Spaghetti alla Carbonara

There are, basically, three things for which one goes to Italy: history, art, and food. Italy has an embarrassment of riches in all three categories, and one soon learns that the three are intertwined. On my first trip, my family struck up a friendship with the Castelvecche family. We met on the flight over, and by the time we landed, we had plans to spend time together. 

The Castelvecches lived near Ostia Antica, the old port of Rome. Legend holds that Ostia dates back to the landing of Aeneas, but the archaeological record indicates its actual foundation was probably around 335 b.c. The city was immensely important during the Pyrrhic and Punic Wars, and later as a center for trade and commerce. Its population topped 50,000. After a mere 600 years, it began to decline, and when St. Augustine arrived at the end of the 4th century, he noted its demise with bitterness. But because it was abandoned rather than conquered, it is in remarkably good condition.

We spent a whole day wandering among the wonderful ruins of the ancient town. Long, narrow, stone streets, now shaggy with grass, were lined by empty brick and marble shops, houses, apartment buildings. Heavy mill stones stood in bakers’ shops. In the Forum of the Corporations, we could read the mosaics that identified the offices of merchants from Carthage, Sabratha, Alexandria.

My brother and I climbed to the second floor of the spacious House of Diana (probably off limits now, but it was still open then) to survey the town. We tested the acoustics in the large, outdoor amphitheater. We examined the synagogue, the temple of Ceres, the Capitolium. We hiked all over the town, explored the nearby museum, then headed to the Castelvecches’ for dinner.

In Italy, pasta is served as a second course. You have an antipasto—which just means something you serve before the pasta—then pasta, salad, your main course, dessert, cheese, coffee. The whole meal was good, but the revelation for me was the pasta the Castelvecches served. It was the first time I’d ever had Spaghetti alla Carbonara, and it was so good I didn’t want them to serve anything else. Of course, the pasta was whisked away and we had the other courses, but Senora Castelvecche was good enough to tell me how to make the dish. It has remained, to this day, a favorite.

In Italy, the names of dishes generally tell us whence or with whom they originated: dishes called Bolognese come from Bologna, alla Romana from Rome, marinara is prepared in the manner of sailors, and carbonara comes to us from the charcoal makers.

Most of the ingredients for Spaghetti alla Carbonara could easily be carried by charcoal makers traveling to the forests of the Abruzzi to get wood, and the rest could be bought or “found” along the way. The bacon of Italy (pancetta) is unlike the bacon of the U.S.—but that doesn’t really matter. Canadian bacon a is little bit closer to the Italian, but even good old bacon Americana works, should that be what you have on hand. A little left-over ham would do nicely, too, in a pinch. Because this is really only a bargain dish if you don’t have to spend $20 for imported bacon. Besides, the most important element here is timing.

                                    Spaghetti alla Carbonara

8 oz. spaghetti

1 Tbs. extra virgin olive oil

1 clove garlic, finely minced

3 eggs

4 slices pancetta or bacon, crisp and crumbled

1/3 cup grated parmesan cheese

salt and fresh ground pepper to taste

Break the eggs into a large serving bowl; add olive oil and garlic, and whisk thoroughly, until they’re a light, lemony color. Cut the Canadian bacon into small pieces (about 1/2-inch square), or crumble your American-style bacon, if that’s what you’re using, and set aside.  (Sautéing the Canadian bacon first gives it a nicer flavor, but if you’re in a hurry, it’s not necessary, as long as the package says “fully cooked” or “ready to eat.”)

Boil the spaghetti according to package directions. The Italians describe perfect pasta as al dente—to the teeth—meaning it should have a little chewiness, and not be boiled to paste. Aim for this.

When the pasta is done, drain well, but DO NOT RINSE. Dump pasta immediately into the egg mixture, and mix thoroughly, coating pasta completely. (It is the heat of the pasta that cooks the eggs—that’s why you don’t want to give the pasta any chance to cool.)

Add the cheese, bacon, and a couple of grinds of fresh pepper, and toss. Parmesan cheese and bacon are both salty, so you may not need to add more salt, but taste and adjust seasoning to suit yourself.  Serves 3. 

Note: Extra virgin olive oil is good for recipes like this, where it doesn’t get very hot. It’s also your best choice for salads. It has a rich, almost fruity flavor that adds a lot to the taste of a dish. So even though pricier, it’s worth having on hand.

Chiltepines

The chiltepin is the only wild pepper native to the United States. Also known as chile tepin (as well as by several different Native American names), it grows naturally in canyons from West Texas through southern Arizona. It is widely used throughout this region in traditional cuisine and medicine.

It is sometimes called “the mother of all peppers,” as some believe it to be the original wild pepper from which all other chiles were developed.

All chiltepines are wild-harvested, hand-picked, and organic. Harvesting is a seasonal ritual in many communities, with families camping in the mountains in September and October, to collect this treasure.

There are fewer than 15 known localities in the US that serve as natural habitats for chiltepines. They are protected in the US in Coronado National Forest, Big Bend National Park, and Organpipe Cactus National Monument.

This chile’s heat ranges from 6 to 40 times hotter than a jalapeño—so a good hit of heat for a small amount of pepper—though the heat is short-lived.

So a rare and historic treat for the chile lover.

Fortunately, you don’t have to join one of the camps out in West Texas to try chiltepines. Both plants and seeds are available for purchase online. And if you want to know how to harvest them here’s a video to help. Because sometimes it’s fun to find something rare and new.

Irish Leek and Oatmeal Soup

I have done separate posts in the past on leeks and on oats, each one with an attendant recipe from Scotland. Leeks and oats are both associated in general with Celtic people. The Irish, also being Celtic, are also fans of these ingredients. So the Irish leek and oatmeal soup given below is a very Celtic thing. This is an amazingly delicious soup—the milk and oatmeal combine to make it really thick and creamy, and leeks make it wonderfully flavorful. Enjoy.

Brotchán Foltchep

(Irish Leek and Oatmeal Soup)

3–6 leeks (depending on size; see Notes)

2 Tbs. butter

1/4 cup oatmeal (uncooked)

3 cups beef stock or broth

2 cups milk

pinch of ground mace

salt and pepper to taste

chopped parsley (optional)

Clean the leeks thoroughly (see notes). Slice the leeks in 1/2-inch slices (just the white and pale green section—as you move up the leek, you can remove outer layers, if they are dark and tough—but you’ll just be using the straight part of the leek, not the fanned-out top part).

Melt the butter in a large pot, add the leeks, and cook over low heat, stirring occasionally, until leeks are soft but not brown. Sprinkle the oatmeal over the leeks and stir them together. Then add the stock and milk. Add a good pinch of ground mace, plus salt and pepper to taste. (If you use salted broth, you may not need much salt.) Simmer over medium heat for about 20 minutes, stirring occasionally. Garnish with parsley, if you wish. Serves. 4.

Notes: Leeks vary in size, even in the same store-packed bunch, so the number of leeks needed will vary. You need about 3 cups of sliced leek for this recipe (a little over is fine, but you don’t want much less). One really big leek, 1-1/2 inches or more in diameter, will come close to giving you one full cup of sliced leek. If leeks are smaller—say 1 inch in diameter or so—you’ll get about 2/3 cup or less. So buy accordingly.

Because of the way leeks are planted, they usually accumulate sand among the layers. Cut off the top of the leek (where it fans out). This dark-green part can be reserved if you’re making stock, but should be discarded if all you’re making is this recipe. Cut off the roots, then split the leek and rinse, separating layers slightly to make sure you get all the dirt.

I generally use 2-percent milk in this and get excellent results, but whole milk would be creamier—and more traditional.

When the French Laundry Began

This is not very old history. In fact, the person around whom it revolves, Sally Schmitt, just passed away this year. But it is a reminder that a lot of things we think of as “the first” actually weren’t—not truly the first. And I’m guessing the fact that Julia Child not only visited but actually went into the kitchen to ask for a recipe, suggests that the French Laundry was producing some pretty fine cuisine even before Thomas Keller appeared on the scene. Very worthwhile video—great introduction to a truly remarkable and under-appreciated person.

Book Review: Near a Thousand Tables

Just started reading a book by Felipe Fernández-Armesto, and it is reminding me how much I love his work. So I thought I’d share a review I wrote of a previous book of his: Near a Thousand Tables: A History of Food.

Near a Thousand Tables is thoughtful, wide-ranging, iconoclastic, brilliant, elegant, and packed with fascinating, abundantly documented information. It’s an exhilarating race through the entire history of where food came from and what it means to humankind. It encompasses psychology, sociology, science, culture, literature, religion, and politics, along with its culinary history. Fernández-Armesto doesn’t shy away from anything, delving into everything from cannibalism to the raw food movement. (“Culture begins when the raw gets cooked.”)

This book is so rich in facts, history, and insights that it is difficult to even imagine where to begin describing it. Of course, he covers the transition from hunting to farming and discusses the foods that have had the biggest impact on the planet (rice, wheat, maize, sugar, and so on). But it is the scope of the work, the passion, and the insights into the significance of food that elevate it. (And he does all this in less than 300 pages!) We can almost imagine Fernández-Armesto in a lecture hall (because he does teach), his voice rising with the heat of his argument, as he holds forth on the importance of some key point, such as in the chapter “The Edible Earth” when he writes about farming.

“Whether invented or evolved, the farming of plants did more, in the long run, to alter the world than any previous human innovation. The impact of the hunters, fishers, and stockbreeders of the last chapter could not compare—not on the landscape, or on ecological structures or even on diet. … Plants are 90 percent of the world’s food. Plant farming still dominates the world’s economy….We still depend on it absolutely. It is the basis of everything else.”

Fernández-Armesto joyously explodes a lot of popular myths. For example: “The idea that the demand for spices [during the Middle Ages] was the result of the need to disguise tainted meat and fish is one of the great myths of the history of food. It is more likely that fresh foods in the Middle Ages were fresher than today, because locally produced, and that preserved foods were just as well preserved in their different ways—by salting, pickling, desiccating and conserving—as ours are in the age of canning, refrigeration, and freeze-drying (a technique which, by the way, was known in antiquity and developed to a high degree by Andean potato growers in what we think of as the Middle Ages).” Or “It was probably pigs and horses, not people, that took, to the New World from the old, the diseases that began the precipitate collapse of Native American populations” (he notes, as he explains why herding is more dangerous to humans than hunting). Or even, “More than 50 percent of those with afflicted hearts do not have high cholesterol counts.”

He worries about our relationship with food. He notes that, “The loneliness of the fast food eater is uncivilizing. Food is being desocialized.” He observes that the health-obsessed and food faddists share in common with cannibals the tendency to take their meaning from what they eat. He frets over what the microwave is doing to our dining habits, and opines, “Readers who could have Brillat-Savarin settle for the Williams-Sonoma catalogue.”

The book sweeps from “The Invention of Cooking: The First Revolution” to “Feeding the Giants: Food and Industrialization in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries,” scooping up “The Meaning of Eating: Food as Rite and Magic,” “Food and Rank: Inequality and the Rise of Haute Cuisine,” and “Challenging Evolution: Food and Ecological Exchange,” among other topics, as he whirls through the millennia, weaving together a tapestry of what food has meant to our world and what it means to us now.

This is not breezy writing. It is the kind of dense, rich, juicy prose that we language arts majors relish. But if you love rich writing, as well as rich food, this book is a real treat.

Hadrian’s Villa Update

My dad was the one who always did the serious research for our travels, though he never considered it a chore, as it was his heart’s delight. Among the places his research turned up that he wanted to visit, the first time we went to Italy as a family, was Hadrian’s Villa (or Villa Adriana in Italian), which is about 20 miles outside of Rome. Even at 15 years of age, and with not particularly great experience of the world, I could tell this place was special. It was, in fact, mind-blowing. The huge, sprawling villa covers 250 acres—because the ruler of the Roman Empire needed more than a nice palace—there were ponds and monuments and buildings everywhere.

I was delirious. Like my dad, I loved history, and I took tremendous delight in “running around in ruins,” as I stated it back then. The day we spent there was one of my favorite memories (among many) of that trip.

The reason it came to mind today is I just saw an article in Gastro Obscura about the villa—or, rather, about the ancient olive trees that grow there. Apparently, there are no trees like this anywhere else in the world. Local farmers now make oil from those trees, though it’s only available to visitors at the villa. But That almost constitutes a reason to return to Italy.

If you’re interested, here is the link to the story. https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/emperor-hadrian-villa

18th Century British Curry

Most folks know that today, curry is Britain’s favorite dish—probably chicken tikka masala, if you need a specific dish. But Britain has a long history with Indian food and spices—more than 400 years, in fact. The first Queen Elizabeth sent a ship to India in 1583, and within a few decades, the British East India Company was setting up offices in Bombay. Food ideas from the subcontinent were flowing into the British Isles with returning traders and soldiers and government officials. Of course, substitutions had to be made, as tropical ingredients such as coconut milk and mangoes would not be available in England. But spices were coming in, and the Brits did the best they could—as evidenced by the inclusion of a curry in Hannah Glasse’s 1747 cookbook.

I have previously shared videos of often-surprising dishes that date to the 1700s, and so here again, I turn to Townsends, to let them share with you a curry recipe from Hannah Glasse. Enjoy.

Thoughts from Milk Street

Among the magazines I get, only one is what I would call “pure fun.” The other magazines are either largely for research or in some cases are potential outlets for my own writing. But Milk Street magazine—or more completely, Christopher Kimball’s Milk Street—is for pleasure. It combines two of my favorite pursuits: food and travel.

In addition to travel tales and insights into destinations, there is also an Editor’s Notes entry in each issue, and while not every one is an eye opener, and I even occasionally disagree with Kimball, more often than not, I find some interesting insight or a well-phrased reflection that resonates. This is actually from a couple of years ago (I rarely throw out good food magazines), but it’s something I just opened to and thought it was worth sharing. So here from the Nov.–Dec. 2019 issue is the passage that I wanted to pass along—because it’s so true. And I like to think that understanding this will help folks actually come to have a greater appreciation and respect for their own culinary traditions. Because other than a few tools and some spices, we’re more alike than we are different.

Kimball wrote: “The world is not exotic; it’s just life in a different place. Spend a little time in Croatia, Galilee or Tunis and you realize that the cooking is practical, not romantic. People make the best they can out of whatever is at hand.

“And so you end up drinking arak or mezcal at a table a long way from home, but it’s the same everywhere. It’s the one where we come to drink, eat and celebrate what makes us human.”

Wheat Around the World–and Through Time

If you visit my Midwest Maize blog, you’ll discover that I have written a book on places one can travel to learn about and even relive the history of the Midwest. But an interest in history, even in agricultural history, is far from limited to the heartland. I loved this video about how different countries around the globe preserve the past in living-history venues and historic farms, recreating centuries of techniques and tools for producing food—in the case of this specific project, of wheat. It’s a lovely video that underscores how much has changed in recent years. Enjoy.

Florentine Steak

When lemon pepper seasoning first appeared in U.S. markets, I had a good idea what might have inspired it. Thanks to dad’s job with the airlines, I’d gotten to Italy quite young (first trip, age 15). Dad always did a huge amount of research before trips, so we knew—in addition to history, art and language—what foods to eat and where to find them (kind of sounds like I take after my dad). One specialty that dad particularly wanted to try, and which we managed to enjoy in a few different restaurants during our ten days in Florence, was bistecca alla fiorentina—Florentine steak

As I often found in Italy back then, a lot of dishes were finished at the table—and as one who loves ritual and process, that always delighted me. Even the simple whisking of oil and vinegar dressing directly over the salad delighted me.

Florentine steak was part of just such a ritual. A thin steak was salted and cooked over charcoal quickly at high heat, with the result being meat that had flavorful char on the outside but still had a pink interior. In some restaurants and trattorias, the grill was visible from the dining area. The steak moved swiftly from fire to plate to table, where the waiter would squeeze fresh lemon juice over its surface and then grind over it an abundance of fresh, black pepper. It was wonderful.

I think the taste of charcoal is indispensable to the success of this dish. But if you have a charcoal grill and a thin (about half an inch) steak, you might want to try this. Salt applied to the steak before cooking is the only seasoning other than the lemon and pepper – but the lemon should be actual lemon, not bottled lemon juice (and I use bottled juice often, just not here) and freshly ground black pepper.

And if you visit Italy, while Florence remains famous for steaks, know that many upscale places now target tourists rather than locals, and the steaks are often very thick. Not a bad thing, by any means, but a different experience. But it’s simple enough to not have to wait for that trip abroad. Buon appetito.