Pontormo

1) Sorry, I forgot since the polenta sandwiches stuck in the mind. 2) Povero bambino! Mine cost $4.99 !!!!!! ETA match appropriate emoticon to its intended phrase.

In Classic Food of Northern Italy. Anna del Conte recommends Cuciniera Genovese, first published in 1863 and written by Gio Batta & Giovanni Ratto. Here's a link with a few more books about Genoa, some cookbooks, if all in Italian. Because of all the sailors leaving the ports of Genoa, the new thread on salted cod is quite relevant to this month's region.

I agree with Kevin. I think your pizza bianca looks quite authentic, April. From what I understand, focaccia is one of the earliest types of bread from the Italian peninsula. (While the Greeks were baking loaves, the Romans were stirring porridges.) Also, Downie acknowledges that Romans produce pizza bianca of varying textures, heights or thicknesses. I presume this means some are not all that distinguishable from focaccia, a specialty of Liguria. * * * * Looking through Molto Italiano last night in search of Ligurian dishes, I came across more Roman specialties clamoring to be made, such as suppli al telefono. I also treated myself to one of those exquisite long-stemmed globe artichokes that Nathan probably can find easily, but for me, are rare treasures. The introductory photograph in Cooking the Roman Way is of a table set on a balcony looking across the rooftops towards the monuments and churches of the city. Fat, tight bulbs of these artichokes are in the foreground, their stems rising like the columns and towers in the background. Pale green fava beans. A thick wedge of Pecorino. The weather is beautiful. I have a rooftop terrace even if the marble around here wasn't quarried quite so long ago. I think it's going to take a while for this thread to sink to page 2.

The farmer forgot to bring them to the market this morning ! Heinz felt really bad--really, really bad and promised to bring them next week with some extra for one of the founders of my local market (its 10th year!) who has never cooked them either. As fate would have it, someone at the mushroom stall gave me three enormous mushrooms just for volunteering. They look a bit like porcini (well not that big), with thick, long stalks and small pale brown caps. I will have to see if Liguria's cuisine does interesting things with mushrooms now that we are about to begin a new month. I promise to report about the cardoons when I do get my hands on them.

Most potato breads familiar to me are made by adding mashed, cooked potatoes into the dough. No potato starch/flour appears in the recipes. When red bliss potatoes are used, I like retaining the skins and seeing the flecks of color in each slice.

"Destructured," Alberto? Has gastronomy gone to bed with de Saussure and Roland Barthes? Meaning? After grating and cooking the Montasio, the frico is then chopped and mixed with other ingredients stuffed into the ravioli?

Eden, thank you or do gratium teum or whatever the case may be:wub: Wonderful to see how the Ancient Roman dish doesn't seem so very distant and removed from our own time after all!

I have to add that I was faced with similar confusion when baking a type of Mantuan cake (Torta Paradiso) that uses potato versus wheat flour, cream of tartar & baking soda. Eggs are not separated in the recipe I used; they are in others. The second problem I had was deflation. It rose perfectly. Seemed set. Brilliant! Then over the next five to ten minutes, I watched the center turn into bright yellow goo, though a ring of very nice cake remained.

I ended up making two separate gratins instead of placing a layer of stems over greens. Stems were simply seasoned and topped with butter and Parm; greens were topped with buttered crumbs. Both were absolutely delicious. I used Deborah Madison's recipe for a bechamel destined for gratins which I highly recommend. The milk is boiled with onion, crushed garlic and aromatics. Once roux is incorporated, it's simmered for a long time in a double boiler. All the flavors come through and really make the dish.

Since Klary is shopping, I'll pipe up to say that piling fresh arugula on top of a pizza hot out of the oven is done in Italy, too. It's especially delicious and refreshing when done on a simple pizza margherita with a layer of prosciutto dolce (also uncooked and unbaked) mediating between the gooey, oil-flecked surface of the pizza and the undressed leaves. The arugula does not wilt to the degree that it does under a pan-grilled steak, but if you cut through some of the green into the tomato sauce and cheese when the pizza is still hot...

Mr. BJ--that recipe for stuffed pizza, while not as clear as it could be, does indeed respond to quite a few pork and fat-loving eGullet members. Just reporting that I made something I am surprised no one else has documented by now: Stracciatella, as in the Roman version of egg-drop soup with lemon, the egg stirred quickly into rags, mixed with the ubiquitous combination of Parmigiano-Reggiano and Pecorino Romano cheeses, with lemon juice added at the end. Nothing exciting, actually rather blah despite good stock. Just good to have as a first course if you need something quick to tide you over until a main course is ready and the temperature's dropped. This, by the way, is traditional for Easter, too.

Why does this all make me want to log out and bake oatmeal cookies with dark chocolate chips? Ta.

(Last one, but please note, this is a PARODY of a hymn, sung by the Wobblies, a worker's union. The tone's sarcastic, so lyrics cannot be used in defense of pie. Sorry. Cake still wins.)

I take the cake!

Is that pie on your face?

Honey, let's cakewalk. Edited not only because I overlooked the fact that "cakewalk" did indeed speak early in this thread, but also for the following addition: I just learned that like the "pie in the sky" line in the song by the worker's union, here "cake" does not have positive connotations. The African-American dance did become popular and its original significance got lost when it entered mainstream culture. However, it originally was a subtle, hidden way to mock the hoighty-toity ways that umm members of the hegemonic culture danced when they were dressed up and being sophisticated. Therefore, this post does not support the superioty of cake and undermines my original intentions.

The quarrel over classification of cheesecake gives me pause. My favorite dessert in the whole wide world is a pumpkin pie, just set, removed from the oven when the center was a teeny bit wobbly, but now solid. Lots of fresh ginger. Made from fresh, roasted organic pumpkin, of course. Cream, but condensed milk more than acceptable. Flaky crust. Cool. Icebox cold next morning even better, though see remark about crust above. I love tarts and crostada and whatever name you want to use. Perfect fruit. Perfect custard. These are pies, dammit and with the right apricot, raspberry, apple or pear, yum. Peach? The best of all. The first elegant dessert I made was Julia Child's and even though the custard was runny, it will be my favorite forever and ever. Of course, peaches are the best fruit in the whole wide world as everyone knows. As far as I'm concerned Tart Tatin is pie. You bake it in Pyrex. You saute the apples in butter and sugar and cover them with a crust. It's pie. That kind of pastry, unlike the solidified batter on the pineapple upside-down cake, makes it a pie. And Boston cream pie is a cake. Now, while I love pumpkin pie more than any other dessert, I still would choose cake over pie. Why? In part, I am skeptical about the existence of the soul, believing it to be a cultural construct. I am not sure I have one, though I certainly feel compassion and can get down when the music calls for it. I do have a stomach, most definitely, and taste buds, and most of all a brain that carries the past and nerve endings that attach personal history to taste buds and said stomach. Cake is birthday parties, first of all. Cake is special occasions. Cake takes more work. Eggs get separated. Whisks spin. Muscles tire. Lots of pans. Butter needs to sit out first. Beaters get licked. There's goo. There is layer after layer. It's more complex. It can be in any shape you want. You can put gummy worms stuck going in and out the frosting as if burrowing into the chocolate earth. There's something light with crumb and texture...if you're lucky. Bad things happen if things go wrong. Skill and weather and chance are all messed up with cake. Cake's a better metaphor for life than pie or even a bowl of cherries. For someone who was [told she was] allergic to wheat as a child old enough to have built up a memory of five or six birthday cakes of her own plus all the others of cousins, aunts, uncles, parents and grandparents and friends, to be denied cake was devastating. Cheesecake has flour mixed into the cream cheese along with the eggs according to parents, and so it, too, was taboo and it, too, was cake. Pie? You could eat the stuff inside the crust, easy. Cake had more mystique. And when, finally, you discovered you could eat it again, cake was still special. Cake was and remains Paradise Regained. Besides, chocolate cake is so much better than chocolate pie. Ling?

How about Eat this Book. A Year of Gorging and Glory on the Competitive Eating Circuit? Already done A Meal Observed, devoted to a single night at Taillevent in Paris? How about The Duchess Who Wouldn't Sit Down? Read all the Mark Kurlansky books on cod, salt & now, the new one on oysters? If you liked learning about salt, why not switch to fiction and read The Book of Salt about a cook? Or if you want to know about oyster sellers and the fate of one in Victorian England, see the novel by Sarah Waters, Tipping the Velvet which admittedly leaves culinary matters behind very quickly for life on the wicked stage and scandal, but begins on an evocative note: Does the book have to be new? Long before Kurlansky's explorations of a single food item there was John McPhee on oranges. Then, there's the classic Latin American novel, Dona Flor and Her Two Husbands by Jorge Amado, recipes at the end of chapters, better than the movie, though the Brazlian original (NOT the stupid Hollywood remake) is pretty sexy. Interested in food history? Consult Charlemagne's Tablecloth by Nichola Fletcher which surveys feasting. Become an expert on pigs. There's Pig Perfect by Peter Kaminsky. There's another recent one by an American food writer, she says vaguely. Then there's The Singular Beast: Jews, Christians, and the Pig by Claudine Fabre-Vassas whose title omits Muslims, alas.

H-Cat: You're probably thinking of a very labor-intensive recipe for canoli filled with beet greens with a walnut sauce. It's in the first book, appropriately, Greens. One thing that is not mentioned in this or in the linked threads is how suitable beet greens are for gratins on their own or combined in layers with thinly sliced potatoes, carmelized onions, cooked rice...you name it. I've got nearly two pounds of tender greens from baby beets, about of the third of the weight taken up by slender stems that Miz Ducky points out is really a third vegetable. While it's almost a crime not to take advantage of their youth by serving them simply and quickly boiled, dried and in a salad topped with the roasted roots, I plan to cook greens and stems separately, the latter for longer. Chop them up. Below: the chopped greens with bechamel with a little grated cheese, the sauce flavored with a lightly crushed garlic clove. Above: the stalks treated as Italians sometimes do large, fleshy chard stalks in a gratin, only toss them with lots Parmigiano Reggiano and chunky bread crumbs coated with olive oil or butter. Dinner with sausages, roasted chicken or crisp salad, fruit and nuts. Another possibility would be to chop stems into 1 inch lengths and batter fry them. Serve with sage leaves treated the same way. Putting these on top of the gratin seems excessive.

Heaving mound of mayonnaise upon a bed of fries Apples, speckled, gold, crisp in October, melting between layers of pastry and cream Pears found only in the Netherlands that turn crimson when cooked Pasta in white bowls, strands coated with cheese, pancetta and tomato Your balcony filled with flowers, table set for two Books open to pictures of gooey desserts and a comfortable chair Intimidating stalls of seafood conquered out of love Rats dancing at the sight of peas. Peas! Teahouse in the middle of the park, buds on trees Have another, yes, just one more. Well, this one looks a little broken... Dinner thread ogling Amsterdam on bicycle, bags filled with greens Yumm, lekker! What a lovely boterkoek! Taste the ginger… K syrupy, floating in a bowl of pap Lists, lists, shopping lists, menus, guests… Another week of celebrations, a new year of cooking ahead Roasted, braised, smoked, simmered, blanched, kneaded Yes!

Oooooooo! By the end of April, we should have a few more carbonaras, don't you think? ***** Elie & Kevin: I was wondering if using ricotta made with goat's milk really made a difference in the Batali recipe? I just was looking for something to do with all the ricotta I picked up on sale, so did not replicate his gnocchi. ****** Finally, I realize it is not as good as gelato (which is supposed to have been eaten in one form or another in Ancient Rome), but after finishing up my free Ben & Jerry's cone, I popped into a bookstore and saw de Blasi's fairly new complement to her book on Northern Italian cooking which I know Kevin likes. Her treatment of Southern Italy includes Lazio and both the islands of Sicily and Sardigna. It looks really good.

What a wealth of wonderful posts! It's 3 in the afternoon and it's hard to look at these after skipping lunch. However, I wanted to express delight in seeing the "friars's beards"--something I don't ever recall seeing in Tuscany. After being so pleased about the tender green fava beans I found within less than perfect pods, I felt green with envy while looking at the supply purchased at Calimero's market. And Elie, your crostada is exquisite ! I didn't realize that Mario's ricotta gnocchi are considered a Roman specialty. They were the first thing I prepared from his cookbook and the reason I returned the copy from my library to buy my own. I use the Zuni Cafe cookbook to prepare the gnocchi, but did follow MB's instructions for everything else faithfully even though the dish seemed excessive. I loved it! It's one of those things that represents all the basic food groups so well that with a little bread on the side and a glass of wine, you don't have to feel guilty about being too lazy to prepare a salad or anything else.

Wow! Sandy, your new job should be in the Chamber of Commerce or somewhere in municipal government. Those folks have to see this. And I know I definitely will take the train up to see what you've just shown us.

Klary: Your pasta looks wonderful; I'm so glad you liked your first amatriciana as much as you did. I've never eaten sweetbreads before. There are always firsts (and nevers) out there. Me, I just prepared Vignarola for the first time. Has anyone else made this dish? Actually, I am still eating it right now with a glass of amber-colored wine from Pays D'Oc. It is so, so good that I had to turn my computer on and urge you to track down the ingredients and make it if you have the chance. I am sure one of the links in this thread has the recipe; if not, try epicurious.com since I know it's been in Gourmet before. Today was the absolutely perfect day to eat this vegetable stew: cloudy and cool after a day of drizzle and rainstorms, perfect for a long walk down to the farmers's market, for reading the Sunday paper and standing over the stove watching the sun come out and dapple the leaves on the trees. Yes, snort, this is corny, but this dish really is like spring in a bowl . For that reason, I am preparing a rhubarb dessert next. I followed Downie's recipe for the most part, braising slivers of medium-sized purple artichokes* in olive oil, mint, garlic and white wine, separately. Shellling over two pounds of fava beans was a bit of a chore, but I blanched the larger ones to remove the skins and they just popped out. These went into the enameled Dutch oven with tiny red-skinned potatoes, onions, olive oil, water and the last of the peas in the freezer. Contents of both pots were combined, reserving the liquid from the Dutch oven for another use, and then simmered some more before checking seasoning, adding parsely and a drizzle of olive oil. Umm! Fresh lima beans straight from the farm were a revelation after a childhood of miserable succotash. I am sure any similar substitute for fava beans would be wonderful. Lidia Bastianich cautions us to think of recipes as inspiration, not doctrine. Next time, I will try the stew with pancetta or as a side dish for lamb or poultry. ***** A friend once told me that on average, home cooks prepare seven recipes in each cookbook on their shelves. Granted, eGullet attracts a more obsessed crowd, but I have to say that this project has made me consult what I own more conscientiously. I'm up to thirteen recipes in Cooking the Roman Way after a long time of picking it up just to make a handful of pastas. *Hathor, you inspired me not to waste the leaves and other trimmed parts. I cooked them in 2 cups of chicken stock that I will use to make a risotto. I even dipped some of the ones fished out of the stock in melted butter.

AT LAST, I AM GOING TO BE ABLE TO MAKE CARDOONS NEXT WEEK!!!!!!!! (Courtesy of one kind farmer at my local Sunday market. )