ITALIAN REGIONAL FOOD

ITALIAN FLAVOURS

ITALIAN FLAVOURS BY LINDY WILDSMITH Fine Foodies, a great new glossy food magazine.

Everybody the world over loves eating Italian! There are communities of Italians and consequently Italian restaurants wherever you go. Pizza, pasta, prosciutto, parmesan, pecorino, pesto, mascarpone, mozzarella, ricotta and risotto are as familiar around the world as they are to the Italians. However this is only the tip of their culinary iceberg. Eating in Italy is a constant source of surprise and delight, for the food changes according to where you are; every hamlet, village, valley, town, city and region has its own specialities and as if this were not enough it also changes with the seasons, creating a dynamic landscape of food to explore.

Over thirty years ago I went to Italy to Bologna where I lived for a year. I was fortunate to live with Tina Monetti who was a wonderful cook – she rolled a sfoglia nearly every day (home-made egg pasta) on high days and holidays she folded and stuffed tiny tortellini by the score to serve as was traditional “in brodo”, her meat sauces bubbled on the stove for hours on end, she concocted roasts, layered with vegetables and omelettes and salumi, she boned and stuffed chickens and pan fried fennel with parmesan cheese. By the time I moved to Rome a year later I thought I knew everything there was to know about Italian food. Not so! A first glance at a menu swiftly told me I knew nothing – there was not a dish on it that I recognised.

Italy divides itself into North and South, geographically, politically and culturally; agriculturally speaking the former is, on the whole, a rich land, the latter poor. This translates in culinary terms as plenty of meat of all kinds and dairy produce bolstered by pasta, beans and vegetables in the North and vegetables, cereals and legumes enhanced with extra virgin olive oil, fragrant herbs, copious amounts of innovation and small amounts of meat such as lamb and goat in the South.

The country is further divided into regions; from the mountainous areas in the North such as land-locked Trentino Alto Adige where winters are cold, to the southernmost sunny Calabria in the toe. Each region has its valleys and gentle hillsides providing micro-climates and wonderful and often unique produce. The stately islands of Sardinia and Sicily rise out of the Mediterranean, as do the Western coastal regions, the Eastern regions meanwhile dip their toes in the Adriatic and strings of enchanting islands thread both shores. Lakes punctuate and streams criss-cross the country therefore assuring abundant seafood, salt water and freshwater fish everywhere.

Italy is culturally a rich and diverse country; it has seen invasions from land and sea from all points of the compass, peoples bringing with them not only their cultures but also their food. All of this has influenced not only the Italian people but the diversity of the buona tavola (good food) Since that far off year in Bologna I lived in Rome for many years and travelled extensively the length and breadth of the peninsular and I am still discovering new dishes, new produce and new attitudes to food

Much is vaunted these days about seasonal local produce but compared to Italy we can barely pay lip service to the concept. Every city and small town in Italy has its street market that brings the smell and freshness of the country to its streets and squares. Street after street of stalls and stall, after stall, after stall sell the same ultra fresh produce, still adorned with the morning dew, heavy with just-picked fragrance. The stall holders come from outside of town, from a belt of small holdings, neat patchworks of green stitched earth bright with every variety of salad leaf and vegetable, some of which are unique to that area. This means that the produce is literally picked hours before it is sold. Often stall holders and growers are one and the same – no middle man or wholesaler involved and certainly very few food miles.

Nature also plays its part in the grand design that is Italian food – the wild mushrooms of autumn and winter, the fresh herbs and flowers of spring and summer, the flowers, the white and black truffles Go to Sicily in spring and you will be enchanted by the long tender strands of wild asparagus that pop up on every menu, go in early summer and they will have gone to ground not to be seen again for another year.

The choice of produce that is on offer is further extended by the many varieties that are commonly grown and come and go, according to the time of year. In the Rialto markets in Venice in spring, stall holders sit all day from early morning, laboriously preparing barrel loads of little purple artichokes to sell, ready for the pot and you can be sure every Venetian eatery will have them on the menu.

Francesco Mazzei, well known London based Italian chef of the L’Anima restaurant sums Italian food up like this. “It is versatile, you can eat it everyday, and it is affordable to everyone….. if you follow the seasons of course.

But seasonality is not just about fruit and vegetables, the Italian respects the seasons of the sea as well. Go to Sicily in spring and you will find it is the Riccio season. Time for sea-urchins and every restaurant has them on the menu – either to eat like a boiled egg with a spoon or taken out of their shells and their silky flesh spooned through pasta – love them or loath them you can’t avoid them come back at any other time of year and you will be hard pressed to find them. I discovered delicious soft shelled crabs crawling all over each other in a market in Padua over thirty years ago and it was not until years later that I happened back at just the right time of year to enjoy them again.

Take the food of Royal Piedmont: the land of truffles with everything, from fried eggs and fondue to risottos and steak tartare. There are cardi - cardoons, bollito misto – mixed boiled meats beyond your wildest dreams, stews braised in Barolo wine, game cooked to perfection. The bagna caöda a walnut oil based fondue heavily impregnated with garlic and anchovy used for dipping the cardi and other vegetables typical of the area. It is also the home of genteel biscuits such as baci di dama and savoiardi, the luscious gianduia cake and zabaione.

Moving directly south we find ourselves in forever spring Liguria, a mountainous region that stretches along the coast from the French Riviera, renowned for its fine climate, early flowers, delicate olive oil, fragrant basil, herbs, abundant vegetables and wild mushrooms. The sea is teaming with seafood and fish but there is little in the way of meat except rabbits and chickens - but rabbits and chickens cooked to perfection. Here they waste nothing. Melt in the mouth tarts sold by the slice are filled with greens, herbs and pine nuts, golden focaccia bread is anointed with oil and rosemary, the pissadella a distinctive pizza, unique to the town of Oneglia is sparsely spread with tomato, anchovy and onion, trenette (thin tagliatelle) is coated in pesto. Ravioli are filled with herbs, left over fish and vegetables. Then there are the myriad fish and vegetable antipasti, the fish stews know as brodetti, the stock fish and salt cod dishes and the triumphant U Cappun Magru a salad of fish and vegetables.

Now lets travel to Puglia the sun-dried heel of Italy, queen of antipastos consisting of all kinds of cured meats such as capocollo from Martina Franca, cheeses to dream of from Gioia del Colle, mozzarellas so soft and creamy you just want to dive into them, vegetables preserved in oil and sweet oregano from the Gargano, torte rustiche farm house pies, oysters, tantalising fish and vegetable dishes all served with glorious bread. Then there is a plethora of hand made pasta shapes such as cavatieddi and orecchiette dressed in the magical oil of the region, tossed with greens and vegetables, with fat mussels, tender squid and flavourful black octopus sauces. When and if you should tire of the abundant fish that is available, the pasture land of Puglia provides ample lamb and the resourceful cook umpteen ways of cooking it – lamb, hunter’s style, lamb roasted al cartoccio with olives and the local onion variety lampasciuoli, lamb with peas, sweet and sour lamb and simple char-grilled lamb chops. Almonds provide exquisite speciality cakes and biscuits.

This is just a small helping of what the Italian regions have to offer and the charm is that you can go back over and over again and still find something new, something you never knew existed, and something to set your palate dancing.


Recipes from Lindy Wildsmith’s latest book,
Cured: salted, spiced, dried, smoked, potted, pickled, raw. Photographer simon wheeler. Jacqui Small publishing £30.
Shortlisted for the Andre’Simon Award.

CD Image reference page 155

Rainbow trout, leaf and berry salad

This is how Trentino chef Rinaldo Dalsasso serves his homes-cured smoked trout. If you don’t smoke your own, buy a side of cold-smoked trout or salmon and slice it paper thinly yourself. Perfect for summer eating!

200 g cold smoked rainbow trout cut into 5mm slices
120 g sweet salad leaves
Handful of rocket leaves
Handful of small strawberries and or raspberries
3 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil (preferably from lake Garda)
Few drops of good quality balsamic vinegar
Sea salt and freshly ground black pepper

Divide the smoked trout slices between 4 serving plates and a grinding of black pepper over all.
Combine the salad leaves and berries in a salad bowl. Add the olive oil and balsamic vinegar, season with salt and black pepper and toss lightly. Arrange alongside the smoked trout and serve at once.



CD Image reference – page 115 – there are also step-by step images if you have space.

Roselline del Pilastro al Francesco
Rolled pork fillet with Parma ham and sage

This is a great recipe to impress family and friends. It can be prepared in advance to the stage of adding the stock and finished when ready to serve – speciality of the Masticabrodo restaurant near Parma.

Serves 4


4 sage sprigs
2 thyme sprigs
2 rosemary sprigs
2 garlic cloves
100 ml extra virgin olive oil
2 pork tenderloins
100 g Parmesan cheese grated
4 slices Parma ham
Plain flour seasoned with salt
And pepper
100 ml cognac
150 ml stock
200 ml double cream
Sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
Equipment
8 cocktail sticks

Put 2 sage sprigs and the other herbs and garlic in a shallow dish and cover with olive oil. Leave to infuse in a warm place in the kitchen for an hour or so.

Trim and then cut the pork tenderloins in half, discarding the ragged ends, creating 4 equal portions. Cut each tenderloin piece through the middle lengthways, but do not cut into two: open out flat to make a single slice of meat.

Sprinkle with some of the Parmesan cheese and freshly ground black pepper, lay a slice of Parma ham on the top of each, sprinkle with Parmesan cheese and black pepper and put a sage leaf on top. Roll each piece of pork up, dip in seasoned flour and shake off the excess and then secure with cocktail sticks.

Heat a frying pan, and when hot add some of the infused oil and the rolls of meat and brown quickly all over. Add the cognac and cook until evaporated, then add the remaining oil, herbs and garlic and stock. Reduce the heat and cook for 7 minutes.

Transfer the meat to a dish to rest. Top each roll with a sage leaf. Pull out the cocktail sticks and discard. Add the cream, if using, to the pan and simmer gently for five minutes. Strain and serve poured over the meat. Serve with mashed celeriac.

A JOURNEY THROUGH MY LOVE OF ITALIAN FOOD

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