RICE, GORGONZOLA & FROGS

Rice grows in water. Frogs live in water. It’s only a short hop to frog risotto. My beekeeper friend Francesca and I were travelling with Massimo, a rice farmer and our guide for the day, to L’Angolo Perduto, a restaurant that lived up to its name of ‘lost corner’, sitting as it does in an isolated spot surrounded by rice fields and narrow canals on the far bank of the Ticino River from Milan.

What could the fishermen dotted along the canal possibly be catching? ‘Frogs!’, Massimo almost shouted, knowing we would be shocked. He explained the art of frog-fishing with a pole and line. First you catch a very small frog (I’m still wondering whether you first have to catch a fly as bait for the tiddlies) and you leave it on the hook as bait for a larger frog. I never knew frogs were cannibals.  When the large frog bites, you hit it on the head with the end of your pole and pop it in a sack. When your sack is full, you walk over to the restaurant to sell your morning’s catch. We had to forego the frog risotto since we hadn’t ordered it in the morning, but the restaurant owner insisted that we try a platter of deep-fried frogs, which were crispy and delicious. In that great divide between everything that tastes like chicken and the rest that tastes like beef, frogs taste like chicken. The texture of the meat is like chicken too, not a hint of slime.

When you see that the body of a ‘large’ frog is only 3 cm long, you realise how long it must take to fill a sack and why frogs are expensive. They’re getting rarer now too. When rice was cultivated by hand, which Massimo dimly remembers when he was a child in the ‘60s, the fields were flooded from March to August and the frog population was prodigious. Now they dry the fields for a period in June to get machinery onto them to spray with herbicides (even in the case of ‘organic’ rice), which disrupts the life cycle of the frog.

The gorgonzola? Some people have a nose for antiques or handbags. My nose is devoted solely to artisan food producers. While searching for a good agriturismo for my Cheese, Grains & Wine tour next September, I noticed one with a restaurant specialising in local produce, including gorgonzola. A quick search for gorgonzola showed that my rice farm was right in the middle of gorgonzola DOP territory. Everyone we met told us it was much easier to fish for frogs than find someone who still produces gorgonzola using artisan methods, but Massiimo directed us to a small dairy in Cassolnovo. The cheesemaker was selling beautiful artisan gorgonzola made by a friend of his nearby.

I’ve got her name and phone number and can’t wait for my next trip to frogland. I’m going to order that risotto before I set out.

Panini Girl on the Farm

‘Going to the farm and having lunch there was so very special. We all enjoyed everything about the day. It is surely one we will remember forever!’

So wrote Janie Trayer about the day tour she and her group of five women took with me. Panini Girl (Janie Trayer’s blogging name) and I share a love of Italy. Hers is in her blood, having inherited it from Italian grandparents, whereas I dug mine up as an archaeologist only a few decades ago. We both came to Italy recently to find a life we had heard about or knew in the past. We didn’t feel like tourists, but we discovered people and places we wanted to share with others and we’ve both ended up leading tours to Italy.

Because of her Italian background Janie found a different Italy from mine. She contacted me because she wanted to include one day out of her urban-based tour connecting with rural people and food. She asked me to take her group to a cheesemaker in the Garfagnana, since she hadn’t been able to find one by searching the internet. Most of the farmers, artisan food producers and craftspeople I take people to meet are invisible electronically. The telephone landline at Cerasa, the farm we visited, functions only intermittently; they have an unreliable email address and no website. None of the family speaks English. Yet the Cavani family are the most important component in a government initiative to preserve the traditional Garfagnina Bianca breed of sheep. 

We approached the farm, situated in a clearing high up on the wooded slopes of the Appennine mountains, on a single-track road. It was only paved last summer and is still strewn with rocks loosened by the herds of goats that wander sure-footedly on the scree above the road. The going was slow, but Marzio Paganelli’s expert driving got us to the farmyard safely, and as we stepped out amid tail-wagging puppies and parti-coloured hens, we were greeted by Mario, Gemma and their daughter Ombretta. Gemma had already added rennet to the warm sheep’s milk, so we hurried into the little dairy at one end of the house to watch her cut the curd into tiny pieces with a stick.

While the curd was settling to the bottom of the pot, we went down to the cellar where previous weeks’ cheeses were maturing, along with Mario’s pancetta and salamis. Outside on the slope above the house we marvelled at the enormous chestnut trees that are also under the care of the Cavanis. Each tree is identified by a name plaque that also gives its date of birth, several going back to the 17^th century.

Back in the dairy Gemma plunged her arms into the pot of whey and gathered the curds at the bottom into a huge mass which she lifted to the surface, cut into three pieces and put into plastic perforated moulds to allow the whey to drain out of the cheeses. She handed samples of the warm unsalted curd around for all to taste. Then she relit the burner under the pot of whey in order to make ricotta, which means ‘recooked’. When it gets nearly to boiling point, the albumin proteins (same ones that are in egg whites) denature into white strands which are skimmed off and put into plastic baskets with sloping sides. It was too hot to taste immediately, but we had it for dessert with homemade blueberry jam. Heavenly!

The large dining room doubles as an exhibition space and shop for Ombretta’s hand-dyed woollen garments and rugs, woven or knitted from the wool of their sheep. She’s experimenting with making dyes from local plants and had achieved a warm brown from chestnut shells. Having chosen some irresistible pieces, we all sat down to Gemma’s homemade pasta and ragù, stuffed chicken thighs, pecorino cheese (of course) and that incomparable ricotta.

We could have sat in the sun on the terrace all afternoon, but Ercolano Regoli was expecting us at his water mill in the valley. Having bought some of the formenton otto file maize that we watched coming off the grindstone, we headed back toward Lucca, stopping in Barga and then at the Devil’s Bridge.

Despite the long day Panini Girl still had the energy to blog at the end of it. You can read what she wrote about the day on the farm and find out about her autumn tour at: http://paninigirl.wordpress.com/.

Confessions of a Novice Wine Taster

Since you seem to have to make a humiliating public confession to get noticed these days, I confess I’m a wine ignoramus. For someone who leads food and wine tours in Italy, I’m like a bird without its wings. It’s not that I can’t taste the difference between wines, but I can never remember which flavours and aromas go with which grapes or which wines are produced in which regions, let alone the characteristics of individual vineyards. Asked whether a particular wine smells and tastes more like black currants or ripe plums, I really can’t say. Does it have a hint of spice? I’m not sure.

Hoping it’s not to late to learn, I went yesterday to the 10^th annual Anteprima Vini della Costa Toscana (Preview of Wines of the Tuscan Coast) in Lucca. This year 103 winemakers presented one wine each from the 2010 harvest. I took my friend Sam Gallacher, who had been president of the Peterhouse Wine Society at Cambridge, and together we launched bravely in at the south with Morellino di Scansano from the province of Grosseto and worked our way northward through the Bolgheris of Livorno (Sassacaia and Ornellaia conspicuous by their absence) to Lucca and Massa without a stop except to exchange views: bitter, thin, no nose, fruity, no character, full-bodied, strawberries, sour, meaty, burnt toast. Burnt toast? Must be a different kind of bread from the one I burn every morning. The sight of Pisa looming ahead was too much for us. We needed a break.

On the principle that a change is as good as a rest we headed to the enormous hall where the same vineyards were presenting their ready-to-drink vintages to the public. I made a beeline to Fattoria La Torre (Montecarlo) to taste their 2006 Esse made of 100% Syrah grapes. Next to the 2010 on the anteprima list I’d written ‘juicy blackberries’ (although I still wasn’t sure I didn’t mean black currants). What a disappointment to find the more mature vintage didn’t taste anything like the young one. To cheer myself up I tried their Saltair, a blend of Viognier and Vermentino, which I was relieved to find tasted just as good as I remembered, but I was too exhausted to think what it resembled other than ‘wine I like’.

After a quick collapse in some stylish garden furniture that a hopeful manufacturer was showing to make your private wine tastings on the patio more enjoyable, we faced up to Pisa. It was nearly closing time and the male sommeliers who were supposed pour the wines we wanted to taste had sloped off, leaving a cheerful and still energetic female sommelier from Pisa to help us. After a curious wine called Merla della Miniera (Blackbird of the Mine) made of 100% Canaiolo Nero grapes that seemed a bit like rotting meat to me and a biodynamic wine called Duemani (Two Hands) that tasted dusty, I decided my palette was hallucinating and gave up.

I’d spit out more wine in three hours than I’d drunk in a year and a half. I’d discovered  a new sweet red called Aleatico from Fattoria di Fubbiano (Colline Lucchesi), which I could imagine myself serving in place of vin santo, most of which I find too raisiny. I’d confirmed my previous tentative liking for the wines of the vineyards of Sardi-Giustiniani and Fabbrica di San Martino (both Colline Lucchesi). But could I now describe what the Sangiovese grape smells or tastes like? Not really. Oh, and I was concentrating so much on tasting that I forgot to take any photos.

All suggestions for a programme of improvement will be seriously considered (but no time for a sommelier course).

Salami

How many salamis are hanging here? There's no prize for guessing, because I haven’t a clue. I was too tired to count. Ismaele Turli, the butcher, guessed they contained about 100 kg (220 lb) of pork. I wouldn’t be surprised. It seemed as if we’d never finish filling pig’s intestines: I’d put another length tied at one end on the stuffer and then grasp the crank and turn it clockwise while Ismaele gyrated the sack slightly as it filled, saying ‘Boh’ when I was to stop and hold the open end of the sack as he tied it three times very tightly so as not to allow in any air. Another length of intestine, more turns of the crank, another ‘Boh’ and another closing of the end.

After about 15, the routine changed. I used a small tool that looked like a green plastic doorknob with needles stuck into one side to prick the salami all over, after which I massaged it vigorously to compact the meat and press the air out and shoved it over to Ismaele to tie tightly like a corset producing an hourglass shape and further expelling air, as it no doubt did to the women who used to wear them. Then they were ready for hanging from the broomstick to drip and dry. They’ll remain there from 7 to 10 days until Ismaele’s experience tells him the skins feel dry enough to be sure they have begun to dry right into the centre of the salami at which point he’ll move them to his maturing cellar under his restaurant.

I went to visit Ismaele at his farm in Pieve Fosciana to see whether he’d be a suitable addition to the salumi (cured pork) course I organize for pig rearers, butchers and chefs. During the courses I’d watched Italian butchers making salami, but I hadn’t done it myself, and I only helped this time because Ismaele had had the crazy idea to turn two whole pigs into salami in honour of my visit. His assistant Donatella had to return to her young children after lunch, leaving me to fill her shoes. As the regiment of salamis grew, Ismaele and I passed the time talking about the value of old breeds of pig, the flavour of the meat that comes through in the salami if you don’t use preservatives (which aren’t necessary), how people have forgotten what real food tastes like in these days of chemical additives and much else. We agreed we could offer a sausage-making session and lunch in his restaurant for amateurs who want to produce a good Italian sausage at a fraction of the price you pay at the deli. For the professionals, he offered to allow them to make their own salami at his place. That clinched his place on the course, because I was realizing that I hadn’t truly understood the process despite the number of times I’d watched it and written down the percentages of salt and spices and the temperature and humidity for drying. It’s good to be reminded of what I want my guests to experience on my adventures.

Healthy Eating

I just found this piece on the website of the LLandinabo Farm Shop. My first thought: thank goodness some food scientists are finally doing research that sheds light on why those Palaeolithic meat-eaters didn't all die of terrible diseases leaving the earth with no human beings on it. But the enduring thought is that we'll never know what's healthy and what's not. A colleague said to me yesterday: 'My grandmother lived to be 96 and she didn't have a healthy lifestyle. I'll probably live to 115 because I exercise and eat healthy food'. Hmmm... I'd say that living to 96 is evidence that her grandmother's lifestyle was healthy enough for her, and we don't really know whether everyone needs lots of exercise and whether what we believe to be a healthy diet really is. In other words...

Lardo

A Fat Lot We Know...

On most of the stock we deal with, there is more fat on the meat than would be found in the supermarket and most High Street butchers. Again, when all fat was considered bad, this mitigated against these old British breeds and helped cause their decline. However, recent scientific discoveries in America and now at Bristol University have shown that the fat on animals that have been grazed extensively (which ours have) is high in Omega 3 fatty acids, the same health enhancing factor found in oily fish. The difference at the moment however is that the farming of rare breeds is actually more sustainable than the fishing in the seas around Europe.

Fat is also important in cooking good food. The fat itself bastes the meat while it cooks and imparts succulence and flavour. Without it, meat is often tough and tasteless. By all means, cut off the excess fat after the cooking is complete, if you prefer, but you don’t need to feel guilty about enjoying the fat on our meat.

Progress

All winter I’ve been banned from taking clients to visit one of my favourite cheesemakers because they were rebuilding the dairy. When you arrived at the old dairy you entered a shabby sitting room with an old table in the centre, along one wall a lumpy sofa, usually occupied by one of the farm cats, and along another an old chestnut-wood sideboard. It was dingy, but welcoming. The walls were decorated with black-and-white photographs of the family, showing grandfather and his sons posed outside the barn, and a poster listing the cheeses they used to produce. Since granddad died, they’d narrowed the range to fresh pecorino and ricotta made from the milk of their 400 handsome black Massese sheep. The cheesemaking took place behind in a space no larger than a corridor. Four large gas burners sat on the floor on the right and a narrow stainless steel draining-shelf with an upturned rim was fixed to the white tiled wall on the left. Giuliana and her daughter-in-law Maria Rosa took turns making the pecorino in a large aluminium pot, warming the milk on a burner, cutting the curd with a wooden stick and bending almost double to gather up the chopped-up curd into a lump after it had sunk to the bottom of the pot. Although there was barely enough room to turn around, each pecorino-sized lump was put into a plastic mould on the stainless steel shelf behind to allow the whey to drain and run into a plastic bucket on the floor at the far end of the shelf. Then they’d make ricotta by reheating the whey in battered copper cauldrons on the same burners on the ground. It was back-breaking work, and I spent the winter imagining the new large, more convenient dairy with the burners at a more comfortable height and more space to move about in.

Today I went to see it. The front wall of the sitting room had been knocked down and replaced by a shop window. From the yard, I could see inside a chill counter filled with cheeses, and shelves affixed to the side walls stacked with honey, grappa and some kitsch stuffed animals. The photos had gone. A window had been inserted into the back wall of this new shop through which I glimpsed the enlarged dairy full of gleaming elephantine stainless-steel vats. Maria Rosa was standing at one on some portable steps, since the vat is too tall for her to operate from the ground. She beckoned me in and, as I entered, I realised she was peering intently at a thermometer immersed in the milk that filled the vat. I commented that I’d never seen her or Giuliana use a thermometer before. She explained that with this new container that heated the milk by circulating hot water in its double walls, she had lost her sense of the temperature.

While we waited for the milk to coagulate, she listed the benefits of the new system. Before they only had the capacity to make half their milk into cheese; they sold the other half which brought in less income than cheese. Besides that, now they have a larger temperature-controlled storeroom, and instead of selling all the pecorino fresh, they’ve started maturing some of it, which also adds value. Since they’re making more cheeses, they can branch out and reach new markets by flavouring the pecorino with walnuts, tomato, pepper, herbs and hay. I asked her whether she liked, for instance, the pecorino aged in hay. ‘No’, she admitted frankly. ‘It’s too dry’. But then added quickly, ‘Lots of people like it because they eat it with honey and jam’. During this conversation, Maria Rosa tested the curd four times to check whether it was ready to be cut. Previously the women had a sixth sense about when it was ready and only once had to test it a second time. When she finally decided it was ready, she pressed a button and a vertical frame strung with wires started to rotate inside the vat and cut the coagulated curd into small pieces. When she judged they were small enough, she hauled the free end of a large-diameter plastic hosepipe over to a two-metre square stainless steel box-table on legs and casters, which took up most of the centre of the room. She now pressed a red button on the vat and the cut curd and whey was pumped from the vat through the hosepipe into moulds in a frame in the box-table. She needed my help to redirect the awkward, heavy hosepipe to different areas. When all the curd was in the box, it had to be redistributed among the moulds which required wheeling the table away from the wall. Again it was too heavy for her to do on her own, as was the frame holding the moulds, which had to be lifted out after the moulds were full. Usually her daughter was around to help. I remembered when even old Giuliana could lift all the human-sized equipment by herself. Now Maria Rosa looked awkward as she worked, compared to the ease and grace she had displayed when working in the old cramped dairy. I observed that the new system seemed to distance her from the cheese so her senses were no longer in control, and she agreed.  But she insisted that the flavour of the cheese is the same. When she gave me a taste, I didn’t tell her that it had a bitter taste that hadn’t been there before.  And best of all, she assured me, Giuliana is glad not to have to make cheese any more.

When I had arrived, Giuliana was taking down the laundry. I’d greeted her and asked how things were going. She’d replied, ‘In somma’, which usually means ‘Could be better’.

Fat Tuesday

Martedì Grasso or Mardi Gras means ‘Fat Tuesday’, and both sound to me much more fun than Shrove Tuesday. ‘Shrove’ is the past tense of ‘shrive’ which comes from an Old English word meaning to impose as a penance. In England we eat pancakes on Shrove Tuesday. When made well and sprinkled with lemon juice and powdered sugar, I wouldn’t call them a penance, but they are meagre fare compared to the feasts of the last day of Carnevale or Carnival in Italy and most other Catholic countries. Meagre comes from a Middle English word meaning lean and was used in cookbooks at least until the mid-19th century to describe meatless recipes suitable for Fridays and Lent. Carnevale comes from ‘carne (le)vare’ and referred to the banquet on the evening before Ash Wednesday at which the diners stuffed themselves with meat while saying farewell to it. Obviously it has to be close at hand to hear the ‘arrivederci’. Parting is such sweet sorrow that the good-byes now begin as early as Epiphany (6 January) and are repeated regularly in public revelry, huge processions of fantastical floats, fancy-dress parties and banquets until the final bash this Tuesday 16 February.

I know Carnevale has arrived in Casabasciana when I go to the village shop on a Saturday morning near the end of January and see on the counter a box of chiacchiere (photo above) and am assaulted by an instant attack of the munchies. They’re one species out of a whole genus of fried dough strips flavoured with a little alcohol and sprinkled with powdered sugar which flake lightly between your teeth. They could be said to be the Italian equivalent of English pancakes, a delicious sweet titbit, but rather than saving them parsimoniously for ‘Fat Tuesday’, the Italians spread them lavishly throughout Carnival. Even while crunching my way through these heavenly pastries, my mind carries me forward to a fortnight later when Eugenia’s homemade chiacchiere (photo left) will appear in the shop — even lighter, crisper, less sweet, more melt-in-the mouth. She rattled off the recipe to me, but I’ve forgotten the quantities. Help is to hand in this delightful Gherkins & Tomatoes blog.