Faella, Pasta of my childhood
By · CommentsWhen I was young and we went to visit my paternal grandparents in Brooklyn, I would go with my Grandma to make her shopping rounds in the neighborhood. She stopped at the bakery to get the Italian braided bread topped with sesame seeds and at the butcher to get the right cut of meat for the braciole; then we’d go to the deli to pick up locally made Italian salami and mozzarella as well as dry goods brought over from Italy. I remember the package of pasta that she always chose: white paper encasing long spaghetti, simple blue and red letters and a clear plastic window so you could see what kind of pasta you were getting. It wasn’t a brand my mother bought and I’ve never seen it in a store since that time.
Until two years ago when I was walking through Naples, and in the window of a little alimentari, a small shop serving the needs of a typical Napolitano neighborhood, I saw a big display that looked so familiar I stopped dead in my tracks. FAELLA, the white packaging with blue and red letters said, and I recognized it immediately as my grandmother’s favorite pasta. Someone, somewhere, was still making the pasta I ate when I was a kid. I had to find them.
I talked to my friend SabatoAbagnale, the head of Sorrento’s Slow Food chapter. Yes, he said, he knew Faella well, it being one of the original artisan pastas from the nearby town of Gragnano (see a previous blog for more on this pasta town). So Sabato and I made an appointment to visit Faella’s production facility, where they still had in use some of the original machines from the early 1900’s.
We met Mario Faella, the 95 year old son of the original owner, who still came down to the factory every day to oversee operations—not because they needed him, he said, but because he enjoyed being there among the action. He’s a legend, charming and polite. Mario kindly took me on a tour, showing me how they made and dried spaghetti and it felt like coming home.
I wanted to tell him what drew me to his factory, why Faella pasta meant something to me and how happy I was to come to Naples and still see the same brand my grandmother used 50 years ago in New York. So I said, “My grandmother was originally from Montella (a town in the mountains an hour away) but she moved to America, and when I was growing up I remember she always used Faella pasta. I didn’t know it was still around, I only just saw it in a store last week in Naples.”
Mario looked me clearly in the eye, his finger pointing to the heavens, and he started his story: “There was a young man, who was the son of our manager, Domenico Letterese was his name, but he didn’t like working in the factory, he didn’t want to study. And my father said to him ‘Domenico, if you don’t want to study you have to take our pasta to America!’ This was before the war. So Domenico took our pasta on the boat in big trunks and sold it to a man who had a store in Brooklyn, and for years we sold our pasta to that one store in Brooklyn!”
“That’s where my grandmother bought it!” I said excitedly. “She lived in Brooklyn! My grandmother bought your pasta from that store!”
All those years, four degrees of separation between me and this charming old man whom I’d never met before, making delicious pasta at his family’s factory in a small town on the coast of Sorrento for my family to enjoy a taste of the old country in Brooklyn.
And now you can once again get Faella pasta on the shores on America, through www.gustiamo.com. Tell them Gina’s grandma sent you!
Buon Appetito! Gina
Artisan Pasta from Gragnano
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When I teach people how to make fresh pasta, using eggs and soft flour, I often get the comment “fresh pasta is so wonderful, I’ll never eat that hard boxed pasta again!” But fresh pasta is only one note in the symphony of Italian cuisine. Pastasciutta, that dried, boxed, semolina-and-water pasta from southern Italy, plays an important part at the Italian table and is in no way second fiddle to egg-based pasta from the north.
The main starch of the regions in southern Italy has for centuries been pastasciutta, and only in the last 50 years has it become a mainstay of the diet on throughout the Italian peninsula, eaten everywhere on a daily basis. However, all dried pasta is not created equal.
There are many different kinds of pasta in Italy and it has become an industrial product over the last 60 years, like everything else. The industrially made pasta can be of good quality or poor quality and encompasses everything from Ronzoni and Muellers to Barilla and DeCecco; and then there is artisan pasta made on a small scale using traditional methods. This artisan pasta differs from industrially produced pasta in two main ways: the dies that are used to cut the pasta (bronze instead of Teflon-coated) and the drying times (very slow, sometimes over days). The result is pasta that holds onto the sauce and is chewy and flavorful, unlike anything you get from a packet of Barilla or DeCecco. No longer just a bland vehicle for sauce, it stands on its own.
One of the most fascinating things I had the opportunity to do last year in Italy was to visit some artisan pasta makers in Gragnano, a town in the province of Naples. I’ve long been interested in making pasta and studying its history, so when Slow Food friends on the Sorrento coast offered to take me on a tour of some of the artisan pasta factories in the area, I jumped at the chance.
Gragnano, along with neighboring town Torre Annuziata, has been a pasta-making center since the 1800’s. It was designed with this in mind, on the banks of a river lined with mills for grinding durum wheat into semolina flour. The main street lies perpendicular to the Sorrento coast so as to take advantage of the constant sea breezes that were used to dry the strands of pasta. There are many old photos from the early 20th century showing racks and racks of long spaghetti lining the streets and balconies, drying in the open air.
It’s a more hygienic operation these days with the pasta being made and dried 
indoors.
As I mentioned, there are two important ways that of making pasta in Gragnano that sets it apart from industrially produced pasta. Historically, the dies to extrude pasta were always made with bronze, which has a rough surface, catching the pasta dough as it’s squeezed through the shapes and roughing up the surface of the pasta. This allows the pasta to adhere to the sauce better, which is important to an Italian. Industrial dies are coated with Teflon, which gives a slick and smooth surface to the pasta, allowing the sauce to slip right off.
The second important difference lies in the drying time. In the artisan method the pasta is dried in slow ovens for days and in the case of very large shapes like candele or shells for stuffing, up to a week or more. This lends a consistency to the pasta that makes it more toothsome and gives it a lovely chew. The industrial method dries the pasta faster, in hotter ovens in a matter of hours.
But the most fascinating thing I saw was the pasta made by hand, like this woman making fusilli rolled by hand on a long metal spoke. Truly beautiful to watch, I wish I’d had a video camera!
I urge you to seek these pastas out; they’re worth getting to know. Look for them, especially the Faella brand (more on that next post!) at www.gustiamo.com. The good folks there have lots of wonderful things from Italy!
Buon Appetito!
Gina
Winter Radicchio “tardivo”
By · CommentsWinter greens such as kale and swiss chard are plentiful at this time of year, but another greens family that is common in Italy in the cold weather is cicoria, or chicory. The chicory family includes many different greens, including puntarelle from Rome, but the most welcome and famous are the radicchios from the Veneto.
Known as far back as Roman times, there are many varieties of radicchio, the round cabbage-shaped Chioggia being the best-known in the US market. Grown in California, it’s a year-round staple in US produce departments. But in Italy the time of year between Christmas and Easter brings a welcome flood of winter crop radicchio to the marketplace. Most of them are known for the name of the town in the Veneto region where they are grown.
The oldest and most famous is the Treviso, which is long and shaped like romaine lettuce; it has protected status and can only be grown around the town of Treviso and a few towns outside Venice and Padova. There is also the Castelfranco, with variegated creamy leaves speckled with red, and the Verona with full shaped round heads. Chioggia also derives its name from a town on the Venetian coast.
But the rarest of all and the radicchio that you simply must be in Italy to find is the winter tardivo, which means “late”. Known for its chef-hat shape, strong white ribs and trimmed root, these heads are harvested soon after the first November frost. Labor intensive to produce, after pulling them up with the root ball attached, they are kept in circulating spring water, which brings on crisp new shoots on the inside of the head. After several weeks they are plucked from the spring water and the root ball is carefully trimmed, with the dead leaves pulled away. They seemingly magically appear in the markets in mid-winter and are wonderful, crisp and bittersweet.
All radicchio are great raw in salads or can be grilled or sautéed with a sprinkle of olive oil and sea salt. A delicious risotto can also be made with sauteed radicchio, a bright and warm risotto to warm you in the cold mid-winter.
Buon Appetito! Gina
Risotto con Radicchio
2 cups fresh radicchio, chopped
1 onion, chopped finely
1/4 cup olive oil
2 cups white wine
2 cups arborio rice (1/4 cup per person)
6-8 cups rich vegetable or chicken broth
6 tbsp butter
¾ cup parmigiano or grana padana, grated
Make the vegetable broth with a chopped carrot, a celery stalk or two, half an onion, a few sprigs of fresh parsley, some peppercorns and a bay leaf; for chicken broth, add ½ a chicken. Simmer 60 minutes and after it’s cooked, discard the veggies and add salt to taste.
Heat the broth to almost boiling and keep hot.
In a large pot, sauté the onion in olive oil and 1 tbsp butter until soft, then add the radicchio and cook 2 minutes. Add the rice and stir to coat with oil, allowing the kernals to heat up. Add the white wine and stir until well cooked off. Add the broth one to two cups at a time, stirring until the liquid is absorbed with each addition. The rice should be soupy after each addition of hot liquid; as the liquid cooks off and is absorbed, the mixture becomes drier, at which point you add liquid to the soupy stage again. Continue this process until the rice is cooked, with the interior of the kernels being slightly al dente, about 15 minutes. Check for salt.
Add the butter and grated cheese and vigorously beat them in. The risotto will stiffen quickly, so serve it immediately, adding additional liquid as needed right before serving to maintain the characteristic creaminess of the dish.
New Blog Address
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I have a new blog address: go to “buzzing around Italy”. I’m in the process of getting this new blog spot imbedded into my website, but until that happens go there to read what’s new!
Thanks and have a great day! Gina
Tortellini and a history lesson
By · CommentsI spent some time with my good friend, pig farmer and professional olive oil taster, Daniele Barufaldi, and, as Italians are wont to do, in the course of the day we started talking about food, our favorite dishes and how to make them. Daniele is originally from Emilia Romagna, the region north of Tuscany, and while he has lived near Siena for over 20 years with his Venetian wife and sons, he still maintains a freezer full of homecooked specialities, lovingly made by his mother.
As he says it, he’s from Emilia.
United as one region today, Emilia and Romagna were separate regions until the 1860’s when the unification of the country of Italy took place. But the people still think of themselves as either “Emiliano” or “Romagnolo”. Divisions run deep in Italy and people relate more to their hometowns and families, and less to the regions they live in. What is oftentimes so difficult to understand about regional Italian cooking is, it isn’t regional. It’s local. It’s so local that neighboring towns will go to war about the right way, the only real way, to make a particular dish. Any dish. I have learned about Italian cooking from both working with the old ladies in the kitchen as well as listening to the old men at the table, who don’t actually do the work but are there to critique it. Or should I say I have gleaned what I can about Italian cooking from talking with the people.
So it should have come as no surprise when Daniele started arguing with me about the correct way to make tortellini. Tortellini in brodo is the pride of the Emilia Romagna table and one of my favorite dishes. The broth is satiny and complex tasting, yet simplicity at its most earnest. The pasta is rich and silky, stuffed with meat and redolent of nutmeg and pepper. Cooked in the broth and served with a dusting of parmigiano reggiano on top, it is heaven on a spoon.
Now, I’ve made tortellini many times. Learned to make them in Bologna years ago and the recipe I use is from a friend’s mother who was born and raised outside Bologna. Yet when I tell Daniele that I cook the pork and veal before pureeing it with mortadella, prosciutto, parmigiano and nutmeg, he raises such a fuss you would have thought someone peed in the ragu.
“NO!” he yells, “the pork and veal must be raw in the stuffing!”
“OH, Calmati!” I yell back at him. That’s the only way to hold your own in a food discussion with an Italian: you have to yell back. And there’s no better way to get a discussion going than to yell at the other person to Calm Down. “That’s how I was taught by two old women from Bologna who have made more tortellini in their lives that you have!” I rush to the defense of my education and honored teachers.
“Well, obviously your teachers were Romagnolan”, he concedes, “that’s how they make it in Romagna. In Emilia – where they REALLY know how to cook – the stuffing is raw before making the tortellini.”
I did not know that.
Then he puts the loaded question to me, with the raise of an eyebrow: “And how big do you make them??”
“Very small”, I answer. “A square inch of pasta wrapped around a tiny amount of meat stuffing and formed around your littlest finger.”
“No!”, he yells. “There can be no less than five (5) tortellini on a soup spoon!”
“Oh”, I say, really getting into the argument, “and how big is this spoon? Soup spoons come in all different sizes!”
“No! All soup spoons are the same size!”
Really??? I go to his cupboard, pull out the drawer and fish out three different sized soup spoons. “There”, I say, laughing. “You didn’t think that in Italy tortellini would be all different sizes but all the spoons would be the same!?”
We ended by agreeing that very soon we have to share a plate of tortellini in brodo. I hope he pulls out his stash of his mom’s tortellini. And if I can’t get five on my spoon, there’ll be hell to pay!
Tortellini in Brodo
This recipe, given to me by Grazia’s mother, cooks the meat with celery and onion before pureeing it with the other ingredients. If you use raw meat, as they apparently do in Emilia, leave out the celery and onion.
½ onion, chopped
1/2 stalk celery, chopped
½ lb veal in chunks
¼ lb pork in chunks
1 tbsp vegetable oil
1 cup white wine
1 slice mortadella
2 slices prosciutto di parma
½ cup grated parmigiano
¼ teas nutmeg, freshly grated
1 bay leaf
Salt, pepper
Saute the onion, celery, veal and pork in the oil until cooked through, add the bay leaf and white wine and cook off completely. Let cool. Place the mix in a food processor with the mortadella, prosciutto, nutmeg and parmigiano and puree completely. If mixture is too dry to mix, add a small amount of milk. Salt to taste.
Brodo
½ chicken
2 large beef short ribs
2 carrots, cleaned and cut into large pieces
2 celery stalks, cut into large pieces
1 onion, cut in quarters
1 whole tomato
3 parsley sprigs
10 whole black peppers
2 bay leaves
2 whole cloves
Cover all vegetables with fresh water and bring to a boil, add the chicken and beef and simmer for two to three hours, covered. If any foam rises to the top, skim off and continue cooking. After an hour you can add a tbsp of sea salt to taste.
Wild Fennel
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Autumn is finally here and it gets cool as soon as the sun goes down, but the days are still bright blue and sunny. This summer and fall we haven’t had rain at all and that means no excursions into the woods to hunt mushrooms. But there’s always something to harvest in Tuscany and right now the countryside is loaded with bright yellow wild fennel flowers turning to seed. I know that if I wait a month there will be a great crop of wild fennel seed, but as soon as it gets cool I start thinking about roasted pork and pancetta, how great they would be dusted with fresh fennel pollen and I can’t wait.
Fennel pollen has become a big hit with chefs in America. It sounds so exotic and carries a big price tag. Which I find amusing, really, because wild fennel plants line the country lanes in Tuscany and cover the meadows, free for the picking. The wild fennel flower is basically a dot of yellow pollen on the end of a small stem, surrounded by miniscule petals, almost too small to notice. A dozen or more of these form the flower, so when you’re collecting fennel pollen you’re in effect collecting the flowers.
Fennel is great for digestion and intestinal ailments and the locals frequently make a tea to drink after dinner. It’s also a main ingredient in digestivi and bitters, Italian liquors drunk after dinner to aid digestion, and bowls of the seeds are often found in Indian restaurants for you to snack on after dinner.
Of course if you don’t have wild fennel growing in the fields where you live, just grind cultivated seeds for the same effect. Fennel marries beautifully with pork and Italians put fennel seed, both wild and cultivated, in lots of pork products. You find the whole seeds in fresh sausage and the Tuscan salami known as finocchiona, while ground seeds are rubbed on the outside of cured pork products like guanciale and copacolla.
Buon Appetito! Gina
Maiale Arrosto con Finocchio (roast pork with wild fennel)
pork loin roast, with fat if possible
extra virgin olive oil
1 tbsp wild fennel seeds and flowers, whole or crushed
1 sprig fresh rosemary
5-7 fresh sage leaves
4 garlic cloves
salt
white wine (dry)
Salt the roast. In a heavy sauté pan, heat a small amount of oil and brown the meat over a high heat, turning to brown all sides and ends. Remove and place it in a roasting pan.
Rub the fennel all over the pork, place the rosemary and sage underneath the roast and scatter the garlic cloves around it. Pour in enough white wine to cover the bottom of the pan. Roast it in the oven at 425° until the internal temperature reads 150°, turning the roast over once. (An instant read thermometer is indispensable for this.) Remove from oven and let it rest 15 minutes before slicing. Slice the roast and serve it topped with the pan juices, with a sprinkle of fennel pollen on top. Garnish with fennel fronds.
Culatello di Zibello
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If you like prosciutto, you gotta try culatello. Formally known as Culatello di Zibello, it is a luscious cured meat that’s literally the culo (that’s Italian slang for butt) of the pig. Whereas when making prosciutto, the entire leg of the pig is salted and dried in cool air at a high altitude, in making culatello only the largest, choicest muscle of the leg is used, turning a simple ham into a sublime experience.
Culatello di Zibello is your favorite prosciutto taken to an all new level. The town of Zibello in Emilia Romagna is located in the lowland plains north of the Appenine mountains, about 10 miles to the north of Parma, in an area prone to humidity. Because the entire leg with the bone doesn’t cure well in the high humidity and warmth of the plains, they cure just this choice piece of the leg with the bone out. The result is a cured meat that is so delicate and porky, so satiny, luscious and soft in the mouth you seriously consider never eating anything else again.
culatelli aging in the cellar
Culatello isn’t imported into the US so you have to search it out when you’re in Italy. Legally the only three cured pork products that can be imported are Prosciutto di San Daniele, Prosciutto di Parma and Mortadella di Bologna, based on old import restrictions because of parasites that existed in raw pork, implemented to protect the US consumer. Today, while these are allowed in, it’s not from just any Italian producer but from specific producers that have met the strict guidelines set by the US FDA and have passed stringent inspections from US FDA inspectors. Sure do wish they spent that kind of time and energy inspecting the meat packing plants in America.
Not being able to export their exceptional culatello to the US concerns the people of Zibello, of course. They see the market strength of neighboring Parma and they want a piece of the American pie. Back in 2009, shortly after the last Presidential election, I was talking with a culatello producer about the US import ban. He was telling me how difficult it is when American food writers and chefs come to see, taste and fall in love with culatello. But since they aren’t able to get it at home, they stop writing and talking about it. But, he continued, now that Obama had been elected President of the United States, the locals were convinced that soon culatello would be recognized for the superior pork product it was, and very soon the ban on it would be lifted.
Now, having spent the entire 2008 campaign and election in Italy, I was aware that people outside of America had high hopes for our new President and were certain that Barack Obama would save the world. But it had never been made so clear to me in how many small, myriad ways Obama was expected to do this. An obscure cured pork product that many Italians have never heard of, much less Americans, and that even the majority of well-connected foodies don’t even know exist, was going to be brought to the forefront of importation issues by the election of a man in a distant country. No matter how wonderful or delicious or regionally important this product may be, those expectations were astounding. Oh how I wish it were so! Perhaps if we all spent more of our time and energy finding and eating pork products as excellent as Culatello di Zibello, peace might reign in the world! Make food not war!
Buon Appetito! Gina
Fried Zucchini Flowers
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The summer is winding down but the garden is still pumping out zucchini flowers. My neighbor had a bumper crop after returning from vacation and she gave me a bunch this morning. As the Tuscans say “Even a slipper is good fried,” so I fried them up and managed to take a picture just before we devoured them for lunch! While the flowers themselves don’t have a lot of flavor, once batter dipped and fried in hot oil, they’re delicious!
Make a simple batter with flour, sea salt and white wine. The alcohol in the wine ties up the gluten in the flour and helps to add a nice crunch. We fry so much in Italy that there are special flours for an extra crunchy exterior. The ingredients include wheat and rice flour, baking soda and corn starch and it really does make the flowers so crunchy you can’t hear table conversation!
Use peanut oil to fry, it gets hottest without smoking. I generally add a little extra virgin olive oil for flavor.
Grandma always sprinkled her fried zucchini blossoms with grated parmigiano which I think adds a nice touch.
Buon Appetito! Gina
Anchovies and Colatura – Italian Umami
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Anchovies in Olive Oil
Fried Anchovies
fresh anchovies
They eat a lot of anchovies in Italy, in fact, they love them. Abundant, delicious and versatile, the anchovy is high in omegas and essential fatty acids and is easy to cook or to preserve in salt or oil. The fresh anchovies, or alici, are eaten deep-fried and crunchy or soaked in vinegar and dressed with olive oil and parsley for antipasti.
Cured anchovies, or acciughe, are made by salting and curing the fish for several months and are widely used for pizza and pasta. Tuscans like the strong flavors of anchovy and capers together, and many dishes finish with both ingredients for a powerful and salty punch.
However, anchovies really shine in the cuisine of the south, where both fresh and preserved anchovies are used abundantly. Anchovies are preserved by gutting and removing the head then salting the fish, pressing it down with a weight for 4 or 5 months. They are then washed with brine and either salt- or oil- packed until ready to be eaten.
Vietri sul Mare
Down on the Amalfi coast, in the towns of Cetara and Vietri, they make an unusual condiment that could be called Italian umami, the fifth flavor sense behind salty, sweet, sour and bitter: colatura.
Colatura is an amber-colored essence of anchovy used to add complexity and nuance to a number of dishes in the area along the southern coast. The ancient Romans made a condiment out of fermented anchovies and salt called garum and used it to flavor many of their foods. It is a lovely thought of continuity, tasting something the ancient Romans would have eaten.
I went to visit the folks at Delfino who are 3rd generation curers of colatura. They have a small production facility under the arched bridge that’s just outside of Vietri on the way to Cetara. If you’ve ever driven to Amalfi, you’ve gone right over it.
Anchovies Curing in Salt
Colatura is made in the summer by layering the anchovies with sea salt in a wooden barrel, then weighting and pressing them for several months. In the winter, when the colatura is ready, they open a hole in the bottom of the barrel and let the liquid drip out. More delicate than Chinese fish sauce but still pungent, it adds a punch to any dish. My favorite is spaghetti tossed with lots of minced parsley, garlic and gentle southern Italian olive oil with a few drops of colatura and some fat anchovy fillets.
You can order colatura and really great anchovies from Gustiamo, an import company out of New York, check them out at www.gustiamo.com.
Buon Appetito! Gina
Preserving Summer’s Bounty: jams, pickles and chutney
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Preserves
Fresh Lemons
No one loves the abundance of summer more than I do, but I gotta say, sometimes it really kicks me around! When those figs, plums, eggplants and tomatoes are ready to be cooked down, made into marmalade, preserved or pickled, there is no waiting around.
Eggplant
I came back from my trek to Campania in the southern part of Italy with a huge sack of lemons to make limoncello, along with a crate of eggplants that I practically got for a song, to my home in Tuscany where the fig tree in the yard is loaded with figs and I haven’t had time to eat them much less preserve them, and I still have plums and peaches in the fridge since before I went away that at this point are only good for jam. See what I mean?
Fig jam jarred
So I took a deep breath, cleaned the kitchen and got right into it. I bought some more jars and new lids at the Caccia Pesca (local hunting and tackle shop that also sells household goods) and spent the evening peeling lemons for limoncello, slicing and salting eggplants for pickles, cooking figs for jam and plums, peaches and tomatoes for chutney.
Lemon peels and leaves with alcohol
eggplant salted
eggplant sott'olio
Ah the abundance of summer! It will be so satisfying to see the rows of jars on the shelf and know that I’ve preserved in time a little of the warmth and joy that is summer.
fruit and onion chutney
Simple Fruit Jam
- 2 lb fruit, preferably fresh picked or locally stolen
- juice of one lemon
- 1 lb sugar
- 1 wild apple, chopped or grated, skin on
If using plums or anything with a stone, cut the fruit in half and stone it. Otherwise use the whole fruit. Wash it and put it into a large pot along with the lemon juice, apple and sugar. Put it on a medium burner and allow to cook, stirring until the sugar is dissolved. Allow the jam to cook at a slow boil, the fruit will give up juice and you must allow it to cook off without letting it burn. Take some of the juice a put it on a small plate, allowing it to cool so you can check the consistency. You want it to be jelled when cool.
Take canning jars and their lids, wash them well and rinse them with hot water. Spoon the jam into the jars, put the lids on tight and allow them to cool by themselves. The seal will form as the jar cools. Line them up on your shelf and enjoy looking at them until it’s time to open and eat them!
Buon Appetito! Gina
