Pontormo

Now, were the venue in Australia, she could send her son.

We now number eleven; the last spot was taken. Since twelve is probably just as easy as eleven, there is probably room for one more....so I will let the next person who's coming solo to join us, too. Otherwise, I'd suggest calling the restaurant yourself to make your own reservation at the same time and plan to introduce yourself. I've been told by several eGullet members that Busboy is hard to miss. Also check back here periodically. I'll let you know if anyone has cancelled. If you couldn't make this event, but like the idea of future eGullet activities, feel free to send me a PM, too. I'll start to save a list. Cheers! Pontormo

I'm sorry about the disappointing road trip, and your brother's health. On the other hand, the rice has had much more time, now, to become infused with the flavor of the truffle. Up thread I mentioned that Roberto Donna likes to plant sformati in the middle of a soup. I am planning on making Mario Batali's chestnut sformato and wondered if you have any recommendations for a complementary flavor for a crema di riso to engulf the thing. Donna makes a parsely sformato to go with rice that is inflused with truffle oil. (He also pairs turnip sformati with beef broth dotted with beet oil and submerged crouton spread with roasted garlic paste.) Since I don't have truffle oil, any other suggestions?

While I can't say I am surprised that Queen Elizabeth II refuses to eat raw oysters, etc., I was intrigued by Adam's remark and found this: Her Majesty Goes to Italy. While it is a gross stereotype to think all Italian food contains garlic, but to inform one's Italian hosts that one does not wish to ingest anything with garlic???? Hasn't Prince Charles conducted himself with greater culinary bravery in some of the former colonies he's visited? I know he's conservative about architecture and wild about things organic, but I thought there have been reports that distinguish him from his mum's tastes in other ways.

Exquisite, Klary! I'd like to know the fate of the black truffle from Oregon.

Most important: What would you serve her dogs?

Sorry, my stepfather's Manchester roots and all....must not enunciate his "t" as crisply as the Eton boys...

April, look at the links I provide to online library cataloges, especially in the Italian Bibliography thread. It's either there or here (where I offer a string of online sites on Piemonte) that I explain how you can look through the Florentine catalogue. You're referring to an author who, if memory serves me correctly, may be the editor of a series in which each volume is devoted to a single region. What we need are a few participants in Italy proper. However, I will make a point of going down to the LOC (Library of Congress) some time in the next few weeks and report back on some of those here in D.C. I might try making a few things from Lombardia. If anyone is in NYC or London or a university town, there should be resources, too.

....and the Chip Buddy. However, kind sirs, I must remember the rules of good manners on eGullet when it comes to politics and chauvanism when I beg to differ. I personally am grateful for the simple, amazing graces of the Italian sandwich. Freshly sliced, heavily scented roast pork in between two pieces of moist, thick bread, ahh! Fried zucchini blossoms and ham on focaccia....ahhhh! Thanks to such wonders and the excesses of Italian-American culture, we have some of the greatest of them all: the eggplant or the meatball sub! However, we digress. Getting back to the hot dog on a roll, there is something to be said for the virtue of bread sandwiching something hot, whether vegetable or a tube of spicy ground meat.

Completely different angle on this topic, but in Washington, D.C., the recycling facilities do not accept yogurt containers (Number 5?) among other plastics used by food companies. This strikes me as ironic since I go through so many 32 oz. containers, most from one company that tauts its environmental virtues. I am not sure if the resulting conflict is due to my city's limitations, or if manufacturers are not attending to the policies of municipal recycling plants. However, I am sure there are eGullet members with opinions and some scientific expertise.

Not exactly the jolt of Satori, but this never occurred to me.

Would anyone care to speak about the relative merits of the cookbooks that organize recipes according to regions of Italy? I am referring to the comprehensive surveys, i.e. Boni, Root (? if it is a cookbook), Roden & the Culinaria. I have seen the cookbooks that focus exclusively on Northern Italy, though I would be interested in opinions on this topic, too. Edited for sake of clarification & lack of proof-reading. Yes, Kevin, indeed.

Thanks for reply. I bumped up that interesting thread in the Cooking forum, thanks to Adam's reference, with a link to your photograph.

ANYONE FOR THE LAST SEAT IN THE HOUSE?

I am trying to keep purchases of cookbooks to a minimum since books in general are a terrible weakness. I confess that each time I take something else out of the library, I want to buy it, though! This thread is doing me in since I now feel I have to have the NEW translation of Pellegrini, Ada Boni, Waverly Root & revised Del Conte. Some of these are cheap. THEN there are the historical books in modern editions that I cited on the Biblio thread. THEN there are all the books on Italian food that are coming out of Italy, including those produced in affiliation with the Slow Food movement. I am spoiled as a resident of D.C. with a reader's card at the Library of Congress. I do read Italian and there are plenty of good Italian books for me to use. (Problem is that photocopies are 25 cents a page!!!!! as opposed to free when it comes to other federal libraries.) I was trying to think of other people in different places throughout the world. Well, I need to log out for the day.

I am so glad you made the veal meatballs in broth, too! I really liked the soup. I eyed the tongue at the supermarket, but I haven't been able to get over silly prejudices, nor have I had the patience to follow the regiment of courses with utmost fidelity. I bought some leeks this weekend. I hope you'll join me in making the pasta with cornmeal so that others get to see what the dish looks like.

P.S. Of course you should use a container of ground black pepper instead of grinding your own peppercorns when making this dish. But aren't you supposed to use a GLASS baking dish? Oops, edited to add: Corning Ware is good, too.

RJ: The pictorial is one of the funniest things I have seen here at eGullet! It reminds me of a standard assignment that is supposed to teach you the importance of being both specific and explicit while writing good, clear prose. The instructor brings a loaf of bread, a jar each of PB & J to class along with a plate and a knife. S/he asks students to provide instructions for assembling a PBJ sandwich, then demonstrates what would happen were you to follow the directions they provide. This is not quite the same thing, I know, but you should include this post in your book proposal for The Idiot's Guide to the Hot Dish and Casserole.

This weekend I walked by a small one-storey white house with colored glass bottles perched above the sash on every single window that I could see. They evoked the homes of great-aunts and uncles in New England. Even my stepfather kept a collection of old milk bottles next to one of the kitchen windows. They were made to endure. My own cupboards are filled with glass jars from Hellman's mayonnaise and whatever brand of spaghetti sauce listed tomatoes first vs. tomato puree and olive vs. soybean oil when I purchased them. There was no such thing as The Container Store when I was in grad school and started to fill them with dried beans, dried fruit and grains. They're precious since Hellman's switched to plastic which I despise (though especially when it comes to mustard; it doesn't come out of the bottle as easily) and there is only one kind of spaghetti sauce that I buy now and then. My favorite is a bottle from Barilla when the company first entered the US market. The molded glass reads "ITALIA" in between vines of ripe tomatoes. One of the things I love best about European packaging is the small round glass jar used for individual yogurts. Right now, however, my prized possession is the can that contained Sicilian salt-packed anchovies until a few weeks ago. If you've got a copy of Molto Italiano, leaf through to one of the first pages in the section on fish. You'll see why. I LOVE old-fashioned, bright graphics. It sits on a shelf as I try to find a way to get rid of the funky smell. Beside my computer pens and pencils fill a ceramic jar made for Dijon mustard, the kind that used to come sealed in red wax. What do I hate? The graphics on Ben & Jerry's, the old and the new. However, this thread seems to be more about the container than its decoration, no?

60 of 100 calories when we're talking Applegate Farms Organic Uncured Beef Hot Dogs. The fact that organic hot dogs are made...or that vegetarians buy their kids* hot dogs made from soy beans says how important these things are to some of us here in the U.S. *Hell. They eat them, too.

It's kind of late, but here are some pictures. You'll have to scroll down....

Whose recipe did you use for the Pollo alla Marengo? I did a double-take when I saw the eggs and shrimp since neither are included in Kramer's book; his recipe calls for Madeira, too, along with dried porcini, stock, parsley & garlic. That kind of excess does seem to be very much within the spirit of nineteenth-century France if later than 1800. Pellegrini's recipe (published in 1891) calls simply for dry WHITE wine and stock, then a sprinkling of parsley and lemon juice. None of the other cookbooks at home have recipes for this dish, though one of the first things I ever made from Julia Child's Mastering the Art of... was a veal stew Marengo with tomatoes, mushrooms, orange peel and white wine. Anna del Conte dates the recipe precisely to June 14th & calls for the shrimp, if not the eggs. Her chicken is sauteed in butter, then cooked with white wine and mushrooms. River shrimp are boiled in red wine, then added to the plate with fried bread and parsely. Explaining how the original recipe was gussied up over time, she notes that because the Austrians captured the provisions of Napoleon's army: "It is therefore most unlikely that the chicken was surrounded by small puff-pastry shapes, or that tomatoes were added to the sauce, particularly as tomatoes were virtually unknown in Piedmont at the time. It seems probable that these two additions were made by Escoffier when he annotated the recipe." [in Gastronomy of Italy (New York: 1987): 257.] Many Italian online sources include both the eggs and shrimp, including those devoted exclusively to Piemonte.

Finally, heads up: I conducted a preliminary search to see what kinds of resources might be available for us to use for the next two regions that are leading contenders for February. Surprisingly, I found only one cookbook in English that features either of these regions: Fred Plotkin on Friuli which is not in my public library (nor Ada Boni, Claudia Roden...). I checked the Library of Congress catalogue and found numerous publications on Lombardia and individual cities such as Milan or Mantua...tutti in italiano. Since most of us have had ossobuco, I am sure we have recipes for Lombardia's specialties at home. We'd just have help each other out a bit more. There seem to be numerous online sources, designed to entice tourists and visitors. Many are from sites I already linked near the beginning of this thread, such as Delicious Italy.

"The few times we [children] were allowed to dine downstairs, flawless dishes would be brought in by Emilia, our beloved cook, who bustled unperturbed between her stove and the dining room. The food was invariably white--uniformily white--and bland. Always very good, always impeccably executed, but so bland. Many souffles, lots of sformati (timbales), paste al gratin, and beautiful fish--maybe a merluzzo (a small Mediterranean cod), steamed to perfection, with a whisper of extra-virgin olive oil. Food was judged by the same standard as fashion: spiciness was as vulgar as a skintight dress." --Patrizia Chen, Rosemary and Bitter Oranges Robiola e pane di tre cereali Risotto ai Finocchio Trotta Ripiena in Salsa di Barbera The meal began with a small square semi-soft cheese that falls somewhere below a very ripe Brie in terms of real funk-appeal. It was wonderful with bread that was baked less than an hour before I got home, still warm while gliding slowly from my hand to the clerk's at the check-out line. While eating cheese before the primo is more American than European, it helped keep hunger at bay when the primo calls for an hour's worth of braising even before the rice is toasted. From what I gather, the term "robiola" is used for numerous semi-soft cheeses with edible rinds that come from different parts of Northern Italy, most like mine which hails from a small cheesemaker near Cuneo. According to Kramer, most robiola from Piemonte deviates from the norm, being a fresh cheese like the one posted earlier in this thread to show off little bits of black truffle on top. I followed Matt Kramer's recipe for the most part when making the risotto. The taste of the braised fennel was augmented only by the usuall shallots and a couple of garlic cloves and pinch of cumin (huh? made no difference) that is added to olive oil and water while it was melting, the entire lot except for the oil, pureed and added to the rice when it was cooking. Nice, warm, but underwhelming nursery food, even though the organic bulb was fresh and perky while crisp. I've made Marcella's fish braised with fennel and mashed potatoes with fennel and enjoyed them both. Were I to do this again, I wouldn't puree the entire vegetable; I'd let the reserved pieces carmelize to a rich color and throw them into the risotto along with the grated cheese. Some vermouth in the broth might help too...and maybe some freshly ground, toasted fennel seeds instead of cumin. Now that I have mastered risotto fritto (cold leftovers flattened into a fat pancake and fried in olive oil until crisp & gold on the outside), I have to say leftovers were better. The troat was the most satisfying part of the meal even if Roberto Donna needs a consultant to edit and revise the text of his recipe. (Instructions misleading unless you anticipate problems that a literalist might experience; overly fussy.) Cf. Kevin's lovely version of the dish. My recipe called for butterflied fillets of trout. Pork chops, maybe, but most fish fillets are sold as one half of the fish, cut lenghthwise with head and tail removed. I just bought a whole, clean fish. The stuffing saved the meal from being utterly white and entirely understated since it contained shallots and mushrooms AND pancetta along with the customary blend of strongly scented herbs. These are softened up a bit with tomato paste and Madeira, though I used the last of a bottle of vermouth since I did not want the taste to interfere with the Barbera. The stuffed fish is placed on a bed of softened shallots and surrounded by the red wine. Once the pan is lidded with heavy foil, it's heated on the stove and then transferred to the oven for 10 minutes. I really liked this part of the recipe since the fish was perfectly cooked. When you take it out of the oven while stirring the last of the broth into the risotto, don't get distracted and grab the hot metal handle. At least the soft spot on one of my fingers is small and does not impede typing. Some of the stuffing (without the pancetta) is meant to be reserved and blended with the wine, then reduced a few minutes to form a smooth sauce free of alcohol taste. The trout is stripped of its skin, then plated on a bed of mushrooms and dressed in the sauce. I skipped the bed. Too fussy. Next time I'd skip the blender since the wine was not boozy...maybe thicken with butter reduction instead. The meal was so filling, it called only for a small cluster of grapes. These I submerged in a clear bowl filled with ice as witnessed on a hot summer day in Cortona. These I found especially refreshing as I dipped my throbbing left hand into the cold water and grabbed onto the cubes.

The literature produced by cultural historians, anthropologists, sociologists & writers or scholars hard to classify is overwhelming. There are academic presses with special series devoted to Food & Culture now that some recognition is given to the importance (as well as sexiness) of the intersection of these two categories. Classics, Surveys or Worth Notice: Claude Levi-Strauss, Totem and Taboo Carole, Counihan, The Anthropology of Food and Body Gender, Meaning and Power Ditto, Around the Tuscan Table. Food, Family & Gender in Twentieth-Century Florence, and as ed., Food and Culture: A Reader. Bynum, Caroline Walker, Holy Feast and Holy Fast Schlosser, Eric, Fast Food Nation (At least, I think this hasn't been mentioned.) Spang, Rebecca L. The Invention of the Restaurant. Paris and Modern Gastronomic Culture. (Awarded numerous academic prizes from her peers.) Two members have already mentioned Laura Shapiro who demonstrates how important cookbooks are as sources for researchers. While I suppose James Peterson's Sauces might qualify if we're looking at the continuing influence of Haute Cuisine, or a certain type of reference book that is meant to expose home cooks to the lessons that professionals learn, I would say it's not as central to this thread as, for example, Mango Leaves & Curry, now under discussion here at eGullet or Paula Wolfert's revised publication on the cooking of South-west France. In the regional forum on Italy, a number of members are cooking their way through specific areas of the country. One of the trends in cookbook publishing now is "micro" vs. "macro" cuisine. I.e., long after Artuso Pellegrino, Ada Boni, Marcella Hazan and others tried to define a national identity through recipes, cookbook authors are honing on the unique--or shared--dishes and habits of a single region. A classic in that kind of approach is Richard Olney's Lulu's Provencal Table, long out of print, but reissued recently, probably because of the new publishing trend...as well as influence on Alice Waters, etc. For Italy, there are many micro-books. Some of us are using Matt Kramer's A Passion for Piedmont now. Another exploring a single city, but the living heart of a former empire, is David Downie's Cooking the Roman Way, a book whose lengthy bibliography attests to the fact that scholarship has always been a part of the cookbook writer's tasks. Research nonetheless informs illustrated "inserts", or pages of text that interrupt the flow of recipes by providing background on the "authentic" spaghetti--or penne--carbonara, etc. In fact, the subtitle of the book is Authentic Recipes from the Home Cooks and Trattorias of Rome, a title that tells you how much the author strives to understand the socio-cultural aspects of the dishes he presents. There is too much more to mention. However, Deborah Madison's Local Flavors is not just a cookbook; it seeks to document the growing development of farmers markets...or what is sometimes called the "farmers market movement." I picked up something else recently that I think was called Fields of Green that is related, but written from a farmer's perspective with more essay-like text than recipe writing. The name Deborah Madison also brings to mind vegetarian culture, so Anna Thomas and the two volumes of The Vegetarian Epicure deserve attention even though they're "just" cookbooks.