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Cook’s Tour of Italy Menu 69 (Pgs. 220 – 224): Dinner for 4, Taranto

Region: Naples/Adriatic Coast

Menu: Taranto-Style Baked Oysters, Grilled Red Pepper Shrimp, Whipped Potatoes with Olive Oil, Farm-Style Zucchini in a Hot Sauce, Blueberry Ice with Melon Ball Spears

Recommended Wine: Rosa del Golfo (rosé from Apulia, coral pink with berry aroma)

            Like many other cities in Southern Italy, Taranto was originally founded by the Greeks. For centuries, the inhabitants fished, traded, and fought with other city-states. The first two activities remained important after the region was conquered by the expanding Roman Republic in the 3rd Century BC. The Romans were followed by the Visigoths, Byzantines, Lombards, Holy Roman Empire, Normans, French, Spanish, and finally the unified nation of Italy. Through all the changes in control, the inhabitants looked to the sea for an essential part of their diet.

            Oysters have a complicated history. The Ancient Romans prized them and they are a luxury today, but for centuries they were peasant food. Perhaps this was because they were abundant by the coast and could not safely be transported inland as transportation networks broke down. Oysters did not become popular again until the Early Modern Era, with the exact date varying from place to place. As population rose and more oysters were eaten, they went from cheap protein, to mid-priced staple, to special treat, at least for some people. I’m not usually an oyster fan. They have an odd flavor and slimy texture, but baking them with bread crumbs was a significant improvement. The oysters tasted good, but were not spectacular. The shrimp was much better, with a nice garlic flavor and just a bit of spice.

            What’s interesting about this menu is how much it relies on ingredients originally from the Americas. The red pepper on the shrimp, potatoes, and zucchini were all part of the Columbian Exchange. While potatoes became much more important in Northern Europe, their high yields helped them achieve a place in Italian cuisine as well. Here they are whipped with olive oil, cream, and pecorino cheese. I wouldn’t have thought of putting olive oil in mashed potatoes or serving them with seafood, but the combination worked surprisingly well.

            Zucchini is everywhere is Italian cuisine. Exactly when it caught on is unclear, but since Europeans were already growing vine crops like melons and cucumbers when zucchini arrived from the Americas, it seems unlikely that there was much resistance. There is a joke in the US that you can’t leave your car unlocked in late summer or someone might put zucchini in it, which points to two of its virtues. It’s easy to grow and famously (or infamously) productive, hence the number of different recipes to use up the bounty.

            This is one of the more interesting recipes. The zucchini is simply boiled, but then it’s served with a sauce made from vinegar and oil, flavored with herbs and hot pepper flakes, and thickened with breadcrumbs. While the pepper flakes are a New World introduction, the sauce has a definite Medieval character. Most sauces at the time were strongly flavored with spices, herbs, and/or vinegar, contrasting with rather than complementing whatever they were served with. Because roux and flour were not yet used as thickeners, breadcrumbs filled that role, producing thicker sauces with much more texture. I was expecting a soggy sludge, but was pleasantly surprised. The flavor was the perfect balance for the neutral zucchini, and the thicker texture helped the sauce stay where it was supposed to rather than spill all over the plate.

            For dessert was blueberry sorbet. I didn’t think that there were many blueberries in Southern Italy, but the recipe looked interesting and I was excited to try out my new ice cream maker. The flavor was unique and tasty, but what really stood out was the deep purple color. Just look how pretty it is.

Look at it!
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Cook’s Tour of Italy Menu 68 (Pgs. 217 – 220): Menu for 4, Near Brindisi

Region: Naples/Adriatic South (Along the Adriatic Coast)

Menu: Peppers with Almonds, Basilicata Style, Chicken with Spicy Herbed Tomatoes, Baked Caramelized Onions, Tangerine Sherbet with Lemon

Recommended Wine: Campanaro Fiano di Acellino (from near Naples) or Greco di Tufo Vignadangelo

            The Adriatic Coast has a long history. The area was home to a number of Greek city-states in the first millennium BC, as was most of Southern Italy. During the 3rd Century BC, as the Romans moved into the area, the city-states brought in their ally Pyrrhus of Epirus. Despite a series of tactical victories, King Pyrrhus lost too many troops to sustain the war, thus giving rise to the term Pyrrhic victory. The region was subsequently part of the Roman Empire, then the Gothic Kingdom of Italy. In the 6th Century AD, it was the launching point of Byzantine Emperor Justinian’s attempt to retake the Western Empire. Though the Lombards took the region soon after, followed by the Franks under Charlemagne, Byzantine enclaves remained into the 11th Century, when the Normans captured the region.

            On a side note, the rise and fall of the Normans is one of the more fascinating stories in Medieval history. After a spectacular rise in the 11th Century, they reached the peak of their power in the 12th. At one point, they controlled not only their native Normandy, but also England, much of Western France, Southern Italy, Sicily, and the Crusader States in the Holy Land. But in the 1180s, territories began slipping from their grasp. After the loss of the Kingdom of Jerusalem in 1187, the rest of the Crusader States followed by 1291, when their final stronghold of Acre was captured by the Mamluk forces, who were based in Egypt. The Anglo-Norman kings lost Normandy itself in 1204. Sicily was lost in 1282. In the late 14th Century, during the Hundred Years’ War between France and England, the Normans living in France began to see themselves as French, while the Anglo-Normans became truly English. By the end of the Middle Ages, the Normans were what they were a few hundred years before: a unique local culture, but restricted to Northwestern France and subject to the French king.

            In the 15th Century, the forces of Aragon, who had conquered Sicily in the 13th Century, conquered the Kingdom of Naples, gaining control of the southern half of mainland Italy. Soon after, in 1480, the Ottoman Empire attempted to invade Italy through the region, occupying the city of Otranto. Though the arrival of reinforcements halted the invasion and the death of Sultan Mehmed II ended it for good, hundreds of the local population were martyred during the yearlong occupation. For most of the next 400 years, Spanish Habsburgs and then Bourbons controlled the area. Italy was finally unified in the 1860s.

            The cuisine here is much like in the rest of Southern Italy, with lots of olive oil, vegetables, citrus fruits, and some seafood. To be completely honest, this was not my favorite menu, although I would make the chicken again. The spicy tomato sauce added a nice flavor and kept the meat from drying out. As I have in the past, I replaced the pricey seafood (in this case lobster) with chicken. Pretty much any protein tastes good with tomato sauce and cheese, so there’s no reason to break the bank. As the menu seemed to lack a starch, I added some plain pasta to accompany the stronger-flavored dishes.

            While typically associated with meat or seafood, sweet and sour sauces can and historically have been used on a wide range of foods, including vegetables. Personally, though, the sweet and sour peppers were not to my taste. There was nothing wrong with them, but I like peppers better in an omelet, stuffed, or in stuffed pepper soup. The onions were also a bit of a disappointment. It may have been due to the type of onions, but they never became melt-in-your-mouth soft in the oven like they were supposed to, even with some extra time. Despite this, the leftover peppers and onions made a pretty good omelet filling the next day.

            The sherbet/sorbet didn’t turn out quite like I would have hoped, though some modifications I made may be to blame. To make it non-alcoholic, I replaced the lemon liqueur with a lemon syrup and the wine with sparkling juice. I was concerned that removing the alcohol would make the mixture freeze too solid, but the extra sugar in the syrup was enough to avoid that problem, which is why it was included. If you’re curious, both alcohol and sugar lower the freezing point of water-based liquids. The final flavor was decent, but too sweet to eat on its own, almost like marmalade. When combined with lemon-flavored sparkling water, however, it became like a slush and was fairly enjoyable, though I’m not sure I’d go through the trouble of making it again.

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