Keeping it Italian: 'A Past' Asciutt' Pt 1

Misconception Americans have about Italian food #32b, Section 2:

Fresh pasta is superior/preferred to dried pasta, the latter being merely a convenient substitute for the unskilled and lazy.

Many times I have heard people say, "But fresh pasta is definitely better." Well, not exactly. I will start by saying that fresh pasta is a more Northern tradition, while dried pasta is a more Southerly thang.

The absolute Mecca for fresh pasta is without a doubt, Emilia-Romagna. That being said, all regions, no matter their Latitudinal persuasion, boast their own fresh pasta. (In Naples, they have eggless scialatielli, made with regular flour and water, typically dressed with frutti di mare...yum!)

Dried and fresh pasta have two very different but equally important uses. For example, no Italian in her right mind would EVER make a puttanesca with fresh pasta (click here to read DoBianchi's excellent history on this misunderstood sauce). On the other hand, who ever heard of dried ravioli? Spaghetti/penne with fresh tomatoes would not be the same without perfectly al dente, high-quality dried pasta.

Since I am a girl of the south, on both sides of the Atlantic, we'll concentrate on the latter. (In my series Keeping it Italian, we'll focus on how to get the good stuff right here at home.)

There are a few indicators of quality to help you navigate a grocery isle (stay away from anything that says "noodles" unless you're making Asian food, please.) The most important is the surface of the pasta, whatever shape it may be. It must-a to be ruvido (that means rough), not like sandpaper, but a bit like the fine side of a fingernail file. This helps the sauce adhere to the pasta, clinging to the hope of making your mouth happy.

Buy one of those bags of 79 cent "noodles" when you buy your good spaghetti. You'll feel the difference!

The second, which reveals itself only after cooking, is the integrity of the pasta. If it falls apart when you stir it with the sauce, it is too old. It may have been a fine bag of love in its prime, but it's a sign that your grocer isn't turning over his stock.

**Digression alert**
One more thing, and this is a personal preference, but I believe with my entire Texan being that all "cut" pasta (penne, ziti, rigatoni, etc) should be ridged, or rigata. There is nothing uglier than a plate of smooth penne, espesh when one or two are broken. Why have Lays when you can have Ruffles? Why would you forgo the extra fun of added texture for the flat and boring landscape of liscia (smooth)?

Back to business...

Must we spend 5-7 dollars a pound on Rustichella d'Abruzzo to get it right? Maybe. This is terrific pasta, but this starch's humble purpose in the kitchen becomes a luxury when it should be a nutritious and everyday option.

In most supermarkets you can find DeCecco, which is a fine product, though industrial, but I use it regularly. My favorite, however, is I SapORI di Napoli (this is a bit of a word-play, sapori means flavors, the capitalized ori is the plural of oro, which means gold). I found in this brand what I had been looking for since I returned from Italia. It's made in Caserta (just outside of Naples) and feels like a true artisan pasta.

Otherwise, Garofolo is great AND made in Gragnano. This Southern Italian town is home to panuozzi, eponymous fizzy red wine, and it is molto famous for its dried pasta...

Please stay tuned for Part 2 where we'll talk about cooking the pasta!

La Tour d'Argent

That's my man Jeremy P, also known as DoBianchi, perusing the wine selection at one fay-miss Parisian restaurant. They emphasized that they had only French wine. (Of course! Maybe someone tried to order Opus One last week...?)

That has to be the heaviest wine "list" I HAVE EVER SEEN, and that's just the White Zin selection!

But seriously folks...

Reunited

...and it feels so good."

I went to Austin last week. I lived there from 1995 until 2003, when I left for Italy. I love that city, but most of all I love the tacos. My friend woke me up Wednesday morning uttering the most beautiful words I've heard since someone taught me how to pronounce prosciutto:

"Tracie, I brought you some Taco Shack."

This, if you don't already know, is one thing I miss when I'm in Italy. And she showed up with a box of carne guisada, eggsbeansandcheese, sausageandegg, and...my all-time favorite:

POTATO.
AND.
CHORIZO.

With just a little bit of fresh and spicy salsa it's enough to make your stomach wonder what it ever did to deserve such a rude awakening, while making yo' mouth wonder what it ever did to deserve such pleasure.

And what could be more exciting than such sensory ambivalence? I don't know! Well, maybe I do. Whatever.

"We both are so excited 'cause we're-UH reunited hey hey..."

The End of the Affair

Call me silly if you must for being so irritated by such a trivial thing, but some things to me are sacred, and one of these things is food...good food, and quality products. This is one reason that I moved to Italy. I can regularly find the best produce IN THE WORLD and not have to commit my firstborn child to pay for it.

But today, I had a very unwelcome surprise. I wanted to make chocolate truffles. They are very simple and delicious, and because of this simplicity, they require good chocolate, good cream, and real butter. I found good chocolate. I found real butter. Now I must breathe, because this is where it gets ugly.

I am used to being appalled by certain things that I see here in Italy (littering, car seat-less babies, etc), but never would I ever have imagined that this feeling would be a reaction to something food-related.

I needed UNSWEETENED heavy cream. Guess what I found. I was given a box of sweetened cream. Please don't call me dramatic. The worst is yet to come.

Upon further inspection, I found that there was no cream in the cream. I found that it was made from vegetable fat and had more chemicals than a can of Aqua Net hairspray. This is where I should hear a gasp of horror from the audience. If you're not gasping quite horribly yet, just look at that label. Would you allow that into your body? Ew.

My fire was further fueled by the insistence that this was cream and it was to be whipped. "But I don't want to whip it," I said, "and if I did, I wouldn't whip that." It was useless to explain my recipe and that I wasn't even sure if chocolate would melt in this product or if it would just explode upon heating and murder me with toxic fumes. Had I tried to explain that I wanted to make a ganache, the wasted breath would have been enough to make me faint right there next to the cauliflower.

After trying 3 stores, I gave up. I walked back home with short, angry strides, trying to understand how such an atrocious product could be served lovingly to children in a country where quality food is a sacred, Italy-given right. I even asked a sweet old lady, only to be assured that she has always used that, and it's great for whipping.

You may call me picky, but for me, this is impossible and unacceptable and I would rather give give up chocolate for life than eat Hopla'. Italy is the uncontested epicenter of culinary integrity for me and today I suffered a bit of disappointment. This is not the kind behavior I would expect of my surrogate country.

Maybe I'll find some real cream tomorrow. If not, I will be forced to telekinetically pout away all the Hopla' in Naples, and no one will ever be forced to eat "vegetable fat product" again.

Now there's a happy ending.

Italian Desserts Quoted

Tracie! TRRRRRACIE! TracietracietracietracietracietracieTRACIE!!!!!! Come-a here-a! Get over here-a a-DIS-A meenut and open-a dis-uh refridgeratorrrr-uh doorr-uh! Take-a me out! TAKE-a. ME-a. OUT-uh. You must-a to eat! What? You already a-hadda serveeng of me? Oh Trrrrrehzzzy, non fa niente! Trrehzzy, you know-a you cannot-uh resista the coookeez anda the cafe'! And-a the cream-a, Tracie, the mascarpone! Tracie...Tracie...Trrrraaaaacie. Mangia. Just-a one-a leettle piece. It ees-a good-a for you. TRACIE! TTTRRRAAACCCIIE!

-Sunday's loud-mouth tiramisu, calling me with a muffled voice from inside the fridge


**Want to put an end to cravings? click here.

Saturday Photo Scavenger Hunt: Memory

I have an idea! Why doesn't someone start posting the SATURDAY Photo Scavenger Hunt on MONDAY? Creative isn't it? Ok, enough silliness...my internet access has been either non-existent or very precarious for the last few weeks. In fact, my last post, more than 2 weeks ago, was posted by Mom, following my log-in and publishing instructions over the phone, across the Atlantic Ocean.

Not wanting to bore you all with the numbingly tedious details of my daily life, I have never fully explained why my blogging (and visiting) has gone from every-single-day to VERY irregular.

This is why: I regularly spend half of the week in Naples and the other half at home in Ischia.

Otherwise, I must pray while I'm in Ischia, that the moment I choose to venture down to the local sports betting place that has two computers and many leering males happens to be within their operating hours that span a vast 3 minutes and 18 seconds per day.

So, without further excuses, here's my better-late-than-never "Saturday" Photo Scavenger Hunt picture, with the theme of memory.

This is the Aragonese Castle in Ischia. (If you would like to read about the history, click here, this page is in Italian, but you can get some other info in English by clicking around.) It's the ancient mascot of an Island that will always be a part of me...it has filled the last 3 and a half years of my life and for the next (?) years, wherever I may find myself, it will be a part of the life experiences that have made me who I am, and who I will be. It will be the protagonist of many reminiscent stories, hopefully proudly recounted to grandchildren who wish their old grandmother would shut up already, or at least put her damn teeth in before talking.

Black Friday

As most of you are aware, yesterday was Thanksgiving. But only in America. Which is exactly why I had to talk to my family on the phone while they celebrated, and I rode a ferry from Naples to Ischia.

As I spoke with various family members, I reminded them that if I were there, we would be drinking prosecco with our stolen, pre-meal bites of fried turkey. I would have been in the kitchen for a week with mom planning, grocery shopping, and messing up the place. If I were there, I would have joined my dad and uncle briefly in the backyard while they hovered over gallons of boiling peanut oil, excited as 10 year-old boys. If I were there, I would have been hugging my niece and nephew and touching my sister's pregnant belly. I would have eaten like a pig, then retired to an available horizontal space to watch a movie with everybody.

My aunt reminded me that if I were there, I would be going shopping the next day with them. She reminded me that I had written an email exactly one year ago about this female ritual, and since I haven't written in a week, I'll share it with you.

November 25, 2005

I was suckered into this by the women in my family.

I have successfully avoided the the pleas with keeping the "day-after-Thanksgiving" tradition for roughly 10 years. Every year my aunt says to me, "But we always go shopping the day after Thanksgiving." It's just that we, usually does not include me. I cannot be subject to the hoards of wild-eyed women who have been to the 5-o-clock "door buster" sales at Wal-Mart and Target--they have usually stopped only to refuel with some caffeinated beverage because CHRISTMAS MUST BE BOUGHT! I always picture it like a marathon, as the shoppers whiz by laden with bags, someone is there holding out a diet coke which is quickly grabbed, slammed, empty cup falling to the ground in slow motion as the theme song from "Chariots of Fire" plays in the background.

I remember the good ol' days when this day was fun. We (Mom, aunts, sister, female cousins) would pile into the minivan at dawn and head to Houston for a fun-filled shopping day. There were people, but it was more like a Saturday at the mall than a crowded hurricane shelter. I would start complaining of mortal hunger around 10:30 and we would go to some restaurant around noon (not surprisingly, my favorite part). My mom would grow weary of my constant badgering. I wanted everything, like a good nine-year-old should, and she refused. Bless her heart. Yes, these were the days before this Friday after Thanksgiving had the name "Black Friday." After 9 solid hours of shopping, I would get bored, tired, hungry again, and would be ready to go home.

Now it's different. It has turned into a frenzy of epic proportions. One must arrive at 5 in the morning to get the sales. People are camped out in line at the mall entrance waiting to be first. Mothers, daughters, and aunts all starting new traditions.

Not me, no sir-ee.

Maybe just this one time. I have succumbed to the voices speaking to my ego and need to be loved, "Please come Tracie. We want you to be there! Our day is brighter whenever you are near!" Well, I made up that last one, but it'll get me through the day. Besides, I love my womenfolk. I miss them when I'm across the world. Anyway, what's wrong with a little sacrifice, right? I don't even go to the mall on any old Saturday because it's too crowded, but I will today. Hopefully, we will all survive, heavy with bags, diet coke on our faces, and happy to be together.

Happy Friday,
Saint Tracie

-----------

That was last year, and I was in Texas all of November and December. I won't be so fortunate this year, but if I were, I would be right there with them, enjoying every moment.

La Sagra del Cinghiale

I love a good sagra. It's a celebration of all I hold dear in Italy: food and wine. It is exactly the type of thing that made me leave my life with a backpack to get closer.
Something specific and seasonal like la castagna (chestnut), carciofo (artichoke), fagioli (beans), etc., will be granted the spotlight for a weekend, prepared in
a typical local style, and washed down with a little vino paesano. These are community events usually held outdoors and often conducted for charity. (Well, if I ever needed an excuse to fatten up a bit on some Italian country cooking, I think charity would be a great one, don't you?) September, October, and November are full of these events and if you're ever here during a sagra it's a fantastic way to see (and taste) the country.

A couple of weeks ago, I got to attend la Sagra del Cinghiale (wild boar). It took place in a tiny town called Dugenta, in the province of another small town called Benevento, about 40 minutes from Naples.

The menu is simple. There are 3 different pastas all made with ground boar, slowly cooked in tomato sauce. You can then order the misto al cinghiale with sausage, "steak," cheese, and a veggie. There's a panino option if there is someone crazy enough to skip the fresh pasta. The local wine is sold in a carafe or a 1.5 liter bottle. Did you notice how much more expensive Coca-cola is per mL than wine? This is a country with its priorities in the right place.

Could somebody check this dog's pulse?

Let's all say it together, "MISTO AL CINGHIALE!"

Look, paw, they even got 'dem some dayncin'!

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I would like to say that I had fun "sampling," but I'll go ahead and admit that I went whole-hog at the feedin' trough. And the post-dinner dance review was just what I needed to get myself on road for home...laughing all the way.