828 replies to this topic

[Kevin72]

I had no idea the Friuli cusine was so Slavic-German. I'm completely fascinated by how local cuisines evolve.  Please keep the history lessons coming along with the food!  That soup looks like something my Polish grandmother used to make. That soup also looks likes something I would enjoy right about now..!
ciao!

Friuli was a real eye-opener for me, too, when I came across it. I was getting kind of bored and arrogant in my Italian cooking, thinking I had "learned it all", and then I'm reading a regional book and they have a chapter on Friuli, and there's sauerkraut soup, and gnocchi stuffed with plums . . . Since then I too have been utterly fascinated with the concept of "border cooking". Hell it's even made me appreciate Tex-Mex a little more!

[albiston]

Friuli was a real eye-opener for me, too, when I came across it. I was getting kind of bored and arrogant in my Italian cooking, thinking I had "learned it all", and then I'm reading a regional book and they have a chapter on Friuli, and there's sauerkraut soup, and gnocchi stuffed with plums . . . Since then I too have been utterly fascinated with the concept of "border cooking".  Hell it's even made me appreciate Tex-Mex a little more!

Kevin,

I couldn't help but smile reading your comment. It really hits what Italian ciusines are in a nutshell. We have so many lingredients, dishes, customs that are limited to extremely small areas that it would take more than a lifetime to really know them all.

I've been living most of my life in Campania for example, yet I always manage to find something new, be it a new recipe, a variation on a classic or a new ingredient, whenever I travel through the region. It never stops amazing me. In a sense that's bot the strength and weakness of Italian cuisine. It can be extremely stimulating to the food-curious person but can be damn confusing for just the same reason.

Edit: Sardinia seems to me the supreme example of "isolation" in Italian cooking. The best descriptions I've read of it is that it has been "ruled but never conquered"--various countries have laid claim to it before but haven't made inroads into it the way Sicily has. Thus the cooking styles remain untouched through the years and you have the height of rustic cooking: alot of spit and open fire roasting recipes turn up in the books I've read. And yeah, you can't get much more "distinctive" than maggot cheese!

I think the supreme isolation factor is truer of the inland. On the coast you have a lot of influence from the various rulers who treid to conquer the island. This ends up in a few interesting twists: the island of San Pietro and its only city, Carloforte, for example have a cuisine that keeps the traditon of the Genovesi who established a colony here four centuries ago. The rustic definition hits the spot, though Srdinian cuisine can be extremely baroque at times, especially with its sweets.

Oh "maggot cheese"! Delicious. . . maybe I should tel the story of how I was tricked into eating this sometime .

[Kevin72]

I've been living most of my life in Campania for example, yet I always manage to find something new, be it a new recipe, a variation on a classic or a new ingredient, whenever I travel through the region. It never stops amazing me. In a sense that's bot the strength and weakness of Italian cuisine. It can be extremely stimulating to the food-curious person but can be damn confusing for just the same reason.

I agree that the regionality can be confusing. While it is important of course to understand the addage that there is no "true" Italian cuisine and that region, microregions, and even villages can differ sharply in traditions, it is confounding I think to start at that point. I found it better to start large with the general understanding of the old "Northern vs. Southern" distinction and go from there, peeling back more layers of understanding and going deeper the more I learned. Now when I put together a regional dish it's not even enough to have it be all from the same region, but I even make sure it's from the same town!

As an example of this, I got a regional Spanish cookbook at Christmas and I'm having a hard time wrapping my head around it since I don't have that base understanding of Spanish style and culture yet.

[hathor]

Alberto: no fair! You cannot leave us hanging.... how did you get tricked into eating maggot cheese??!

As far as microcosm cusine: I don't think that is at all restricted to Italy. Look at U.S cusine for one example: how many ways are there to make barbecue? Once you start to look closely there will always be differences from house to house and town to town. And I say: Viva la difference!

[albiston]

Alberto: no fair! You cannot leave us hanging.... how did you get tricked into eating maggot cheese??!     

Ok, I promise I'll post more about that as soon as I have a little time, this week end probably. Would that be fair?

As far as microcosm cusine: I don't think that is at all restricted to Italy. Look at U.S cusine for one example: how many ways are there to make barbecue? Once you start to look closely there will always be differences from house to house and town to town. And I say: Viva la difference!

Sure, microcosm cuisine applies to every country and to me it's one of the most fascinating aspects ofany culture. And yet, I still haven't found another country in Europe (I cannot speak of other continents) where the differences can be so extreme at so little distance, as they are in Italy, though Spain and Portugal might come close at times.

[Kevin72]

As far as microcosm cusine: I don't think that is at all restricted to Italy. Look at U.S cusine for one example: how many ways are there to make barbecue? Once you start to look closely there will always be differences from house to house and town to town. And I say: Viva la difference!

I absolutely agree. In fact since large swaths of V-F-G belonged at one time or another to neighboring countries it's just as much a tribute to their regionality as it is to Italy's.

While regionality certainly exists in the US and barbecue is a prime example, as is the Napa valley region, I must say you really don't have such sharp micro-level distinctions as you would find elsewhere. For instance in going from Venice to Verona, the food changed almost entirely from the light elegant seafood dishes of Venice to robust rib-sticking fare in Verona. And how far apart are they? Maybe 100 k? Regionality is certainly coming back into style in our cooking, and something I'm getting into in ideas of U.S. cooking, but I doubt it will ever get to the level of "Austin" cooking vs. "Dallas" cooking vs. "Houston" cooking--we don't have centuries of rooted populations and traditions to draw from.

[hathor]

  Regionality is certainly coming back into style in our cooking, and something I'm getting into in ideas of U.S. cooking, but I doubt it will ever get to the level of "Austin" cooking vs. "Dallas" cooking vs. "Houston" cooking--we don't have centuries of rooted populations and traditions to draw from.

Good Point. The U.S. population certainly does not have the roots that Europe or Asia. (Asia being a good example of regional differences in cuisine.)

[Kevin72]

Some of my latest exploits:


Shrimp with polenta.

Pretty straightforward: There's much more austere recipes out there where you top polenta with sauteed shrimp. I made a little reduction sauce of chicken broth, white wine and shrimp shells simmered together, then topped it with ample paprika. My wife is really getting good at identifying regionality: she said this brought to mind the cevapcici meal, which was dead on since both are Trieste-influenced.


Sunday's meal:

Orzotto with mushrooms in the foreground; patate en teccia in the background.



Orzotto is barley made in the risotto style. Mixed in were shitake mushrooms, shredded carrot, celery, and shallot. It took longer than risotto does, however: I'd say 45 minutes compared to the 25 or so with risotto. But the barley was pretty old I think.

I'm not sure what the direct translation of "en teccia" is. You melt some onions in a pan and then stir in crumbled cooked potato and a little stock. Then you cook it slowly, slowly, slowly until a crust forms on the bottom layer. Ease it out onto a plate and flip it back over into the pan and crust that side as well. Mine of course fell apart but you still had that good crusty flavor in there.

For the main, chicken braised in sauerkraut.



Lidia Bastianich in Cucina di Lidia gives a similar recipe only with duck.

Also made, but not pictured, was paparot, a spinach soup thickened with a little polenta. It doesn't sound like much but it is very nourishing.

Getting down to the final week for Friuli and there's a lot I still haven't made! I have ideas but we will certainly be eating lots of leftovers into February.

Edited by Kevin72, 24 January 2005 - 07:58 AM.

[albiston]

Sunday's meal:

Orzotto with mushrooms in the foreground; patate en teccia in the background.



Orzotto is barley made in the risotto style.  Mixed in were shitake mushrooms, shredded carrot, celery, and shallot.  It took longer than risotto does, however: I'd say 45 minutes compared to the 25 or so with risotto.  But the barley was pretty old I think. 

I'm not sure what the direct translation of "en teccia" is.

Nice dishes, they really make me hungry .

If I remember correctly in tecia simply means cooked in a pot. Haven't made these in ages, thanks for reminding me. A good addition to any meal on a snowy winter day.

The orzotto cooking time seems quite standard to me. Just curious would you do cook it again, or do you think you'll stick to risotto in the future?

[Kevin72]

I liked it and it's a refreshing change of pace from risotto. I always feel like barley's this as-yet-undiscovered-by-me grain that I don't do enough with. I made a barley and clam dish last spring with lots of celery and lemon zest that was pretty good.

But I'd have to give the edge still to risotto.

[Bernaise]

I am so sorry I didn't see this thread earlier. My Italian heritage is Friulana and following your adventure has been delightul. I was there in October and we had a very delicious meal with components I think you should really try.

1. Morchje (sp?) which is milk solids gently browned and served over polenta usually with a mushroom ragout.

2. If you had muset did you eat brovade? brovade is a variation on saurkraut but made with white turnips.


3. Fartaia cun les urties - and I don't know why I mentioned it because you wil never get the "urties" greens and herbs required.

4. Young goose slow braised in 100 herbs.

5. Kiffi and horseshoe shaped riced potato fritter (sweet)

6. Crostoli??????

7. sausages- either the rib meat variety or the offal variety lightly roasted and slow braised in whole milk!

you're making me some hngry! and nostalgic!

[Kevin72]

Thank you for the input, Bernaise. I'm afraid that with just 30 days I've only scratched the surface and this is the first time I'm hearing about many of the dishes you posted (particularly the goose dish). I've really learned alot about Friuli this past month and I'm glad it's put me out of my comfort zone, as it were, in Italian cooking. Lots of stuff I wouldn't have even tried if it weren't for this little yearlong quest.

I've contemplated brovada but don't have the grape must to pickle it in and I'm afraid I'm not much for canning things. But I haven't done the turnip justice, that's for sure. It will definitely be a contorno in one of the last meals I make.

[Kevin72]

The latest few dinners:


Chilled mussels with pepper vinaigrette



For the main we had steamed salmon with a ginger vinaigrette, and a pickled onion and cucumber salad (went heavy on the vinegar that night I guess). Salmon isn't an indiginous ingredient to the area (the recipe is given for monkfish), but I thought the recipe would work well and it did.

While the majority of F-V-G is landlocked, around Trieste there's a number of interesting seafood dishes and I regret I haven't done too many of them. This meal was an attempt at a remedy.

Other meals:

Last night I made knodel, a gnocchi made from rye bread that has been cut up and soaked in milk, then mixed with flour, butter, sauteed onions and speck, and eggs. While I've seen the recipes other places, in Plotkin's book, they are sauced with a cucumber "ragu" and I just had to try it. Very interesting flavor interplays. The only thing I'd change is that Plotkin calls for them to be a rather ungainly size, a little bigger than a golf ball (and you only serve 2-3 per person). I'd like to do them smaller for a more delicate texture but I wonder if their large size is part of why they stay together so well--I had attempted them before as a smaller size and they fell apart. Anyways, they weren't terribly photogenic so no pics.

Another meal, and one of the simplest, was grilled polenta, draped with a slice of prosciutto San Daniele and sauced with ricotta, milk, sour cream, and scallions that had been cooked together in a double boiler.

[albiston]

Last night I made knodel, a gnocchi made from rye bread that has been cut up and soaked in milk, then mixed with flour, butter, sauteed onions and speck, and eggs.  While I've seen the recipes other places, in Plotkin's book, they are sauced with a cucumber "ragu" and I just had to try it.  Very interesting flavor interplays. The only thing I'd change is that Plotkin calls for them to be a rather ungainly size, a little bigger than a golf ball (and you only serve 2-3 per person).  I'd like to do them smaller for a more delicate texture but I wonder if their large size is part of why they stay together so well--I had attempted them before as a smaller size and they fell apart.  Anyways, they weren't terribly photogenic so no pics.

Kevin,

I learned to make standard knodel with speck and chives (replacing onion), or canederli as they're called in Italian, from my uncle who's from Trentino. I didn't know they were a common item in FVG too. My recipe calls for one or two day old white bread, but rye is probably more traditional. Anyway there are so many recipes for knodel in Trentino-Sudtyrol it is hard to speak of one authentic recipe: you've got Leberknodel (with liver), Graukäseknödel (made mixing Graukäse to the mass), etc .

Don't know if size's the problem in keeping them together, I never tried anything smaller than a baseball (neither bigger to be honest). I was told that the best way to see if the mass has the right firmness is to try poaching one first and see how it holds. If it breaks apart or looses a bit of "crumbles" on the outside the addition of one or more tablespoons of flour can help. The other trick is to squueze the heck out of the bread.

[Kevin72]

They also had chives in addition to the onions, forgot to list that.

I was so paranoid about cooking them since last time I tried them I ended up with a pot of water with bread floating in it. So I cooked it exactly as Plotkin said, and indeed did test one first. I just found that it got a little tedious eating something of that size: once you get to the middle it's just too much bread and they soak up so much sauce.

I've seen the canederli variation with liver before. I'm guessing knodel is the dialectical variation for FVG, again reflecting the Austro-Hungarian roots. Plotkin gives the recipe names first in standard Italian--he listed these as gnocchi di pane--then in parentheses if they have a Furlan name, and knodel was it for these.

I'm completely at a loss on the Furlan pronunciations, btw, and that's something that for all the research Plotkin put into his book, a pronunciation key and/or translation guide at the end would have helped. How hard is it to get by in Friuli if you just speak standard Italian?

[albiston]

I'm completely at a loss on the Furlan pronunciations, btw, and that's something that for all the research Plotkin put into his book, a pronunciation key and/or translation guide at the end would have helped. How hard is it to get by in Friuli if you just speak standard Italian?

Everyone except maybe old people who grew up in the more isolated valleys speaks Italian nowadays. I had a very good school friend coming from Buttrio, near Udine, who spoke Furlan at home, yet every time I visited everyone in his family switched to Italian without loosing a beat.

BTW Knödel is the Austrin and Bavarian name for Canederli. I would suppose canederli is just the italianized version of Knödel.

[Kevin72]

Oooh, I couldn't not post this tonight! I was particularly pleased with this one.

This is pretty much an exact ripoff of a Molto Mario episode from Friuli.

Strudel stuffed with pork goulash. Sauteed apples with scallions and rum. Turnips with slivovitz.



The strudel was store-bought: pastry isn't my deal and it looked way too labor intensive. But I had heard good things about the reliability of store-bought strudel dough and this worked quite well. The strudel is even brushed with egg and sugar, so it was a sweet crust around this savory filling, though the goulash was laced with cinnamon and cloves, so the flavors went quite well.

The liquors I used for the contorni aren't exactly Friulani, I apologize. The apple dish was a little too sweet for my tastes. The original recipe called for red wine and cinnamon but on a lark I used the spiced rum instead.

Very pleased.

[Kevin72]

The concluding meal from Friuli-Venezia-Giulia from Sunday. I'm still tinkering with the camera so the pics I took all turned out blurry.

Antipasto: Raddichio and speck wallets. This is a repeat from the antipasti meal I started the month with, only now with speck instead of Prosciutto San Daniele. It was one of my favorite dishes and my parents were over for the weekend so I thought it'd be a good appetite stimulant.

Primo: Gnocchi di Susinne--Gnocchi stuffed with prunes (normally plums). Sauced with butter, cinnamon, breadcrumbs, and some of the braising liquid from the secondo. Another of the great sweet/savory combinations from FVG.

Secondo: Beef shanks in "squazett" (sp?). I adapted a recipe for venison from Marleni di Blasi's book Regional Foods of Northern Italy. The shanks were marinated in red wine, juniper, cloves, onion, and ginger, then seared and braised in the marinade. The sauce reduces, darkens, and takes on a nearly bitter flavor. Then you make a second sauce (rare in Italian from my experience) of currants, sugar, and red wine. The sweet/tart currant compote really cuts the rich, deep flavors of the braise.

Incidentally, the term "squazett" is a prime example of micro-regional differences in terminology. In Cucina di Lidia, Lidia Bastianich says that in Istria squazett referred to a meat (most often game) braised with tomatoes, rosemary, and juniper. Plotkin gives a recipe for squazett in his book (and he does note the regional differences in the word) that is basically the currant or prune compote I used.

Contorno: Zucca al forno--baked stuffed squash. Stuffed with mushrooms, the squash meat, scallions, breadcrumbs, cheese, and marjoram.

Dolce: Gubana--a baked pastry (I used phyllo) rolled around a stuffing of mixed nuts, dried fruit, several liquors, cinnamon, chocolate and egg whites. Very rich and almost a little too dry for my tastes. First few bites are good but you're struggling by the end.

So that's it for Friuli. I really enjoyed it and there's a few dishes that I didn't even get to, so in some ways it's sad to see it go. But in cooking this way I am forced to try dishes and ingredients I normally wouldn't have gotten to for several years; I even come around to liking dill, a flavor I had convinced myself I didn't like long ago. Again, I am constantly amazed at the use of spices and different, seemingly contrasting ingredients and cooking styles, yet as with much of Italian cooking, they are used with such a delicate hand that the dishes turn out far more subtle than one would expect. It is truly one of the most unique and exotic cooking styles of Italy and I can see why those in the culinary world are presently doting upon it as the next "in" spot.

Comments on dishes I've missed? Other recipes from this region? (Bernaise, I'd particularly like a recipe for the goose with 100 herbs dish you mentioned).

[Kevin72]

For February, the region I'll be cooking from is The Veneto.

The Veneto is one of those regions like Latzio and Campania that tends to be dominated by its best-known city, in this case, Venice. Most of the cookbooks I have that devote recipes to the Veneto use Venice as their primary resource. There is a cookbook called Veneto by Julia de la Croce but it has become quite hard to find and I regret not snapping it up last time I did see it. So, I'll try to cook from other cities and areas in the Veneto but much of my cooking will gravitate to Venice.

Complicating this is that Lent starts next week. My wife and I use Lent as an excuse to do a bit of a diet and give up sugar and land-based meat, so alot of the great game and fowl dishes of the marshlands and mountains will unfortunately be left out. Any good vegetarian recipes from the Veneto would be welcome.

I have had the pleasure of being to Venice and Verona, in October 2003 for our honeymoon. Venice was, as so many have said, purely magical. Verona was probably the place where in our winning-the-lottery fantasies, we'd most want to live. I'll be trying to approximate several of the meals we had on that trip.

Other resources I'll be using for this month's cooking:

The Da Fiore Cookbook
The Cooking of Venice
Molto Mario Episodes
Marlena di Blasi's section on Veneto in Regional Foods of Northern Italy


As always, discussion on experiences in travelling and cooking in this region is welcome. Any must-have dishes?

[hathor]

Ciao Kevin!
As it happens, I'm in Venice right now!
Friends took us to a very small restaurant on the "Assasin Street"....I'll get a card and accurate name tommorow, and it was excellent!
Many vegitarian anti pasto dishes were on the table when we sat down:
Belgian endive and walnuts and ...someother vegetable
Potatoes, truffles, rucola (very mashed potato texture..excellent)
Spinachi con cipolla
And a boiled meat and caper dish that was my favorite.
I was thinking of you during dinner as the flavors and foods tasted nearly Germanic. This is my first trip to Venezia so I have no idea if this is typical or not.
If I see any good cookbooks...I'll let you know!

[redfox]

This thread is lots of fun! I look forward to reading it all year. My experiences in Italy have been limited to central Italy (Tuscany, Umbria, Abruzzi, Les Marches, and Rome), though one of my best friends is a historian specializing in medieval Sicily -- but alas, though he enjoys food very much, he doesn't know much about cooking it and so hasn't been picking up recipes when he visits. Of course at the end you should go on an enormous trip to Italy and visit all of the regions you've cooked from.

Edited by redfox, 03 February 2005 - 07:04 PM.

[albiston]

For February, the region I'll be cooking from is The Veneto. 

.....

As always, discussion on experiences in travelling and cooking in this region is welcome.  Any must-have dishes?

Kevin,

looking forward to Veneto. A few recipes that in my mind are closely connected to the region and classics are baccalà alla Vicentina, actually not baccalà at all, rather stockfish; an fish in saor, fried and marinated in a vinegar and spice mixture; bigoli, a thick handmade spaghetti often served with a rich anchovy or duck sauce; the many rice dishes, risi e bisi, risotto al radicchio; casunzei the beet stuffed ravioli from the Belluno province; anything with radicchio, Veneto is the main production area with radicchio di Treviso, di Verona, di Castelfarnco...

just a few ideas .

[Kevin72]

Hathor: That meal sounded really good. Venice, like Trieste, was historically a trade centerpoint so it reflects many influences beyond Italian. Boiled meat is a Northern Italian classic. The vegetables all sounded impressive. I'll be doing lots of cicchetti-style meals (some of our fondest memories from the trip) since you do get good vegetarian dishes. I think we were on Via Assassini when we were there: I remember thinking it was an odd name for a street!

Redfox: Thanks for the input. Stay tuned, many of the regions you talked about will be used later this year! Friuli would definitely find its way into a subsequent trip.

Alberto we appear to continue to be thinking along the same lines. Alot of those dishes will be coming up. I've done saor variations before and in fact just did shrimp in saor for the Christmas Eve Vigilia, so I'm not sure if I'll be repeating it so soon. We do not get stocafisso here (I've heard it's a bit . . . umm . . . fragrant) but I can probably dig up baccala.

[Kevin72]

I'm at a loss why my pics are suddenly so blurry.

At any rate, the inaugural meal was risotto with radicchio, sausage, and beans.


Halfway between a soup and a risotto the first night, subsequently it's been more solid.

[DaleJ]

Kevin: FWIW, you cah get stoccafisso from Corti Brothers, Sacramento.

800 509 FOOD and ask for Darrell who will be stunned (as I am) by your noble efforts.

[Kevin72]

Thanks for the resource tip Dale. You're making it hard for me to take shortcuts!

Do you find stocafisso to be dramatically different in flavor from baccala?

[DaleJ]

I recently bought baccala from Conti, but haven't tried their stoccafisso. Darrell sent, along with the baccala, a stapled-together little disseration on both baccala and stoccafisso. Just incredibly interesting stuff including an argument that the discovery of the new world was demonstratively aided by the use of stoccafissa as principle foodstuff of Columbus' voyages. BTW, the same pamphlet warns that stoccafissa, unlike baccala, not only requires a week or so to become pliable but that it exudes a powerful aroma in process. It also costs about $25 per pound. I think the adventure must be done and I'm going to invest when my baccala is gone.

[Kevin72]

Hmm. Hopefully this doesn't discount my endeavor any in your eyes, but I think I'll go without stocafisso then. Besides, by the time I order it and reconstitute it, the month would be over!

[DaleJ]

FWIW, in a recent phone conversation with Darrell Corti, he noted that baccala served in Venice is really stoccafisso. I find this interesting since I have produced baccala montecatto from a reliable recipe with baccala and find it very like that enjoyed in Venice.

BTW, my appreciation of your efforts is undiminished.

[albiston]

FWIW, in a recent phone conversation with Darrell Corti, he noted that baccala served in Venice is really stoccafisso.

One of the fantastic, confusing tricks Italian dialects can play on us is how names for the same food Item change from region to region . Baccalà always means stoccafisso in Vento, Friuli and Trentino. In a similar way merluzzo (cod) means baccalà in Lombardia. I guess that if you lived in land-locked Milan 100-150 years ago baccalà would have been the closest thing to fresh cod you would taste.