrarch, and Bocaccio, written in the vernacular, helped ensure that the Tuscan language/dialect (rather than, say, Venetian or Neapolitan) would become the basis of the modern Italian language. And all of this was before the start of the Renaissance in the 15th century.

Clearly, there is a lot for Tuscany to take pride in in its history, but Tuscans also take pride in their cuisine. Far from stereotypically Italian, it features grilled and roasted meats, lots of beans in various preparations, unsalted bread, soups, leafy green vegetables, olive oil, and red wine. Pasta is present but not as popular as bread and polenta, game like boar and rabbit is common, and there is a focus on quality ingredients and straightforward flavors.

This one-dish meal has four features of Tuscan cuisine; beans (in this case chickpeas), bread, soup, and green vegetables. The soup was easy to put together, with a variety of ingredients, some out of cans, coming together into something delicious. The little bit of cumin in the mix is unique and not stereotypically Italian (though the ancient Romans used it a fair amount), but all of the flavors melded well. A sprinkle of parmesan cheese and a few pieces of garlic-rubbed toast (bruschetta) finished the dish off perfectly.

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Cook’s Tour of Italy Menu 25 (Pg. 89): Polenta with Fontina Cheese, Tomatoes and Roasted Peppers (Piedmont)

Menu: Polenta with Cheese, Peppers, Tomatoes and Basil

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We now journey to the northwest corner of Italy, to the Piedmont region. Combined in a chapter with Liguria directly to the south, the two regions nonetheless seem to have notably different food traditions. Piedmont, historically part of the Kingdom of Savoy, is a region of mountains crisscrossed by fertile valleys. Like neighboring Lombardy, Piedmont is north of the olive-growing zone and has thus historically relied on the animal fats butter and lard. The Alpine pastures of the region have long produced a relative abundance of beef, veal, butter, and cow’s milk cheeses, including the fontina featured here.

Polenta is more common than pasta here, as in much of Northern Italy, and can be eaten in a variety of different ways. It can be poured out of the saucepan as is, or it can be cooled to firm up, sliced, and baked or fried, enhanced by any number of toppings. Here it is baked with a straightforward sauce of roasted red peppers and tomatoes, a liberal sprinkle of fontina cheese, then topped with chopped basil upon being removed from the oven. Aside from setting off the smoke alarm a few times roasting the peppers under the broiler (the skin has to get quite dark and blistered for the insides to soften properly), this was quite easy to prepare.

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Admittedly, I found this menu a bit disappointing, which is a first for this project. I think a lot of it has to do with personal taste. The flavors were not bad by any means, but seemed a little bland and uninteresting. The sauce seemed like it needed something, maybe some garlic and/or herbs, and the creamy but mild fontina would have been enhanced by a bit of parmesan. Then there’s the fact that polenta is essentially grits, which are not my favorite. That’s not to say there aren’t good things going on in this one-dish meal. It all comes down to personal taste.

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Cook’s Tour of Italy Menu 29 (Pgs. 94 – 98): Menu for 6, Albavilla (Near Lake Como, Lombardy)

Menu: Poached Eggs and Parmesan in Broth, Milan-Style “Veal” Cutlet, Arugula Salad with Lemon Dressing, Apple/Pear/Ginger Milan Charlotte

Recommended Wine: Sassella, Grumello, or Inferno (Reds)

Heading north again, we arrive in Lombardy. Like Emilia-Romagna, most of the region is a fertile, relatively flat plain (part of the same river valley, actually, just upriver to the northwest). As the largest river valley in Italy, the Po Valley has long been one of its granaries, particularly in recent centuries as drainage methods have improved. Bordered by the Alps, dotted by glacial lakes and with adequate rainfall, the land around Milan, Pavia, Cremona, and Bergamo is remarkably different from Lazio and Tuscany, as is its history. Held by Celtic peoples until the 3rd century BC, it was occupied by Germanic Ostrogoths and Lombards (hence the name Lombardy) from the 5th to 8th centuries AD. Perhaps due to similar terrain and history, there are a number of similarities between the cuisines of Lombardy and Emilia-Romagna, particularly in the larger presence of meat, use of butter instead of olive oil, and large variety of cow’s milk cheeses.

Compared to those from regions further south, the recipes in the Lombardy chapter are distinctly less “Mediterranean” and to many Americans, more “familiar.” Unlike the last menu, which used a substantial quantity of olive oil, this one is full of butter. Without pasta, tomatoes or garlic, this meal of a rich soup, schnitzel-style “veal” cutlet, arugula salad, and a dessert of apples and pears stuffed in buttered bread is far from stereotypically Italian. It was delicious, though, perhaps my favorite menu so far.

Besides pasta, soup is a common first course in Italian cuisine. Along with many varieties of minestrone, there are soups and stews with vegetables, legumes and/or meat in various combinations, tortellini in broth, seafood chowders, and creamed vegetable soups, to name a few. This is one of the more unique ones. Called Zuppa Pavese in Italian, there is no direct English translation, but Mr. Famularo translates it as poached eggs and parmesan in broth. Layering a buttered piece of toast, a poached egg, and a sprinkle of parmesan cheese, then pouring a mix of chicken and beef broth over them, this interesting combination proves that broth-based soups can indeed be decadent.

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Zuppa Pavese

This soup also has an interesting backstory. It is said to have been created in 1525 for Francis I of France, who had recently been taken prisoner at the Battle of Pavia. The French had been fighting the Spanish over rival dynastic claims to Burgundy, Naples, and, most pertinently here, Milan. The backstories to these claims are fascinating, stretching back to the 13th Century and including a Sicilian rebellion against French rule backed by Aragon, various French incursions in the 14th Century, the first diamond engagement ring in 1477, and the various dynastic successes and mishaps of the children of Ferdinand and Isabella.

The Italian Wars, as they came to be called, started when Charles VIII of France invaded Naples in 1494. The king of Naples called in his ally/relative/eventual successor Ferdinand of Aragon. Hostilities continued under their respective successors until 1559. In 1525 the French monarch in question was Francis I, an energetic, boisterous figure with a love of all things Renaissance. Anyway, in the battle, Francis made the mistake of fighting in person. Though by all accounts he fought bravely, things didn’t go as planned and he was captured by the forces of his rival, the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V, who also happened to be Ferdinand and Isabella’s grandson. The conflict would outlive both of them, only being resolved (mostly in Spain’s favor) by their sons Henry II and Philip II in 1559.

While I don’t normally like poached eggs, they definitely made this soup. The buttery toasts, mixed broth, and parmesan cheese were good on their own, but the egg added richness and body. While there are broth recipes in the book, I used the alternate suggestion of low-sodium broth from cartons. Homemade is always nice, but also a lot of work in straining and freezing in manageable portions. The store brand was perfectly good, with a nice depth of flavor and not too much salt.

Due to a timing miscalculation, dessert was next: an apple and pear Charlotte, flavored with candied ginger. What is that, you may ask? There are actually two types of desserts known as “Charlottes.” One type, which you may have seen on the Great British Baking Show, is mostly composed of fruit, cream, and gelatin, with a border of ladyfingers or cake. The type here, however, has a fruit filling somewhat resembling pie filling and a “crust” of buttered bread. In the Milanese original version, buttered and sugared French bread is used to line a ring mold, which is filled with apples, raisins, and pine nuts, baked, and flambeed with rum. (Text, pg. 97) Mr. Famularo’s variation omits the rum and flambé (“too French for my Italian taste”), uses crustless white bread with just butter, replaces the raisins and pine nuts with pears and ginger, and is baked in timbale molds.

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Since I don’t actually have timbale molds (I’m not entirely sure what they are, but they sound like cone-shaped molds with the point removed), I used a ring mold. As I had already bought Italian bread for the soup, I used that to line the molds, but otherwise followed the recipe as written. It took a while to figure out how to line the mold, but once I did and got it filled and in the oven, it seemed like smooth sailing. Or so I thought. Since the bottom of the pan was removeable, some of the melting butter and juice from the baking fruit managed to leak out through the tiny gaps and made a mess in the oven.

The final dessert wasn’t necessarily pretty, but it tasted great. I was expecting soggy bread, but parts were crisp, other parts pleasantly sticky but holding together. The ginger was an interesting and delicious change of pace from the cinnamon/pie spice normally associated with apple desserts, though I’m sure either of those would have been good. Unsweetened whipped cream (which seems to be the norm in Italy as far as I can tell) and a sprinkle of chopped candied ginger balanced things perfectly. The recipe also called for a bit of softened gorgonzola cheese to be swirled into the whipped cream, but that was one thing I was not up to trying.

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Though pretty full by this point, we managed to make room for a bit of Milan-style “veal” cutlet and arugula salad with lemon dressing. Due to concerns about raising methods and veal being hard to find, I replaced the veal chops with pork chops. Though beef might seem a more likely replacement for veal, pork is often used as a substitute in the similar German/Austrian dish schnitzel, so that is what I ended up using. Plus, pork chops are much more affordable than pretty much any cut of beef. After pounding the bone-in chops to flatten then, they are soaked in milk for an hour, then dried, dipped in egg then breadcrumbs, and fried in butter.

Supposedly they should cook for 2-3 minutes per side then 5 more minutes to cook the middle (Text, pg. 96). Maybe for veal that would be the case, but I found it took noticeably longer. Most likely, the reason for this is that while red meat is often not cooked all the way through, I am weirded out by pork that isn’t, even though, with modern food safety standards, it is not strictly necessary. At any rate, when cooked, the chops are served with a lemon wedge.

They are good with just lemon, but with a bit of the salad dressing they are even better. Due to not wanting to wash more plates/bowls than necessary, I ended up putting the salad on the plates with the pork chops, where a bit of the dressing inevitably ended up on the meat. With lemon juice instead of vinegar, smoothed out by olive oil and a tiny bit of sugar, and made aromatic with lemon zest and minced garlic, the dressing, along with the peppery arugula, made a wonderful contrast to the rich, buttery pork. If you wish, a few different red wines from Lombardy are suggested to go with this menu.

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Cook’s Tour of Italy Menu 5 (Pgs. 27 – 31): Al Fresco Meal for 6 (Rome)

Menu: Eggplant with Capers and Anchovies, Roasted Chicken Salad in a Loaf of Italian Bread, Country Style Fava Beans, Fresh Seasonal Fruit and Italian Cheeses

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Recommended Wine: Frascati (Fragrant, Dry, Semisweet)

Returning to Rome, we are invited to imagine a picnic on the outskirts of the city. For a major metropolitan area, Rome has a surprising amount of green space, even within the city itself. Part of the reason for this, according to the tour guides, was that over the centuries Popes and influential families dedicated a number of parks and gardens. Combined with potted plants and flowerbeds in piazzas and a profusion of flowers and greenery on apartment windowsills and balconies, the urban oasis feeling is rarely far away.

With eggplant marinated in a vinaigrette-type sauce, a chicken salad full of greens, sautéed fava beans, cheese, and lots of fresh fruit, this produce-heavy picnic provides another great insight into history. As a society that took pride in its agricultural roots, the Ancient Romans enjoyed and valued a variety of fresh produce. Incidentally, by the time of Julius Caesar and his contemporaries, the small family farms that society idealized had largely fallen victim to the circumstances of the times.

To *very* briefly summarize this aside, what basically happened is as follows. In the 3rd Century BC, wars with Celtic peoples in Northern Italy and Carthage in Sicily, Corsica, Sardinia and Spain led to the acquisition of several new provinces and a massive influx of slaves. After some of the recently conquered land was given out to reward veterans, wealthy Romans bought large estates, worked by the surge in slave labor. These profit-driven latifundias could produce goods more cheaply than the smaller farms, many of which were either damaged during Hannibal’s campaign in Italy or had fallen into disrepair when their owners were in the army on campaign, pushing many small farmers out of business. Worsening this problem was a surge in cheap grain from Sicily and later from North Africa and Egypt. As massive slave-run estates swallowed up many family farms, landless poor surged into the cities, unrest rose, and yearning for an older, simpler way of life captured the popular imagination. Fun fact: the Gracchi brothers, who spearheaded a reform movement and were assassinated for their troubles, were the grandsons of Scipio Africanus, who ultimately defeated Hannibal. Their mother Cornelia was seen by many as the ideal Roman matron and was one of their greatest supporters.

As mentioned before, due to lack of meat in the diet, pre-modern Romans historically ate substantial quantities of legumes. Even Apicius, more focused on upper- and middle-class Imperial Era cookery, includes several recipes for fava beans, chickpeas, and lentils. (Cannellini, navy, and kidney beans and their relatives only arrived after Columbus.) Given that olive oil, oregano, salt and pepper were widely available, it is entirely conceivable that dishes like the fava beans here were eaten 2000 or 2500 years ago. Fava beans were quite hard to find, but I managed to find both canned and frozen at a local Mediterranean/Middle Eastern grocery.

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Ancient-style fava beans?

Chickens may not have been available in the early Roman Republic (they are believed to have reached Greece during Classical times, c. 5th century BC), but certainly were plentiful in Rome by Imperial times. I am not sure when arugula became available, but most of the other ingredients in the salad, including celery (based on Apicius’ references to celery seed), Pecorino Romano cheese, cured ham (if not prosciutto), vinegar, oil, and eggs, were available as well at this time.

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The ultimate chicken salad

The dessert has similar antiquity. Pears, plums, the pecorino cheese again, and the ricotta were all present in ancient times. Adding cinnamon, sugar and coffee granules to the ricotta would be a more recent innovation, since evidence suggests that before medieval times, cinnamon was an incense or perfume and sugar was medicinal. Coffee was not introduced until the 16th of 17th century (sources disagree). The watermelon is even more recent. Another medieval introduction is the eggplant, introduced to Sicily when the island was under Arab control between the 9th and 11th centuries, though the anchovies seem to harken back to the ancient tradition of garum.

The best part of this menu was definitely the chicken salad. Ordinarily I don’t like chicken/egg/tuna salad because of the mayonnaise, but with a vinaigrette dressing it is really good. The mix of chicken, arugula, cheese and a bit of prosciutto blended really well together and turned out to be great on sandwiches made from the hollowed-out bread serving bowl. I did skip the hard-boiled eggs the recipe called for as a garnish since when it comes to eggs, I prefer them either mixed into a recipe, scrambled, or in an omelet. This salad was different than what Americans might imagine when we think of chicken salad, with plenty of arugula and celery mixed in and flavored with cheese and ham, but personally I think it’s a tasty way to eat more vegetables. The only thing I would change is to replace the pecorino Romano with fresh or firm mozzarella. After making the salad again at a later date (with bacon pieces instead of ham because that’s what I had on hand), this was confirmed as a perfecting improvement.

The eggplant was also good, though in the future, rather than eating it on its own, I’d try Mr. Famularo’s alternative suggestion of putting pieces on toasted bread, topping with cheese, and heating in the oven. I was admittedly underwhelmed by the beans, but they were decent hot. The issue was more being weirded out, for lack of a better term, by eating beans cold. For the dessert, the fresh ricotta with cinnamon sugar was rather enjoyable, though it took a little getting used to eating sweetened cheese that wasn’t cheesecake. I wasn’t quite so keen on the pecorino Romano, which again, is great grated and cooked, but not what I’d want to eat for dessert. In the reverse of the Italian custom, I tend to think of sweets for dessert and fruits like pears and plums for a snack, but the watermelon, the ultimate healthy summer dessert, was a fine ending to a summer picnic.

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Eggplant is under the herbs

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Dessert

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