AUNTIE PASTA: Porta Palazzo Market

TURIN, Italy – With the sky still an early morning pink, crates of dark purple eggplant, yellow pears and fragrant fennel are stacked willy nilly, cluttering the streets as fruit and vegetable vendors at Turin’s great food market, Porta Palazzo set up their market stalls for the day. Brawny butchers in white coats and blood stained aprons pull large beef hindquarters and pork carcasses from rumbling refrigerated trucks and carry them to their market stalls in the immense glass and wrought iron building nearby.

But even before the butchers start to sharpen their knives and price cards are stuck into the produce boxes, local chefs are on the prowl, menu ideas running through their minds. How many crates of Swiss chard do you have? Never mind, how about the beets, will you have more tomorrow? The day’s menu depends on what they choose. The only thing certain is that the food they’ll prepare is unlike any you have ever eaten in Italy.

Chef Roberto Donna of Washington, D.C. knows first-hand how creative the chefs in his hometown can be. He’ll tell you that with such incredibly voluptuous and seductive ingredients as white truffles, porcini mushrooms, Piedmont beef, fresh brook trout, and an abundance of game, and locals are ever really surprised when first time visitors can barely keep from swooning at the dinner table.

Turinese cuisine is unlike the food in any other part of Italy. Local dishes incorporate a much larger variety of savory sauces which are more traditional in French cuisine than in Italian. And chefs tend to reach for butter and lard rather than olive oil, which is also more French than Italian. Olive oil has only been used in local cooking since the 1950’s when it was brought north by southern Italians who immigrated to Turin to work in the automobile industry.

Another difference is that appetizers play a much larger role here than in other parts of Italy, both in the size of the portions and in their sheer creativity. In Chef Donna’s definitive cookbook, ‘Cooking in Piedmont’, he offers twenty-six recipes for appetizers including such non-appetizer sounding dishes as rabbit salad, stuffed roasted peppers, veal tongue in a spicy red sauce, a duck liver flan and spicy polenta served with fried quail eggs.

Probably the best known Piedmontese appetizers are bagna caoda –literally a hot bath -of oil, garlic, anchovies and butter served as a dipping sauce for winter vegetables, and fonduta (from the French fondre, to melt) a fondue of creamy Fontina cheese flavored with white truffles. Truffles are used extensively in Turinese cooking, and when they are in season – between November and February – they are generously showered over just about everything.

Two of Turin’s most popular pasta dishes are tajarin, golden egg noodles served with melted butter and a shaving of white truffles, and Chef Donna’s favorite, ravioli del plin, (del plin means to pinch in Turinese dialect) which are often served with a reduced veal stock and a delicate veil of grated parmesan cheese. It is interesting that the Turinese prefer fresh egg pastas, rather than pastasciutta, dried pasta, that is so popular throughout the rest of Italy.

The best rice in Italy, some say the world, grows in the wide flat lands between Milan and Turin so in addition to pasta you may find a rich and creamy risotto, rice served with meat sauce, and/or a rice and chick pea dish on the menu. Other non-pasta choices are chestnut flour gnocchi served with a cheese sauce called fonduta di Castelmagno (Castelmagno is a town southwest of Turin famous for its cheese), and baccalà (salted cod), served with saffron flavored polenta. And then, as the Italians say, Coraggio! – Courage! It’s time to move on to the main course.

The city’s signature dish is bollito misto, a mix of boiled meats served with three sauces: bagnet verd, or green sauce made from parsely, anchovies, garlic and olive oil; bagnet ross, a red sauce of crushed tomatoes, garlic and hot peppers, and saussa d’avije, a yellow mustard sauce sweetened with honey and crushed nuts.

In the past, traditionalists insisted that bollito misto contain seven vegetables, seven types of meat, and seven types of ornamenti, i.e. tongues, tails and dangly bits, but today the more exotic dangly bits are slowly being eased out. You'll find bollito misto on the menu at least once a week in most Turin restaurants. The boiled meats are served from a rolling stainless steel cart and each type of meat is kept warm in its own broth filled compartment. If you are squeamish about eating dangly bits you can ask for only the meats that you want.

Other classic Piedmontese dishes include brasato al Barolo, Piedmont beef slowly braised in Barolo wine, and finanziera, a stew of cock’s crests, chicken livers, veal, peas and porcini mushrooms. In the fall and winter you’ll find venison, roe deer (a small European deer), quail and even tagliata di renna, slices of reindeer meat, on some menus along with beef and veal, free range poultry and freshly caught fish instead of fish farm fish.

In a country where no culinary rock has been left unturned, isn't it nice to know that there is still a small corner where you can find new taste experiences? The food of Turin may just change the way you look at Italian food forever.

Photos: (1) food truck at Porta Palazzo; (2) Chef Roberto Donna; (3-6) exterior and interior views of the Porta Palzazzo market

For more information about Chef Donna visit his web site: http://www.robertodonna.com/robertodonna/bio.php

AUNTIE PASTA; Sweet Artichoke Dreams

SARONNO, Italy - Four out of the five fruttivendolos I passed walking around Saronno this morning had baskets of artichokes sitting out in front of their shops. It's the end of the season so the prices were good, but even so it didn't look like many people were buying them.

It stunned me to learn that there are about 90 different varieties of artichokes that grow in Italy. Some are smooth and fat, others are thin and have sharp thorns.The smooth ones grow primarily in Lazio and Puglia and are the type I used to eat when I was a kid. The prickly ones grow in Liguria, Sicily and Sardinia and the first time I saw them was when I lived in Genoa.

One Ligurian variety that has won the approval of the Slow Food movement comes from Perinaldo, a small hill town in the province of Imperia, near the border with France. The town is so small there are only 400 families who live there and out of those there are seven artichoke producers.

On the second Sunday in May Perinaldo hosts a food fair featuring their famous artichokes and the other local products, Taggiasca olives and olive oil.

I’m not an artichoke connoisseur, all I know is that the prickly and non-prickly artichokes are prepared in different ways. The fat, smooth ones, called Mammole, are often deep fried, as in Carciofi alla Giudea, or stuffed, like my Grandmother used to make them. The prickly ones, which are very tender, are often sliced very thin and eaten raw.

I remember the first time I cooked artichokes. I was using a recipe from my memory bank, based more on taste than technique. What I remembered was that my Grandmother cooked artichokes in the oven. She would cut the bottoms so the artichoke would stand up straight in a low baking dish. Then she would slice up a clove of garlic and slip the strips down in between the artichoke leaves. Next she would sprinkle the artichoke with the dried mintuccia her sister Mary had sent her from Italy, drizzle them with olive oil, add a little salt and pepper and into the oven they would go.

How long they cooked was anyone’s guess. I was only 5 years old so my little kid concept of time and actual time were not exactly in sync yet. But oh how I loved those artichokes. I remember peeling the leaves off one by one, oil all over my hands, my face, bits mintuccia stuck in my teeth, and my eyes rolling back in my head at the delicious flavor.

Fast forward to the part of my life when I was married with children and living in Philadelphia. One week I found artichokes at the Italian market and decided to cook them. I knew I was missing a key ingredient, the mintuccia, but I thought I would give them a go anyway. I brought them home, cleaned them up as much as you can clean up artichokes, sliced the bottoms, put them in a baking dish, stuck in the garlic slivers, drizzled them with olive oil, salt, pepper and closed the oven door. Then every half hour or so, I would wander back into the kitchen and peek into the oven to see if they were cooked yet.

An hour passed, then two. I fed the kids, gave them a bath and checked the artichokes. Nope. Not ready. Read the kids a story and put them to bed and checked the artichokes again. Nope Not ready yet. Nor were they going to be ready - ever. I finally went to bed at 11 PM, the artichokes brown and shriveled and as hard as a rock.

I don’t know when or how I finally discovered the crucial step I had missed in the care and cooking of artichokes. As it turns out you have to boil or steam before you put them in the oven. So now I know. Wednesday is market day in Saronno and I will go and buy artichokes. I will boil them and bake them and love every minute I spend eating them, even with oil on my hands and mintuccia in my teeth, and it will all be worth it.

If you would like a less messy way of eating artichokes you can prepare them like the Perinaldesi do. Their traditional recipes are relatively simple. They either cook them in the oven with Parmesan cheese and mushrooms, or fry them with a little garlic and parsley.

Or you can try this recipe from Chef Roberto Donna, adapted by StarChefs.com

Potato, Artichoke and Parmesan Cheese Tort

4 large artichokes, cleaned and thinly sliced at the last minute

4 large potatoes, peeled and thinly sliced

4 ounces Parmesan cheese, thinly sliced

4 ounces melted butter

1 medium onion, sliced, cooked and caramelized

2 fresh thyme sprigs, chopped

Salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste

To prepare the tort:

Preheat the oven at 350°F. Take a 6-inch non-stick pan, grease the bottom and sides.

Alternate layers of potato, artichokes and Pecorino cheese; sprinkle each layer with onions, thyme, butter, salt and pepper, until you fill the pan entirely (go over the top if you want, it will shrink).

Place in the oven, cover with foil and cook for 1 hour. Let it sit for 10 minutes. Unmold from the non-stick pan and serve warm.

Buon Appetito.