Vinegar · Aug 24, 05:15 PM by James Martin
If you’ve been to Spilamberto, then there’s a good chance you’ve been to the Museo del Balsamico Tradizionale di Spilamberto. Such a pilgrimage will give you a good feel for the excruciatingly long process involved in making real balsamic vinegar. It takes at least 12 years; and that’s for a young-un.
The reason I mention this is that there was a heated discussion on the web recently about how many of us hated it when fake balsamic was presented to us to use to dress a simple salad. It was just another “oh, what has the stupid world come to now” whining session until my hero Marcella Hazan weighed in. She called vinegar “nobile”. Not balsamic, the regular stuff. She hates fake balsamic, too.
And that got me to thinking. I use vinegar quite a lot. One of the best uses is in Marchella Hazan’s own recipe, “Lamb stew with vinegar and green beans.” Yes, you throw some lamb, some green beans and some onion in a pot and stew them in vinegar. Ordinary vinegar. And it’s good. Besides, it’s real Italian.
You know, when you rent a house for a week in Italy, sometimes you get a house whose owner is stingy with the accouterments, especially with the pots and pans. Maybe there’s a two burner stove and a single pot that’s so darned beaten up it seems to have been used to transfer huge rocks out of the driveway. You think, “how in the world am I gonna cook dinner in that?
Then Marcella’s recipe flutters into your mind. A one-pot meal. Four basic ingredients easily procured in Italy. And, believe me, the smells this combo produces will amaze and astound you.
I use vinegar in other ways in Italy, too. I’ve heard that some Americans crave the barbecue sauce they can’t buy in Italian stores. Heck, that’s easy. I just get one of those squeeze tubes of ultra-reduced tomato paste and some vinegar. That’s the basis of the sauce. You need something, of course, to balance out the sour, so it’s gotta be sweet. My neighbor’s honey will do. Some pepper flakes and black pepper to give it some kick, and there you go. You saute some garlic and the pepper flakes in oil with a big ‘ol squeeze of the tomato paste so it browns together, then add a bit of the honey and some salt—always tasting like you do in cooking school—and you thin it with some ‘o the wine you’re drinking until it gets to the right consistency, then salt to taste. Basta, five minutes and you’re done. I mean with the barbecue sauce. It might take longer to drain the bottle of wine.
In ancient times women considered vinegar a healing liquid. There’s some evidence that it has an antiglycemic effect. Heck, you can clean windows with it, too.
Noble. Yup, that’s for sure.
*You might consider looking in your used bookstore for Marcella Hazan’s “More Classic Italian Cooking” in paperback. It’s better than the 1995 re-issue, which caves to American tastes. Mine is tore right in two, at our most used recipe for Chicken Fricassee with Red Cabbage. Mmmm, I gotta do that one again.
**I didn’t write about Marcella Hazan just because she friended me on facebook either. The fact she wrote “Welcome. Thank you for the kind words. You have a keen palate. My best, Marcella” is just icing on a big fat ego cake for me. Really. Buy her book and see for yourself. You’ll discover that she’s my hero for good reason; she cooks real Italian, and tells you how to structure the meal besides.
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Rome in Black and White, with Bourdain · Aug 17, 02:06 PM by James Martin
If you missed Antony Bourdain’s Travel Channel show on Rome last night I suggest you find out when it will air again and watch it, preferably with a plate of Penne al’Amatriciana in front of you as I did (don’t skimp on the guanciale, it makes a difference).
Fab show. Supposedly a tribute to Fellini. I dunno, but visually entrancing. I don’t know what they did with all the people, but Rome looks stunningly working-class in black and white (they did let some color leak into the food shots though). Tony in a suit and tie provides the contrast to crumbly Rome. Like puntarella to roast lamb.
There’s just something different about Rome. Tony mentions “The improbable awesomeness” of the city. When you think about it, in most foodie cities folks develop a snobbish attitude and eat things fashioned by touted chefs who twist and bend food items until a signature dish is extruded. Rome isn’t really like that. Tradition rules—and there’s nothing wrong with that. Sometimes though, you really expect a fight to break out, then reconciliation col vino and all is better than before.
You can’t always get good food in Rome. In fact, it’s probably harder to get a great meal there than in other cities in Italy. The problem is—the places tourists go are the most interesting places you don’t want to miss—and there is where the rip-off crap food congregates.
I liked the raucous scenes in Il Timoniere. It’s off the beaten track. You really don’t have to go that far off the beaten track though, to get good Roman food. I like Al Pompiere, not a bad walk from the Piazza Farnese, which is how I got there. That’s a picture of the fried artichoke over there on the left.
But then, behind the artichoke plate is the salad. It’s a puntarella salad. You only get this in late winter/early spring. Puntarella is the absolutely perfect foil to fried dishes—or the heavy dishes of winter. Dressed with a little anchovy to lend a salty bite and it’s the perfect palate cleanser. It whispers “spring is coming” to your deprived palate. You can have a foodgasm if you’re not careful.
You need some fast food? Hey, just walk over to the famous Campo dei Fiore and look in the buckets. There it is—all chopped and cleaned for you. How hard is that? Maybe the bucket makes you suspicious, but if that’s the case you’re way too afraid of a little dirt and probably your immune system is all the worse for it. You gotta feed that, too.
Say what you will about the Campo dei Fiori, but there are some good things there for the tourist who has had the good sense to get an apartment in the center of Rome. Good things I mean like Puntarella—or all the rest of the great greens ready for a squeeze of lemon and a thin coat of great olive oil.
Still looking for places to eat in Rome? I’ve found a wonderfully informative post from Food Lover Kathy, who volunteers to get you through the primo course with her favorite Roman pasta dishes (and osterie): Roman Pasta Dishes and 10 Places to Eat them in Rome
Slow Travel in the Fast Lane · Aug 6, 08:51 AM by James Martin
The Italian Fast Lane Got Faster, Sorta. Did you know that the new Italian driving laws will let you go faster on the Autrostrada? Up to 150 km/hour, as long as that particular stretch of Autostrada is monitored by the government through the “Tudor” system cameras, according to Zoomata. Of course, there are other constraints to a zoom along the fast roads, including some bizarre limits on Alcohol:
Fines for these drivers (under 21 or those who haven’t had a license in three years) with a BAC of “zero to 0.5″ start at 155 to 624 euros, double if they cause an accident and increase along with BAC levels exponentially.
Zounds, zero is both good and bad? Anyway, read the whole article on Zoomata: Italy’s New Driving Laws: Go Faster, Just Don’t Drink
From the Fast Lane to the Gentleman Farmer. It appears that Gordon Matthew Thomas Sumner, probably better known to you as the musician “Sting”, has started a store for the vegetables he raises in Tuscany. Sting also has quite a Chianti wine operation humming along, just in case you like to search out wine made by the rich and famous.
See: Sting Opens a Food Store for more
The keywords are the town of Figline Valdarno, near Florence, Tenuta il Palagio is the name of the shop.
The article also mentions that Sting sells “a specialty salami which is made from a local breed of pig.” We’re thinking Cinta Senese, aren’t you?
The Fast Lane in Portugal. Our sister site on Portugal has a feature on how to flog your car on the road course known as Autódromo Internacional do Algarve: Driving Fast in the Algarve
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Looking for Adventure? Fly United Airlines · Jul 29, 12:40 PM by James Martin
I’m down on airlines right now. Actually, I should say I’m down on the US government for not regulating the atrocious behavior of airlines like United Airlines who just sent my 82 year old mother on a wild goose chase I wouldn’t even wish on the damn goose. So, forgive me dear readers, because this post will bear only a tenuous relationship with Italy.
Here it is: I can take a plane and get to Italy from California faster than my mother got from Palm Springs, California to Moline in western Illinois yesterday.
You see, yesterday morning we got up at 4:30 to get my 82 year-old mother on a 6:10 AM plane to Denver, going on to Moline, Illinois. Simple, straightforward, and damn early.
Of course, this was only the route printed on the ticket. What’s printed on a ticket means diddly to airlines operating in the US. They are unregulated. Hurray! They can do whatever they want with you!
In any case, mother has trouble walking, so the ticket also had a request for a wheelchair at each transfer point.
Now, here’s the thing. My mother got on the flight to Denver, which left on time from Little Palm Springs airport, where she was whisked away in a wheelchair without incident.
In the afternoon we got a call from Bill, who was supposed to pick her up in Moline. He’d waited for her original flight, then the next flight out of Denver, which he stated wasn’t nearly full. She was on neither flight.
We looked at her itinerary online, and all the vile flight possibilities were listed on a page that scrolled forever. So we called United Airlines, hoping to find out where they had sent her. We waited on hold for 30 minutes and gave up. Then we twittered United. They told us to try the same phone number again. But another twitter post to someone else said to contact “support.” The only support listed on the United Airlines web site was to web site support, but Martha called it anyway. It was indeed support from the web site—but lo and behold, you could actually get transferred to a live person who could actually help us. In India, I think, but still.
So we found out that my mother had been routed to Atlanta, then she doubled back to Moline—all due to a plane cancellation. She was scheduled to arrive in Moline at 11:38pm, 15 1/2 hours after her first take off. She got in later than that.
I called my Mother this morning to find out the details. Gruesome, to say the least. When she got off the plane in Denver and got to the gate to wait for her connecting flight she heard an announcement but couldn’t make out what it said—so she walked up to the desk and asked. The attendant informed her that there was a problem with the plane, so she was to go across the aisle and wait in a long, long, long line to get reassigned.
All of this without a wheel chair.
Finally she get re-ticketed. She had to go to a gate far far away. So far she had to stop and ask where it was three times.
Without a wheelchair.
Eventually she made it to her gate. No hurry, because the plane she was now taking to Atlanta wouldn’t fly for quite some time.
Eventually she got to Atlanta.
But the story does not end here. Not by a long shot.
According to my mother, the woman who would be flying the Atlanta to Moline route was in training. She knew this because she sat up front and they had the flight deck door open. She could hear them yacking. Apparently there is no terrorism on the Atlanta to Moline route.
So they took off. Then they circled the airport. Around and around they went. Practicing, evidently. It was nearing midnight, according to my mother. I suspect a great time to practice flying a plane in circles. My mother had been in transit for almost 18 hours at that point. Remember, it only takes 12 hours to get from California to Frankfurt.
They made it to Moline, finally. Moline had a wheelchair for her. So mom is talking to the wheelchair pusher, and she says, “I hope the guy who was waiting for me showed up because I was supposed to arrive early in the afternoon.”
It turns out that Bill had spent so much time in the Moline airport yesterday that pretty much everyone knew him. “Oh him, yeah, he’s here. He’s been in and out all day.”
Some people should get medals for what they do. Bill is one of them. As for the airlines who make their 82 year old passengers go through such hell, well, we know where we’d shove their medals, don’t we?
Isn’t it time we insisted on some reasonable behavior from people who take our money in exchange for transporting us (I mean to where we actually want to go)? Like this, perhaps:
Delays and Cancellations for European Union Related Flights
Unlike the U.S., the European Union (EU) does provide for compensation for flight delays and cancellations. In most, but not all, cases involving a delay or cancellation of a flight, a passenger is entitled to compensation under European Parliament Regulation (EC) 261/2004 for delayed and canceled flights. There are three levels of compensation:
- in the event of long delays (two hours or more, depending on the distance of the flight), passengers must in every case be offered free meals and refreshments plus two free telephone calls, telex or fax messages, or emails;
- if the time of departure is deferred until the next day, passengers must also be offered hotel accommodation and transport between the airport and the place of accommodation;
- when the delay is five hours or longer, passengers may opt for reimbursement of the full cost of the ticket together with, when relevant, a return flight to the first point of departure.
~ via AirSafe.com
So here are your travel tips. Always fly direct to Europe. If you run into trouble and can’t find anything on the airlines phone lines but crappy musak, find a twitter contact for that airline. Making your plight public should at least get a reasonable response.
Cinta Senese Pigs in Chianti · Jul 19, 08:33 AM by James Martin
Chianti isn’t just for wine, you know. Every great wine region spawns a fine cuisine based on local ingredients. Wine and food just go together. That’s why you can find good food in Tuscany and Umbria, while decent food is rare where I “caught sense”—in central Illinois.
So, if you end up in Chianti and want to do more than just taste wine made from Sangiovese grapes, then you must go to the Azienda Agricola Casamonti outside of Castellini in Chianti, where Raymond Lamothe lets pigs called the “Cinta Senese” forage in the forest area around the family farm. Cinta Senese, named for the white “belt” around their midsections, were once almost extinct until visionaries like Ray gave them a place to call home.
Cinta Senese are heritage pigs given DOP status (Suino Cinto Toscano DOP), which means everything they eat is controlled. So, despite US insistence that GMO foods be unlabeled so that you can be force fed the stuff, the Cinta Senese on Ray’s farm are free of Frankenfood. In fact, Ray can’t use soy products in his feed mix because the genetically modified version of soy can’t be identified. So, if you want real pork that finishes by foraging in the forest like they always have, you can visit Ray’s farm, taste the products (and the excellent wines and olive oil Ray produces) and purchase what your tongue can’t get enough of.
How can you distinguish “regular” prosciutto from that made from Cinta Senese? The answer is up there on the left. Cinta Senese hams are distinguished by their black feet, left on the ham as you see it in the photo. The picture of the curing hams was taken at the high-tech facilities at Casamonti.
Heritage pigs deserve the best butchering, of course. You don’t want a bad prosciutto. It’s expensive stuff. There aren’t a lot of butchers who’ve worked with these animals recently; they’ve spent a long time on the decline. Ray’s head butcher, Alvaro, shown on the right, is a mere 75 years young. He’s doing something that you don’t see every day in your butcher shop (if you’re lucky enough to have one), he’s hacking carefully into a difficult-to-remove joint which can develop mold during the curing process and ruin the flavor. You can click the pic to see Alvaro larger.
Alvaro’s apprentice is Silvano. He’s 63.
Ray has a blog where you can find out all about his Cinta Senese pigs: Cinta Senese – The Tuscan Pig
A visit is highly recommended. You can send Ray an email to set one up. You might sit down in a shaded courtyard and taste wine, Cinta Senese salume, and maybe a bit of Ray’s fine olive oil. Amazing what a small farm in Tuscany can output.
Ray has a shop on the main drag in Castellina in Chianti if the shaded courtyard tasting experience doesn’t appeal to you.
Pistoia's Castle · Jul 10, 02:01 PM by James Martin
I like Pistoia quite a lot. It’s easy to access by car or train, it has a great daily market and the Piazza del Duomo is one of the most compelling in Italy. But there’s more.
You will, if you go, ignore Pistoia’s castle. They will not tell you much about it because it’s unlikely you will be able to go in. It’s a mess, really, with some oddly modern construction floating atop its bleak ramparts. But I like the outsides of it so you’re going to have to look at it. Here:
The fortress was constructed for Cosimo I de Medici, the grand-duke of Tuscany, who was a great believer in the joys of public works, mostly military. Nanni Unghero built the thing in 1539. It was decommissioned in 1774 and later used as a barracks, prison and as a “recruitment center.” For what, I will allow you to wonder.
Villa La Pescigola · Jul 2, 05:55 PM by James Martin
One of the things I miss in California is the way Italian buildings age so darn gracefully. Our houses rot. Italian houses don’t get pretty until a little plaster starts flaking off the wall and the gaudy paint gets splotchy and fades to an artistic and variegated tonality.
The (clickable) picture to the right is of Villa La Pescigola, which is not far outside Fivizzano in the Lunigiana. They have great gardens. But the villa itself is what amazes me.
And there’s always someone around who knows exactly what to do with the inner courtyard. See over there to the left? Incredible. Wouldn’t you want to eat like this, in an inner courtyard, sheltered from winds but in the open air nonetheless? I thought so.
But another thing about Villa La Pescigola is the fountainage. The use of theatrical masks and statuary—and those bathtubs that remind you instantly of Rome (perhaps on the Via Giulia just outside of the Piazza Farnese).
Of course there are flowers. I have countless pictures taken in the tranquility of early morning before folks showed up for some kind of event.
You see, we sort of snuck in before a gala for which one had to have purchased tickets. I confess that I drove past the ticket taker at the entrance to the grounds a little sheepishly. Of course, they hadn’t invited me to dinner, so I didn’t feel too much like a pecora. At least I got to see the place settings.
The Villa Pescigola has a web site, of course, and it’s in English. If you’re ever around the Lunigiana you should check out the events. If you come in spring you’ll be rewarded by a great number of blooming things.
Villa di Livia in Rome · Jun 24, 06:14 AM by James Martin
We had a great tour of Villa di Livia in the north of Rome the other day. A good guide who is passionate about the subject sure makes a difference, as does speaking enough Italian to understand one.
The villa was built along the Via Flamina, traces of which are visible today north of Rome in the Prima Porta area. Livia Drusilla, wife of the emperor Augustus, owned it with her family. It was a country residence from the Imperial age set on a promontory with a view down the tiber valley toward historic Rome. Downtown, we’d say.
A villa in ruins is a treacherous landscape for the brain. You can look at the nice mosaics, wonder at the size and location, and see all the wonderful holes in the ground, made perfect, at times, with the edge of a mason’s pointing trowel wielded by an archaeologist. But then nothing.
Over to the right we’re looking into the construction of a simple, yet revolutionary, wall, designed with triangular tiles and filled with rubble—a wall design that proved to be far sturdier than wall designs that preceded it.
Livia’s villa, of course, had baths with all the trimmings. The “help” worked tirelessly to keep the fires burning under the floor you see to the left.
But did you ever think about the ecological disaster that came with the popularity of Roman baths? Enormous amounts of wood were consumed. Then there was the arthritis folks suffered from their plunges into hot, then cold, then hot again. Yeah, it might wake you up, but…
Archaeology is slowly waking up to the fact that people really want to see how their social class lived. Enough with the treasure hunts.
The rich and powerful at Villa di Livia were served from below the mosaic floors. Folks scurried through tunnels to take care of everything while remaining pretty much unseen. The stoked the bath fires, cooked, and kept the place going from underground, like many other Roman villas. We can get a good glimpse of these tight spaces because of Valiant Americans fighting WWII.
Yes, one of their bombs did a pretty darn good job of opening up the excavations.
And what are those grooves in that nice mosaic floor over there? It’s the plow line. The villa was covered for a long while, and farmers had little idea of what lay below.
More later.