Don Genova's Blog

Parma Palate - Ah, Puglia!

Okay, so Ah, Puglia is a play on words, as Puglia used to be known, and you can still see it on many maps, as Apulia.  I thought it was an appropriate title to start this post as we enter into the last day of our field trip in this region.  Over the past couple of days we have seen the best Puglia has to offer in terms of landscapes, quaint villages dating back to medieval times, and of course food and wine.  The shot at the left (photos by Betsy Manning again in this post) was taken in a marine park where the delicate shoreline ecosystem is being protected.

Before heading to the marine park we spent some time in an ancient olive grove...which was also the home to some beautiful wildflowers, as ably demonstrated by classmate Jessica in this photo.  All the olive trees in this grove used to be owned by a single nobleman.  After the Second World War and Italian reformation, the land was redistributed to local farmers in plots deemed large enough to support their families based on subsistence farming.  In amongst the olive trees other crops such as peas and fava beans were planted.

The average age of these olive trees is 500 years.  That's FIVE HUNDRED YEARS!  The physiology of the tree trunks are a great example of Mother Nature's ability as a sculptor. The trees can survive almost any trauma.  Quite often they get a disease which eats away at the inside of the trunk, but the farmers do what they can to remove the dead wood and the trees continue to thrive, with an elaborate twisting of the trunk and major branches that go off in all directions.  Even if an old olive tree is burned to the ground, or chopped off, or damaged by cold weather, eventually new growth will sprout again and the life cycle continues. 

One of the highlights of the day was visiting a subterranean olive oil mill that was recently refurbished and turned into a museum by a major olive oil producer in the area.  We learned that many mills were built underground centuries ago for a number of reasons, one being security, another is that a cave can keep the temperature low during milling operations, or at least have temperatures more easily maintained.  When the owners of the mill were researching its history, they discovered a very important document.  This document detailed the expansion of the mill, and it was dated in the 1430's!

This is a line of what were once 8 separate presses. The owner of the mill is demonstrating how these presses were turned by hand to extract the oil and water from a paste that was made from crushed-up olives. The paste was made by pouring ripe olives into a basin with a couple of millstones that were turned by donkeys or horses. This was one more reason why the mills were carved out of the rock.  The roof could withstand the upward pressure of the presses as they were cranked to extract the oil.  The oil and water would then drain into holes carved into the stone in front of the presses.  The oil floats on top of the water, and could then be drained off.

I'll leave you with one more great shot from the "the White Town" ("La Città Bianca", in Italian), Ostuni. We stopped there for a short visit and went within the walls of the medieval city.  Check out the Wikipedia link for historical info.  Off to Brinidisi now for the afternoon fish market...more posting to come!

Parma Palate - Hitting the Road

Last weekend a few of my classmates and I rented a car to tear over hell's half acre. We started on Saturday with a drive into Liguria up and down mountain roads, to the seaside, and an interior 'island' for eel and trout...this is one of the restaurants I went to in Liguria, called La Brinca.  You think that means 'on the brink'? It was nicely perched on a cliff overlooking a terraced green valley.  And the food was pretty good, too!  Here's a photo album of the trip, complete with captions at the bottom of each photo.

After the restaurant there were more winding roads to negotiate until we got to the autostrada.  This was the first time I drove a car in 4 months, and I thoroughly enjoyed being behind the wheel, both in the mountains, on the highway and right in the city.  The city was Genova, where we made a whirlwind visit.  Let me tell you, it's kind of weird to see your last name plastered all over the place!

There was a very impressive duomo in Genova, but of course as foodies we were even more excited to find an artisanal food market just around the corner.  It was loaded with little stalls selling cheese, cured meats and sausages, olives, honey, olive oil and on and on.  I picked up a great selection of olives, including some pickled garlic that was the most mild I have ever tasted...don't know how they do it!  The other great find was a pork sausage laced with truffle.  Should have bought two of them!  Some of the cheeses looked pretty sketchy, actually.  There were so old they didn't even look edible, but obviously these cheeses had certain qualities appreciated by certain cheese lovers.  Because we became just a little hungry after our explorations we stopped at a very typical restaurant and enjoyed dishes of marinated mussels, calamari and fritto misto, a mixed 'fry-up' of battered shrimp, squid and small fish.  Wasn't that great but hit the spot.  We drove all the way back to Parma and Colorno.

On Sunday we went to a little town called Isola Dovarese, not far from Colorno, about halfway in between Cremona and Mantova.  The restaurant was called La Crepa. It's called Isola, or island, because of the river that surrounds it on three sides.  We were surprised to find  fish on the menu, so we had the fish antipasti, which consisted of  marinated eel, as well as warm trout with polenta.  I also enjoyed a rabbit ragu on top of thick but tender squares of pasta.

Then we went on to Mantova, one of the most significant religious towns in this region. Why? Because St. Andrew's Basilica was built to house relics, vials containing earth soaked with the blood of Christ that were reportedly brought to Mantova by the soldier who pierced the side of Christ on the cross.

On the food side we tried some tangy yet sweet mostarda made of clementine oranges so I bought some to serve with cheese and other goodies, I'll have a photo of that later, but here are more pictures of  La Crepa and Mantova in the photo album.

Arrivederci, Roma!

10pm, Trastevere neighbourhood:  Our trip is coming to an end.  We have had an absolute blast exploring Rome and have eaten quite well for most of the journey.  Today we stayed in the apartment and I cooked up an antipasti platter of fresh, tender asparagus, blanched, then drizzled with olive oil, balsamic vinegar, salt and pepper.  Add some sausage, cheese and olives and we practically had a complete meal!

But I couldn't stop and used the rest of the ingredients we had purchased in the market this morning:  Fennel, cherry tomatoes, radicchio, fava beans, basil, shrimp and clams. Everything was sauteed together and served over fresh spaghetti noodles.   Didn't even have room for the salad course.

Now it's off to bed to catch an early flight to Frankfurt, then home to Vancouver...with jet lag and culture shock in store as I have to fly to Calgary on Wednesday for the Canadian Media Guild convention.

Look forward to posting some photos soon...Ramona got to have lasagna today, finally!  And I enjoyed a lovely oxtail stew.

Ciao for now...

Rome, Gustatory Heaven!

Trastevere District, 3pm:  We have checked into an amazing apartment to hold what is now a party of five:  My sister and her son, her partner, me and my wife Ramona.  The apartment is right in the middle of the Trastevere district of Rome, very close to Vatican City and other must-see sights.

But when we checked in, the info guy from the rental agency told us we were lucky because there was a great restaurant just around the corner.  We took his advice, (the place was also mentioned in an old issue of Gourmet we had photocopied) and went into Osteria Le Mani I Pasta for lunch.

This place serves homemade pasta, and much more.  Our friendly waiter brought over a dish of white beans with olive oil, garlic and lemon juice for us to taste.  Amazing flavour, great mushed into slices of bread.  Then our appetizer, a huge plate of breasola (thinly sliced air dried beef), with fresh water buffalo mozzarella, arugula, segments of blood orange and thinly sliced grapefruit!  We swooned.

My main course was also a delight..fettucine with ricotta and pancetta, creamy and fresh, Ramona had spaghetti with tiny clams, shrimp and bottarga (salted, dried tuna roe), along with the sweetest cherry tomatoes and chili peppers cooked into the sauce.  Stupendous flavour.

Now we have to go and climb the Spanish Steps to work up our appetite for dinner.

Ciao!

Italy, a sweet perfume

Sorrento, 6pm -  Not much time to write lately, as we have been busy getting from place to place.  Today we arrived in mainland Italy at Naples, then made our way down to Sorrento for the first of two nights.  Just a couple of things to note now, more later.

Highlights:

Orange blossoms and orange trees laden with oranges, the aroma is from heaven!

Lemon trees abound in Sorrento, home of Limoncello, a lemon-based liqueur.

Pastries to die for in Sicily, many of them based on almond paste.

A communist-themed restaurant in Catania, around the corner from a baroque Cathedral trying to shine in a very dark city...

Shrimp cooked in lemon leaves...

..and a desire to eat less traditional Italian fare this evening.

Sicily-Salt and Cheese

Trapani, Easter Sunday-We have spent the past couple of days exploring the mountain top town of Erice, 2500 feet above Trapani, and the salt flats between Trapani and Marsala.

Erice is stunning, a medieval town with cobblestoned streets worn smooth over the years.  The day we negotiated the hairpin turns up the mountain was clear and warm, and my sister swore she could see Mount Etna and a plume of smoke in the distance.

Lunch was a delicious affair made up of several different pastas, but even before lunch we visited a few pastry shops to see the beautiful marzipan pastries and lambs all ready for Easter.  Even the cannoli are stuffed with a sheep's milk cream, and we haven't had a bad cappucino yet.

My most dominant images of yesterday were all the windmills we saw along the salt flats.  They used to be used to grind the large chunks of salt that were gathered from the flats after all the water had evaporated.  A visit to the salt museum in Nubia showed what backbreaking labour it must have been to carry the large buckets full of salt from the flats in the oppresive summer heat. There is still some salt production in the flats, but most of the windmills are abandoned, some missing their colourful red tops, a silent testament to another age when salt was used as a currency and a method of paying Roman soldiers.  Sale=Salt, salary=wages in salt.

We had an excellent lunch in a small, family-run restaurant in Marsala, I enjoyed a fiery penne arriabiata and a moist and flavourful grilled swordfish steak...followed by a crowning touch of mellow Marsala wine.  My sister liked it so much she bought a bottle from the restaurant owner!

We enjoyed a picnic dinner last night to give our bellies a rest, but I purchased a variety of sheep's milk products to test.  Highlights:  A very, very fresh and mild pecorino, a slightly-aged pecorino with black peppercorns, and then two ricottas, one flavoured with lemon, the other with pistachio, one bright yellow, the other green.  They tasted strongly of their flavouring and made a wonderful dessert with a few grapes and chunks of fruit and nut laced chocolate.

Today it's down to Mazara del Vallo to explore the Arab quarter and stay overnight near the seaside before heading to Agrigento and the Valley of Temples.

Ciao!

Ciao from Sicily!

Hi everyone...we are on day 3 of our trip to Italy and thoroughly enjoying ourselves.  That is, once Ramona and I finally got here...it is a long story, but suffice to say we could not fly directly to Palermo from Rome after a flight booking error and we had to take a plane-bus-train-ferry-train-taxi to get to our hotel.  A long day!

Food highlights of the past 24 hours...

-Seeing piles and piles of fresh artichokes and fava beans at the Trapani market, along with piles and piles of fresh fish at the lively fish market next door.

-Eating the Arab-inspired fish cuscus at a restaurant last night, along with a thin-sliced wafer of compressed and dried tuna eggs on a piece of bread with a nice, fresh tomato on top.

-Sampling sweets in the sky-high town of Erice, then downing plates of gnocchi, strozzopreti and other pastas at a very pleasant restaurant in that town.  (details to follow)

-savouring all the cheeses made with sheeps milk so far, including fresh pecorino, and creamy ricotta at our breakfast this morning.

Have to run, it is Good Friday in Trapani and we are off to see the procession of the Misteri, carvings that are hundreds of years old representing the passion of Christ and the Stations of the Cross...then, more food!

Arrivderci for now,

Don