hathor

Desert culinary: that barley looks very good. How did you make it? Chufi: beautiful dinner! I second Pontormo, that salad looks gorgeous and I love the idea of the pumpkin seed paste. Was it nutty tasting?

Both! I'm an experienced and passionate skier, and my shins are killing me. I refuse to get new boots. Somewhere around here on eG there is a cooking at altitude thread...you want a real challenge? Figure out how to cook pasta when the water is boiling, but you can still put your hand in it. Water boils at a lower temp the higher you go...

Franci, that streudel is gorgeous!! Is the recipe on your blog, or another website? That dough looks incredible! Since we were talking about polenta cookers, I dug up some photos from my Ital.cook days. This was a polenta cooking demonstration over a wood fire, the paddle was turned by hand, but it was a long crank handle so the 'turner' didn't have to stand too close to the fire. When it was finished it was poured onto a board and cut with a string. We ate it in small bowls, with a little milk.

When you go away for a few days, its always inspiring when you come back to this thread! We were skiing in Utah for a few days, and for our finale dinner: What else, but steak and potatoes? And last night, while watching Rome: Sauteed chicken with fried artichoke hearts

So, last night HBO's "Rome" was on...and I was hungry for some Lazio style food. First course was some fettucine carbonara This has to be one of the easiest and most satisfying of pasta dishes. My problem has been finding some decent pancetta in NY. Anybody have a good source? Secondi was fried artichoke hearts and sauted lemon chicken. The chicken wasn't particularly Lazio, but with the artichokes, it was a tasty combination.

We need a separate website to keep track of all our Italian babies! I wonder if anyone is keeping track, but I bet our Italian forum community has more babies than anyone else. Big hugs and congratulations to Franci and Kevin...woo-hoooo!!! Very exciting news. I never heard of the no-pork, no cold cut rule. wow. Back to food: is 'polenta nera', made from buckwheat? I've had it once or twice in Italy, and never understood what made it black. One time it was served with fresh grated horseradish (in Friuli) and another time with gorgonzola. Delicious.

Ciao Chimico! It's nice to hear a new voice. For those of us not in Italy, sometimes we have to make substitutions based on what is available, and that can be frustrating when you are trying to create something that you may never have seen or tasted before. But thank you for helping us to come closer to the 'real thing'! Any other pointers??

Those tigelle are a big hit at our town's festas...but they fill them with Nutella! All the young ragazzi come begging for them from their mom's working in the festa kitchen. Actually, any mom will do, when they are begging for food.

Ciao! Chufi, what if you served the swordfish as a small fish course? I like the idea of individual servings...easier to plate quickly, IMHO. Your dinner parties always look like so much fun. I've been craving some spicy Sicilian swordfish couscous.... (Pontormo: I also cheated and made some Venetian style sardines! Must be something in the air. )

Welcome back Franci!! You were missed! Divina: I always mix up my eyes and ears. Which can lead to such troubles..... I'm having trouble with this region as well...the Other Half doesn't like: polenta, sauerkraut, gnocchi. I hit the trifecta, and he's really easy to please. I've been in the mountains of Utah, but as soon as I get back I'll have to dig around and come up with something that he likes!

The ragu sounds wonderful, Melissa. I did a double bake on some potatoes last night, and that worked like a charm. Of course on the second bake, they were combined with some shallots, garlic and creme fraiche, so what could be bad?? Every time I think that I've mastered cooking at altitude...it throws me a curve, or a pop...as in the cofffee can exploding. Such is the price you pay for mountain air.

Nishia: that is one gorgeous meal!! Your plates are pretty cool as well. I second Pontormo's sentiment, anytime I'm looking for inspiration, you can find it here! Does anyone remember a potato dish that Franci made? It had sliced potatoes layered with red radicchio and topped with a bit of raddichio salad? Its a wonderful dish and I've made a few variations on it. Last night I layered the potatoes with some red swiss chard & a touch of chorizo, then some vinegar dressed chard on top. Delicious and very pretty. However, I was serving a bunch of ragazzi (20-something-yearold-kids) and they weren't waiting for a photo session. C. Sapidus: your meals are always so tempting. If you are interested, here is my parsnip chip recipe. Seriously addictive.

Dinner last night was Spanish paprika/smoke adobe chili roasted chicken and parsnip chips.

Good to know!

Cooking at altitude is really a challenge. How about baking potatoes? Any words of wisdom here....they just never taste 'done', still sort of cellulose-y.

I would give Gustiamo.com a try. Nice people and they are very picky about their products.

Pink pork tastes good. It still have flavor and juice. We've been eating it forever like that, and no problems to report. My understanding is that your chance of catching trichonosis (sp?) is minutel.

"the dawn of a new era of dietary prohibition" That's so depressing. Why prohibit when the media does such a find job of promoting fear? So much of the commercial packaging includes the word, "No." By the way, what a nice surprise to see that there is yet another chapter to this wonderful thread. Thank you again.

Mrbigjas: if you start your sauerkraut this week, and post the results 6 weeks from now...I'll STILL be interested! My Florentine friend thought that it might mean "wheat powder", she also thought the language in my little guide book was quite archaic..and funny. Elsewhere in the book, just the word 'farina' is used to describe flour. This was the first time that the 'di frumento' showed up so that's why I wasn't clear on what was being used. So, as the Italians say, "Boh!"

Lumas, your photo of the pasta e fagoli is beautiful! Chufi, your summer rolls are magnificent. Or whatever season they are! Shaya: good lord, do you sleep??? Just beautiful! I love Buzz Lighting and Mr. Incredible, aside from being way too adorable, the colors in that photo are so vibrant and alive. What is the Nigella wooden spoon trick for pomegranates? I just crack them open and pick out the seeds, I've gotten pretty fast. I also do it in a bowl in the sink to cut down on the collateral damage. Recently I had an artist friend helping me with dinner, and she wanted to help me seed the pomegrante..all good, except that towards the end I noticed that she'd stopped seeding and had gotten into rubbing all the red juice all over her hands, completely seduced by the color. I love that, a completely sensous response to that beautiful fruit. Back to the mundane, its been a soup week around here. Celery soup Italian wedding soup. Can anything bad happen to you from over indulging in chard?

I went digging around in some of my books and came up with some info to share. Trentinto Alto Adige was known as Venezia Tridentina until Mussolini came along and renamed it. Apparently Mussolini enjoyed playing with geography, as he also moved the border of Emilia-Romagna. The area has a strange identity crisis, almost not Italian, almost not Germanic. TAA did not officially become part of Italy until 1918 and as recently as 1960 there was a German separatist terror campaign that required UN intervention. TAA is 100% mountainous, it is the epitomy of alpine splendor, with mountain streams and lakes. The region is divided into two major ethnic groups: Trento which is Italian and in the south and Bolzano in the north which is German. The Adige river runs through the northern part of the region. Odd fact: TAA has the most banks per capita in all of Italy. As anyone who has spent time in Italy has noticed, they have a LOT of banks, so to be number one, is saying something. Although TAA only produces 1 % of the national wine production, ¾’s of that is DOC quality. (This seems like a suspect statistic because it is relatively easy to find TAA wines exported). They also produce 10% of the country’s grappa. Words to remember, “Pane e vino fanno un bel bambino”. “Bread and wine make a beautiful baby.” I went to my trusty little 1931 Guida Gastronomica d’Italia to learn more about the local dishes. (If anyone ever sees this little book, buy it immediately, it’s an amazing breakdown by region; but it is in Italian.) Trying to translate this region’s dishes is a challenge as many of the words are of German origin. The Bolzano region is known for mountain potatoes, white pasta, sauerkraut, buckwheat flour and something called ‘farina di frumento’. My dictionary defines frumento as wheat or as graham cracker. Anybody? I have a friend from Florence who is checking into a translation. This farina di frumento shows up quite a bit. The fruits sound wonderful: apples, pears, prunes, apricots all described as being the highest grade of perfection. And there are even berries: strawberries, raspberries, blueberries and blackberries. Both beef and pork are commonly eaten. This is where you will find speck; a cured, cold smoked ham. The smoked speck lard is used as a base for many dishes. The prosciutto favored in TAA is prosciutto cotto, or cooked prosciutto. (Tastes like deli ham, IMHO.) Fresh water fish such as trout and eels are eaten. Honey also is cultivated here, and there is particular importance given to a rare alpine honey. Gnocchi or Knodl (my keyboard doesn’t support the little two dots over the ‘o’ so my spellings are going to be off, mi dispiace) is a staple and comes in all possible forms and with all possible ingredients. Gnocchi neri or Schwarze Knodl made from buckwheat flour, milk or water, bread and in the Isarco valley, with chopped spinach. Gnocchi di magro (Fastenknodl) (Lean gnocchi) made with bread, egg, milk, chopped onions and parsle Gnocchi di fegato (Leberknodl) with flour and chopped liver There is also a ‘gigantesco gnocco” that dominates the plate and is half submerged in broth, or is served with butter and cheese, or with sauerkraut. Look, we’ve discovered an Italian matzah ball, which is probably as deadly to your digestive system as a Jewish matzah ball! (ducks for cover because I know lots of people LOVE matzah balls, I’m just not one of them….) In Meltina, a village above Vilpina, you can be served two giant, identical twin gnocchi, one fat, one lean, as in one with fat and one without. Moving on. Ravioli pusteresi (Pustertaler Tortln): large raviolis stuffed with spinach, sweet ricotta, cheese, egg, nutmeg and marjoram Ravioletti (Schlupfkrapfeln: Made with chopped meat and rolled into pasta leaves. This is a dish for ‘grand occasions” and is called ‘strangolapretti’ or ‘strangle the priest’ in Trentino. It usually served with melted butter. Polenta al forno (Ofenplent) Made with either yellow corn polenta, or black buckwheat; combined with an egg, lard, sausage and baked in the oven. Vermicelli al latti acido (Tschottnudeln) or Vermicelli made with sour milk and served with various condiments. Fried sage “Fritelle di salvia” (Salbeimaus of which the literal translation is little sage mouse). Sage leaves are dipped in flour and milk (I’m guessing here as the book says ‘farina fluida’) and then fried. ‘Cavoli acidi’, or ‘crauti’ (Sauerkraut): This is a signature German dish; however the Alto Adige people (Aidigians?) also combined saffron, cumin seeds, and “other drugs” in their sauerkraut. That is taken directly from the Guida, I have no idea what they mean by other drugs; could bring a whole new chic to eating sauerkraut. Sweets seem to be baked tarts and streudels, although there is mention of excellent gelato in the summer months. Here is one of the odder desserts listed: “Orecchie di lepre (Hasenohrln or Pfannzelten) (Hare Eyes): Small balls of farina di frumento eaten with sauerkraut. Pane tirolese (Tiroler Brot): Bread made with flour, butter, almonds, cinnamon, cloves, lemon peel and egg. Foodman, can you make enough of this for all of us?? Vecchine (Alte Weiver): Made with flour, eggs, prunes, cooked 3 times with lard, cut into pieces then submerged in boiling sweet wine and then cooked another two times. This sounds intriguing, but the description is too vague to understand what is really being made. Numerous fruit liquors and eau d’vie are made in Alto Adige: Strawberry syrup = Himbeersaft Prune = Silvovitz Cherries = Kirsch Cumin = Kummel Seems so strange to think of these liquors as coming from an Italian region. While there are many pages devoted to the cuisine of the Balzano area, the Guida goes on to say that there are not many dishes that are regionally representative of the Trentino area. Some dishes that are listed: Canederli: similar to gnocchi, but very large and made with bread crumbs, flour, egg, milk, sausage, lard and parsley. They can be eaten in broth, or with sauerkraut. There are other dishes listed, but they are mostly variations on what is served in the Alto Adige region. What we are seeing here, is fundamentally German-esque mountain food. This is food designed for people who needed fuel to work in the mountains, meat dishes are scarcer and there seems to be much more reliance on pastas and polentas. Unless you are there in the summer, when it sounds like a fruit lovers paradise. I listed all these dishes because I think that even without specific recipes, the preparations seem to be ones that we are familiar with and for learning about TAA, it becomes a a matter of combining these ingredients in ways that we haven’t really explored yet. So, who is going to make some sauerkraut, with or without those drugs??

I'd be happy if you posted the recipes and photos. thanks!

Kevin, are you saying the marinade flavors weren't distinct in and of themselves? Or that the marinade didn't have enough umph? I still don't know about using ginger...if that's 'regionally correct'. Could be, seems that you would find ginger in the Veneto as Venice was a big spice capital, so I guess its logical for ginger to be used.

Sorry Pontormo, I really was having a tense battle with Image Gullet and forget to mention that I posted the chicken in a salt crust recipe here on my blog. Its still a work in progress...or method in progress. Gorgeous dinners everyone, as usual. Beautiful roasted pork loin, DG! You let your husband eat that while you ate the refrigerator special??

What's amazing is that such a banal article has set off such a wide ranging and intelligent discussion. The author needs to get out more....what he encountered in France exists all through Europe. Any Italian school kid can debate the mertis of porcini or truffles or vino nouvello. (any central Italian kid...before Busboy busts me on Italian city states). I found the opening sentence of the article particularly horrific...is that truly what people in the States think about France?? Are we that provincial? Tim, those were two interesting examples, but, what exactly are we debunking? That caviar really doesn't taste good...I disagree. I like salty, briny, bubbles of fishiness. I also like bottarga. That foie gras was celebrated for the extreme measures of cruelty needed to create it? That only marketing is responsible for the popularity of these two products and the reason why cockscombs aren't popular? Cockscombs aren't popular because they are nasty little bits, that even chopped up or ground, are still nasty. Certainly more food for thought, in any case, and I do think this is a topic that would benefit from further research and discussion. Food history is a perfect window for social anthropologists.