More ricotta

A footnote to my post below is another gastronomic advantage of my favourite season. Winter, I have discovered, is the reason why the ricotta of the rustic signora below tastes so good. 'Tis the season of green grass with makes the cows fat and contented so they produce superior milk. Therefore, like me and my porcine friends of Palazzolo sausage fame, summer here is a time of misery- and best spent surfing in west Wales.

A little boy dancing with Santa outside a bar in Marzamemi

Nappy Rainy New Year

Its raining, its pouring and the old man in talking in Russian. Yes I am going bonkers 'Cos its been a downpouring for some 4 days solid. Sicilians tend to be rain-shy and wind- adverse which means even if I do leave the house, everything is closed and shut up, and Sicilian in-laws drive around looking for me, incase the wind does whatever malicious thing wind is supposed to do. By the way, the old man talking Russian is a really obscure reference which you might get with a smattering of Italian. Snoring= russo= synonym for Russian. Geddit?

Anyway, this evening 31st Dec 2007, what I've got planned is a magnum of Prosecco and a new biography of Caravaggio I brought in Rome (thankfully Feltrinelli in Piazza Argentina has a good English section). Caravaggio was ofcourse bonkers, so that might make me feel better......

What I intended to write about here, though, is grub. Miserable though I am, yesterday I ate a divine antipasto of ricotta with hot bread. The ricotta was brought 1hr earlier direct from the farm of this lady:

I am embarassed to pester her for her photo, in case someday she realises it's 'cos she's one hell of a rustic Signora. Look at the view from her farm:

They are self-sufficent, but not in a trustafarian way, but in an authentic, ignorant, 'live off the land 'cos its better than the unemployment that beckons in the city' kind of way. Anyway, if the ignorance and squalor they live in assists them in making the best cheese known to man kind, long may they remain ignorant!

Happy Christmas, a tutti!

This Christmas was one of the best I've had, low-key but quality in the way that Sicilians do well. Daniele and I had been to Rome the week before, and had dined in every top rustic trattoria that the eternal city can offer- we had incredible artichokes of every style, as well as lots of offal (who can realise that a young goats intestine could taste so good with rigatoni?)and pig products- including a world class Amatriciana (pasta with bacon), and slim Pizza with Roman Sausage and pumpkin flowers. More of that another time.


Xmas in Italy starts on the 24th, when one traditonally eats foccacia (or impanada down here in the south) in the evening. Like in Britain, lunchtime on the 25th is the biggun' with lasagne al'forno, beef cutlets and pannetone all washed down with 'ignorant' wine.


Granny's homemade lasagne

Granny makes her lasagne without bechemel, just layers of meat, smoked ham, tomato and carrot with a light sprinking of parmesan. It is therefore recommended as an alternative to those who find the bolognaise version impegnativo (literally; a commitment)

Veal cutlette with grilled pepper contorno

The sicilian Christmas lunch, therefore, is somewhat less daunting than it's British counterpart, and leaves more room to go down to the bar and inhale a couple of puddings.

Profiteroles filled with ricotta and cinnamon; pistacchio white chocolate filled with ricotta

Boycott Budget Airlines

This blog is a platform to discover culture through cookery, not for politics or discourse. My belief, however that budget airlines have turned the planet into a toilet, is a conviction I have to vent somewhere.
Do you remember the time before rob-our-air and Sleazy Jet? The time when weather was somewhat more certain, and tsunami's, hurricanes and freak storms somewhat less likely? Is it pure co-incidence that climate change has accelerated since the births of these monsters? Not only this, I have read in today's Stampa that because of them, travel culture has changed, we no longer travel for travelling sake, but to get somewhere. What outrage. Think about the great novels, albums and films, the road movies and romantism of boat and train travel, now secconded to the dustbin of History. R.I.P Kerouac.

Pork Fest/ festa del maiale

Daniele has just returned from Bedouhin deserts and has been deprived of pork, wine and women for 3 months. He arrived Sunday, our first stop a rainy Pallazolo Acreide for a Stinco di Maiale:

I have no idea how they make stinco, it must be a slow roasting process, because it is the tenderest sincerest pig leg you will ever taste.

As usual, 'Eros' the owner of our favourite rustic trattoria came up with a delicate-yet smoky-yet stringent stinco to rival that we ate in Bologna, the capital of rustic pork cookery. Only difference it was a third of the price!

Knowing how this pork cut is, and the type of quantity it would come in I opted for the wild boar cutlets

Daniele enjoys his stinco and vino sincero di Pallazzollo Acreide

Even though it would daunt many more rounded in girth and gusto, he makes a valiant attempt to polish off the whole portion.

This morning we checked in to the office, and to the salumeria in Siracuse, where we brought a full array of porky products and God's own cheese 'Pecorino Sardo' (not wishing to blaspheme,I would reiterate that this product must belong to a Sardinian saint, he of ye olde goathearder).

After the salumi and pecorino, D's mum, who on occasion comes into her own in the rustic sicilian kitchen, produced what has to be the finest cannelloni ever made:

Saints preserve us! D's mum's cannelloni......

The row to the left is filled with spinach and ricotta, the row to right pure ricotta (fresh of the mountain yesterday). She then boils down tomato 'stratto with the usual condiments (celery, carrot, onion) and minced veal. In with that goes a healthy dose of Salsicca di P.A (see below), which adds a porky-fennel element to the taste. By gumdrops, you'll never taste the likes of it.

Granny's onomastico

Today is the feast of the Immaculate conception, and Granny Concetta has been cooking to celebrate her saint's day. We had Sicilian lasagne (meat, ham and peas) veal cutlette, meatballs, salad and panattone. Grandad held up his wine glass, made of the variety he calls 'sincero', and which his grandson calls 'ignorant' wine, and said aloud, 'the man who made this is dead now'. We toasted him, not Granny nor her patrona.

Le Cugine, or the cousins, who always sit in a row together, chirp. When the food arrives, they in unison tie their hair back, ready for business. The plates with steaming lasagne come through, they don't wait, they tuck in. Chirping has ceased, and shovelling has begun. An opening for conversation reappears in the small window between courses, where Grandad dominates the conversation with stories about the allied landings in Sicily in 1944. He was 15, and starving, as the only source of food came from a piece of land owned by his relatives.

As with all grandad's stories, I can only understand the first or last 10th, which he tells in Italian that dissolves into Sicilian and back again when he realises I haven't understood a word. So what I got was that the British soldiers gave him an English-Italian dictionary, some meat and biscuits. That was the first fraction, then a solioquy of 'idu idu Ka Ka Ka' followed by 'you British are 100 yrs ahead of us. We were pissing in pots, you had toilets.'

I didn't want to agree with him, but most if the time I do feel like time has stood still in Sicily. The advent of budget airlines and EU subsidies hasn't changed anything. Consider it a tortoise and hare scenario. Where has all our 'progress' (read: hurry) got us? We are running to reach the same point that they will get to after a long siesta. And just what is that point anyway?

Sugo or wine? la nonna stores fresh tomato sauce made in summer the same bottles as the vino sincero

Risotto alla Pilota

Today for lunch I had one of my seasonal favourites: Risotto with Pumpkin and Sausage.
Sicilians have adopted the dish from the north, where a formula 1 driver (the 'Pilota') walked into a trattoria and demanded the usual rice and pumpkin be modified. You can only imagine the outrage adapting a dish causes in this country, but maybe northerners are more open-minded than down here in the south. Anyway, F1 drivers yield some qudos, so when he suggested adding a spicy sausage the trattoria Obeyed.

OK, pumpkins in the south tend to be extra-sweet, but today I was surprised; the Palazzolo sausage, always good, this time lended itself exceptionally well to the dish. When I asked my host, if this was the same macelleria as always, he confirmed that it was so. So whats the difference? same ingredients, same sausage maker, same sausage.
The difference was once of swine; like me, they resist the heat. Therefore, sausage before December is vastly inferior, and in the summer months no-one will eat it.

I ate the Mafia's oranges

I am slowly picking my way through yesterday's 'Repubblica' and there is a large discussion about the 'orto-mafia' the 'fruity cosa nostra'. Apparently, the very spot where I was enjoying a stroll through orange groves and persimmon fields is the centre of a criminial ring that crushes the local peasantry for the benefit of white collar mafiosi in Milan. The oranges I picked off a tree are destined to become part of a cartel involving drugs traficking from the south to north and back again.
Jesus Christ, I ate the Mafia's oranges.

Cake!

Granny has been making the most incredible cakes and biscuits (or biscweets as they pronounce it in Anglo-Italian). Most of which include fig-orange- almond or fig and carubo. I have no idea what carubo is in English. It looks like taramind, and has a sweet/sour taste when you chew the pod, which is like a long black broadbean. The seeds, hard round pebbles, were apparantly used across the Meditearrean as a common measurement for diamonds, which is where we get the word Carat (Carato in Italian, Quirat in Arabic, kerátiōn in Greek). I learnt this from a walk I did with a group.

We stopped every couple of hundred yards to eat something off a tree or pick something off the ground. Oranges, Mandarins, Almonds, Carubo, Persimmon, Pomegranates....you get the picture. Under the carubo tree a special type of mediterrean mushroom grows, imaginitively called 'il fungo del Carubo'.

Anyway, going back on the subject of Granny's cake, she makes a sugar dusted ring filled with marmelata delle arance (orange jam) and broken pieces of dark chocolate. Butter is definately NOT sicilian, she uses olive oil, flour and a little sugar for batter. It is quite the best cake I have ever tasted, and I have tasted Mary's from Bletchington, Oxon (hitherto the best cakes known to me personally). I will post a picture soon.

Turn-off for the politically correct

Don't worry, I am not a post- liberal- reactionary Conservative. I do sometimes read the Guardian, or its italian counterpart 'La Republicca' (Just recently they ran an artical on same sex marriages and a help guide to the huge number of Italians who would like to concieve with their gay partner. Did this survey include anyone from the Mezzogiorno? No, a Milanese- Danish couple and a pair from the tyrol region with German sounding surnames).

Like any self-professed gluton, I lose anysight of political correctness where food is concerned. I really tried to go veggie on several occasions. Unlike my brother, who had a good few years of absteemiousness untill the first whiff of foie-gras in the Dordogne, I surcame after a couple of days and the advent of a roast dinner (wasn't the meat but the lack of gravy that got me).

And neo-nati are illegal for good reason, i.e the overfishing of the meditterrean to supply themselves and the far-east with its fruits. And these are babies, 'newly born's. Trouble is, they taste very good when dipped in batter with spring onion and parsley. And while not legal to eat in the strict sense, one finds them everywhere in Sicily in the summer months.

A light anti-pasta in Palazzollo Acreide

Above is a classic light anti-pasta from my favourite rustic trattoria in my favourite town, P.A, Siracusa. You can see arancini (little oranges; a.k.a fried rice balls), polpette di carne (meatballs) and sicilian pizza, which has a spicy and concentrated topping, and a really doughy thick base.
I photographed this in the height of summer, with temperatures around 40°, and in the mountains this really was anti pasta with several heavy courses to follow!

Granny's impanada and 'turn-turn'

There are 2 types of impanada that granny makes; the standard one (see above) and the local one known in sicilian as vota-vota ('turn-turn'). As you can see from the photo above, a standard impanada in any season will often include a potato, ham and dried tomato arrangement. Another classic of the vota vota style will include ricotta, onion and peas (that trio comes from the baroque town of Noto) or any combining of ricotta, ham and tomato.

To make the vota vota requires a little knack of being able to get the pasta dough into the above formation, and then fold again without losing any of the ingredients down the side of the table.

All impanadas use standard italian pizza dough (doppio 0 grain). Then it is just water, flour salt and yeast.

Sicilian pizza dough, however varies from this, as they like a fat pizza with little but powerful topping (in Sicily food says a lot more about the character and aspect of people than anything else; we Brits look like our pets, whereas they look like their pizzas!).

Granny's Parmiagiana

Last night I ate a platter of Granny's aubergine parmigiana. Today, I feel slightly unwell, but like a Roman courtesan, I am eying up the remains......

Granny's receipe

She slices about 6 aubergines, soaks them in salt water, strains them, roasts them in the oven until cooked, takes her homemade sugo (basic tomato sauce made with fresh toms, garlic and salt) and layers aubergine, sugo, parmesan cheese or pecorino and fresh basil.

Carciofi galore!

Every morning I am awaken by a man singing, in what first sounds like arabic, which later becomes discipherable as Carciofiiiii! Uoveeeee! Biscottiiiiii! (artichokes, eggs, biscuits). He is selling them.

Few seem to take any notice, so he then carries on a call to prayer from his makeshift minuret- in this case the back of his 3wheel scooter - 'é tutti bisgone per fare il pranzooooooo......! (everything you'll need to make lunch).

In the summer months, the rivallary from these 'venditore ambulente' (mobile salesmen) gets so strong, in inverse proportions to peoples' apathy to leave the house, I was compelled to shout out of my window, 'Shuuuuut uuuuup!'
This morning, a brilliant sunny morning in Siracuse, I saw a book on italian archicture which had the most beautiful emerald green cover- on closer inspection it turned out to be the heart of an artichoke.

Artichokes are everywhere these days. They are one of the main sources of sustanance through the winter months, and get so cheap to buy by January they cost about 80 cents a kilo. Then they are brought and preserved for antipasti for throughout the year. I will find out how this is done and put it on a later posting.

Carciofi al ripieni is a local receipe, and a good'un!

4 fresh artichokes

300g breadcrumbs

100g grated parmesan or pecorino

pinch of salt

pinch of parsley (dry or fresh)

a clove of crushed garlic

Wash the artichokes and leave aside.

Mix all other ingredients together

Break open slightly the head of the artichoke and put a teaspoon of mix in

Then lever some of the leaves apart so as to get mix in outer foliage

Thats all there is to it. Now just put them in a saucepan with water to cover about 1/3 of the artichoke at the bottom (the tops get steamed). Pour a little olive oil over the tops and cook slowly for 40mins

Salsiccia di Palazzolo Acreide

Palazzolo sausage is created using traditional methods where a whole pig is seasoned with finocchio (fennel) ground through a machine and bagged in its own intestine. Once tasted you will never be able to eat 'Walls chipolata' again.

Today, Saturday 24th November, I ate 'salsiccia di P.A.' in a traditional receipe with cauliflower and fusilli (the 'twisty' pasta). This must be a holy grail of winter pastas for sicilians, because my host, Enzo, ate two large portions.

Other fantastic receipes with this king of sausages include pasta with ragù (tomato sauce and minced veal or pieces of pork).

Another thing I had, long ago in this same town, which was truly delicious, and made by a student's housekeeper/cook, a breed known to have the culinary trads of 'sui paese' tattooed on their eyelids.

What she made was the pie known as........Impanada....(and probably brought by the spanish conquistadors) With the aforesaid salsiccia and spinach.

N.B The inventive cook, back in blighty, could probably recreate this flavour if you buy a standard mediterrean type sausage ( read: oily, grissly) and spike it with fennel or chilli seeds