AUNTIE PASTA: Say Cheese Please

CHIAVARI, Italy - The other day I got to thinking about the things I used to bring back from my trips to Italy, and realized most of what I bought came from the Italian grocery stores and food and cheese shops. I would usually find wonderful things that easily fit into my suitcase, which were much more interesting and more appreciated that anything I could ever find in the souvenir shops.

 

 Happy Cow Makes Yummy Milk Which Makes Yummy Cheese

The food shops had things like bags of Arborio rice, the best rice for real Italian risottos and which I could not find at home, hand held graters, ravioli cutters, fun aprons, and of course real Italian cheese. Things are a little different now. Italian products are much more available in all parts of the world, but like Neapolitan coffee and chocolate from Modica, Sicily, some things just taste better here.

Number one buy on my list was Parmigiano Reggiano. It was, and still is, shrink wrapped and easy to pack, and so it made a great gift – especially if I was gifting myself. You can bring home any cheese as long as it is    shrink wrapped hard cheese like Parmigiano Reggiano. But if you find yourself looking longingly at a fresh cheese, like Sicilian burrata, go ahead and buy it along with some bread, a bottle of wine, a little fruit and have yourself a very merry picnic and bring the delicious memory home.

Here are some other types you might want to try while you’re here. They are not in any particular order. 

Parmigiano Reggiano

Parmigiano Reggiano – This cheese is probably one of Italy’s most famous. The name kind of hints at the fact that it comes from Parma, but Reggio Emilia, Modena, part of Bologna and part of Mantua can also claim ownership of this popular cows milk cheese. Parmigiano Reggiano is aged for eighteen to twenty-four months and is additive free and worked by hand using the same cheese making techniques that have been used for some seven hundred years.   

Bel Paese 

Bel Paese – Literally means “beautiful country”. This cheese was invented in 1929 by the Galbani Cheese Company in Lombardy. It is made from  pasteurized cow’s milk and sold in small discs in almost every grocery store. You can also buy a chuck of Bel Paese in most Italian food shops. Bel Paese is kind of like mozzarella as it has a mild, buttery flavor, but mild and buttery with tang. If you buy the disks you can bring it home and use it in casseroles and on pizzas, or eat it with crackers.

Pecorino Romano Bronzetto

Pecorino Romano Bronzetto – This may be the best of the northern Sardinian-made Sardoformaggi Romanos. The ancient cheese was once made in Rome and was given to the legionaries as part of their daily rations. The extra rainfall northern Sardinia provides lush pastures for the sheep to graze in. Bronzetto is dry-salted by hand for two months and then aged for another year. It has a sharp flavor, and not recommended for sissies.

Pecorino Romano Genuino 

Pecorino Romano Genuino – Often referred to as “Genuino” because of it’s Roman origins. Genuino is more crumbly and grainy than Bronzetto making it an excellent grating cheese.

Pecorino Toscano is part of the same family. There are strict regulations regarding how it is made. Unlike other pecorinos, Toscano is not aged so this young cheese has a flavor that hints of wildflowers, herbs and Tuscan grass. 

Burrata

Burrata – If you like mozzarella you will love burrata. It looks a lot like mozzarella, but it has a creamy butter-cream center, which makes it unique. It comes from the southern region of Puglia and it has a very short shelf life so break out the bread and wine, eat and enjoy and bring the delicious memory home. You’ll probably find it wrapped in a large leaf, and if the leaf is green, the cheese is fresh. If it is not, don’t buy it. 

 

Fiore Sardo

 Fiore Sardo – This cheese is made in the hills of Sardinia from  unpasteurized sheep’s milk. It is also aged for three months which leaves it  slightly salty with a long finish – which means the taste remains in your mouth. This is D.O.P. protected cheese, but then again how could you expect anything else from a cheese named Flower of Sardinia. 

 

Fontina Val d’Aosta – The lucky cows who live in the celestial pastures of Italy’s Aosta Valley, near the border with France, produce the milk used to make this popular cheese. It is aged for 90 days, not long in cheese life, but it is still delicious because the cows eat the wildflowers and herbs from those pastures and they pass along the aromatic flavors in their milk. 

Mountain Gorgonzola

Mountain Gorgonzola is a sharp and tangy cheese from Italy’s Lombardy region. Mountain Gorgonzola doesn’t really come from the mountains, but it does have a white interior with attractive streaks of blue. In Italy this cheese is eaten drizzled with honey.

Pecorino di Sicilia

Pecorino di Sicilia – Dating back more than 2,000 years, this is an ancient cheese of sheep’s milk from inland Sicily. A tart and citrus-like flavor can be found in the sundried-tomato infused version. Other versions include chopped pistachio nuts and leafy green arugula.

 Umbriaco di Amarone

Ubriaco al Prosecco – An unpasteurized cow’s milk cheese from Veneto, coated with Proseco grapes must ( a by-product from wine-making). It has a clean, fresh flavor and is a perfect cheese to pair with wine.

Ubriaco al Vino is a semi-soft, pasteurized cow’s milk cheese from Friuli, aged for three months in a blend of Merlot and Cabernet wine must. No other cheese had been produced in this manner and creates a cheese with an unmistakable fruity flavor.

Ubriaco di Amarone – A five month-aged Monte Veronese washed in Amarone; a wine produced by drying grapes before fermentation to concentrate their sugars. This sharp and tangy cheese is also infused with grapey overtones. Umbriaco means ‘drunk’ in Italian, and has been rightly applied to these three wine infused cheeses.

Veneto d'Estate Vaccino

Vento d’Estate Vaccino – This Barricato, or wooden barrel-aged cow’s milk cheese from Treviso is buried under hay from the historic mountain of Monfenera during its maturation process. Vento d’Estate Vaccino is known for its barrel-wood, lilac, pear and straw fragrance. It has a rich, savory flavor.

LIFE: Chiavari's Flower Fest

CHIAVARI, Italy – Flower fair this weekend. The streets of old Chiavari resemble walkways to heaven. The heady fragrance emanating from the thousands of flowers and herbal plants on display was hard to resist, not that anyone was thinking about resisting.

There is a part of the Italian Riviera called the Riviera of the Flowers. It’s on the side of the Riviera that goes from Genova toward the south of France. It’s right next to the Riviera of the Palms (See http://thisitalianlife.blogspot.it/2013/03/life-palms-vatican.html  LIFE: Palms@ the Vatican). 

It’s on that side of the Riviera that Italy’s flower industry began. The first flowers to be exported were carnations, followed by roses and violets. The top flower clients were the perfume houses located in and around Grasse, in France.

So the chances are pretty good that my favorite perfume, Chanel No. 5, was made from essence of flowers grown in Italy.  Why the Italians never developed a perfume industry of their own is still a mystery to me, but you have to hand it to the crafty French, they saw an opportunity and they took it.

Italy’s flower industry really took off when the railroad line connecting Liguria with the rest of Europe was completed. The year was 1894.  It wasn’t really an organized industry back then, local flower growers would gather at the train station with boxes of flowers and flower buyers from France, and other parts of Europe, would come in on the train, look over the goods and buy.

Flowers are still one of Italy’s major exports and the center of the flower industry is in the town of San Remo. What that means is no matter where you live in Europe, there’s a good chance that some of the flowers you buy at your local market and florists were grown on Italy’s Riviera of the Flowers.

So this weekend’s flower fest is a tribute to the flower growers. The weather is a little uncertain, but I doubt a little rain is going to keep people away. The whole town is celebrating and many of the bars along the streets hosting the fair have set out pots of blooming flowers on their outdoor tables.

Even the kids were having a good time sniffing and smelling whatever flowers they happened to come across that were at their level. Two seconds after I snapped this photo the little boy on the right spotted his grandmother standing across the way and dashed over to give her legs a hug. 

While most passers-bye were oooing and ahhhing at the beautiful lemon trees, the lemon tree guy was looking rather bored. Hard to believe lemon trees could lose their charm, but then again . . . . . And the kids from the Istituto Agrario in Marsano, Italy’s future flower and herb growers and all around tenders of the land, had a small stand too. To their credit they brought giant pots of parsley, sage, rosemary and thyme, which smelled absolutely delicious.

AUNTIE PASTA: Erbe della Riviera Ligure

CHIAVARI, Italy – Walked into my favorite greengrocer the other day just in time to see the owner coming in with an armful of fresh marjoram. I had never seen such large stalks of marjoram in my life, they were at least two feet long, but then again my experience with growing marjoram is limited to the 7 or 8 inch stems of my herbs in a pot windowsill garden.

 

 Marjoram

Then I noticed he had also brought in a fresh supply of bay leaf branches and piled them up over in a corner. I have some of their bay leaves in my kitchen that I bought a few weeks ago. They are tied together with some kitchen string and hanging up to dry. Now I have to find a container that is large enough to hold them and still fit in my limited kitchen space. I would have bought some of their marjoram as well if my own little plant wasn’t growing like the weed that it is and producing more marjoram than I can possibly use in a year.

I also bought oregano yesterday, a bouquet of dried Sicilian oregano sealed in a plastic bag. When I got home I beat the (sealed) bag of oregano against the table for about 15 minutes until all the leaves came off leaving behind the dried oregano buds clinging to the top of the now bare stalks. Then I cut the bag open and put the leaves in a container. It didn’t seem to be such a large bouquet when I bought it, but I sure got a good supply of oregano from my small investment.

 Herbes de Provence

There was a time, in my early years in Italy, when I spent many a weekend in the south of France. I always envied the French for being so clever at maximizing whatever they have, and the merchants in Nice for being especially clever. I would look at the bright lemon shaped soaps and the ribbon tied bags of ‘herbes de Provence’, and wonder why the Ligurians didn’t do something similar. Maybe not soap, but how about ‘herbs of the Italian Riviera,’ or something more exotic like ‘erbe della Riviera Ligure.’ That would work.  

I was very sad when I learned that the ‘herbes de Provence’ is just a generic term for herbs found in Provence, typically savory, fennel, basil, thyme and lavender leaves, and   the herbs in the cute little bags don’t actually come from Provence, or even from France.  Most of them come from central and Eastern Europe, North Africa and China. And no one could explain the presense of lavender leaves as the French, especially those from Provence, don’t use lavender leaves in their cuisine.

But that’s not the point. The point is I thought the Ligurians could easily create a thriving cottage industry producing equally adorable ribbon tied sackettes of herbs that are grown in Liguria and could have the DOP designations to prove it. (See: Auntie Pasta PDO, DOP, et all http://thisitalianlife.blogspot.it/2010/02/auntie-pasta-pdo-dop-et-al.html for a PDO, DOP primer). Why they, the Ligurians, didn’t take advantage of their natural bounty was a mystery that puzzled me for quite a while.

Parsley, Basil, Marjoram and Thyme

Then I figured it out. The reason they never did it, nor will they ever do it, is because they use more fresh herbs than dried herbs. Oregano may be exception to the rule, but even the Ligurians bow to the Sicilians when it comes to growing flavorful oregano. Oregano is one of the few herbs that actually tastes better dried so that would work as an herb product, but like I said, the Sicilians have the corner on that market. The herb most associated with Liguria is basil, but dried basil tastes like sawdust and dried parsely isn’t much better. Actually most herbs taste better fresh.

The story still goes round expat circles of the American who used to drive to Nice, some 96 kilometers (120 miles) from Genova, to buy dried parsely from the grocery department of Galleries Layfatte. When asked why, she explained that she had asked every greengrocer in town for dried parsely but there was none to be had. They only had fresh parsely.

But fresh or dried, Italians generally don’t use a lot of herbs in their cooking. And they rarely mix and match. They may use garlic and rosemary for a roast, or oregano, garlic and red pepper for a spaghetti sauce, but they don’t have a large jar of ‘Italian’ herb mix sitting by the stove. They try to bring out the flavor of whatever they are cooking and create a balance between their ingredients and the herbs and spices.

 

 Canata

Today’s recipe is called Canata, it’s a typical recipe from Lazio and it is another example of the simple deliciousness of Italian cuisine. It is very similar to Tuscany’s panzanella and like most authentic Italian recipes it’s a little short on details, but you are all used to that by now, right? There is also a Ligurian version of this summer favorite and probably a version for every other Italian province as well. On the plus side, the ingredients are few, the taste is big, and it’s super easy to make.

Canata

Serves 4

4 tomatoes

4 tablespoons of extra virgin olive oil

Rustic bread, at least three days old, cut in slices (cibatta is ok*)

6-8 fresh basil leaves

Vinegar (red wine or balsamic)

Salt and pepper

Wash the tomatoes in cold water, cut them in half and rub them on the bread slices. Then cut the tomatoes into smaller pieces, put them in a large salad bowl, drizzle them with olive oil, a little vinegar, salt and pepper. Tear the bread (by hand) into bite size pieces and add them to the tomatoes. Tear the basil (by hand) into smaller pieces and add it to the salad. Mix all the ingredients together making sure the bread is well coated with the juices. You can do this with a large spoon but it’s better if you use your hands.

Suggestions: If your bread is really stale, but really really stale, you might want to dampen the pieces with a little water to soften them before adding them to the other ingredients. However if the bread isn’t stale enough, it will turn to mush if you dampen it with water. You can also add other vegetables to this salad, such as celery or sliced artichoke hearts, the ones that have been preserved in oil.