Why Italians Love to Talk About Food (17 page)

Eggplants were disparaged by the gastronomy theorist Piero Andrea Mattioli (1557): “A vulgar plant; it is eaten crudely fried in oil with salt and pepper like mushrooms,”
¹
as well as by Antonio Frugoli (1631), according to whom “eggplants should be eaten only by people of lowly station or by Jews.”
²
A somewhat different attitude toward the experience of national minorities is displayed by the agronomist Vincenzo Tanara (1644), who thinks that certain products (for example, eggplants) deserve attention just because they are appreciated by the Jews, who are so difficult regarding food: “[Eggplants are] for the consumption of people from the countryside and especially for families, since they are a customary food of the Jews.”
³

Thus eggplants found a home in the Roman ghetto, where they were fried, marinated, and stuffed. And these vegetables cost almost nothing in the markets of Tuscany, since “they were considered to be vile because they were foods eaten by Jews,” writes Pellegrino Artusi in his cookbook.
⁴
Artusi used the Tuscan name
petronciani
; Bartolomeo Scappi called them
molignane
, Cristoforo da Messisbugo
mollegnane
; and in Rome the term
marignani
was used. In
Il novellino
Master Taddeo, “as he was instructing his medical scholars, propounded that whosoever should continue for nine days to eat eggplant would go mad.”
⁵
Boccaccio in the
Ameto
called them
petronciani violati
, purple eggplants.
⁶

Zucchini, on the other hand, was highly prized, much too expensive to be used by the Jews in ghetto cuisine. Only discards from the market reached the ghetto: the futile male flowers that sprouted uselessly at the ends of the zucchini. But Jewish cuisine treated them in such an exciting way that even today they constitute a grace note and a source of pride for Italian cooking. The flowers of zucchini or pumpkin, known more commonly as squash blossoms, are eaten with a cheese filling, stuffed with bread crumbs and anchovies and with egg and parsley, or fried in a light batter.

Artichokes also entered Roman cuisine from Sicily, probably introduced by exiled Sephardics at the beginning of the sixteenth century. Artichokes
alla giudea
or
alla giudìa
(Jewish-style) are made with round Roman artichokes, also known as
mammole
(literally, “violets”). Flattened with a heavy meat pounder or a stone, the artichokes are submerged in boiling olive oil until the leaves spread out in a fan; they are then left to dry on absorbent paper until they turn crisp.
Mammole
are also good blanched and dressed with olive oil. For artichokes
alla giudea
, smaller fruits, called
figlioli
, or baby artichokes, are selected. In addition to the
figlioli
(sons), there are also the
nipoti
(grandsons): these are truly minuscule and are cooked
alla romana
, Roman-style, with vinegar.

A preparation method such as frying immediately and clearly betrays its place of birth. There was not enough room in the crowded ghetto for large, well-equipped kitchens, but for frying all you needed was a deep pan and a fire. Except for olive oil, of course, though in Rome in those times it did not cost too much.

There is a version of
fritto misto
in batter
alla giudea
. This dish of mixed fried items does not in any way resemble the Piedmontese dish that bears the same name and uses the most unimaginable cuts of meat. According to Roman Jewish tradition,
fritto misto
is made of sliced vegetables in batter which are fried in hot oil.

Frying and selling to the public was one of the few occupations available to the Jews, who were permitted to sell their fried foods in the streets, and were allowed to open trattorias even for practicing Catholics. Other activities officially acceptable were those of junk dealer and moneylender. By law, Catholics did not have the right to lend money with interest (in part because the Church considered usury a sin), so this kind of activity was delegated to the Jews. As for fried food, it could furthermore be prepared in advance for the Sabbath and enjoyed cold, unlike soups and other dishes.

The history and daily life of the Jewish ghetto toward the beginning of the sixteenth
century created the conditions for the birth of a masterpiece of Roman-Jewish cuisine,
caponata alla giudea
, in which eggplants fried in advance are combined in a single saucepan with sweet peppers and tomatoes, all cooked in a sweet-and-sour sauce over a slow flame and eaten cold. This dish, like the fried vegetables and some other fried foods, was prepared on Friday and served on Saturday. Caponata is even better after spending the night on the hearth than when it has just been made.

 

The rules of Jewish dietary hygiene (the
kashrut
) coincide in many respects with those of the Catholic fast.

These rules are based on the precepts of the Old Testament:

 

These are the animals you may eat: the ox, the sheep, the goat, the deer, the gazelle, the roe deer, the wild goat, the ibex, the antelope and the mountain sheep.

You may eat any animal that has a split hoof divided in two and that chews the cud.

However, of those that chew the cud or that have a split hoof completely divided you may not eat the camel, the rabbit or the coney. Although they chew the cud, they do not have a split hoof; they are ceremonially unclean for you. The pig is also unclean; although it has a split hoof, it does not chew the cud. You are not to eat their meat or touch their carcasses. Of all the creatures living in the water, you may eat any that has fins and scales. But anything that does not have fins and scales you may not eat; for you it is unclean. You may eat any clean bird. But these you may not eat: the eagle, the vulture, the black vulture, the red kite, the black kite, any kind of falcon, any kind of raven, the horned owl, the screech owl, the gull, any kind of hawk, the little owl, the great owl, the white owl, the desert owl, the osprey, the cormorant, the stork, any kind of heron, the hoopoe and the bat. All flying insects that swarm are unclean to you; do not eat them. But any winged creature that is clean you may eat. Do not eat anything you find already dead. You may give it to an alien living in any of your towns, and he may eat it, or you may sell it to a foreigner. But you are a people holy to the Lord your God.

Do not cook a young goat in its mother's milk. Be sure to set aside a tenth of all that your fields produce each year. Eat the tithe of your grain, new wine and oil, and the firstborn of your herds and flocks in the presence of the Lord your God at the place he will choose as a dwelling for his Name, so that you may learn to revere the Lord your God always.
⁷

 

Summarizing the main kosher precepts based on this biblical passage:

 

1. Distinguish permitted animals (
   tahor
   : large and small cattle, poultry, and fish, but only those with fins and scales) from those prohibited (
   tami
   : of the quadrupeds, those that do not have a split hoof and at the same time do not graze, as well as the predators, reptiles, and insects; crustaceans and mollusks are also prohibited).
   
2. Permitted animals must be slaughtered in a ritual way.
   
3. The consumption of blood is prohibited: this is the primary and fundamental prohibition. Blood, repository and mystery of life, belongs to the Lord.
   
4. The consumption of certain types of animal fat is prohibited: these parts are consecrated to the cult of the temple of Jerusalem.
   
5. The consumption of the sciatic nerve is prohibited, in memory of Jacob's struggle with God (Genesis 32:26, New International Version: “When the man saw that he could not overpower him, he touched the socket of Jacob's hip so that his hip was wrenched as he wrestled with the man”).
   
6. The consumption of parts removed from live animals is prohibited.
   
7. The consumption of the meat of diseased or mutilated animals is prohibited.
   
8. The mixing of meat and milk at the same meal is prohibited (Exodus 23:19: “Bring the best of the first fruits of your soil to the house of the Lord your God. Do not cook a young goat in its mother's milk”: this prohibition has been interpreted in a variety of ways by rabbis and commentators).
   
9. The consumption of substances that threaten life and health is prohibited (in keeping with one of the main precepts: “Always choose life, not death”).
   

 

So it was that the vast Jewish ghetto of Rome created and provided the entire Roman population with dishes that could also be eaten by Catholics during fast days. The kosher laws that prescribed not mixing vegetables with lard or butter corresponded to the precepts of Catholicism not to consume animal food on days of abstinence, or to at least limit it. Even the prohibition against consuming blood is similar to the Italian culinary tradition, in which meat destined to be smoked and salted is required to go through a process of desanguination. The word “prosciutto” in fact literally means that the leg is
prosciugata
, drained.

The exquisite, vitamin-rich Jewish herb pizza has been one of the favorite dishes of Roman Catholics and itinerant pilgrims during the entire Lenten period for centuries.

Piedmont, as its name tells us, lies
a pie' dei monti
, at the foot of the mountains that form the entire territory of the adjacent Valle d'Aosta, between the Alps to the north and west and the Apennines to the south.

The character of this region recalls the Valle d'Aosta, and Piedmont, too, was once under the rule of the Savoy dynasty, though with some interruptions. The Savoys fought against France repeatedly from the sixteenth century on. In the early eighteenth century the French took Piedmont from them, later gave it back, and afterward began to reconquer it. But even in periods when France's predominance was less discernible, the French spirit continued to be felt. Through its association with France, some characteristic features of Piedmont were formed: gallantry, refinement, perfectionism. It is not paradoxical therefore that typical peasant dishes—not unlike those of the Valle d'Aosta—are brought to perfection in Piedmont and prepared as true works of art.

Piedmont is a jigsaw puzzle of 1,209 towns and villages, each in its own unique setting, whether among fields, on hills or mountain slopes, beside lakes, or on the banks of rivers. Here, as in Valle d'Aosta, there are Waldensian towns (with their own cuisine and rituals). Franco-Provençal towns are found in the province of Cuneo, and Occitans who once came from Provence live in the extreme west.