Adam Balic

In Paula Wolfert’s very good “Good Food from Morocco” she describes tracking down a speciality of Marrakesh – “Tangia”. When she eventually found somebody that could make the dish for her, it turned out to be a meat stew cooked in a pot overnight in an oven. The ingredients were listed as: shoulder of lamb, saffron, cumin, garlic, preserved lemon, oil salt pepper. While recently reading a translation of a medieval Arabic cookbook, by Charles Perry, I noticed a class of recipes described as ‘Tannur’. These are meat stews cooked overnight in an oven as well. Typical ingredients are: meat, carrots, onions, leeks, turnips, saffron, spices and a sweetener, such as date syrup. As ‘Tannur’ means oven, would I be correct in guessing that the Tangia is closely related to, if not the descendent, of the medieval Tannur stews? Also as Tannur = Tandoori, are there a similar class of dishes present in modern Indian cooking?

The plums used to make the best prunes in both France and California are the 'Prune d'agen' variety. This a European type (black skin with blue 'blush', yellow flesh) rather then Asian type plum. The Italian plum is most likely a similar type, so it should work well. To get the 'juicy' they may require the plums to have large amount of sugar at the time they are to be dried.

It is slightly dated and some of the recipes are compromises, but yes I would by it to read and cook from. 'Honey from a weed' is a lovely book (not all Italian though) and I would recommend it in general.

Original editions had excellent Guttuso illustrations. Recipes are fine and she is does her usual trick of taking you to the place she is talking about.

Sounds delicious. Recipe? The recipe is actually for sepia/cuttlefish, but squid will do at a pinch. I will link to a basic recipe. I would cook the squid/cuttle fish for longer and I would add some fresh herbs at he end of the cooking time. Sepia a zimino

Gratinee the stems. Make a mussel and swiss chard gratin (recipe from the south of france). Many italian recipe using Spinach can use SC (they originally used SC and related strains of beet greens anyway). Make a squid and swiss chard stew. Wilt swiss chard greens, add to mashed potato with a clove of crushed garlic add large amounts of olive oil and mix. Stuff leaves with meat and stew cook in tomato sauce.

For regional Italian cooking I would recommend two of Anna del Conte's books: The Classic Food of Northern Italy Gourmet Italy Similar type of anthoplogical style to Paula Wolfert, plus the recipes are very authentic and good as well.

Acid in the goats cheese can kill the zucchini flower flavour. Ricotta is in the background.

Another damn ex-pat!

Here is my link to kitchen renovation nightmare: Here be fucking plumbers Update: Kitchen almost completed. Tiles finally up after 6 months and four tilers. Very expensive combination boiler that is faulty is to be repaired.

Why not? They have a fairly distinctive flavour.

The frenchies don't stand a chance I'm afraid. I think that Old World v New World is more competative.

I don't think we have reached the definitive stage on this thread yet. There may be some recipies not yet posted. We should make bets? To be fair though I think that we should allow recipes for flowers of other members of the same species to be used.

how do diversity and variation differ? That would depend on context. So in my above line what I was saying was that Italy more then likely has the largest amount of stuffed zucchini flower recipes (Zucchini were bred in Italy after all and frying, with or without stuffing seems to be the most popular technique), but apart from frying/stuffing I haven't seen many other cooking techniques used for the flowers. Soup for instance? Or as a stuffing in ravioli?

Noting that your enthusiasm for your adopted home is sweet indeed CC, it does not seem to me neccesary to denigrate France's fleur de courgette in order to appreciate Italy's zucchini fiori. Also, mint, walnut and anchovy have been so far neglected from the stuffings....and while perhaps not all together, surely each lends its charms to stuffed zook blooms I do not denigrate those wonderful dishes. I only suggest there is more diversity of preparation in Italy than elsewhere. You can be assured that each of those missing ingredients you mention are used somewhere in multiple combinations in Italy. Well is this true? In this thread I have seen mention for fryed and stuffed zucchini flowers (so a variation on a single theme) and the ligurian torte. I could add to this in pasta sauce and possibly rissoto. So while there may be more diversity in stuffed zucchini blossoms, I can't seen a great deal of variation in preparation.

Why would you suggest that? Vegetables like tomatoes and zucchini have been in Italy long enough to no longer be considered foreign. Indeed they are both basic parts of Italian cuisine. I assure you Italians do not consider them to be foreign or exotic. The point of origin is now meaningless after centuries of cultivation. They are just as much a part of Italian cuisine as Mexican. And I mean to take nothing, and meaning to take nothing, from Mexican preparations. Sucker! I still maintain, however, that it is more lilely that there will be a greater use of a particular veg. at its point of origin. No always (eg. pasta for instance), but it is more likely. Given that in the case of the squash, it has been cultivated in central america for many thousands of years, there are many different types and they are used for different purposes. So I would guess that if anybody was to do a count there most likely would be more squash rescipes in central America then in Italy Interesting to note exactly how prevalent tomato etc are in Italy as it wasn't that long ago that they were a rarity. The wide spread use of tomatos in sauce is less then a 150 years old (based on how little mention of them is made in cook books before this period, the earliest mention of them being eaten in Italy is from 1544, oldest sauce recipe was 1692 and this was a raw garnish). Much less then this period in the North. I imagine that the older generation in Piedmonte can remember when they were not that common in the cooking. I wonder if this has to do with canned tomatos and how good they can be?

Quite correct. I would also suggest that the greatest variety of prepartions is actually more likely to be in the vegetables country/region of origin. I said on the UK board that I would be interested in seeing more authentic Mexican foods on egullet. Ex-pats can get a little enthusiastic sometimes. I think it is cute. Excellent, my plan proceeds a pace.

Priscilla - I think (may have to look this up) that the new world summer and winter squash + Zucchini replaced old world gourds, so they may have cooked similar dishes pre-New World contact. Rather like how the New World beans added to/replaced the pre-existing bean cookery of the old world (Fava beans, black eyed beans/peas and chickpeas). Whatever the case I thank God for zucchini flowers and wish that my window box had more then two zucchini plants in it!

Adam, are you telling me yu can't get olive oil in the uk? I'll sell you some, very cheap..... Peter thank you for your kind offer . As you can see in my post I mentioned 'New Season Olive Oil'. My relatives in Italy work on an estate that produces very good quality olive oil. The oil they use for cooking, sells for 12 quid for 500 ml in the UK. A little to expensive The quality of the olive oil I can afford in the UK for deep frying is to low to use for deep frying, so I use peanut oil as it's flavour is neutral, not actively nasty like cheap olive oil.

The flowers I cook in Chianti are much better then the UK versions as in Italy I get to use new season olive oil and in the UK peanut oil.

So that they keep their shape rather then going mushy and shapeless.

Five flowers per person? Miser.

Sailfish then.

I think that I like most preparations of zucchini flowers (although stuffing the female flowers is strictly for tourists ). Recently I had a ligurinan torte that was made up of zucchini flowers, which was very good . Prehaps Pongi would be able to give us a recipe?

I recently noticed an array of 'Lloyd Grossman Ethnic Sauces' in a supermarket. How authentic do you want it? What is Lloyd Grossman, he sounds like an Englishman that has been swallowed entire by a Canadian, yet still continues to speak.