He realized that, despite his fatigue, which was aggravated by the phone call, he felt hungry as a wolf. It was ten past six, not yet dinnertime. But who ever said you have to eat at an appointed time of day? He went into the kitchen and opened the refrigerator. Adelina had prepared a dish fit for a convalescent: boiled cod. On the other hand, they were huge, extremely fresh, and six in number. He didn't bother to reheat them; he liked them cold, dressed with olive oil, a few drops of lemon, and salt. Adelina had bought the bread that morning: a round scanata loaf covered with giuggiulena, those delicious sesame seeds you are supposed to eat one by one as they fall onto the tablecloth, picking them up with your forefinger moistened by saliva. He set the table on the veranda and had himself a feast, savoring each bite as though it were his last.
As you may have guessed, "he" is Inspector Montalbano, the protagonist of novels and stories written by Italian author Andrea Camilleri. I had read Il giro di boa (Rounding the Mark), the novel from which the excerpt above is taken, shortly after it was published, in 2003, and recently I read it again. I lingered over this passage for several reasons. The first one is that it reminded me of my first visit to Sicily, many years ago now. I tasted bread covered with sesame seeds for the first time and loved it. Then, there is the great choice made by the novel's translator, Stephen Sartarelli, of leaving some of the original Sicilian words, especially giuggiulena, which sounds just lovely. I have read that the word comes from the Arab giulgiulan, meaning sesame seed. Sesame seeds (semi di sesamo in Italian) are used in two other delicious Sicilian specialties: reginelle and cubbaita. Finally, there is the philosophy behind Montalbano's approach to eating: savoring each bite as though it were his last. Words to live by.
Montalbano does not cook and does not ask Adelina (his housekeeper) to prepare for him a specific dish. He is happy with whatever he finds in the fridge or in the oven, and when he decides to eat, he devotes to the meal his full, undivided and loving attention: he sets the table, sits down to eat and savors each bite "as though it were his last." Eating on the run is a concept that does not have any place in Montalbano's world. As I wrote in my very first post on this subject, sometimes Montalbano supplements the food prepared by Adelina "with aulive, passuluna and a piece of caciocavallo (green and black olives and a typical southern Italian dream of a cheese)."
The peaceful image of food savored to the last sesame seed picked up from the tablecloth is in sharp contrast with the horrible crimes that are the subject of Montalbano's investigation in the novel, which contains references to current political problems and events. I won't give you more details, otherwise I may spoil your pleasure. Because you are going to read the book, aren't you?
Reading the excerpt and remembering the bread I ate while in Sicily inspired me to make bread with giuggiulena (sesame seeds). Also, Montalbano's love for olives (olive) suggested to me that he may like them in his bread. The end result is a set of four breads and references to their recipe.
Looking for a recipe for bread with sesame seeds, I found two on the King Arthur Flour's web site. The first one (called lunetta) uses mostly semolina flour (which comes from durum wheat). I suggest that you follow this recipe by weighing the ingredients, not measuring their volume (you can view the ingredients by weight on the recipe page). Also, make sure you get fine-textured semolina flour. To be on the safe side, I put the flour in the food processor and run it for a while before mixing it with water, then let the mixture rest for 15 minutes before proceeding with the rest of the preparation. Based on one of the comments on the recipe page, I used a whole egg to make the wash and baked the bread on a pizza stone (for longer than stated). Below there is a photo of the bread sliced1.
The second recipe has less semolina flour and more white flour (I happen to have Italian-style flour, which I use in a recipe for pizza dough). The braid shape is not very evident in the photo. I chose this recipe, because I seem to remember that the bread I ate during my first visit to Sicily was shaped in a braid (treccia) a bread I also found in the atlas of Sicilian breads. In this case, I added a quarter cup of sourdough starter to the ingredients, as a personal touch.
Black Olive Cheeks (puccia) from Local Breads by Daniel Leader. You can read the recipe here. The only change I made is using less olives (1 cup), half of them oil-cured and half kalamata. I pitted and chopped the olives the evening before making the bread, after preparing the biga, so the morning after all the ingredients were ready. Don't be surprised if these panini (literally, small breads) disappear fast: they are delicious2.
Finally, something special to surprise Montalbano: a challah bread made with mostly whole-wheat flour, compliments of Peter Reinhart. This was my first try at challah and in honor of the fact that when I buy challah, I usually get one with poppy seeds (semi di papavero), because it is my husband's favorite, I decided to devote half the surface to each kind of seed. A first challah experience and a very satisfying one.
Each of these breads has a different personality, due to the different ingredients. As my next step of my Montalbano-inspired exploration of the world of breads, I would like to try a recipe I found in a recently-purchased bread-making book, but first I need first to get some durum flour. More on this in a future post.
I wanted a photo showing sesame seeds ready to be picked up "with your forefinger moistened by saliva," so here you can see the S-shaped bread sliced and spread with foods whose identity will be revealed in the near future.
On May 23, 2009, Camilleri uncovered la statua di Montalbano (Montalbano's statue) in his home town (Porto Empedocle Vigata, see my first post for details on this name). If you follow the link and then click on the word avanti (forward) you can see a close-up. A month prior to the unveiling of the statue, Camilleri had written an article about it for the Italian newspaper La Repubblica in which he described how one day he had met a person strikingly resembling his Montalbano. The article ends with a reference to Luigi Pirandello's novel One, No One and One Hundred Thousand (Uno, nessuno e centomila), preceded by this words:
So già che molti diranno che non somiglia a Montalbano. E che altrettanti diranno invece che gli somiglia. È inevitabile: ogni lettore si crea un suo Montalbano.
I know that many people will say that it doesn't look like Montalbano. And just as many will say that it looks like him. It's inevitable: each reader creates his or her own Montalbano.
This is, as you may have guessed, my contribution to the eighth edition of Novel Food, a literary/culinary event that Lisa of Champaign Taste and I cooked up a few seasons back and have been co-hosting ever since.
My portion of the roundup is here and Lisa's portion is here.
Click on the button to hear me pronounce the Italian words mentioned in the post:
or launch the quattro tipi di pane audio file [mp3].
1 I had never heard of a bread called lunetta, so I did a bit of search on the web. I found an atlas of Sicilian breads, which includes a reference to lunedde, votive breads with the imprint of a hand. Here I read that these panini are spiral-shaped and that the hand imprint symbolizes Our Lady of Sorrows. Unfortunately, I could not find a photo of lunedde nor a mention of sesame seeds on their surface, so I am not sure whether there is a connection. On the other hand, the pane casereccio di Lentini is S-shaped and covered with sesame seeds. There is also a crescent-shaped bread called laddu or ladduzzu, and the reason I looked at it is that the Italian lunetta means lunette. On this page there is a bread called lunetta that is crescent-shaped and seedless. In summary, I am still not sure about the Italian connections of KAF's lunetta. If anybody is able to provide information, I would be very grateful.
2 In the book, Leader says that he first saw these rolls in Lucca (Tuscany). A web search points to Puglia as the origin of a bread called puccia, a version of which is puccia with olives. Readers from Puglia, would you like to comment on this? There is also a bread called puccia in Veneto, made with rye flour.
Concordo sull'idea di Montalbano di lettura personale e soggettiva :))
Posted by: lenny | July 17, 2009 at 10:26 AM
All this delicious bread! I love it. And would love to taste them all. And I think so would Montalbano. I'd like to share a meal with him, too -- share a scanata loaf and pick up the fallen sesame seeds with my moistened forefinger. Yum! ;-)
Paz
Posted by: Paz | July 18, 2009 at 01:06 PM
What an accomplishment baking all this bread~I think my favorite would be the sesame seed one. Lot of work to make this!
Posted by: Jann | July 18, 2009 at 05:11 PM
Wow, this is a lot of work but all the bread sound delicious.
Posted by: Ivy | July 20, 2009 at 08:54 AM
that is a lot of bread. nomnomnomnom - how long has it taken you to eat your collective way through all of that? the black olive cheeks sound deliiiiicious.
Posted by: flory | July 20, 2009 at 11:24 PM
Simona, this is a wonderful post. I can't believe how many breads you made! They all look so good, but the sesame bread and the panini with olives are really calling my name. It's great that you went back to our roots, back to Camilleri. I loved that scene in Rounding the Mark where he picks up the sesame seeds on his fingers; it made quite an impression on me when I read the book (now I think I'll read it again).
Thanks again for doing this event with me. It's always so interesting and fun.
Posted by: Lisa | July 21, 2009 at 06:16 AM
ehii ma quanti bei pani che vedo qui...li hai fatti tutti tu? sei una brava panificatrice ;-)) usi lievito madre o di birra...o secco? ciaooo!
Posted by: astrofiammante | July 21, 2009 at 12:22 PM
OK, that's it - I just put "The Shape of Water" in my Amazon cart, my first Montalbano. Although I'd been tempted b/4 by all of your posts on the series, the sesame seeds and olives did it. : ) Your breads are just amazing, Simona, and to be savored, just the way the inspector does.
Posted by: Susan | July 21, 2009 at 12:22 PM
Four kinds of bread? I'd say you got a little carried away, but they all look delicious. The lunetta looks particularly wonderful. :)
Posted by: adele | July 21, 2009 at 05:25 PM
Ciao Lenny. Sei anche tu una lettrice di Camilleri?
Ciao Paz. I am sure he would like that too. He likes to also eat in company, but the other person is required to keep silent during the meal: he liked to eat in silence, for better concentration.
Ciao Jann. I love baking bread and like experimenting with new kids of bread.
Hi Ivy. Baking bread is such a pleasure for me, I could do it almost every day.
Hi Flory. There is only two of us in the family, so I usually freeze some of the bread I make. Or I bake it for a dinner with friends and send them home with some. And if/when I have leftovers that have become a bit stale, I have a couple of recipes in which I can use them. That's actually a good idea for a post, so stay tuned.
Ciao Lisa. I like to bake bread and I have had Montalbano in mind for a few weeks. He actually rarely talks about bread. The olive panini are delicious, so much so that I cannot leave them out on the counter: they disappear rapidly. I also like that there are so many bread traditions: I wish there were a bread atlas for each Italian region.
Posted by: Simona Carini | July 22, 2009 at 08:35 AM
Ciao Astro. Si' li ho fatti tutti io: mi piace un sacco fare il pane. Quelli di questo post sono fatti tutti utilizzando il lievito secco istantaneo. Quando ho fatto il secondo ci ho messo un po' di pasta madre come accento personale. Il lievito di birra qui non si usa comunemente: le ricette usano il lievito secco e quelle nei libri di solito quello istantaneo. La differenza e' che non lo si deve far attivare in un liquido tiepido: lo si aggiunge agli ingredienti a temperatura ambiente. Uso anche la pasta madre: ne ho una buona che posso tenere in frigo quando, come ora, sono via per qualche giorno. L'ho anche conservata in freezer senza problemi.
That's great Susan! I hope you'll like the book: let me know. I think my bread-baking skills are slowly improving.
Hi Adele. One thing led to another, so to speak, and soon enough I was deep into this adventure. But it was fun and I learned a lot in the process.
Posted by: Simona Carini | July 22, 2009 at 08:44 AM
Wow, this is a great entry: I recently read In Defense of Food and am also trying to savor food and flavor better, much like the Inspector. I also am hoping to get back into my bread baking, so this is a fantastic list to keep around!
Posted by: ruhama | July 22, 2009 at 11:13 AM
Thanks Ruhama. I find bread baking very satisfying. With so many recipes available, you can always find one that fits your schedule. Sometimes I decide to bake in the morning, sometimes I have time to plan ahead a bit and can make a more complex recipe.
Posted by: Simona Carini | July 24, 2009 at 08:19 AM
grazie Simo, risposta esauriente ;-) un bacio!
Posted by: astrofiammante | July 24, 2009 at 02:26 PM