JULY 2021 JULY L DELLA N

JULY 2021 JULY l DELLA N. 339 CIVILTÀ TAVOLA ACCADEMIA ITALIANA DELLA CUCINA INTERNATIONAL EDITION ACCADEMIA ITALIANA DELLA CUCINA ISTITUZIONE CULTURALE DELLA REPUBBLICA ITALIANA FONDATA NEL 1953 DA ORIO VERGANI www.accademia1953.it CIVILTÀ DELLA TAVOLA CIVILTÀ 2021 N. 339, JULY Table of contents CIVILTÀ DELLATAVOLA ACCADEMIA ITALIANA DELLA CUCINA INTERNATIONAL EDITION JULY 2021 / N. 339 Focus of the President EDITOR IN CHIEF PAOLO PETRONI 2 Delta Force on the attack! COPY EDITOR (Paolo Petroni) SILVIA DE LORENZO LAYOUT SIMONA MONGIU L’ACCADEMIA ITALIANA DELLA CUCINA TRANSLATOR è stata fondata nel 1953 da Orio Vergani ANTONIA FRASER FUJINAGA e da Luigi Bertett, Dino Buzzati Traverso, Cesare Chiodi, Giannino Citterio, Ernesto Donà THIS ISSUE INCLUDES ARTICLES BY dalle Rose, Michele Guido Franci, Gianni Mazzocchi FLORO BISELLO, Bastoni, Arnoldo Mondadori, Attilio Nava, MAURIZIA DEBIAGGI, Arturo Orvieto, Severino Pagani, Aldo Passante, ALBERTO MARTINELLI, Gian Luigi Ponti, Giò Ponti, Dino Villani, PAOLO PETRONI, Edoardo Visconti di Modrone, PINUCCIO POMO, con Massimo Alberini e Vincenzo Buonassisi. CLAUDIO TARCHI. Territories l Tourism l Folklore PHOTO CREDITS The long history of cassoeula ADOBE STOCK. 3 …continues, even in Singapore vvv (Maurizia Debiaggi, PUBLISHER Alberto Martinelli) ACCADEMIA ITALIANA DELLA CUCINA VIA NAPO TORRIANI 31 - 20124 MILANO TEL. 02 66987018 - FAX 02 66987008 [email protected] [email protected] [email protected] WWW.ACCADEMIA1953.IT vvv MONTHLY MAGAZINE REG. N. 4049 - 29-5-1956 TRIBUNALE DI MILANO Sugared almonds: 5 127 years of history (Pinuccio Pomo) Ghirardelli of San Francisco 7 (Claudio Tarchi) Health l Safety l Law When food is REGULATIONS REGARDING PERSONAL DATA PROTECTION On the cover: graphic elaboration of Still Life 8 with Fruits and Watermelon (1929) by Pyotr a response to emotions The Italian Academy of Cuisine, in its capacity as data controller, hereby informs its members that Konchalovsky; State Russian Museum, St Petersburg (Floro Bisello) their personal data are handled with respect for the principles of integrity, lawfulness and tran- sparency as well as protection of privacy and members’ rights, to implement the management of the member-association relationship as deline- ated by the Association’s Statute and By-laws, and for any related purposes where applicable. The processing is carried out by authorised parties, in paper and computerised form, in compliance with the provisions of the aforementioned EU regulations and current national legislation. To view all the information provided under EU regulations, and in particular to learn what members’ rights are, please visit the Association’s website. Rivista associata all’Unione Stampa Periodica Italiana Focus of the President Delta Force on the attack! by Paolo Petroni President of the Accademia Despite the crossfire plaguing our lives, the Academy is resuming its habitual cultural and convivial activities. rom films and beyond, we all know what the Delta For- ce is: an élite corps of the US Army, specialised in anti-ter- Frorism operations abroad, whose motto is: “Surprise, Speed and Aggression!”. We, however, are being terrorised every day by another task force: the “Delta variant” of the coronavirus. The four horsemen of the Apocalypse, namely the squabbling, ineffectual, doomsaying virologists, distress us daily with glo- omy prophecies, abetted by the mass media which tally up the dead (few, fortunately) and infected, without mentioning that the latter are holding up well and haven’t the slightest they be discarded?) the AstraZeneca and Johnson&Johnson intention of checking in to hospitals, which luckily are almost doses which, after millions administered, nobody wants now. empty. Honestly, enough already! Let us live; not letting us live is Then we might as well release bulletins of road, heart attack grotesque! and tumour fatalities and so forth. They told us that vaccines would solve the problem, yet headlines remain identical: sur- ge, boom, hotspots, gatherings, keep your guard up, wretched The Academy has resumed its activities; youngsters, threats against regions imminently returning to the ‘machine’ is ready to roll yellow and orange. The superlatively useful Istituto Superio- re di Sanità (National Institute of Health) solemnly informs us that “Unvaccinated or only partially vaccinated people may Notwithstanding the concentric attacks of our home-grown become infected”. You don’t say! Who would have imagined ‘Delta Force’, the Italian Academy of Cuisine has resumed its that? And from the heights of her knowledge, the WHO’s cultural and convivial activities. Following our Delegates’ As- COVID-19 Technical Lead rules that the “#DeltaVariant will sembly, the Academic Council has elected the President’s take advantage of unvaccinated people, in crowded settings”. Council, which in turn appointed Delegates, Regional Coor- dinators and the members of the Franco Marenghi Study Centre, who themselves elected the Regional Study Centre We are fed up with useless, vacuous words Directors. A somewhat lengthy procedure, now at an end thanks to everyone’s collaboration. The ‘machine’ is now ready to roll again, and we can already All in all, we are fed up with useless and vacuous words. We witness this through the pages of this magazine, dedicated cannot aim for zero deaths, zero infections and zero variants to those Academic activities which are telling us once more (over 120 have already been identified): the virus will circula- about our Delegations’ many initiatives in Italy and abroad, te, constantly mutating. Instead of predicting calamity, four- where, as in previous years and with a concerted effort and th waves and various catastrophes, let them get cracking on the Foreign Ministry’s support, the Academy will provide its those vaccines, as vaccinations have reached a mere 45% of habitual, substantial contribution to the success of the Inter- the population, with dim prospects after setting aside (will national Italian Food Week. Page 2 Territories l Tourism l Folklore The long history of cassoeula …continues, even in Singapore by Maurizia Debiaggi and Alberto Martinelli Singapore-Malaysia-Indonesia Academicians The Valtulina family fectly fit the ‘circular economy’ trend, which transforms food industry waste Two hypotheses about has brought authentic products into new foods thanks to tech- the origin of the dish nological solutions concocted by start- Brianza cooking ups with or without blockchain! to the city-state. Cassoeula has prosaically peasant ori- According to Toni Cuman, the unforget- gins; it has a long history and probably table food and wine journalist of the a double genesis. Since Italy is after all go-getting, heavy-drinking 1980s, cas- asseoula is Lombardy’s tradition- the land of the Guelphs and Ghibellines, soeula originates in northern Europe al ‘poor food’ par excellence: the let us recount the two origin stories and partially in central Asia and was C ancestor of ‘leftover cuisine’: if it which, besides being intriguing, seem apparently brought to Italy by Gaulish were invented nowadays, it would per- diametrically opposed. tribes. The dish is connected with chou- croute, or sauerkraut with sausage, and Alma and Valentino Valtulina the nomads’ habit of cooking mutton and vegetable stews. This explanation is bol- stered by the similarity of the word cassoeula to the French term cassoulet, a typical dish of Languedoc, based - perhaps not coincidentally - on pork and beans, and the fact that in Alghero (Sar- dinia), one of Italy’s Catalan-Celtic cities, there is a dish called sa cassola. The other origin story of cassoeula, perhaps more interesting and reliable, traces it to the manifold culinary con- taminations occurring over the centu- ries in Italy, and a series of fascinating and riveting events and vicissitudes. It starts with the Moors, who dominat- ed Spain from 711 to 1492, leaving, as part of their cultural inheritance, a culinary device called qasula, whose name of course phonetically recalls the pro- tagonist of this story. The Arabs used this internally glazed terracotta contain- er for cooking chicken, beef or mutton stews with vegetables; it was greatly appreciated at the time since it could be used for both cooking and transporting food and also re-heating small portions. In that era, the many Jewish commu- nities inhabiting the flourishing and Page 3 Cassoeula in Singapore’s Da Valentino restaurant The story of Valentino Valtulina and the eponymous restaurant is a tale of success for a large Lombard family who, with passionate determination, lots of hard work and faith in their capabilities, followed him from Italy 16 years ago, embarking on the audacious adventure of introducing Singapore to the cui- tolerant Arab domains in Spain had a sula including parts of Campania, Puglia sine of Brianza, as authentic as it is traditional dish which was easy to pre- and Calabria. It was Longobardia Minor simple. Mother Alma, who embodies pare, combining mutton flesh and broth, which brought the addition of Savoy the true soul of traditional cuisine at least chickpeas and cabbage: adafina. cabbage, one of central and Mediterra- where cassoeula, stews and ragù are nean Europe’s few autochthonous veg- concerned, says: “Each family makes etables. The Longobards also initiated cassoeula in its own manner, and I follow In Spain, Jewish converts the tradition of linking cassoeula with the recipe of my family, from Meda: scant to Christianity replaced St Anthony

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