Spring is in the air everywhere, not least at the Italian Trade Commission in New York City, the Italian government agency charged with promoting and educating about Italian products abroad. Always on the job, at a special reception this week for the newly appointed Commissioner and Executive Director, Pier Paolo Celeste, I turned up some discoveries, old and new.
The Italian Trade Commission, 33 E. 67th Street, New York City. | Photo: ITA
One, panettone gastronomico, or unsweetened panettone, a fairly recent phenomenon in Italy for making little bar sandwiches, and new to most Americans. It was carved up into a layered tower of delicious “tramezzini,” triangular sandwiches with various fillings of genuine Italian products. Francine Segan, a cookbook author who wrote a cookbook about historic pasta recipes, spread the bottom layer with creamy tinned Italian tuna (ventresca, the beautiful, pink flesh of the belly, not the dry-as-dust white albacore meat) whirled with capers, green olives, roasted red peppers and pickled artichoke hearts (no mayonnaise). Delicate and rosy fennel-scented finocchiona, Tuscany’s finest—and one of Italy’s greatest salumi, and capocollo rested on another butter-slathered bed. Oh my!—one of the finest little sandwiches I’ve eaten on this side of the Atlantic! Last, a third layer topped with fine Genoa salami and fresh mozzarella, brightened and moistened with paper-thin tomato slivers and a touch of mayonnaise.
A savory version of the famous Milanese holiday cake, sometimes called panettone salato farcito (filled savory panettone). | Photo: Julia della Croce
I’m not one for cold food usually, so if you find me transported here, you’ll understand how good it was—yet another illustration of the Italian maxim, “good with good makes good.” The lesson: There’s simply no substitute for the genuine products of that food-blessed country. Good news: the best genuine cheeses, salumi, and olive oils, along with the best of Italian wines are available from Di Palo’s, in situ in Manhattan’s Little Italy, and a few online, from Di Palo Selects.
The Commissioner himself launching the Round Table series about Italian food and drink.
Photo: Francine Segan
The new Trade Commissioner himself came up with the idea of offering some fresh ideas about Italian food on the tasting menu. And so we had a re-creation of a historic dish, a timballo of bucatini filled with a mixture of more bucatini and vegetables, bound together with egg and parmigiano-reggiano.
Francine Segan’s cupola di bucatini, a recreation of a historic dish. | Photo: Francine Segan
Everything in the world of food is cyclical! Modern people love to re-discover historical recipes. Here’s a vintage illustration of the historic timballo di maccheroni alla lombarda, from Gastronomia Moderna, by Carlo Giuseppe Sorbiatti, Milano, 1911:
Timballo di maccheroni alla lombarda. Reprinted from Pasta Classica: The Art of Italian Pasta Cooking (Chronicle Books), by Julia della Croce
Chatting with the new Trade Commissioner, I saw him whip an elegant, ever-so-discreet silver vial from his jacket pocket and start to shake its contents onto the buttery, fresh mozzarella on his plate. I was intrigued. What was it? Peperoncino!—hot red chili flakes! I thought, I must have one of these for my own hot pepper lust.
The charming Trade Commissioner Pier Paolo Celeste with his silver vial of peperoncino.
Photo: Julia della Croce
He was given the silver spice vial as a gift in India, a piece of jewelry carried by people of means. Regrets, I don’t know where to buy one, but if you do, please tell!
Dott. Pier Paolo Celeste’s silver peperoncino vial up close. | Photo: Julia della Croce
You don’t have to go to the great pastry shops of Palermo to get authentic cassata siciliana, that city’s famous sugary, ricotta-filled marzipan cake. You can buy it at the authentic Sicilian pastry shops, A’Putia in Brooklyn or Hoboken, which imports the proper sheep milk ricotta from Agrigento. (There is another Sicilian pastry shop mentioned recently in The New York Times for their version of cassata, Villabate Alba in Bensonhurst). It’s not everyday that one can find an authentic cassata sicilian outside of Palermo, so I had two helpings, and had to muster every bit of will power I had not to have a third.
Food blogger Gennaro Pecchia bearing the cassata siciliana. At right, editor Channaly Philipp of The Epoch Times. | Photo: Julia della Croce
Bliss! I thought I would never eat a cassata siciliana as delicious or beautiful as the one made by this master cassata maker while visiting Sicily some years ago with a Gruppo Ristoratori Italiani delegation. This one was certainly as delicious, and characteristically decorative if less ornate.
Master cassata maker demonstrating his art in Siracusa, Sicily. | Photo: Julia della Croce
Congratulazioni, Dott. Pier Paolo Celeste, in bocca al lupo!
Italian Trade Commissioner Pier Paolo Celeste, left, and Gennaro Pecchia, at right, having a hard time letting go of that cassata siciliana. | Photo: Julia della Croce
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What a wonderful event! That timballo is a complete knockout, and I want the silver “flask.” Where can we get them, Julia?
I’m stumped. But I’ll bet scouring New York’s little India would turn something like this up. It’ll be a quest—and I’ll keep you all posted!
Well my dear, sounds like you had a great time! Timballo a favourite of mine! What glue did they use to get the bucatini to stick to the mold?? Amazing! Thanks so much…oh I would have had at least two helpings of the cassata, so beautiful, who could resist?
I love the edible centerpieces, Giuseppe Arcimboldo would be inspired.
Here’s a link for a vial for your peperoncino; http://www.etsy.com/search?q=silver+vial
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