Archive for the ‘food’ Category
love thursday:
tomato love
This heart-shaped tomato was the sweetest I’ve ever eaten.
Maybe (just a little) because P handed it to me with a kiss.
Happy Love Thursday everyone!
Recipe: Olive Oil and Limoncello Cake
The original recipe comes from a restaurant in the Valpolicella region in the province of Verona in northern Italy — but I gave it a southern Italian twist with limoncello.
Read on...what’s cooking wednesday: roasted rabbit & potatoes
We’re gonna have woast wabbit! We’re gonna have woast wabbit!
Yes, I say this every time we make this dish, and sadly, it’s completely lost on P. So you *must* appreciate it. You do, don’t you?
Today’s What’s Cooking Wednesday recipe is fresh off the “Bizarre Foods” discussion on Friday because yes, I do realize that eating rabbit may be out of the ordinary for some of you. It wasn’t the norm for me either before I came here, although my (Italian) great-grandfather apparently made a delicious rabbit ragù for the family in America.
P’s father used to raise rabbits for food, and now since P is continuing the tradition, it’s quite common to find rabbit on our dinner table.
If you’re curious, no, I have absolutely nothing to do with raising them–we’d likely end up with a lot of pet rabbits if that were the case. And the time P asked me to help, ahem, prepare the rabbit for cooking? He quickly let me off the hook when tears welled up in my eyes at the sight of the poor thing–no longer alive, but still difficult to see.
Yes, I know you may find that hypocritical, but that’s me. I have to say that I do admire P’s compassion and caring in bringing up the rabbits though. I know that sentiment may be nonsensical to vegans, vegetarians, and others, and quite honestly, it’s hard for me to really wrap my head around as well, but it’s true.
He is quite gentle and humane with them and even gives them names; he just grew up knowing them as food, and that’s what they are for us. We definitely save money on meat purchases and at least we know that these are organically raised and treated well.
Such is life in Calabria–full of contradictions and peculiarities but never, ever, boring.
Now on to the recipe, which is based on Coniglio (o pollo) al forno con patate–that “o pollo” means you can also use this recipe for chicken.
Roasted Rabbit & Potatoes
(serves 2 as main course, more as part of larger dinner)
- 3 pieces of rabbit (2 thighs and a shoulder will do)
- 4 large potatoes, cut into chunks
- 3 cloves of garlic, cut into chunks to be inserted into rabbit pieces
- 3 tablespoons olive oil
- a few sprigs of rosemary
- thyme
- 2 bay leaves
- salt
- peperoncino
1. Turn on oven and set to 200°C (390°F).
2. In a small bowl, mix together olive oil, salt, peperoncino, and some rosemary. Let sit for about 10 minutes.
3. Wash the pieces of rabbits, and without drying, put them in baking dish.
4. Wash the potatoes, peel and cut them into chunks, and add them to baking dish; sprinkle them with salt and thyme.
5. Score rabbit so that you have places to insert garlic and some sprigs of rosemary. Brush oil mixture liberally onto rabbit pieces and then break up the bay leaves on top of the rabbit.
At this point, it should look something like this:
6. Cover baking dish with aluminum foil and place in oven.
7. Let cook for about a half hour. Remove from oven. Turn rabbit and toss potatoes. If the dish is dry on the bottom add some olive oil and/or water.
8. Cook for another 20 minutes or so, being sure that potatoes and rabbit are fully cooked before serving.
9. Let sit a few minutes before serving, but still serve hot.
Buon appetito!
tuesday morning market in calabria: part II
Last Tuesday we visited the weekly market in my village, and now it’s time for a little bargaining lesson.
First you should know that market prices are already lower than in the local stores–but that doesn’t mean you can’t get even better deals.
My first few Tuesdays here, I sat at the corner of the piazza and just watched the old women at work. I figured it was the best way to learn–from the pros.
I’ve often read that touching produce in Italy is a no-no, but apparently no one has told these women.
Or, more likely, the vendors are just too afraid to scold despite their tough exteriors.
Concetta (below) is one of the young old women. She’s in her early 80s, but gets around as well as anyone including me. She always smiles wide and says “Ciao Bella” while stroking the side of my face.
The first time I met her she invited me into her house and showed me photos of her entire family, including children and grandchildren spread throughout Italy, Europe, and South America as well as her husband who has passed on.
Concetta doesn’t live alone though; she lives (in sin!) with her male companion, a widower. By not getting married, she explained to me, she can still collect her deceased husband’s pensions (one from Italy and one from Switzerland). Furba, eh?
Come Tuesday morning, though, Concetta is all business. Her laughlines are well-hidden behind a poker face that truly draws fear in Pasquale, the meat truck guy.
I’ve seen her slap the hand of Totò, the man selling fruit and vegetables from the back of his Ape (AH-peh) when he tried to retrieve a carciofo from her hand.
I’ve also seen her throw up her hands in disgust and stomp away as Turi, the man with the best broccoli (I’m told) yelled after her shouting many numbers.
[The secret is to walk away; if they follow, they really want to sell.]
Concetta knows what she wants and she knows how to get it. She never leaves the market empty-handed, and always with a smile on her face.
Another successful morning for her, and another lesson in village life for me.
So, have you bargained at the market?
One (Wo)man’s Poison Is Another’s Delicacy
Do you know the television show Bizarre Foods with Andrew Zimmern? We love it, and I may or may not have a secret crush on the host.
Ahem.
In Italy, the show is called Orrori da gustare, literally Horrors to try/taste.
Sure they could’ve used the word bizzarro to describe the food, but the translators went one step further to demonstrate just how, um, eeeeeeew some of the things that Andrew eats really are–bites of lamb’s eyeballs, beating frog hearts, all kinds of rotting meat and fish and more. YUM!
So you would think that P and I wouldn’t have too much of a culture clash regarding this show because we *all* agree these foods are bizarre, if not true horrors? Right? Right? Hmm….
Through my recipes, I think I’ve demonstrated here that I like an awful lot of Calabrian food–I can get with wild boar (cinghiale) and rabbit (coniglio)–but I make no secret of my dislike of many traditional Calabrian foods, i.e., those you probably won’t be seeing on What’s Cooking Wednesday, such as:
- u suzzu: random pig parts (tongue, lungs, heart, stomach, etc.) in gelatin with peperoncino and vinegar. I like my gelatin in Jell-O thankyouverymuch.
- e frittule: boiled pig parts, especially the skin, that give off a smell I won’t even begin to describe to you because it’s turning my stomach just thinking of it.
- u sanguinazzu: a dessert made with cinnamon, orange zest, vino cotto . . . and boiled pig’s blood.
- ghiro: dormouse, usually in a tomato sauce (illegal to capture, actually).
- porcellino d’india: guinea pig. Yes, cute little guinea pigs like this:
I should be perfectly clear that I have tried three of the five on the list (care to guess?) and will probably eventually try them all if/when they are presented. I’m proud to say I’m quite Andrew Zimmern in that respect.
I *hate* when people say they don’t like something without trying it, so I practice what I preach.
And then I spit into my napkin if necessary.
Just kidding.
Sort of.
All of this is a lead-in to a conversation that P and I had the other night:
We were starving and only starting to prepare dinner as I flipped the channel to Orrori da gustare.
I quickly changed the channel.
“Oh we shouldn’t watch this now,” I said, meaning that we would be so disgusted that we’d lose our appetites.
“Yes,” P agreed.
“It’ll make me too hungry.”
Thus proving Andrew’s mantra, “One (wo)man’s poison is another’s delicacy” once again.
[P.S. Andrew, we got some poison “delicacies” for you in Calabria!]
This is all the more ironic because P is so against most “American” foods that he won’t even try them, or will only do so after I beg and plead.
Peanut butter took six months of cajoling. SIX MONTHS!
Mah.
So tell me, do you and your Other Half agree on food?
What foods gross you out?
What’s the most bizarre food you’ve ever tried?
P.S. Be sure to check out some decidedly delicious food–
Mary’s Crab Cakes at The Flavors of Abruzzo
for La Buona Cucina Americana!
Buon weekend!
Michelle Kaminsky is an American attorney-turned-freelance writer who lived in her family's ancestral village in Calabria, Italy for 15 years. This blog is now archived.
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