LIFE: Days of the Dead

­CHIAVARI, Italy – Lots of Halloween treats in the windows of bakeries here in Chiavari this week. There were pumpkin shaped candies and cookies and my favorites, pan dei morti, the bread of the dead.  Halloween is becoming more popular here, not the trick or treating part, the Italians haven’t quite grasped that concept yet, but the 20 somethings do like dressing up and looking weird and doing the Zombie Walks. But for those closer to and beyond 40, this weekend is a serious holiday. November 1st was Ognisanti, All Saints Day and November 2nd is La Commemorazione dei Defunti, All Souls Day.

 An Italian Cemetary

This is the weekend families travel kilometers and kilometers to lay flowers and votive candles on the graves of their parents and grandparents and other dead relatives. I doubt people still believe that the souls of their relatives return to Earth every year, but just in case it’s true, and because this is Italy and anything can be true, special masses are said for the dead. It is also a time for families to be together and pay tribute to those who have passed.

Celebrating the dead is a very old tradition that dates back to the time of the Roman pagans. The Roman holiday was called the Parentalia, and while it may sound a bit excessive now, the Parentalia was a serious nine day celebration during which neither marriages or any type of legal business was allowed. The Romans would leave garlands of flowers and wine-soaked bread on the tombs of their dead relatives. By offering the evil spirits gifts of food and flowers, they hoped the evil spirits would be appeased and not dance around in the cemeteries raising havoc and disturbing the dead who were trying to rest in peace. 

 Roman Cemetary, Pompeii

After Christianity took hold the Parentalia morphed into All Saints Day. What happened is the Catholic Church found that there weren’t enough days in the year to celebrate all of the martyred saints so in the early part of the 9^th century Pope Boniface IV created a collective holiday to celebrate all of them with one holiday.

The date of All Saints Day was later changed to the first day of winter, as it was believed that was the time the division between earthly life and afterlife was razor thin making it easy for the dead to reenter their bodies and return to the earth for a visit. Maybe the Zombie walks represent that part of the celebration, it’s possible.

 Reconnecting with the Living and the Dead

Like the Roman Parentalia, All Souls Day celebrations also revolved around food but in a different way. Instead of leaving food on their relatives graves, people in the province of Massa Carrara (Tuscany) distributed it to the needy.  In Monte Argenario, also in Tuscany, there was a tradition of sewing large pockets on the front of the clothes of orphaned children so everyone could give them a little something, food or money, and in Abruzzo they would carve out pumpkins, put a candle inside of them and use them as lanterns. Any of this sound familiar?

Like every important holiday, Ognisanto has its special treats – the most important being the oddly shaped pan dei morti. And even though pan dei morti translates to bread of the dead, it’s really a cookie made with figs and nuts and other good things. 

Pan dei Morti

The cookies sort of look like hands in prayer, but originally they were supposed to resemble a baby wrapped in swaddling clothes. Plates of cookie babies were left on  graves as a sacrifice to the evil spirits who lived in the cemeteries, as everyone knew those evil spirits were beastly ghouls who liked nothing better than feasting on tender,  chewy little babies.

The cookies are symbolic in other ways as well. To begin with they are made from other cookies, amaretti or savoiardi, the savoiardi being the cookies used for tiramisu, which symbolize the transformation of old into new, as one person dies another is born and life continues.

 Catacombs of the Cappuccini, Palermo, Sicily

The recipe also calls for dried fruit and figs, the same ingredients used in pre-Christian offerings to the dead. In the past they would darken honey by heating it on a stove to make the cookies as dark as the earth in a burial ground, but today a little ground cocoa is used instead. The cookies are dense and chewy with a bit of crunch from the ground amaretti and pine nuts, which give the idea of crunching dead people’s bones. Yum, yum, crunchy bones. So how does that song go – everything old is new again? It would seem that is true, at least here, right down to the bone crunching end.

ON ANOTHER NOTE

This Italian Life now has a Facebook Page. You can get there by clicking the Facebook badge on the right hand side of the page or going to https://www.facebook.com/thisitalianlife.  I’m still working out the kinks, and the badge is kind of crummy, but it will take you to daily updates of life in Italy. Today you'll find more info on the origins or Halloween. I hope you’ll check it out, leave a comment or two, and while you are there it would be nice if you gave the page a Like. Right now there are 20 likes and one of them is mine. Thanks. 

AUNTIE PASTA: There's Something About ...

SARONNO, Italy - There is something about the sunny flavors in caponata that conjure up thought of sun and sea and Sicily. While the dish gets its name from one of its ingredients, capers, its main ingredient is eggplant (aubergines). Maybe the dish should be called melanzatta instead.

 Sicilian Caponata

Caponata is another example of a Sicilian dish whose origins lie in the Middle East. Like much of Sicily’s cuisine, caponata was introduced to the island by the Arabs. They ruled Sicily from the year 827 to 1061 and through their highly effective irrigation techniques, they brought water to the cities and the fields, a crucial element to farming in this arid land. In Palermo you can still see the subterranean waterways known as ‘qanats’. 

Street Market, Palermo, Sicily

They ruled Sicily for a little more than two centuries but their influence was nothing short of monumental. Under their administration, the island's population doubled as dozens of towns were founded and cities repopulated. By introducing irrigation techniques to the island, they were able to totally change what the Sicilians grew and ate. It was the Arabs who brought sugar cane, cotton, eggplant, dates, oranges and other citrus fruits to Sicily. And while you see their influence in many Sicilian recipes, more significantly, they changed Sicilian society itself. To this day, many social attitudes found in Sicily are direct decedents of the Arabs who ruled a thousand years ago.  

Eggplant on the Vine

There are a number of caponata recipes including those that call for artichokes or sweet peppers. But regardless of which recipe you use, the primary ingredient is eggplant, followed by celery, green olives, tomatoes (a modern addition), onions, capers, virgin olive oil, vinegar and sugar. The ingredients must be prepared carefully. The celery, for example, should not be overcooked and must remain firm. The cured or salted capers must be thoroughly rinsed. The eggplant may be slightly steamed and then sautéd, though some purists prefer frying.

Here's the basic recipe.

Ingredients: 8 medium size aubergines (eggplants), 200 grams of peeled mature tomatoes, 2 medium size sweet white or yellow onions, the heart of a large celery, 200 grams of pitted large cured firm green olives, 200 grams of capers (if salted soak in water and drain to remove salt), extra virgin olive oil, white vinegar, sugar, salt.

Preparation: Cut the unpeeled eggplants into chunks of about one inch (or two centimeter squares). This is not a “written in stone” recipe, so feel free to make adjustments. Cook the cubed eggplant by steaming it in a large, covered pot until completely cooked, but still firm. (Don't boil them.) Drain well and set aside. 

Chop the tomatoes into small pieces or a thick pulp, without discarding the juice or seeds. Chop the onions into medium pieces or thin slices. Cut the celery stalks into pieces about one inch long. Discard leaves. (It’s really best to cut eggplant, tomato and celery in more or less the same sizes, it makes it easier to eat). Cut the olives in half. 

In a large pan, saute the onions and celery pieces in olive oil. The celery should be lightly cooked, firm but not raw. Add the tomato pulp and bring the mixture to a boil, then simmer for a few minutes until the sauce changes color to a lighter red. At this point, simmer over low heat for another 4-6 minutes. Add the eggplants, olives and capers to the mixture. Also add a few tablespoons each of olive oil, vinegar and sugar. Stir gently and allow to simmer covered (steaming) for about five minutes over medium-low heat until mixture thickens but doesn't burn. 

Remove from heat and allow to cool. Salt to taste. Then chill for at least four hours before serving.

Caponata is also good as a vegetarian meal served over rice or couscous. 

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AUNTIE PASTA: Fried Shoes and Other Goodies

SARONNO, Italy – I was reading an article the other day about street food in Sicily and it mentioned a flat, fried cake called panella, that is made from chickpea flour. I had never heard of it and was surprised to learn that it has been around since the Middle Ages. Apparently it is one of the more popular street foods in Sicily and is sold where ever there is a street market, which is just about everywhere.

Lots of Big Appetites in Palermo

The article went on to say that panella is made with chickpea flour, with just enough water to form a thick paste, some chopped parsley, perhaps a bit of fennel seed, salt and pepper, then   deep fried. The cakes should be no more than about a half-centimeter thick, and about eight centimeters (3.5 inches) square, thought smaller sizes are popular too. The cakes should be cooked completely but not to the point of being completely crispy, with the inside being firm but also tender. 

Wait a minute. Except for the size, isn't what they are talking about here farinata, that manna from heaven found only in Liguria? What happened to the story about the sailing ship getting caught in a terrible storm and the bags of chickpea flour getting wet and the frugal Genovese scooping up the mess and frying it for the crew’s dinner? Isn’t that how this fried chick pea dish got started? What’s this business about the Arabs and chick peas in Sicily?  

Ligurian Farinata

The article went on to say that although chick peas were widely cultivated in the tenth century, they have been a food source for centuries. It also said that cicer arietinum, which I’m assuming is the Latin name for chick peas, was originally cultivated by Neolithic man in the Middle East, India and western Asia, domesticated from another variety of cicer reticulatum still grown in Turkey, and present in the central Mediterranean area during the Bronze Age. Even the ancient Greeks and Romans cultivated chickpeas, though probably not to the extent of the Arabs.  

That is all well and good but it doesn’t answer my question. How did chickpeas get from the Arabs in Sicily up to the Genovese sailors in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea? Were there Arab sailors on that Genovese ship? Somehow I don’t think so. If that was the case the Genovese wouldn’t have had to wait until the sacks of chick pea flour got soaking wet by water splashing on board during a storm to figure out what to do with it, right? Wouldn’t the Arabs have said to them, look pal, all you’ve got to do is mix this stuff with a little water and fry it up and you’ll have yourself a tasty little treat? I'm sure the Genovese would have jumped on it since they love anything fried. In fact they are fond of saying, "even a shoe fried is good."

Sicilian Panella

While fried foods seem to be a big no no these days, the article also said that panella is so delicious you should eat it anyway, and besides it isn’t all that bad for you since it doesn’t require a lot of frying – although the amount of time it fries really doesn’t make much difference, it’s the frying part that’s worrisome.  And as an added incentive it said that chickpeas are a good source of zinc, iron and other minerals and folate, whatever folate is.  

  

Then, the article busted another one of my food myth bubbles and started talking about arancine, those delicious rice balls you find in almost every bar and delicatessen in Rome. The first time I lived in Italy, way before I moved here permanently, I lived on arancine. I was lucky that they tasted so good because they were all I could afford to buy, apart from my one a day all-inclusive three-course meal at the Delfino Self-Service Cafeteria at the end of Via del Corso. For me aracine were a Roman treat, and for years I marveled at how clever the Romans were to have invented such a simple, but delicious little snack of meat, peas and cheese all stuffed into a rice ball and fried. 

A Tasty Arancine

It turns out – at least according to the article – that arancine were also brought here in the tenth century during the Kalbid rule of Sicily. Stuffed with meat and coated with a light, crispy batter, rice balls are similar to foods based on recipes known in the Middle East during the Middle Ages. Their Italian name comes from the word for orange (arancia), which, if you are a very creative Italian, you can imagine that they sort of resemble oranges in color and texture even though those dots never really ever connected for me. At any rate, it turns out there are two types of arancine. Those made in western Sicily are round, like the ones in Rome, while those made in eastern Sicily (particularly around Catania) are often conical. Why? Don’t ask.

I didn’t even know they grew rice in Sicily. I thought Lombardy was the rice belt, but I am wrong once again. In fact the article states that there is no connection between the rice grown in Piedmont and Lombardy and that in Sicily. Rice was introduced to the island during the Arab period – the famous 10th century they keep talking about.  Of course, rice cultivation requires water so the Arabs had to build an innovative and efficient irrigation systems in Sicily, which looking at Sicily today which is very hot and dry, it’s hard to imagine. It’s true that the island was greener then and the climate was cooler, and that there were more streams that flowed all year round. It was a very different Sicily with navigable rivers and natural lakes. In such an environment the Arabs revolutionized agriculture and introduced new crops such as cotton and sugar cane.  

Time to Hit the Street Markets of Palermo

And then, they struck the final blow with the last line which stated: rice balls are the golden jewel in the crown of Sicilian cuisine. I think the only solution to my dilemma is to get back down to Sicily and stay there for a few weeks and see what else is going on down there that I don’t know about. I need to get to the bottom of this.

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