Roman Artichokes Carciofi Romani
And a Roman artichoke, unlike a lover, never disappoints. The artichoke is indigenous to the Mediterranean region and was first recorded in Italy around 1400. Here in the United States, artichokes have been successfully cultivated in California and now appear in our markets throughout most of the year. So why would I travel 5000 miles for something I can buy at the grocery store up the street? What's so special about an artichoke from the Eternal City? The Roman artichoke - Il Carciofo Romano - is the original, an exquisite rendition of its American cousin. Without thorns, its shiny purple-tinged green leaves tuck inward to form a compact and solid globe that hides, like the prize at the bottom of the Cracker Jack box, the coveted heart, nutty-flavored and totally without fuzz. What the Roman cooks do to these visually splendid specimens, how they prepare them - that's why I hop that plane to Leonardo daVinci airport every year. Inside the DNA of every native-born Italian is a gene that honors and reveres food. This reverence reaches exaggerated proportions for fruits and vegetables. As each fig, asparagus or porcini season approaches, the air vibrates with an excitement similar to the anticipation for the birth of a long awaited prince. You can't christen a vegetable, so the Italians do the next best thing. They hold a festival in its honor. Until the middle of the 19th century, artichokes could be found growing in many gardens inside the gates of Rome. The best, in fact, were from the Pincio Hill and around the Trevi Fountain. Hard to imagine today. The modern generation of this most Roman of all vegetables grows abundantly in the rich soil of Ladispoli, a rural, seaside community about 45 minutes from the center of Rome. Here, every spring, when the graceful buttery-colored mimosa flanking the narrow roads bend with the sea breezes, Ladispoli celebrates "La Settimana Gastronomica del Carciofo Romanesco", literally a weeklong competition among the town's restaurants to make the winning "piatto dei carciofi romaneschi," the best Roman artichoke dish. The distance to the Roman markets from the fields of Ladispoli is a short one, so during this season bundles of freshly cut, long-stemmed artichokes arrive daily. To walk through any of these neighborhood markets is to experience grand opera on a culinary level. Theatricality dominates the atmosphere - every vendor is a director, a set designer, a promoter enticing the audience to watch their production, to buy their act. Like the Romans themselves, artichokes are a show-off vegetable, so they're perfectly cast as the star of this show. What a show it is! Maria Leonetti has owned and operated her stall at my favorite market in the working class section of Testaccio for 20 years. When I asked her permission to photograph her artfully arranged carciofi and would she also be so kind as to appear in the picture along side of them, she didn't reach for comb and lipstick. Instead, she rushed to her star performers, yanking them into position, carefully lining them up, pinching their cheeks and fluffing their hair - the Steven Spielberg of il mercato di Testaccio tweaking their best possible performance for the camera. An important component of Italian cooking is freshness, therefore most of what is purchased in the afternoon will be consumed by that same evening. On the rare occasion that this doesn't happen - for example, if Rome and Lazio are head to head in a crucial soccer match - those artichokes can be kept standing in a vase of cool water for a day or two. Being a member of the thistle family, they are after all basically a flower. In most cases, however, very little time lapses between cutting at the fields and consuming at the table.
Carciofi Alla Romana
There are infinite variations on every culinary theme in Italy. The presentation and preparation of food is serious business, no less important than papal edicts, ratio of dollar to euro or Pavarotti's vocal chords. Every cook, every chef clutching an assortment of the raw glorious globes faces the challenge with the enormity of Michelangelo confronting the unadorned Sistine Chapel. The possible methods of preparation include delicate carciofi filled ravioli, a comforting risotto di carciofi, frittata di carciofi- a wonderfully glorified rustic omelet, carciofi battered and deep-fried to a golden crispness, or an exquisitely simple insalata di carciofi , an antipasto of thinly sliced raw artichoke hearts lightly dressed with lemon juice, extra-virgin olive oil, and salt. The quintessentially dueling classics, however, the Gina Lollobrigida and Sofia Loren of artichoke preparation, are unquestionably Carciofi alla Giudia and Carciofi alla Romana. Very little room exists for variation here. Both preparations are begun by placing cleaned and trimmed whole artichokes in water and lemon juice. Carciofi alla Giudia (artichokes in the Jewish style) are simply dropped head first into hot olive oil, pressed until nicely browned, and then turned right side up until tender. Add salt and pepper and the crispy delectables are ready for the plate. Carciofi alla Romana (artichokes Roman style) are braised instead of fried. Forty minutes upside-down in a covered pan with water, olive oil, garlic, mint and parsley and the result is a wonderfully tender antipasto or side dish than can be enjoyed either cold or hot.
So add artichoke season in Rome to your list of things worth waiting for, like Christmas in December, fireworks on the 4th, like a lover you get all dressed up to see once a year. One more thing: if you happen to be in Rome and someone refers to you as a "carciofo", this is not a compliment. He's telling you that you're pretty much of a dolt, a bore. Go figure! RecipesRice with Artichokes 2 cups Arborio or Canaroli rice Prepare artichokes: Sauce: In another heavy bottom sauce pan, add the remaining onion to the rest of the olive oil (3 tablespoons). Over medium heat, add the rice and stir to coat the grains. Add remaining wine (1/2 cup) and allow to evaporate. At this point, risotto must be stirred constantly. Cook for about 20 minutes, stirring and alternately adding warm beef broth and tomato sauce. More or less liquid may be needed to achieve the proper consistency. This could be more broth or warm water. Rice grains should be tender, slightly chewy inside, and should never be allowed to become sticky. When risotto is done, remove from heat and stir in parmigiano, salt and pepper. Serve immediately. Sprinkle each serving with parsley and basil and a bit more parmigiano if desired. Rigatoni with Artichokes and Pecorino 1 lb rigatoni Prepare artichokes: Remove all leaves, cut in half lengthwise and remove fuzzy choke (a grapefruit spoon works well). Immediately drop into lemon juice to prevent discoloration. Working with one heart at a time (allowing the others to remain in their lemon bath), cut into julienne strips. Put olive oil in a heavy bottom wide pan over medium heat. Add whole garlic clove and the julienned artichokes and saute for about 5 minutes. Add bacon or pancetta and cook for another 2-3 minutes, then add wine and allow to evaporate. Cover and cook over medium heat for about 10 minutes. Remove garlic clove and stir well with wooden spoon. Add cubed pecorino. And stir. Meanwhile add rigatoni to rapidly boiling salted water and cook until al dente. Drain well and add to artichoke sauce. Serve immediately, adding additional grated pecorino if desired.
5 large artichokes Prepare the artichokes by removing the thick outer leaves, trimming the stem, and cutting off the top about a third of the way down. Then cut the artichokes lengthwise into quarters, removing the fuzzy choke. Rub quickly with half of a lemon to avoid discoloration. Drop into salted boiling water until tender all the way through. Drain well. Carefully process in food processorÐ puree should be slightly "lumpy" In saucepan, melt butter and whisk in flour. Remove from heat momentarily and add salt. Return to medium heat, slowly whisking in warm milk so that lumps do not form. When thickened, add grated Emmenthaler, stirring well until melted. Add artichoke puree and mix well. Place bread slices in 400 degree oven for about 10 minutes Ð until slightly brown. Remove and top each slice with artichoke mixture. Garnish with sliced black olives. NOTE: This recipe also works well as a dip or spread for crackers or crudites. These recipes come from Pepe Verde, a cooking school and gastronomical cultural association situated in a beautiful 18th century palace, just a few steps from the Pantheon in Rome. Pepe Verde trains professional chefs but also offers a wide range of culinary classes at the beginner and intermediate levels. Chestnuts...on an open fire – or not
t's a tough nut to crack. If you do manage to break it open, unlike an almond, you can't eat it raw anyway. And if you don't pierce it before it hits the fire or boiling water, it creates a wicked, messy explosion. But the chestnut, freshly harvested and properly prepared, is one of autumn's heavenly offerings. Roasted, boiled, glazed, or ground, this large brown nut is a dominant player in the vast arena of holiday food. Like hot dogs on the 4th of July, colored eggs at Easter, chestnuts go with Christmas. Even if you've never feasted on turkey with chestnut stuffing, even if you've never popped one into your mouth hot from the fire, if you've never even seen a chestnut, surely you know that song: "Chestnuts roasting on an open fire," sung by Nat King Cole, Mel Torme, or Garth Brooks. Each year about the time Douglas firs and Scotch pines beckon from school parking lots, that oh-so familiar song, subliminally imbedded onto our collective mental soundtrack, evokes nostalgic visions of Christmas as we've known it, or as we've wished it could be. Most of the chestnuts we roast and stuff into our holiday turkeys enter U.S. customs stamped "Imported From Italy," just like Gucci shoes and Pirelli tires. Our own native American chestnut tree which once heavily populated northern and eastern forests was struck by an insidious blight in 1904. Reaching majestic proportions of up to 100 feet in height and 5 feet in diameter, the American chestnut was brought to its knees by a fungus and within a few years was reduced to a humiliating heap of rotted stumps. A major effort to resurrect the American chestnut industry is still years away from complete success. Until then we rely on the imported product.
There are two edible varieties of the Italian chestnut. The castagna which grows in wild abundance along country roads and mountainous regions is suitable for roasting, canning, and boiling. Looking like little porcupines tumbling out of trees, the spiny burrs of the castagne (plural of the Italian word castagna for chestnut) break open to reveal three polished brown nuts nestled inside. Another variety, the marrone, grows on trees that are cultivated and guarded like the family jewels. This highly prized marrone bears a single, much larger and fatter nut used for making the delectable glazed confection called marrons glaces. My Italian friends tell me of a third variety referred to as bastardini, so called because the little bastards won't open no matter what you do to them. Chestnuts are mentioned in recorded history as far back as the time of Homer in the 8th century B.C. Thought to have been introduced to Europe from ancient Greece, healthy and robust chestnut trees thrive in present day Europe. In many European cultures, chestnuts are linked not only to Christmas, but more fundamentally to the late autumn harvest and human survival. Throughout history when grain was scarce or prohibitively expensive, the lower classes depended on chestnuts for sustenance. Having twice as much starch as the potato, chestnuts could be ground into flour to produce an unsatisfying but dependable substitute for the staff of life. Especially from the 16th to the 18th centuries, this so-called "tree bread" often kept entire populations from widespread starvation, but not from civil revolt or mayhem. In 1585 the people of Naples were particularly upset by the large-scale exportation of their beloved wheat grain. When a local grain merchant arrogantly shouted to the outraged masses to be happy with their tree bread or "eat stones" (maybe this is where Marie Antoinette got the idea), they staged a brutal public execution by violently throwing themselves on the man, dragging his beaten body around the city and finally chopping him into little pieces. No known episodes of violence have erupted over chestnuts in modern history.
What does occur in present day Italy is a month long celebration of the shiny brown nut. Italians love to glorify food, and so every October, from Val d'Aosta in the north to Sicily in the south, the whole country erupts into a frenzy of chestnut festivals. Entire villages gather in piazzas for the annual public roastings. Fifty miles northeast of Rome, the mountain town of Percile holds its annual chestnut festival, La Sagra della Castagna, the last Sunday in October. Percile, like many rural towns in Italy, reflects no visible modernization. Medieval in architecture, it seems an appropriate setting to stage an ancient culinary ritual that not even Emeril could top.
The villagers and visiting merrymakers crowd around the smoky square where the nuts are roasted in giant-sized black pans over a raging, lively fire. Several older men, taking their roles so seriously you get the feeling this job is quite a big deal, flip and stoke until the nuts are almost completely charred. At this point, a large jug of white wine is thrown over the chestnuts, creating an aromatic flambe' and finishing up the task of opening up every nugget. After being cooled slightly, the chestnuts are poured into paper bags and handed to the festival-goers along with a small bottle of fruity, slightly fizzy red wine. A warm, sweet meaty chestnut followed by a sip of the perfect complimentary wine, in the middle of Italian chestnut country--this is as good as it gets. The Italians have a knack for transforming any food item into many splendid things, and so it is with chestnuts. The days of tree bread long behind them, modern Italian cooks turn out a variety of regional specialties based on chestnuts and chestnut flour. Tuscans love their castagnaccio, a cake with raisins and pine nuts. Families in Parma sit down to tortelli alle castagne, chestnut-filled pasta sprinkled with -- what else?-- Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese. Chestnut pudding topped with toasted almonds and whipped cream is a favorite winter dessert for Romans, and the more refined Montebianco (named for the highest mountain in Italy), a luscious cake of chestnut flour and dark chocolate, topped with meringue or whipped cream, is prepared all over Italy. Even the world's oldest known cookbook, Apicius de re Coquinaria, includes a recipe for chestnut and lentil soup. Luckily for us, the chestnut is no longer a necessary element for survival. But buyer beware: If you find yourself lured by the seductive aroma of chestnuts roasting on an open fire, on some street corner in New York, on some shivery March day, months after these nuts have fallen from the trees, months after they have made that trans-Atlantic journey, don't buy them. They dropped from those trees much too long ago to be fresh. Instead, stand there, close your eyes, savor the smoky foresty scent, hum a few bars of ÒThe Christmas SongÓ and walk on by. Some things are best left to their own time. CHESTNUT RECIPESCHESTNUT DRESSING From John Edward Smith, Pres. of L'esposizione Gastronomica e Vinicola, To serve with a 12-15 pound turkey 1/3 cup dried porcini mushrooms, reconstituted in water (save water after removing mushrooms) PREPARATION: An hour before, soak dried porcini in water. Strain, chop and set aside. Reserve water to add to dressing mix. If using fresh chestnuts, with a small sharp knife, cut an X or make a slice along the flat side of each chestnut. Drop in large pot of cold water, bring to a boil and simmer for about 5 minutes. Remove from heat, removing only a few at a time to peel. As they cool, they become much harder to peel. Chop roughly into small pieces. Set aside. In heavy bottom non-stick skillet, cook sausage thoroughly. Remove from pan, drain on paper towels, and chop. Set aside. Melt truffle butter or 1 tablespoon regular unsalted butter in wide-bottomed non-stick skillet and add celery and onions. Cook until soft. Cool. Put bread cubes or dressing mix into large bowl. Add sausage, chestnuts, porcini, onions and celery, parsley, sage, rosemary (if you're compulsive, a little thyme won't hurt), and salt and pepper. Mix well Add eggs and about 1/3 cup of the water reserved from the porcini and mix again. Placed in greased bread mold or casserole, cover with foil and bake at 325F for about one hour. (Dressing can also be cooked inside bird, but be sure to stuff just before roasting.) Serves 10 to 12.
CHESTNUT PUDDING Adapted from "The Food of Rome and Lazio" by Oretta Zanini DeVita, Translated by Maureen B. Fant 1/2 cup canned chestnuts Prepare pudding mold. Soak chestnuts in 1/2 cup brandy for 1/2 hour. Heat 1 3/4 cups milk in heavy saucepan. Add vanilla, salt, and sugar. Stir until dissolved. In a small bowl or measuring cup, add 2 tablespoons corn starch to 1/4 cup remaining cold milk and whisk briskly, making sure no lumps form. Add to milk and sugar mixture which should be close to a boil and whisk or stir to a pudding consistency. Add remaining 1/4 cup brandy. Remove from heat. Gently stir in chestnut puree, ground almonds and dried cherries. Gently fold in 4 ounces of the whipped cream. Pour into large mold or into individual serving bowls. Allow to set in the refrigerator for about one hour. When ready to serve, top each portion with remaining whipped cream and a sprinkling of the remaining toasted almonds. This recipe will serve 10 to 12. HOW TO ROAST FRESH CHESTNUTS With a sharp knife, cut a large X on the flat side of each chestnut to avoid those nasty Optional: When skins have pulled back a bit from the nuts indicating that they're tender, splash a few drops of red or white wine and bake for another minute or two. Remove from oven, wrap in kitchen towel for five minutes before peeling. Don't allow too much cooling time or they will become difficult to peel. Try dunking these sweet, freshly roasted chestnuts in a glass of fruity red wine such as a good quality Lambrusco. When selecting fresh chestnuts, always look for a shiny, smooth, solid surface. If they have pin holes, it indicates worms. And when they lose their luster, they've lost their freshness and might be infected with mold. Because chestnuts have a very short shelf life, you should store them in a cool, dry place (which where I live in Florida means the refrigerator) and use them within 6 to 8 weeks. |
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