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Vol. 2 No. 4, October 2007
Welcome to the fourth Sapori e Saperi newsletter of 2007. I got carried away by a pot of soup this time; it was very delicious and set me wondering about the possibility of soup stories as a new literary genre. One of the Italian words for soup is ‘zuppa’ (from the Gothic word ‘suppa’ meaning a slice of bread immersed in liquid), and it’s nicely serendipitous that the other seasonal topic is a squash festival and the word for squash is ‘zucca’ (from late Latin ‘cucutia’ through the stages ‘cucuzza’ to ‘(cu)zucca’ by a well-known — to linguists — mechanism of transposition of internal phonemes).
Best wishes for a slow and colourful autumn,
Contents
Zuppa
Although the weather was still warm and sunny here in the Garfagnana, I knew it was autumn from my sudden craving for a thick vegetable soup. Since you might be feeling the same, here is the story of my soup. It isn’t a recipe, because although there’s a technique and a process, there is no recipe for a good vegetable soup. It must be composed of a judicious selection of what is in season: fresh, local ingredients.
A good soup takes time. Plan to relax and indulge in some slow cooking. What would you do with the time you save by opening a tin, or even one of those ‘homemade’ ‘fresh’ soups in a carton, that can compare with the feel of getting your hands messy with real ingredients, the challenge of mastering the technique of chopping an onion as fast as a professional chef, the smell at each stage of the cooking, the complex flavours of a well-wrought soup and the enjoyment of savouring it on your own or sharing it with family and friends? Make a trip to your nearest farmers’ market. It’s a great family expedition. Chat to the farmers about the different types of vegetables. Ask questions. Do they have a soup story? Form an opinion about which stalls are consistently best for which produce and reward them with your loyalty. Your soup and your life will benefit; you’ll become more knowledgeable, have a sense of purpose, make new friends and feel part of the local community. That television cookery programme you won’t have time to watch can’t possibly do all this for you.
 My soup begins with a short expedition down the hill to Cinzia’s stall in the Bagni di Lucca mercatino (outdoor market) where I find new-season cabbages, verza (Savoy) and nera, and zucca (butternut squash in this case, see below for the huge variety available at the Zucca Festival) and some end of season green beans, fresh borlotti beans and zucchini. Cinzia follows the custom of green grocers who make their customers a present of odori (carrot, celery and parsley) on which every soup and sauce is based. My own thyme plant has gradually withered (too much water?), but there’s a healthy looking one at the flower stall. From the shop in my village, which I try to patronize as much as possible since life in a tiny village on a mountain top would be unbearable without a shop to supply the daily basics, I buy a little pancetta, a large yellow onion, garlic and a lemon. The potatoes and San Marzano plum tomatoes come from my own vegetable patch, and from my fridge a piece of parmesan rind I’d been saving carefully for this moment.
I use Marcella Hazan’s method of compiling a soup, adding ingredients one at a time and allowing them to sauté in olive oil for 2 or 3 minutes before adding the next. This develops the flavour of each ingredient and has the added advantage that you can wash, peel and chop each ingredient while the previous one is cooking — my only concession to saving time. But first I shell the borlotti beans and put them to boil with some sage leaves and a whole clove of garlic. They’ll be soft in about 30–40 minutes, which is just when I’ll need to add them to the soup. I pour enough good, flavourful local Lucca olive oil to more than cover the bottom of a capacious soup pot. I never use the cheap industrial oils. After all, I’m not servicing a car; I want the oil to contribute the flavour of olives to the finished soup. The finely chopped pancetta and thinly sliced onion go into the hot oil together over a medium flame and sauté until soft and lightly coloured and the odour wafting from the pot changes from pungent to sweet. I stir from time to time while preparing the next ingredients and adding them in the following order: chopped carrots, chopped celery, diced potato, diced zucca, diced zucchini, green beans topped and tailed and cut in small pieces. With each new ingredient the aroma changes. Now I put the kettle on to boil and pour the boiling water over the tomatoes while shredding the cabbages (verzo and nero) and adding them. As the moisture comes out of the cabbage, the sound begins to change, less the sizzle of frying and more the hiss of steaming. If things start sticking to the bottom of the pan during all this, I add some more olive oil. If you’re still practising your chopping technique and need more time between ingredients, either lower the flame or remove the pot from the burner until you’re ready to add the next one, but then you’ll have to give it a bit of time to get back up to temperature.
 At this stage I turn the flame down to low and cover the pot while I skin the tomatoes, remove the seeds and chop them or squeeze them in my hand and add them to the pot. My pile of chopped tomato is about the same size as the pile of chopped onion I put in earlier; to my taste tomato is a bully and makes all the other more subtle vegetable flavours cower in a corner. I make pappa al pomodoro (a Tuscan tomato and bread soup) if I want tomato to be the main flavour. Having allowed the tomatoes to stew with the other vegetables in the covered pan for about 10 minutes, I add salt and pepper, enough hot water to cover (you could use a homemade meat stock or you can make it totally vegetarian by using water and omitting the pancetta), toss in the parmesan rind (another Marcella trick), replace the lid and keep it at a very slow boil while I deal with the borlotti beans. I pour the bean liquid into the soup pot, put half the beans through a food mill (you can use a food processor, but for me cooking is a sensuous craft and I like the feel of mashing the beans against the grater disc) and add the puree to the pot, reserving the whole beans to add a little later. Now I do the washing up, after which it’s exactly the right time to add the whole beans and make a battuto by chopping finely the parsley, garlic and grated lemon rind, which I scrape into the soup along with a spoonful of tomato paste dissolved in a little water, correct the seasoning and leave it to simmer for another 15 or 20 minutes. The story is coming to an end. I toast a slice of crusty country bread, delivered each morning while still warm to the village shop (but day old bread is better here), put it in the bottom of a wide soup plate, ladle the soup on top and drizzle it with the best olive oil I can get — the best is fresh from the olive press but the olive harvest is only just about to start. I eat the soup and am pleased with the plot. It will be even better tomorrow after the flavours have had time to marry.
A couple of nights later I go out with some friends to their favourite family restaurant. The featured primo piatto on the menu is Pasta e Fagioli (a bean soup with pasta in it). We compliment Emma on the rich flavour of her soup (she is in charge of the kitchen while her husband tends the wood-burning pizza oven and the daughters wait on tables). I begin to wonder whether one soup story attracts another when Emma sits down at our table and volunteers to tell her own story if we promise not to tell her cousin in my friends’ village that she has divulged a family secret. We promise solemnly and she makes sure I’m equipped with paper and pen before beginning. At first she’s a bit hesitant, not mentioning exact quantities, perhaps thinking that part of the secret will be safeguarded. But soon the story overtakes her caution and she backtracks with little details and keeps checking that I’ve understood and noted it down correctly. As we’re leaving, she runs after us proffering a small crumpled foil packet; it contains her own crushed fennel seed without which the soup won’t taste the same. Her story has many of the same characters as mine, but a totally different plot. I export it, along with some borlotti beans, to Cambridge, England, and serve it to nine friends for a pre-concert supper along with Neal’s Yard Dairy handmade British cheeses, Sally Clarke’s oatcakes and apples from my own tree. They’ve never tasted so delicious a soup. A happy ending! My only disappointment is that no one at supper volunteers her own soup story. Have we totally forgotten our stories? Have they been erased by the supremacy of cookbooks?
 Zucca
The second annual squash festival in the tiny village of Piegaio (Pescaglia) on 30 September was as much a feast for the imagination as the stomach. The leaflet invited us to have fun, but also to learn and discover: we would find out about the huge variety of shapes and colours of squashes and the many ways in which they were used in the past, such as being carved into utensils, containers and even musical instruments. The appeal to our aesthetic sense balanced the appeal to our intellect and our palates. There would be a competition for the most beautiful squash — not the largest — which could be ‘light like the wings of a butterfly or large like a carriage’, illustrated in the leaflet by a small, elegant flying summer squash and a pumpkin depicted as a coach and four. As Harold Partain, Sapori e Saperi’s agent in Texas, and I walked along the main road in the village, we encountered squash dolls, an exhibition of sculpted marble squashes, a photographic exhibition, the main market and display of the many strange and wonderful squashes entered in the competition, food stalls offering various pasta dishes based on squash and down at the bottom end helicopter rides over the charming Valpedogna, By the time we reached the food stall, the crowds had devoured all the pasta, and we set off instead to La Fonte, one of the four restaurants offering a whole menu based on zucca. Having gorged ourselves on squash crostini, squash risotto, squash lasagne and local trout, we declined the dessert of squash semifreddo, but Daniela, the owner, proudly presented us with a free sample since she was sure we would be sorry if we missed her divine invention.
Big and Little Adventures for 2007/2008 and Personalized Itineraries
You can join me in my adventures either by signing up for a week of in-depth exploration of a few seasonal foods or booking a day or two as you’re passing through. Whatever the season, there’s always something exciting happening behind the scenes.
NEW! Gastronomic holidays for families
Bare Oil
Any long weekend (3 or 5 days packages) between mid-October and the first weekend in December.
Olive Oil, Chestnuts + Polenta
Sunday 11–Saturday 17 November 2007
Sunday 18–Saturday 24 November 2007
Città della Castagna (City of the Chestnut)
Friday 7–Sunday 9 December 2007
Cheese + Honey
Sunday 18–Saturday 24 May 2008
Sunday 25–Saturday 31 May 2008
Pork + Porcini
Thursday 18–Wednesday 24 September 2008
Thursday 25 September–Wednesday 1 October 2008
Olive Oil, Chestnuts + Polenta
Sunday 9–Saturday 15 November 2008
Sunday 16–Saturday 22 November 2008 |
