Why Italians Love to Talk About Food (61 page)

Tuna meat is cubed and preserved in oil for industrial production. First the tuna are bled until they become pale and dry: that way, the canned food takes on an ascetic quality and stops resembling the fish itself. From a psychological point of view, it is easier to consume a food like this rather than blood-red flesh. As a result, canned tuna is very popular. Those who operate fine restaurants challenge its popularity:

 

The tuna that we eat by opening a can has nothing in common with the red-blooded tuna of the Mediterranean. And this, too, occurs “by law.” A 1981 decree of the President of the Republic also authorizes using similar fish as tuna: yellowfin tuna, bonito, mackerel, little tuna, skipjack . . . The real tuna of our seas is firm and dark, and if you can break it with a breadstick there is really something wrong. But advertising has taught us otherwise.
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In addition to growing grains and fruit and fishing, the Sicilian economy, like that of Puglia and Romagna, depends largely on salt harvesting. Sicilian salt began to be harvested at the dawn of history. The Phoenicians, Greeks, and Romans imported
salt from Trapani. Later the trading of Sicilian salt passed into the hands of the Arabs, and around the same time the Normans became interested in Sicilian salt for the purpose of exporting it to the other end of the world. The Sicilian salt brought by the Normans was used in Brittany, in England, and in the countries of the Hanseatic League. The Norwegians sprinkled Sicilian salt on cod and herring, which were then transported from the Lofoten Islands to Liguria, and from there to the rest of Italy. The Genoese merchants had large amounts of salt sent to Genoa, and from there they transported it by land into the heart of the European continent. The salterns of Trapani assured Sicily the same prosperity that today is happily enjoyed by energy-producing nations. Only after the introduction of alternative methods of food preservation, such as freezing, lyophilization, pasteurization, and sterilization, did the exportation of Sicilian salt experience a crisis. Nonetheless, the local large crystal salt continues to be in demand, especially for cooking. As we know, in Liguria it is customary to sprinkle the surface of a local specialty such as Genoese focaccia with Sicilian salt.

In addition, Sicilian salts have different origins, and therefore different flavors. Sea salt is harvested in Trapani and Marsala (in Augusta the famous salt marshes have given way to oil industries), while rock salt is extracted from the mine in Cattolica Eraclea.

 

Mussolini sent intelligentsia who were hostile to his regime into confinement on the island of Lipari. During the Fascist period a unique colony was created on the island, a breeding ground for dissent and an ironic love of freedom. Today the island is one of the most popular tourist destinations: at the beginning of the summer season, in particular, vacationers can enjoy the local speciality, sea urchins, accompanied by cold white wine. Only the gonads of the urchins, the sexual glands, are eaten, and their consumption thus becomes possible only in the period in which they are mature, namely, in the spring and early summer. Just the time when flocks of writers, worn out from their exhausting work, begin thinking about their first brief summer respite. The islanders fish for, among other things, squid and needlefish, which usually live in the open sea, far from the coast. They also fish for turtles during their migrations in January and February, just when proteins are scarce in the island's natural economy. Turtles, like other sea products, are prepared in a sauce made of diluted must, with garlic, onion, parsley, capers, and almonds.

An interesting product of the islands is
cicerchia
, or chickling vetch, a legume
(
Lathyrus sativus
) now grown in only a few areas of Italy: the Marches, Tuscany, and the Aeolian Islands. The Romans also loved chickling, though it was later replaced by chickpeas. Calamint, a relative of mint, is also grown successfully on the Aeolian Islands. Along with the small local tomatoes, calamint is the main adornment for a colorful, aromatic omelet. The main crop of the Aeolian Islands is capers.

Among the dishes of Aeolian cuisine,
mustarda sicca
, or dry
mostarda
, is striking. Must and starch, walnuts, almonds, and wild fennel seeds are boiled, then sun-dried. This mustard does not resemble that sweet, spicy, rather liquid specialty of Cremona and Carpi, which in the north accompanies
bollito
(boiled meats). In Lipari boiled meat is not imaginable: it would be unthinkable given the southern climate. Consequently, the product that here assumes the fine name of
mostarda
is a completely different gastronomic specialty: a dry sweet cut into cubes.

A local crop that is as rare as it is important is the delectable, tasty pistachio. This is the “Bronte red” variety, ruby red on the outside and emerald green on the inside. An ice cream of incomparable taste is made from the ground pistachios, mixing them with cream, warm milk, sugar, and starch. But pistachios are not only suitable for dessert: a fantastic, typically Sicilian dish is penne pasta with cream of pistachio (onion, garlic, olive oil, pancetta, meat broth, ground pistachios, brandy, cream, salt, and pepper).

The pistachios in Bronte grow directly on the volcanic lava, alongside the terebinth, a similar plant (
scornabecco
, or turpentine tree,
Pistacia terebinthus
) from which precious resins used in folk medicine are gathered. Pistachios produce fruit in alternate years, lately in odd years in Sicily. Growing pistachios here is difficult because of the inaccessible terrain on which they are planted. As a result Italian pistachios are much more expensive than those from Iran or Turkey. Poor profitability might have led to the complete disappearance of the pistachio in Sicily; the fact that this has not happened, at least for now, is thanks only to the support of the European Union, the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry Policies, and some private devotées. The fate of Sicilian pistachios is in their hands, and if the market survives, it will be due to Slow Food's protection (see “
Slow Food
”).

Another famous product typical of the islands of this region, more universally sought-after than pistachios, is capers. The best ones, the largest and juiciest, grow on the island of Pantelleria, located a short distance from Africa. These same capers from Pantelleria were praised by Pliny the Elder in his
Natural History
. In 1560, Domenico Romoli, known by the nickname of Panonto, in his celebrated cooking treatise
La singolare
dottrina
(The singular doctrine), extols the healing virtues of capers, affirming that “those who eat them will have no spleen or liver pain,” and adds that capers have an aphrodisiac effect.

 

Ice cream is an authentic Sicilian specialty. Here it is said that Sicilians were the first in Italy to learn of it, thanks to their Arab invaders. From here it was transported to Tuscany, and then circulated throughout the world. There is another theory, however: Catherine de' Medici, arriving in Paris in 1533 as the fourteen-year-old wife of Henri d'Orléans (subsequently king of France under the name Henri II), brought along her personal designer and architect, Bernardo Buontalenti, whose hobby was inventing desserts. Ice cream was supposedly one of his inventions.

The Sicilians, of course, insist on their primacy, and extensive research would be required to verify it. One thing is indisputable: the prototype for ice cream was sherbet or sorbet, the Sicilian
sorbetto
(from the Arabic
shar'bet
). Sorbets were not complicated to prepare: they were made with fruit juice mixed with snow from the mountains. The main problem, in ancient times, was to find the chief ingredient. Where to find ice at the time of the Renaissance? The Sicilians resorted to Etna. At the end of winter, they had huge balls of snow rolled down from the top of Mt. Etna to underground caves, where the layers of snow were alternated with layers of felt so that they would melt more slowly and would not solidify into blocks of ice. Thanks to this stratagem, the Sicilians sold packaged snow to all the cities of Italy during the summer and even exported it abroad, though not very far: to Malta.

Wine must, wine, and honey were added to the sorbet. This treat could be kept up to two days in caves or in wells. In the seventeenth century sorbet began to be enriched with butter and cream, and the result was a new dessert, at that time called
parfait
: perfect. If a little skimmed milk was added instead, the mixture was called
mantecato
, creamed or thickened. This time, too, it was the cooks in the monasteries who engaged in these experiments. By now it was no longer sorbet, but the end result we know well. Today ice cream is eaten on all continents. From Sicily gelato was very quickly brought to Paris. In 1686, the Sicilian pastry chef Francesco Procopio dei Coltelli opened a famous café-gelateria, Le Procope, in the Latin Quarter of Paris (St. Germain); it still exists today, and Benjamin Franklin was known to have frequented the prodigious locale.

It is easy to believe that these refreshing delights really were invented in Sicily. The plentiful snow, cheaply obtainable, allowed the Sicilians to initiate the production of a continuous stream of ice cream and other ice-based desserts. But the history of ice cream was to take an unpredictable turn from there. Starting in the nineteenth century, and particularly in the twentieth, the production of refreshing beverages and desserts on an industrial basis shifted to small artisanal concerns in the Veneto region. In that period an accelerated process of industrialization was under way in Italy, which threw the old workshops of mechanics and metalworkers into crisis. But it's no accident that Italians are famous for the art of coping (
arrangiarsi
) and for their flexibility, even when it comes to creating work. With impressive speed, alternative activities were organized in machine shops and forges: mini-units for the production of gelato, made mostly of cream. Having mastered the art of itinerant ice cream making and created convenient icebox-pushcarts, Venetian mechanics set out each summer to look for work, transforming themselves into strolling ice cream vendors and loudly hawking their goods on Italy's beaches and promenades. By the beginning of the twentieth century, 80 percent of the itinerant ice cream trade was in Venetian hands. In many places, however, the retail sale of ice cream and ice on the streets was prohibited, for hygenic reasons. So then the Venetian mechanics opened
gelaterie
, small ice cream shops and kiosks: not surprisingly, reminders of the lagoon city are still present today in the names of many ice cream shops found throughout Italy's villages and beaches: Café Venezia, Pasticceria Rialto, Bar San Marco.

Meanwhile, Sicilian confectioners had not stopped experimenting with fruit sorbets. After several centuries and much trial and error, Sicily now offers the world frozen desserts that are extraordinarily delicious and varied. It is generally thought that granitas are made with crushed ice; this is true in all of Italy except Sicily, where granitas are made by a unique process that never allows the mixture to become ice, but keeps it creamy and semi-liquid thanks to the high sugar content. Granita is often served with whipped cream or brioches. A specialty of Messina is mulberry granita. Once picked from the tree, the mulberry fruit can be kept for only a few hours, after which it becomes unfit to eat. But whipped with ice it keeps in the refrigerator until the end of the day, sometimes more than twenty-four hours. There is also almond
gremolata
, a frozen almond cream with crushed cookies. Also very popular among tourists are
spumone
or
spuma
: ice cream whipped with
crema cotta
, or “cooked cream,” a kind of custard.

Various cities have different flavors of ice cream: for example, jasmine ice cream is
popular in Trapani. Not infrequently in Sicily, and also in Calabria, ice cream is eaten for breakfast: at the bar one buys a brioche filled with ice cream, or with lemon
gremolata
(a granular water ice made from sweetened fruit syrup), or with almond
spuma
. A breakfast so refreshing, and at the same time so caloric, can provide a reserve of energy that lasts throughout the entire workday.