briciole

veneziana

An Italian Perspective on the Daring Bakers' September Challenge As a schoolchild (in Perugia), every day I would carry with me something to eat during the mid-morning break. I never had lunch at school. However, a shorter school day required a longer school week, which means I went to school on Saturday as well. Back to the snack: la merenda. It was usually un panino with something, i.e., two slices of bread with prosciutto crudo, prosciutto cotto or formaggio, which my mother would prepare for my brother and myself. Obviously, such healthy, nutritious and flavorful fare was not what I would... Read more →

risotto al salto

When I was growing up, in my house eating riso (rice) was strongly associated with being sick. I will tell the story of white rice in another post. Here suffice to say that it was when I moved to Milan at age 21 that I was introduced to good risotto and its variations, among them the famous risotto alla Milanese, to which saffron imparts a lovely golden hue. My friends told me that making risotto was not difficult and I believed them. However, I was not a cook at the time, so I could not verify their claims. My realization of... Read more →

Novel Food #1: the Finale (one serving)

It wasn't until I developed a passion for cooking and started reading Andrea Camilleri that I realized how food can be an important element in a novel, it can tell its own story. The mutton chops mentioned by Anthony Trollope certainly tell a story, different from the one told by the extra-large portions of (mostly traditional Sicilian) dishes that police inspector Salvo Montalbano cleans up at regular intervals. In talking about some of those dishes with Lisa of Champaign Taste, she came up with the idea of cooking something from the Montalbano stories and from that seed, the co-hosted Novel Food... Read more →

Novel Food II: cipollata

Inspector Montalbano gets home at the end of a long day and he immediately looks for his dinner: he opens the fridge and utters a neigh of sheer joy. Adelina, his housekeeper, has prepared for him due sauri imperiali con la cipollata, a dinner with which he is sure he will spend the night quarreling (meaning, he will have difficulty digesting), but totally worth it. I am not sure what kind of fish a sauro imperiale is1, but, based on the name, I can imagine it is not a small one, and Montalbano eats two of them, with a side dish... Read more →

friggere / to fry

Every now and then I have visions of some fried food my mother used to make. However, here I will focus on some words that may be useful when navigating Italian menus and also on some funny expressions. If you fry something (nell'olio o nel burro, in oil or butter), it becomes fritto or fritta, depending on whether it is masculine or feminine, or fritti or fritte, if that something is plural. Here are some tasty examples: pesce fritto (fried fish) fritto misto (a combination of various fried items) salvia fritta (fried sage) fiori di zucca fritti (fried zucchini blossoms) patatine... Read more →

pera / pear

The fruit of the pero (pear tree) has always been one of my favorite foods. Una pera succosa (a juicy pear) is a joy to eat. I also like pere cotte (cooked pears) with baking being my favorite cooking method. My mother sometimes baked a whole pan of pears, unpeeled and placed upright in a few tablespoons of water and seasoned with just a sprinkling of sugar (zucchero). While a dish of pere cotte is a delicious offering, essere una pera cotta (to be like a cooked pear) is not really a good thing: it means to be weak, flabby, un... Read more →

Novel Food I: peperoni arrosto / roasted bell peppers

Several years ago, after I was already living in California, an Italian friend of mine suggested I read one of Camilleri's mysteries. I followed her advice, read La Forma dell'Acqua (The Shape of Water) and fell in love with Camilleri's writing. At the very beginning of chapter 10 of The Shape of Water, the first mystery Andrea Camilleri wrote that has inspector Salvo Montalbano as protagonist, our hero finds a generous portion of peperoni arrosto in the fridge and eating them has a regenerative effect on him. Adelina, the housekeeper, usually leaves food for Montalbano either in the fridge or in... Read more →

miele / honey

In the arnia (beehive), api (bees) produce miele for the apicoltore (beekeeper). We always had miele in the house, and we used it for two reasons: to treat sore throat (one teaspoonful eaten as is or added to a hot beverages) to drip over the version of strufoli (fried Carnival pastries) that is typical of Perugia. My mother makes very good strufoli and I am planning to get her recipe soon and try to follow it next Carnival (Carnevale). Strufoli are made in other parts of Italy as well, but they are different. Fried pastries of various kinds are a Carnival... Read more →

Edizione speciale: Novel Food / Special edition: Announcing Novel Food

In a recent article in the New Yorker, Adam Gopnik states that there are four kinds of food in books: food that is served by an author to characters who are not expected to taste it; food that is served by an author to characters in order to show who they are; food that an author cooks for characters in order to eat it with them; and, last (and most recent), food that an author cooks for characters but actually serves to the reader. The whole article makes for a pleasant reading with plenty of examples of the different categories. We... Read more →

cappero / caper

Before delving into the official topic of the post, I would like to thank Ilva of Lucullian Delights and Kalyn of Kalyn's Kitchen for mentioning briciole in the context of Blog Day: grazie infinite per la squisita gentilezza. And now a few capers about capers. I have always liked capperi, tiny green bubbles that burst in your mouth and tingle your taste buds. Adding a tablespoon or two of capers to a dish enlivens it. One of my mother's aunts, who lived outside Split, in Croatia, would gather capers and preserve them, pickled, in lovely jars: a true labor of love.... Read more →