Adam Balic

Although is not "Lasagna" simply the pasta itself, rather then specifically the dish, so the pasta with any ingredients would still be lasagna. But to get the soft texture, it if most likely a case of fresh pasta made with soft wheat flour and a relatively low amount egg, cooked slowly over a longish period.

It's not all anti-cold stuff. Summer pudding, Pimms, eh....watercress eh.....

Hey, it is a big weekend! Getting back to Britishness ( or Englishness etc ) in food, it would be nice to know what this actually ment. For instance I made a green roast the other day (pork leg cut down to the bone, cuts filled with heavily herbed forcemeat, leg tied and roasted, from Northern England), served this to some English/Scottish friends none of which have ever seen anything like it and would have guessed that it was Italian, not English. So can the cuisine be defined at all?

Hallie - I think that this is a very good point, British food is fushion food I guess. One thing that may account for peoples observations of 'what happened to English/British food' is the many of the new flavours techniques that have been absorbed, don't at first appear form a logical progression from 'Traditional British food' to 'Med/SE-Asian bright flavours'. But I imagine that when you are part of a transition period it never seems as logical as to somebody with a retrospective view of the events. I was looking a survey of British food preferences, the most common home cooked Sunday main meal was Spag. Bol. (except in Yorkshire, who prefered the Sunday raost still). I wonder how long it will be until Spag. Bol. is considered 'English'?

This site has some interesting historical English food. Historic food

OK, is clearer now. Have made non-Kosher Anglo-Irish type Corned beef, this is basically packing the beef in salt, as the salt liquifies you turn the meat in the brine solution, over a number of days. So a little different in process.

OK that is the Koshering process, but I am still unclear what you mean by corning? Are you saying that there is another salting (corning?) step on top of the salting to remove blood step?

What is the difference between "salting" and "corning"? Just curious about the process and how it may be done differently from non-kosher (orginally the 'corn' in corning refered to the size of the salt lumps used, so corning would be salting).

Does your butcher de-salt there corn beef for sale? Could be a wee salty if not.

I have 1 kg of the very same Brutti ma Buoni with me right now!

How about "Have pie, you want pie?". Eggs are good, eggs are groovy, but an egg is not a pie.

divina - sadly I don't live in Florence, but I have relatives that live in Prato/Gaioli, so I vist several times a year. I was there last week infact. So maybe a drink in the future? The book presentation was in Prato, it was 12-18 (?) months ago and it was for a book of Chianti wines. Lots of wine and food on the terrace of the commune palazzo, including the porcetta with your (!) red pepper jelly*, raw beef with olive oil and the Soprasatta, which was excellent and did contain orange rind (and maybe pear?). Also many excellent dolce from the shops in Prato, including Antonio Mattei. I like Prato, it has some great food places and who would think that it was such a nice town at the centre considering how ugly it is to approach from Florence. * Enjoyed this so much I have been making it at home to the best of mine abiltiy.

Delia again See the recipe in the above link, by the eg-definition these woud be popovers correct? But they aren't. Also they aren't domed, so how does this work?

The ligurians seem to use Swiss Chard with a variety of white fish and I have also seen several references to a traditional pie made with Swiss Chard and Ricotta. The latter sounds unusual, hopefully I'll give it a try when I stay near Recco next month. Most likely a recipe similar to this:

True, but you practically live in Newfoundland and I hear that they build houses out of lard out there. Not sure about how much fat would have ended up in the original batter puddings. Spit roasted meat was sometimes pre-boiled and nearly always larded, so it may not have been that swimming in fat. Which is why these puddings practically died out after the potato became popular. Roast tattie = magical exotic pudding that grows on a plant fully formed, they only need to be shoved under the roast.

Try making it at sea level, then at high attitude. Plot the puffocity v altitude, then select the level of puffocity you desire then work out what altitude you will have to make you Yorkshire puddings at. For some reason it always turns out to be Leeds.

Dario Cecchini. How lucky. I was a book launch where he provided the meat, excellent porcetta (with red pepper jelly) and jellied pig head thing (like brawn, can't remember the Tuscan word though).

You don't use that much fat when making a traditional type Yorkshire pudding. Bow to the Delia. 2 tablespoons in a large dish is just lubrication and flavour. But, yes it is easier to make the smaller individual ones if the moulds have more hot fat.

Makes sense. Tuscan pizza isn't really pizza it's just schiacciata with tomato, just like most of the stuffed pide in Turkey seem to be sold as 'pizza' also. Must remember not to mention this next time I am in Prato, otherwise I will proberly get a shoeing from a pack on enraged bean-eater "pizzaiuoli". Very interesting about the Tramonti v Naples thing. I had wondered about the D.O.C. pizza thing and couldn't work it out as the pizza in Italy seem to vary from region to region so why try dictate what a "Pizza" really is internationally, now this makes sense...

Adam, a very brief answer: the Neapolitan style is mostly limited to southern Italy. The crispy style is more widespread northwards. It is normally referred to as "Roman style". There is also a Sicilian style, though I'm not sure it is recognised as such, which is much more like a pan pizza. If I have abit more time later tonight I'll try to give a more detailed answer ciao Crispy base is 'Roman Style' then. Damn I thought it may be popular in Tuscany due to the presence of schiacciata ( the crispy type, rather then the focaccia type). Any idea if the pizza was actually introduced into the North from Naples or it something like it had always been there (pizza bianca type things maybe).

I've never seen it done, but that doesn't mean it couldn't/wouldn't/shouldn't be. The only question is, would it still be a popover? The distinctions that define it are the type of fat and the shape of the tin; take either of those away and you end up with a hybrid; take both away and poof! Yorkshire pud. ("Bloody January again!") So you would have a 'Yorkover' or a 'Popshire'? Ah, batter and hot fat is there anything finer. Nope. Oh, bless you and curse you, Adam Balic, you've just added two delicious phenomena to the batter pudding lineup. The Yorkshire, the Popover, the Yorkover, the Popshire, now I want them all. Right NOW. There are also puddings placed under roasting meat in mediaval arabic cooking sources so these would be 'Abassidiovers'. Ah, the Yorkover and the Popshire, never has so little effort been expended in creating a fushion cuisine.

Unfortunately this is true. Thai green curry chicken pizza anybody? I guess what I was interersted in is if these various styles of pizza are due to a regional adaption to some type of pre-existing 'bread with topping' model. There are numerous types of flat bread in Italy for instance that could influence preferences in pizza base texture etc.

I've never seen it done, but that doesn't mean it couldn't/wouldn't/shouldn't be. The only question is, would it still be a popover? The distinctions that define it are the type of fat and the shape of the tin; take either of those away and you end up with a hybrid; take both away and poof! Yorkshire pud. ("Bloody January again!") So you would have a 'Yorkover' or a 'Popshire'? Ah, batter and hot fat is there anything finer.

Not familiar with the Jamie Oliver pud, but can tell you that popovers are identical to Yorkshire pud in their composition, except that they are made without the all-important beef dripping - and the tin therefore is not pre-heated. So the taste and texture end up being somewhat more... tame. A popover, partly because of the lack of dripping and partly because of its smaller size, is generally a bit drier than a Y pud. Lends itself, while still hot, to being ripped asunder and slathered with butter. They're very good - I love 'em - but they're not exactly at home with roast beef. Spose you could make 'em with dripping, though, and that would change the equation materially (though size still does matter...). Spose if I'd done my homework before posting I'd see that this is pretty much what Jamie O has done and therefore most of this post is pointless... but there you are, that's the kind of guy I'm. But even if you did make a popover with dripping, you'd still get a slightly different texture from Yorkshire pud because of the muffin tin. I don't have the physics/chemistry vocabulary to address this in the correct technical terms, but what it amounts to is that because the tin is so narrow, the batter has no place to go but up, so the entire popover is like the puffier edge of the Yorkshire pud; you don't get any of that lovely soft greasy un-puffed bit that you get in the middle of the pud. EDIT: There, see? What Fat Guy said (while I was still typing away) - only less succinct. Should have guess that UK=lard. Lets see. Ye Olde type batter puddings were batter (like pancake batter) cooked under the roast, where they got saturated with drippings and juices and ended up like a thick custard thing. Modern Yorshire puddings are similar, but often the batter is poured into hot fat and they puff up at the edges and are soft in the middle. Post-modern YPs are often made in muffin tins, hot oil in the bottom of the tin, batter placed in tin, tin shoved into a very hot oven. Puddings expand over the muffin tin top. These are higher, dried and crisper then the old style versions. So a popover would never be cooked in the hot fat? Even in a muffin tin.

Second the great post Moby. Have been curious about the different types of pizza in Italy. Not, you know different types of pie called pizza, but different types of pizza type pizza . Eh, yes. Well in one place in Prato (near Florence) a pizza place offers four different types. A Naples style (as shown above) and the local type (very thin base, almost crisped to cracker stage), calzone and a puffy-dough type. Different styles have different toppings. Is this type of regional variation common? Would be interesting as I assume Pizza hasn't been consumed all over Italy (or at least in the North) for more then what 50 years?