Why Italians Love to Talk About Food (20 page)
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Authors: Elena Kostioukovitch
Turin became Italy's industrial capital in the twentieth century, thanks to Fiat, and its publishing capital, thanks to Einaudi and UTET. It was the city most focused on the future and most inclined to experimentation. This spirit of intellectual creativity often seeped into the realm of food as well, and just as provocatively. On the evening of March 8, 1931, at the height of the Fascist era, the Taverna del Santopalato
(literally, Tavern of the Sacred Palate) opened in Turin. Owned by the restaurateur Angelo Gioachino, its “precise purpose [was] to go from theory to practice in the Futurist controversy” through a program that would renew the taste and alimentary habits of the Italians; an objective that was to be realized through the invention of new dishes, created by notable Futurists.
Descriptions of these paradoxical dishes have been preserved:
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Solar Broth (recipe of chef Ernesto Piccinelli). Bring the broth to a boil. Beat three eggs in a bowl and, continuing to whisk, add three glasses of Marsala, a tablespoon of oil, lemon rind, Parmesan, salt, and pepper. Slowly add the boiling broth while continuing to stir. Top the broth with ingredients that are the color of the sun: carrots, lemons . . .
Plastic-meat (Fillia's recipe). Plastic-meat (
carneplastico
, a synthetic interpretation of the vegetable gardens, flower gardens, and pastures of Italy) is a large cylindrical loaf of roast veal stuffed with eleven different kinds of cooked vegetables. This cylinder, arranged vertically in the middle of the plate, is crowned with a layer of honey and supported at the base by a sausage ring, which rests on three spheres of golden-brown chicken.
Sea of Italy (Fillia's recipe). On a rectangular plate arrange a base formed of geometric stripes of fresh tomato sauce and creamed spinach so as to create a precise green and red pattern. On this green and red sea, place groupings formed of small cutlets of boiled fish, slices of banana, a cherry, and a piece of dried fig. Each of these groupings is held together by a toothpick that keeps the various elements upright.
Steel Chicken or Chicken-Fiat (Diulgheroff's recipe). Roast a chicken . . . As soon as it cools, make an opening in its back and fill the inside with red zabaglione on which two hundred grams of spherical silvery confetti are sprinkled. Arrange cock's combs all around the opening of the back.
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When sampling the dishes, diners had to hold the fork in their right hand and let their left hand slide repeatedly over special panels that supplied tactile complements to the taste of the foods. One dish was paired with a silk swatch, another with a piece of emery board, a third with a lacquered plate. Spices were crushed in the dining room to stimulate olfactory perception. Not surprisingly, the Futurist restaurant had a short lifeânot because of prohibition by the authorities, but because of customer dissatisfaction.
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TYPICAL DISHES OF PIEDMONT
Antipasti
Veal in tuna sauce (
vitello tonnato
): boiled veal round cut into thin slices and topped with tuna sauce (fresh mayonnaise mixed with flaked tuna, hard-boiled eggs, capers, and anchovies).
First Courses
Agnolotti
, close relatives of Ligurian ravioli; in Piedmont, however, their filling consists of meat, eggs, and cheese.
Agnolotti
are boiled and served in meat broth, or else with melted butter and fresh sage. In the Langhe, however, and in the city of Alba and its surrounding area, ravioli in broth are not popular. When brought to the table, they are poured into a plate lined with a linen napkin, whose purpose is to absorb every last drop of superfluous liquid.
Various risottos, always with butter and minced onion
soffritto
. The
tajarin
, a speciality of the Langhe, are the only fresh, hand-shaped, long Piedmontese pasta made with egg. They are served with roast drippings.
One-Dish Meal
Bagna cauda
.
Second Courses
Braised beef with Barolo; roasted Carmagnola Grey rabbit, whose meat is particularly tender. Onions stuffed with cheese, egg, and butter.
Finanziera
: boiled entrails, gizzards, cock's combs, and chicken livers with mushrooms, served in a bowl or in flaky pastry shells (vol-au-vents). White pullets of Saluzzo
alla cacciatora
, that is, hunter's style, with onion and tomato. Hare ragout or salmis, stewed in red wine with celery, onion, carrots, bay, parsley, sage, rosemary, and pepper. Stuffed Morozzo capons. Stuffed peppers; snails; donkey stew (
tapulon
); breaded Sambuco lamb with Jerusalem artichokes; pâté of Sambuco lamb liver with chestnuts. Golden tench of Pianalto di Poirino, marinated.
Desserts
Bunet
(chocolate mousse). Stuffed peaches and
bicerin
, coffee with milk and chocolate, described by Alexandre Dumas in 1852 as an “unforgettable drink.” It was first introduced in the Turinese café of the same name, in Piazza della Consolata. A
bicerin
is a small glass with an iron holder.
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TYPICAL PRODUCTS OF PIEDMONT
Grissini torinesi
.
Cheeses
Bra, the most famous of Piedmont's cheeses. It is no accident that every other year since 1997 a gathering of cheese producers from all over the world, called simply Cheese, has been held in the city of Bra. Also famous are the Piedmontese cheeses Castelmagno (containing penicillin mold, famous since 1277; a notarial document has been preserved that confirms the right of the producers to graze their cows on specific pastures in order to obtain the milk used for this particular cheese), Bruss, Grana Padano, Robiola di Roccaverano, Robiola d'Alba, Taleggio, Toma, and Ossolano. The cheeses Macagn and Montebore are produced high in the mountains and are wrapped in chestnut leaves. The cheese Bettelmatt of the Val Formazza has a particular flavor thanks to a very fragrant grass, the
mattolina
(Alpine lovage), which the cows in the area's mountain pastures graze on. Also well-known are the cheeses Soera, Spress, and Raschera.
Filetto baciato
(literally “kissed fillet”) of Ponzone: a slice of pork fillet wrapped in a sausage mixture. Coggiola
paletta
(aged pork shoulder).
Testa in cassetta
from Gavi (pig's head stuffed with boiled tongue, heart, and kidney and cooked in rum with pine nuts).
“Hunchback” cardoon (
cardo gobbo
) from Nizza Monferrato. During cultivation, it is skillfully bent so that the stalk loses elasticity and chlorophyll, turns pale, and becomes extremely tender. It is the only cardoon in the world capable of being consumed raw; for this reason it is indispensable for the classic
bagna cauda
. Turnips of Caprauna, succulent and mild, which do not tolerate being preserved in cellars; therefore they are left in the ground until the time they are cooked.
The cherries known as Bella di Garbagna; they do not do well when transported and preserved, so they are hardly ever cultivated today. Traditionally, these cherries are soaked in alcohol with cinnamon and cloves, to accompany the
bollito
.
The strawberries of Tortona, which can be tasted only in this city, and only for ten days a year in the second half of June, with Barbera wine. Piedmontese apples, a rare and protected species: the gray apple of Torriana, and the varieties Buras, Runsè, Gambafina, Magnana, Dominici, Carla, and Calvilla.
Piedmont hazelnuts, chestnuts from the Val di Susa, essential oil of mint from Pancalieri, extracted from a variety of
Mentha piperita luds
(peppermint) and used in the liqueur, confectionery, and pharmaceutical industries. Asti
torrone
and cornmeal biscuits from Monregalese.
Gianduia
hazelnut chocolate.
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TYPICAL BEVERAGES
Piedmont produces some of the most noble wines, such as Nebbiolo, with its subvarieties Barolo and Barbaresco.
Vermouth was distilled for the first time in Piedmont, in 1786, from a mixture of herbs that also included absinthe or wormwood, virtually illegal today. We even know the name of the man who first thought of this refinement: Benedetto Carpano. From vermouth combined with gin some very celebrated cocktails were later born, such as the dry martini and the Negroni (Campari, vermouth, and gin).
In contrast to the precision of making pizza or pasta, the gastronomic code with regard to risotto preparation is relaxed, resulting in a lot less stress. Rice is more forgiving of inexactitude and mishaps. It can be left on the stove for approximately half an hour: a minute more, a minute less is never fatal. If you make too much, it's not a tragedy, since it can be sautéed in a pan the following day. Risotto is a one-pot dish. And finally, the cook isn't consumed by trying to guess the best combination of shapes and flavors. Unlike pasta, with its thousands of shapes, rice is reduced to a few fundamental varieties. All you have to do is not mistakenly choose a long-grain variety (like basmati). And the seasonings are practically infinite.
Risotto is discursive. Making it inevitably involves talking. Risotto is always finished after the famished guests have already arrived, and they may even be crowded around the stove, chatting with the chef as it cooks. The person cooking wouldn't have it any other way, since standing in front of a pot of rice, stirring continually, and pouring ladles of broth in every three minutes is truly boring. But making risotto also entails some lively conversation. It has inspired many works of Italian literature. Like many Italian intellectuals, the great writer Carlo Emilio Gadda, author of
Quer pasticciaccio brutto de via Merulana
(That Awful Mess on Via Merulana), 1957, was able to cook quite well. What's more, he wrote recipes in the same unique, flamboyant style with which he usually wrote prose. The recipe drawn from the book
Le meraviglie d'Italia
is famous:
By Samuele Pellechia / Prospekt
Prospekt is a Milan-based independent photo agency representing photojournalists based in Milan, Rome, Paris, London, Istanbul, Berlin, and New York. Prospekt photographers work on European and international news and features. Founded in early 2005 and directed by the photographer Samuele Pellecchia, Prospekt aims to produce surveys and reports bringing out of the value of each photographer's identity.
