albiston

It was definitely a somewhat foamy coating. Anyway, I wrote Piero, so hopefully he'll have more details for me by tomorrow (he's already at the Osteria now).

If I knew the recipe of the dish I could probably answer the question in a better way. All I can say is that I'm not sure if the mousse was actually a classic mousse (egg whites+yolk/fat/flavouring agent) or not. Its look and feel was more that of a slightly foamy puree. I'll drop Piero a line and see if he can answer to this.

Osteria del Minestraio made for one of the coziest evenings of my recent trip to Northern Italy. I can only confirm A_Broad considerations on the atmosphere and service. The 10 pasta dishes on the menu where somewhat different as thy change every month, there were a few contact points, like the lasagnette or the passatelli, but they were served with a different sauce. A real nightmare for anyone on the Atkins diet . It might be worth mentioning that "minestra" in Bologna generally indicates the first course of an Italian meal, primi, and hence the name of the Osteria. Looking at the ten dishes in their complex it is nice to notice how they often seem to bounce between tradition and creativity. The Maccheroni al pettine in mousse di mortadella al profumo di noce moscata, comb maccheroni (aka garganelli) with mortadella mousse and nutmeg aroma, that made up our second "course" for example played with the classic regional flavors of garganelli and mortadella giving them a creative twist through the transformation of mortadella into mousse. There was also room for a little higher-gastronomy quotation and divertissement: the tortelli farciti di fagioli borlotti su emulsione al peperone, borlotti beans tortelli on a red pepper emulsion, served as pasta course are a take on Fulvio Pierangelini's (chef at Gambero Rosso in San Vincenzo, and considered the best chef in Italy by many Italian critics) dessert ravioli di peperoni e fagioli con crema al peperoncino, pepper and beans ravioli with chili pepper sauce. I managed to make it to pasta course number 9, just a step from the goal line. I wanted to keep a little space for the pre-dessert creme brulee pots (among them an intriguing licorice one) and dessert . I was there with a few friends (among them Pia, Igles Corelli's wife) and we were joined by chef Corelli at about the end of our meal, coming straight from Rome and his duties as a cooking instructor. So after dinner, and with the restaurant for ourselves, we had a chance to chat a bit with Piero Pompili, taking care of the FOH, and Arnaldo Laghi, the chef, who runs a one man show in the kitchen. Both are charming, fun and passionate, it was really nice getting to know them. Even If I had not, I would have really enjoyed dining here all the same: the service and food we recieved was exactly the same as that of every other table. Osteria del Minestraio is the kind of place I would visit often if it were down the road: warm relaxed atmosphere, without being too casual, nice food at very correct prices and a well thought wine choice. One of those places where you can simply lay back and have fun eating.

It is certainly a downright wrong attitude and extremely disappointing when a restaurant makes you pay for food that was brought to your table without you requesting it. I have to admit though, that in my experience throughout Italy I was never brought extra food, apart the occasional amuse and pre-dessert sorbet or similar, without me expressingly requesting it or after an enquiry from the staff. Still, even in the latter occasion it was pretty clear the food was not being offered. I wonder if there was some sort of major missunderstanding on this occasion. I cannot help think that the food cannot have been THAT bad if you had no problems eating "quite a lot" .

vinobiondo, sorry to hear of such a bad experience there. I can only repeat that my experience did definitely not involve crunchy risotto or rubbery shrimps, quite the contrary. I still fondly remember the shrimps served with our zucchini soup as some of the best cooked I've eaten. Saying that I do not mean to doubt your words, just imply that you might have hit a bad day (something that should not happend in a restaurant with such a reputation, anyway), especially if I consider the many positive opinions from friends whose taste I trust. What surprises my far more is the bill, that's approximately what I paid for a meal for three people with three bottles of decent wine. Esposito's restaurant is one of the cheapest Tre Forchette around and its wine list is unanimously considered as one of the best priced in Italy, even by its detractors.

Vinobiondo, welcome to eGullet. As Kevin said, this is one stunner of a first post to the forums: thank you for the fascinatingly detailed account of il Mulinazzo. One minor correction if I may: Mulinazzo is not the highest regarded restaurant in Sicily according to Gambero Rosso. On the 2004 and 2005 guides Il Duomo in Ragusa is no. 1. P.S. It is not clear if il mulinazzo wil close or if the kitchen will simply pass in someone's else hands.

If that doesn't call for its own special eGullet thread I don't know what does ! In bocca al lupo!

Definitely a topic of controversy, though, after reading around, I'm more than convinced that it comes from southern Veneto-northern Emilia Romagna. If I manage to find the files I saved in the mess my HD is at the moment, I'll add more info about it. Oh yes... Kevin, could you please stop making me hungry? Still four hours to dinner here and my stomach is rumbling!

This is definitely something one notices there. And yet I think that if one strips dal Pescatore of all the glitter and polish you essentially have a trattoria in its stricter sense: a family establishment serving essentially traditional food. I don't really see a contradiction in these two concepts living in balance with each other. The idea that a trattoria has to be simple and possibly inexpensive is to my eyes only a possibility, not a rule. (BTW robert, that marinated fish was probably anguilla in carpione, eel, a typical dish along the lower Po river.)

I'm not going to discuss the liking or not of the dishes Nadia Santini prepares, our tastes are probably different and there's nothing wrong in that. On the other hand I only in part agree with Robert's comment of the dish being "fussy, studied and souless". Robert could you elaborate a bit more? In particular is the fussy referred to the food or the plating? If it is the former I must admit I could not think of a top Italian restaurant that is serves less fussy food than dal Pescatore. The dishes are really traditional food true to its roots. The studied I can partially agree on, but saying that ,of the dishes served with our menu, only the fish course came through as somewhat brainy and cold. Marcus, your comment on service is quite interesting, on our evening there the place was full or almost. The service was great but choreographed is definitely not how I would describe it, maybe they overdo things when there are less costumers to take care of.

Cy, Reports are coming up, but I didn't eat out as much as you might think. I was in Italy for ten days, six spent doing a stage in a restaurant kitchen... so no eating out those days, though I did try the restaurant I was in before leaving (coming up soon). Apart dal Pescatore, my other meals included two very nice places: Al Vedel, where Ore works (you can read my report here) and Osteria del Minestraio near Bologna, reviewed on the forum before. Not exactly starred places but both very pleasant dinners. Wow, dal Pescatore two nights in a row! Are you going to go for the two menus, one per evening, or a la carte?

Should we all get the semolina flour for the orecchiette out ?

Well? Are vegetarian/Moslem/Jewish cooks/chefs hypocrites if they cook and serve food that they deny for themselves in order to adhere to a belief system? ← No, but it's a quite different issue. Stating the following (from the Tribune's article, my emphasis): and then, as Anthony Bourdain reports: seems fit to be labelled as hypocrisy. If you stop serving Foie in your restaurant, why then do such a U-turn for your chef-buddies in that very same restaurant?

My first visit to dal Pescatore was the second stop in my short trip through Northern Italy earlier this month and I can only confirm the words of those who have written previously in this thread. I mgiht add that coming from an half Mantuan family (my father's side) I was curious to see what treatment would be reserved to dishes like tortelli di zucca, dal Pescatore's signature dish, brasato alla Barbera (Barbera is female in Italian) and anolini. All of them were perfectly prepared. The famous tortelli's filling contrasting flavours - mellow and sweet pumpkin, savory Parmigiano, nutty Amaretti and piquant fruit in mustard syrup - couldn't have been better balanced. Yet the dish that really blew my socks away were the tortelli di burrata, ricotta di pianura e parmigiano di collina, tortelli filled with an incredibly creamy and seducing mixture of the three cheeses mentioned, served with a saffron sauce that gave just enough contrast to make every new bite of the tortelli like the first one. My only regrets were being unable to get a lunch reservation, and therefore not seeing the garden, and being there in that special time of the year where winter is almost gone yet spring is not there yet, something that was evident reading between the lines of the menu. What makes this place really to my eyes is how the history of this restaurant, a former trattoria, serving fried fish and lambrusco, evolved into a three-starred establishment, shines through its cuisine and atmosphere still today. With all the crystals, linens, fantastic service (the best I ever experienced in Italy) this remains a trattoria in the best acceptation of this word: a restaurant serving food of the land in a family environment, and without any doubt an establishment replying to anyone who thinks that Italian fine food is "French". P.S. the goat cheese aprilmei might be referring to could be the Caprino Fresco fro capreia occitana, Italy's most famous goat cheese producer.

The New York Time online edition (and I would imagine it is in the printed one too) has an interesting article on modern Sicilian cuisine? dedicating a lot of space to Nino Graziano of Il Mulinazzo and, to a slightly lesser extent to Corrado Assenza and his Caffé Sicilia in Noto, Ciccio Sultano of Il Duomo in Ragusa and Saverio Piazza running Catania Sheraton's Il Timo. There's also a little "love declaration" to Sicilian ingredients from Faith Willinger, which I absolutely second. I found Marion Burros's article informative, giving plenty of curiosity-tickling information on what is going on in Sicily's top innovative institutions. Still I cannot refrain from noticing the complete lack of any reference to Il Mulinazzo moving to Russia. An anticlimax maybe, and something that should have probably moved the spotlight of the article on someone else, but an information that NYT readers might have wished to know, especially if they are planning a trip to Sicily. Nothing more disappointing than organizing a trip with the desire to sample a certain restaurant's cuisine and find out it is closed or the chef has left. Maybe Ms Burros should drop by here on eGullet from time to time .

touaregsand, as long as we talk about pasta it is pertinent to the Italy forum . In principle what you talk about sounds very similar to the way pasta is still made throughot Southern Italy, as Kevin mentioned. The differences are usually in shaping of the pasta. Is the Algerian dish you're referring about rolled or hand shaped? By the way, if anyone's interested in reading an interesting report on one of the many ways to shape semolina pasta in Southern Italy, check out this blog article from fellow eGullet members katiaANDronald.

Good point. You could still make a decent carbonara or some vermicelli with clams without tomato though, and that's interesting enough to me . Actually tomato only met pasta quite some time after its arrival in Europe, middle XVIII to early XIX century probably, and that for a very simple reason: pasta was more often than not eaten as a sweet entremet, cooked in milk and served with sugar and spices, usually cinnamon. Would you like tomato with that ?

As Kevin kindly reminded me, I had, some time ago, promised to tell the story of how I got to taste the infamous Sardinian worm cheese casu marzu. I thought it might be a good idea to use this as an excuse to start a somewhat wider topic about “extreme” eating adventures in Italy, and also to add a little new experience I had. It’s funny how Italian cooking is usually seen as home/comfort food, reassuring, convivial, heart opening, but not exactly what one would call extreme. Yet there are a few Italian foods, which can result extreme to many. Apart the aforementioned casu marzu, (the same cheese exists in Abbruzzo as marcetto and Friuli as saltarello), some might feel shaken at the thought of eating horsemeat or offal, tuna sperm sacks (lattume). How many would go for a taste of fox or hedgehog, not uncommon in some mountainous areas? Extreme food is a very personal definition: Anthony Bourdain’s oyster story in Kitchen Confidential might sound brave to many, but it left me thinking “so what?”, after all I used to pick and eat raw cockles on the beach rocks each summer as a kid. I’m curious. Is there any Italian experience that you would define as “Eating adventure”. If yes, why not share it here? A very stinky Gorgonzola maybe? Frog legs in a classy restaurant? Tuna entrails on a boat off the Sicilian coast? Whatever it is, spill the beans . I’ll start with two of mine. - Casu Marzu. About twenty years ago, in one of the hottest Italian summers of the last fifty years, I was traveling to Sardinia with my parents and two brothers. A slightly spotty and introvert teenager, I hated the idea of still spending my holidays with my parents. My secret hope was to get to new people a few people of my age, especially, for reasons still slightly confused in my head at that time, girls. Regrettably the only real “adventure” I had that summer was this food related one, which maybe explains why I’m writing on eGullet and not on the Playboy, or lacking that, Sensible New Age Partner forum. After an 18-hour ferry ride and a few hours on the sunny and dusty Sardinian roads we had arrived in Cala Gonone, about midway on Sardinia’s eastern coast. Tired, slightly dehydrated and in bad need of a shower we slumped on our beds while our landlord told us he would be very happy to have us as guests after dinner for a special treat. When the time came we moved, slightly less tired and now clean, to our landlord’s dark cellar lit only by two flickering 40W light bulbs. That should have probably made us suspicious. Everyone except my four year old brother Claudio was offered a little of the potent almost sherry like home made wine and soon after that we were invited to sample some local nibble. Taking a piece of Sardinian parchment bread, carta musica or pane carasau, our landlord would quickly dip it in water to soften it, smear some creamy cheese inside and wrap the bread in a pocket. The cheese was nice, maybe just a tad powerful as far as smell goes, yet tasty. After a little while, and at least one or two cheese pockets more, my little brother walked to my mother holding something in his hand, a little white worm. After some very quiet interrogation she found out the source of the worm, clearly the cheese. Trying to be as inconspicuous as possible my mother walked to each of us to stop us eating the cheese. I have to admit I felt rather disgusted by the idea of worms in my cheese, but not so my little brother: while we were intent in carefully disposing of the bread, he rushed to the landowner, asked for another piece of bread and cheese and happily finished every single crumb. I’m still convinced that our landlord had organized the whole thing as a practical joke for the city family , and he probably had to repress a good laugh once he saw our expression as we noticed the worms. - Some peculiar game. This is, if you wish, my latest extreme food experience, though by far more extreme on the mind than on my taste buds. I’ll keep the location and names vague on purpose, since what happened it borders on the illegal and I’d much prefer not to put anyone into any kind of trouble. While on my recent trip to Italy I happened to spend a few days at a friend’s place. This friend, an avid consumer of all sort of game meats, had just received a butchered istrice (I believe that would be spiny porcupine in English) from some friends in Umbria. Istrice is not common as a food item in Italy, but in some of the more forest covered parts of Tuscany and Umbria it is considered a delicacy. After finishing to butcher the prime cuts, deboning leg and shoulder, preparing little rack roasts and the like, to be served on a later date and therefore frozen, we had a little taste of the shoulder meat. I did have second thoughts on eating the meat and was expecting something extremely gamey and tough: instead I had an incredibly tender, delicate tasting taste of meat, cooked only till still pink in the center. What can I say, porcupine tastes really good.

I have to admit this is news to me too. Never heard the story before. What instead seems pretty certain is that Marco Polo did not bring pasta to Italy, I have been often told that the whole story was a urban myth spread by the advertising of a Canadian company. And BTW yes, there are historians that doubt his getting to China. One of the theories is that he actually learned the tales he wrote down in "Il Milione" from a fellow prisoner while captive of the Genovese, at the time sworn enemies of the Venetian Republic. I have to admit that I'm no expert on this aspect, just summarizing a very well explained article I happened to read a while ago that pointed out big incongruence in Polo's story. As far as pasta goes there is a big distinction to be made. Romans already knew fresh pasta and there are documents references to what was called laganae -presumedly the root for lasagne- which are described as similar to tagliatelle or pappardelle. Dried pasta on the other hand comes very probably from the Arab domination in Sicily and moved from there to Genova through commercial exchanges. Most historians agree that the Arabs developed the drying process first: the old name for pasta tria, still surviving in Sicily, Liguria and some areas of Puglia, would be directly derived from the Arab ithrya, which, as far as I've read, should mean dry dough (any Arab speaker here?). The fact that tria production is documented in Sicily in the early XIII century, about 50 years before Marco Polo's travels, is enough to dismiss the Chinese connection. There are a few Italian historians who claim that actually the Arabs developed the process in Sicily, but the explanations for this always seemed a bit cloudy to me.

As in possibly. The rules of the Culatello di Zibello consortium leave the option wheather to use these two ingredients open to the personal preferences of the producers. I think Ore mentioned that garlic might be used to prepare the bladder casing, but I'm not 100% sure about that.

Kevin, My wife is a vegetarian (except for some fish, which really means she's not, but that's another story). I know you mentioned your surprise about the lack of seafood in Puglia, but did you find much on the menus for non-meat eaters? Let's save our jealousy for Alberto and Ore... "All there is to do is make salami all day." Che peccato. ← Vegetarians probably have an easier life in Puglia than in the rest of Italy, at least lacto-ovo vegetarians. The antipasti section is always full of vegetable only dishes, marinated, fried, as frittata and so on. The primi are a good place where to look too: after all Puglia is famous for dishes like orecchiette con le rape (orecchiette with local mustard greens) and a variety of soups and pasta with pulses, especially chickpeas. These might have some grated cheese added and in rare cases made with lard. To be sure ask if there is "strutto o pancetta" in the dish. As for jealousy... I reserve my right to be jealous of anyone travelling to Italy, at least as long as I don't move back there .

I had completely forgotten about the maggot cheese! I'll have to start a thread about "pushing your gastronomic limits in Italy" very soon. Plus I have a new little extra story to add there, so maybe my waiting to write that story up has at least one advantage. I'll just wait after Easter: I wouldn't want to hurt anyone's sensibility .

You should ask Ore if he feels like living in a dream. Let's just say Al Vedel is pretty much in the middle of nowhere. Apart making salumi there's not exactly that much to do I guess. Right Ore? The rest of the trip is coming up, with a few nice meals to talk about. I didn't see much of Emilia Romagna though: five of my eight days, excluding travel and a stop in Munich to see some friends, there were spent doing a short stage in a restaurant's kitchen, but that story might have to wait a bit for the moment.

I hope it's Ok if I answer even if I'm not Kevin . A company that's trying to bring back old almost forgotten varieties is Accademia dei Racemi, a sort of umbrella company collecting a few wine estates under its wings: Felline, Pervini, Tenuta Pozzopalo, Sinfarosa and a few others. The secret gem of the Accademia's "collection" is Torre Guaceto, producing two wines Dedalo and Sum from two old varietals, Ottavianello and Sussumaniello, they're trying to birng back into wider production. I only tried Sum -Dedalo was finished everywhere I tried to order it- definitely a southern wine, warm and spicy of pepper and herbs, and powerfull. Also if you haven't tried these before, give Puglia Rosè wines a chance: they're a great match for the local cuisine. De Castris Five Roses, both the standard and Aniversario version, Rosa Del Golfo and Calò's Mjere are all very nice wines on their own too.

Two and a half weeks ago I was driving through the Austrian-Italian border in direction of Parma, the first stop of my short Italy vacation. Parma might not have the best of reputations as restaurant destination in Italy today, maybe because of conservative taste of the local restaurant customers, yet Italian cuisine would worse off without the hearty local cuisine and its delicious products. Could you imagine Italy without Parmigiano or Prosciutto di Parma? Parma and its province, together with the nearby provinces of Modena and Piacenza, are definitely one of the highlights for the Italian salumi lover. Apart Prosciutto di Parma DOP, there's a whole variety of salumi coming from this little piece of foggy Pianura Padana: salame felino, aka salame gentile, salame strolghino, pancetta, coppa, spalla cruda and cotta, cotechino, zampone, cappello del prete, fiocchetto and what is considered the king of Italian salumi, Culatello di Zibello DOP. Enter Ore: I knew he was in Colorno, near Parma, learning to make salumi at Al Vedel, one of the only 14 producers of Culatello di Zibello DOP. I finally would get a chance to see what he had been up to after finishing the Slow Food Master in Italian Cooking and his stage in Nusco, so captivatingly described in his Slow Food Italian diary. So, instead of stopping in Parma for dinner, I had long decided to drive those extra 30 km to Colorno to have a taste of deliciously cured pork at Al Vedel. Before the actual gustatory experience Ore was kind to give me and my father, who was in Parma for work, a tour of the salumi making facility. Walking through the various aging and working spaces did sure have an appetite stimulating effect. Pancetta getting in shape, and Salame Gentile served as a sort of appetizer before the "main item" of the tour: Culatello. But let's get back to the salumi king. Why does Culatello di Zibello deserve the title of king among Italian salumi? The simplest way to explain this is to take a slice of Culatello on a buttered slice of bread: the taste alone should be enough to convince you. It sure convinced me. Thanks to the choice of meat, its preparation and its aging, first in dry then moist rooms, Culatello is a deliciously mellow, sweet yet aromatic cured meat. It's usually aged 12 to 14 months minimum but older Culatelli are even more seducing. Add to this the fact that to make a Culatello you have to waste a Prosciutto, and you'll have a further economic reason to name this salume king. Ore showed us the main preparation steps of culatello. I'll sum them up here, hoping to have caught all the important details (in case Ore, feel free to correct my mistakes). The production rules for the protected denomination of origin (D.O.P.) Culatello require that the meat has to be worked still warm from the slaughterhouse. For this reason the day of the Culatelo maker starts early: as soon as the pork legs arrive in the morning, they're skinned, deboned and trimmed. The trimming will give the meat for Culatello, the buttock plus part of the leg, the fiocchetto which will be cured in a similar way to Culatello, but aged for a shorter time, and a few trimmings which will end up in Salame Strolghino, a lean, delicate and delicious salame usually eaten young. Above just a few finished fiocchetti... the waste of Culatello! At this stage the Culatelli are salted with a mixture of rock salt, crushed pepper and eventually garlic and/or white wine (both not used at Al Vedel), the salt is vigorously rubbed on the meat which then rests from one to six days in a refrigerated room room, as shown in the picture above. Once the salting stage is over the meat is placed into a pig's bladder and shaped in the characteristic pear form, and then tied tightly to avoid the formation of air pockets which would spoil the product. Just tied up: After a little time the first molds start appearing and the culatelli are ready to move to their final aging room. At Al Vedel this is a special cellar under which, according to the owners (Ore seemed a bit doubtful about this) a subterranean river flows, producing the moist environment needed to properly age Culatello di Zibello. The cellar of Al Vedel is absolutely spectacular: rows after rows of culatelli some still ageing, some ready for sale with their characteristic label in evidence. A picture of the aging culatelli made using the flash, a more blurred, yet more impressive one, without, and a sale-ready Culatello di Zibello. After our tour we moved to the dining room not without noticing the impressive "elephant graveyard" of some of the best bottles emptied from Al Vedel's quite impressive wine list, from which we "only " picked two half bottles: a Pinot Grigio from Livio Felluga and a Bricco dell'Uccellone Barbera d'Asti from Braida. The menu is well priced (tasting menu at around 35-40 €), and includes both regional classics and somewhat more creative dishes. Our meal was pleasant, with the classic dishes winning above the creative ones, with a few real stunners. On the evening we were there a 40 month's old Culatello had been just opened, so I could hardly avoid ordering the Culatello di Zibello tasting as entree: 16, 22 and 40 month old Culatelli, served, as tradition wants, with butter and fresh bread. Going from younger to older the sweet gentle taste acquired more earthy notes and the aroma turned from pleasantly mellow to complex and rich. As the chef would tell us later, some of the local customers, used to mellower tastes, found the 40 months Culatello too strong, something I completely disagree upon: those two slices of aged pork buttock were the highlight of the dish if not the whole meal. No better way to start the evening. A just OK lamb ragu filled spinach crepe served with Stilton sauce, and a good cotechino, Al Vedel's production clearly, on top of mashed potatoes plus a little sweet Moscato zabaione (to offer a little unusual twist) followed. The Chickmagalur Karnataka coffee mousse with chocolate ganache I ordered to close the meal was very well made and one of the best desserts I ate during this short trip, even in more highly reputed places. Throughout the evening the service did not miss a beat, although it was Saturday evening and every single table was seated: always helpful and friendly, contributing to the pleasantness of the evening in a determining way. Bravo to them. It's a mystery to me how the only Italian guide noticing Al Vedel is the Michelin one, which awarded this restaurant a bib gourmand. I wonder if Gambero Rosso and Espresso are sleeping when it comes to Emilia Romagna. If I'm ever around Parma again I will definitely return to Al Vedel... with a cab. I do plan to get to know that impressive wine list better after all .