Toritto, Puglia: An Afternoon in My Father’s Land

 Posted by at 12:27 am  29 Responses »
Jun 152014
 
Toritto, Puglia: An Afternoon in My Father's Land

My father left his native Toritto as an infant in his mother’s arms in 1909. With his young parents and grandmother, he sailed for Ellis Island in steerage. The family said that in those bleak times in Puglia, they had survived by eating the wild greens that grew in the fields where they had toiled. Although he returned to Italy many times as an adult, especially to the Carrara quarries to buy marble for his shop in America, my father never went back to where he was born. What kindled his memory was the food he was raised on. His […more…]

Love Me Tender: The Italian Way with Green Beans

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Jun 102014
 
Love Me Tender: The Italian Way with Green Beans

Besides home-grown tomatoes, green beans from my garden are the vegetable I most look forward to in summer. Right after my beans seeds went into the ground and my thoughts turned to eating them, it occurred to me to write Love Me Tender, a story for Zester Daily, about how I like them best. You may want to know my favorite way to cook them if you love them as much as I do, and if you don’t, you might change your mind after you read  here.  

A 3,000-Year Tradition Makes for Sublime Italian Prosciutto

 Posted by at 10:09 pm  9 Responses »
May 192014
 
A 3,000-Year Tradition Makes for Sublime Italian Prosciutto

If you’ve been following my posts this month, you know that I’ve been in Italy at the invitation of the Italian Trade Commission exploring the products of food artisans working in the country’s twenty regions. Throughout May, I’ll be publishing vignettes on some of the food producers I met, both at the 78th annual artisans expo in Florence in April, and subsequently traveling throughout the country. Italian artisans have been making air-cured hams as far back as Etruscan times some 3,000 years ago, originally from the haunches of wild boar. Eventually, pigs were bred and pampered specially for producing prosciutto crudo, […more…]

On the Road: That Fine Italian Hand

 Posted by at 9:26 am  10 Responses »
May 152014
 
On the Road: That Fine Italian Hand

Once, Italian merchants were on their own looking for markets to sell their goods. Today, the Italian Trade Commission facilitates commerce between Italian businesses and the U.S., among other countries, sending buyers, and journalists like myself throughout its twenty regions to explore products for export to an American public that is dazzled by the stroke of that fine Italian hand. My mission on a recent trip to the Mostra Internazionale dell’Artigianato (78th International Handicrafts Trade Fair) in Florence, sponsored by the I.T.C., was to ply the  stalls of Italian food and wine producers coming from all over Italy for exceptional […more…]

I Dream of Rapini Pie

 Posted by at 10:45 pm  12 Responses »
Apr 132014
 
I Dream of Rapini Pie

With spring in the air, my thoughts turn to the Italian Easter pie, torta pasqualina, a festive puff pastry dish customarily prepared for consumption on Easter Monday for marauding guests. The tart is more often than not stuffed with ricotta and spinach or chard—the classic greens used for ravioli and such. Emilia-Romagna and Liguria take credit for having invented it (though it seems plausible that country people anywhere would think to put spring greens, foraged or cultivated, into a pastry casing). The torta has been an anticipated ritual for me every season, but this year, I’m making it with a traditional American-style […more…]

Ancient Roman Statue Discusses a Tender Subject

 Posted by at 6:51 pm  2 Responses »
Apr 112014
 
Ancient Roman Statue Discusses a Tender Subject

Just when I was thinking I should offer a recipe with an accompanying historical yarn about abbacchio, the suckling lamb that is Rome’s gastronomical obsession at Easter, this lively story about just that, titled “Pasquino Discusses a Tender Subject” landed in my mailbox. The author, Anthony Di Renzo, who chronicles a fading Italian world in his novels, writes a column for the California-based  L’Italo-Americano newspaper under the pen name, “Pasquino.” For those not steeped in Roman lore, “Pasquino” is the nickname of an ancient, battered statue that lost its arms during the sack of Rome and was buried in a ditch until April Fool’s […more…]

A Tipple, a Tid-Bit, and Delights Discovered at the Italian Trade Commission

 Posted by at 1:12 pm  5 Responses »
Mar 212014
 
A Tipple, a Tid-Bit, and Delights Discovered at the Italian Trade Commission

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. 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 […more…]

Teaching the Irish (Immigrants) How to Make Soda Bread

 Posted by at 10:16 am  4 Responses »
Mar 172014
 
Teaching the Irish (Immigrants) How to Make Soda Bread

If you think you’ve eaten real Irish soda bread, you probably haven’t. So says Darina Allen, queen of Irish cooking. “Real Irish soda bread doesn’t have any sugar or caraway seeds in it,” she said, “That’s the emigrant version.” She ought to know. Her dominion is the world-class Ballymaloe Cookery School in Shanagarry, County Cork, but her pupils are scattered the world over. If they haven’t been initiated into fine Irish cooking under her personal tutelage, they have learned what she calls “the forgotten skills of cooking” by virtue of her knowledgable books (her last one, Irish Traditional Cooking, when re-issued two years ago, […more…]

Cooking with Julia: Master Class on Rapini at Eataly – April 25th

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Feb 272014
 
Cooking with Julia: Master Class on Rapini at Eataly - April 25th

Here’s an announcement for my next class: Chef’s Kitchen: Cime di Rapa: One Ingredient, Infinite Recipes with Julia della Croce Friday, April 25, 2014 6:30 PM – 8:00 PM (Eastern Time) La Scuola Grande at Eataly 200 Fifth Avenue – New York, New York 10010 (212) 539-0204 ext.304 $110 Class Description Cime di rapa; broccoletti; rapini, rape, friarielli…here is a vegetable dear to the hearts of the southern and central Italians. Loved for its pungent and spicy character, its brilliant pairing with pork or lamb; its affinity for pasta, potatoes, polenta, and egg dishes; or solo, sauteed simply in garlic […more…]

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