Cuisine L Products L Food Technology

MAY 2021 MAY l DELLA N. 337 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. 337, MAY Table of contents Civiltà DELLATavola ACCADEMIA ITALIANA DELLA CUCINA

INTERNATIONAL EDITION

May 2021 / n. 337 Focus of the President Editor in chief Paolo Petroni 2 Vaccine chaos and uncertain Copy Editor regulations delay rebirth Silvia De Lorenzo (Paolo Petroni)

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 Giuseppe Benelli, Bastoni, Arnoldo Mondadori, Attilio Nava, Maurizia Debiaggi, Arturo Orvieto, Severino Pagani, Aldo Passante, Anna Lanzani, Gian Luigi Ponti, Giò Ponti, Dino Villani, Paolo Petroni, Edoardo Visconti di Modrone, Claudio Tarchi, con Massimo Alberini e Vincenzo Buonassisi. Roberto Zottar.

Photo credits

Adobe Stock. Traditions l History vvv Charles Baudelaire’s Publisher 3 ode to wine Accademia Italiana della Cucina Via Napo Torriani 31 - 20124 Milano (Giuseppe Benelli) Tel. 02 66987018 - Fax 02 66987008 [email protected] [email protected] [email protected] www.accademia1953.it

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Monthly Magazine Reg. n. 4049 - 29-5-1956 Tribunale di Milano

Cuisine l Products l Food Technology

Throw some flowers in the pot! 5 (Roberto Zottar)

Regulations regarding personal data protection

The Italian Academy of Cuisine, in its capacity as On the cover: graphic elaboration data controller, hereby informs its members that of Strawberries (1908) by Pierre-Auguste Renoir, their personal data are handled with respect for the principles of integrity, lawfulness and tran- Musée des Beaux-Arts, Bordeaux 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, Ginger and its many names in paper and computerised form, in compliance 7 (Maurizia Debiaggi, with the provisions of the aforementioned EU regulations and current national legislation. To Anna Lanzani) view all the information provided under EU regu- lations, and in particular to learn what members’ rights are, please visit the Association’s website. Restaurants and Cooks

Rivista associata Cioppino in San Francisco all’Unione Stampa 9 Periodica Italiana (Claudio Tarchi) Focus of the President Vaccine chaos and uncertain regulations delay rebirth

But there are positive signs: we confidently by Paolo Petroni await the return of normality. President of the Accademia

oll up! Roll up! Ladies and gentlemen: the circus is here!”. Fi- nally they’ve awoken, have understood that tourism is “R important, indeed vital, for our economy, and invite for- eign tourists to visit our Belpaese, our ‘Beautiful Country’, without hindrance. But in making their omelette, the authorities have broken many eggs. The stubborn, entirely political and scientifically unjus- tified insistence on continuing to enforce curfews at 10 PM, the incredible closure of restaurants (which can only operate outdoors), The Academy wants a calendar and the continuation of colour coding are and will be de facto dis- based on reliable scientific data couraging tourists, who will instead choose Greece, Croatia, Spain and other suitable destinations without such random, improvised The Italian Academy of Cuisine vehemently, explicitly demands a rules. When you read this Focus, the curfew will almost certainly calendar based on reliable, scientifically proven data rather than polit- have been shifted by an hour or two, and perhaps restaurants will ical posturing. Curfews unacceptably limit freedom and must be elim- be permitted indoor lunches, but it will be too late. Pettiness has inated; restaurants must be opened for lunch and dinner, at any hour, ruined an entire tourist season and the resurgence of restaurants. indoors and outdoors, with legally prescribed precautions and rigorous Even a few days’ pro forma delay is enough to wreak havoc. And checks. The predicted reopening in July, including indoor dining but what if travellers from abroad arrive in areas which turn red or orange only for lunch, is absurd and groundless. Grotesque scenes of restaurants overnight? Will they be barricaded in their hotels? Extreme caution and their customers being fined because a sudden squall forced every- is justified: this virus is no joke and remains lethal. Yet uncertainty one to finish their meals indoors (with social distancing) and of people doesn’t solve the problem, but suffocates the economy and banned from the lavatory “except where strictly necessary” are unac- stokes social unrest. ceptable. Citizens cannot be punished through complicated safe-con- duct permits (known as ‘green passes’) whose validity is compromised by the system’s inefficiencies. Two simple figures: currently, around 4 Verbs are all in the future tense: million have recovered, and approximately 7 million have been vacci- we will do, will open, will remove… nated, for a total of 11 million. What of the other 49 million Italians? All must be swabbed, including children, to get a ‘pass’. The authorities fail to vaccinate, and the unvaccinated are blamed. Finally, it’s time to give Verbs are all in the future tense: we will do, will open, will remove, up the useless regional colour game which could bring the entire will pay, will vaccinate. Speaking of vaccination, we can only marvel painstakingly assembled house of cards crashing down. But let us dare at what is happening. The Extraordinary Commissioner for the prophesise: all regions will soon turn yellow (it would be unthinkable COVID emergency, the Alpine Brigades medal-studded three-star for Sicily, Sardinia and Valle d’Aosta to stay orange all summer), render- general Francesco Paolo Figliuolo, travels widely, inaugurates, ing the ‘passes’ theoretical and useless. We optimistically await this: invites, suggests, recommends, applies pressure, indicates roadmaps Italy, like the rest of the world, is itching to be reborn. and is undoubtedly a capable person, but has almost negligible powers. He has no authority over vaccine supplies: types and P.S. This month of May is important for the Academy: at the General quantities are determined elsewhere, and his hands are tied over Assembly of Delegates, to be held virtually on the 22nd, all central distribution, overseen by regional governments and health districts and territorial posts will expire and be up for renewal. Warmest and which do as they please. Indeed, some regions’ responses to his sincerest thanks go to the members of the President’s Council, Aca- requests bring to mind Rhett Butler’s parting volley to Scarlett demic Council, Board of Auditors, Arbitration Board and Franco O’Hara in Gone with the Wind: “Frankly, my dear, I don’t give a Marenghi Study Centre, the Regional Coordinators, the Directors and damn!” So the vaccination campaign on which we pin our hopes members of the Regional Study Centres, and especially the Delegates is a real disaster. Thus far, Italy, with a population of 50 million and Legates who have kept Academicians united through these adults, has slightly over 7 million vaccine recipients: barely 14%. terribly difficult months. The event will be amply covered in the next Herd immunity is a long way away! issue of Civiltà della Tavola.

Page 2 Traditions l History Charles Baudelaire’s ode to wine

by Giuseppe Benelli Lunigiana Academician

The poet’s 200th he 200th birthday of the poet Charles Baudelaire (1821-1867) Wine, absorbed into our birthday provides T provides an occasion to recall the innermost depths, encomium of wine penned by the author has healing powers the opportunity to of The Flowers of Evil. Baudelaire is the remember that greatest modern poet to celebrate wine’s virtues in counteracting ‘spleen’, mean- The French poet dedicated an ode, in “wine speaks with its ing anguish, melancholia, boredom, particular, to wine as a means of escap- inability to accept life. His difficulty con- ism and, at the same time, inspiration. soul, in the spirit voice forming to 19th-century society simply Indignant about Jean-Anthelme Bril- heard only by spirits”. indicated awareness of the depravity lat-Savarin’ definition of wine, in his and mediocrity concealed under prim Physiology of Taste, as “no more than a artifice. This context forms the backdrop liquor derived from the fruit of the vine”, for the conflict, or arguably, the contin- Baudelaire affirmed that “If wine were uous metamorphosis between the to disappear from human production, I spiritual and human visions of wine. believe it would cause an absence, a failure in health and intellect, a void much more terrifying than all the recess- es and the deviations for which wine is regarded as responsible”. Wine, indeed, is absorbed into our innermost depths and has a curative, healing function; in any case it can calm the worries and anxieties of a melancholic, solitary heart such as that of a poet who fre- quently feels misplaced in his own time and in time itself. He adds: “The profound joys of wine, who amongst you has not known them? How true and burning is that second youth that man draws from it!”. Hence Baudelaire’s comprehensible suspicion of teetotallers: “A man who will only drink water has a secret to hide from his fellow beings”. Inspired by the recommendations of the “divine Hoffmann”, who went so far as to advocate changing wines according to the music to be composed, Baudelaire suggested that conscientious musicians drink Champagne when composing comic operas (“He will find there the frothy, light gaiety that the genre de-

Page 3 mands”); Rhine or Jurançon wines for who drinks a bitter and victorious wine religious music (“As at the bottom of of Bohemia. deep ideas, they hide an intoxicating In the essay On Wine and Hashish, Baude- bitterness”); and Burgundy wine for he- laire credits wine with sharpening the roic music (“It has the serious passion will, the artist’s “most precious organ”, and drive of patriotism”). He not only while hashish, by blunting it, is deemed invokes wine as “the mysterious god “useless and damaging” to the creative hidden in the fibres of the vine”, but individual. The poet favours wine to even claims to have heard its words, celebrate personality, revive hope and through its prisons of bottle and barrel, elevate us towards infinity. “Wine ex- because wine speaks “…with its soul, in alts the will; hashish destroys it. Wine is the spirit voice heard only by spirits”. physically beneficial; hashish is a suicid- al weapon. Wine makes us jovial and sociable; hashish isolates us. One, so to All is tinged with fire and gold, speak, is industrious; the other is essen- heroism and cheer tially lazy.... Hashish belongs to the class of solitary pleasures; it is made for the miserable and the idle. Wine is useful So in The Flowers of Evil we find Baude- and produces fruitful results. Hashish is laire enveloped by the crowd, immersed useless and dangerous”. in “a debauch of vitality”, surrounded Wine is blood pulsing through our veins, by newsboys, knife grinders and rag- invigorating the will, strengthening us; men, where the magic of wine tinges it has a ‘personality’ of its own; it is a friend everything with fire and gold, heroism of humanity, struggling alongside us. and cheer. Particularly celebrated is the Whoever “drinks only milk” is, generally, section of Les Fleurs du Mal entitled “Le mediocre, superficial, perhaps even evil. Charles Baudelaire Vin” (‘Wine’), wherein the eternal conflict The effects of wine bind with the drinker’s between love of life and the desire for personality; wine runs in the depths of a superior state of being: “A god we annihilation finds its purest metaphor the soul, shedding light, allowing us to shall create together, and we shall soar in the inebriation brought by wine. In perceive the shadows. “The profound joys heavenwards like birds, butterflies, spi- the poem The Soul of Wine, the wine of wine, who amongst you has not known derwebs, perfumes, and all winged announces its function of divine inspi- them? Whosoever has had a remorse to things”. For Baudelaire “being drunk” ration from within the bottle: “Vegetal appease, a memory to evoke, a pain to does not mean physical “drunken- ambrosia, precious grain scattered / by drown, a chateau in Spain to build, you ness”, something which makes us lose the eternal Sower, I shall descend in you have all finally invoked it, mysterious hid- control of reality and awareness of time, / so that from our love there will be born den god in the fibres of the vine. How but on the contrary is what allows us poetry, / which will spring up towards great are the spectacles of wine, illumi- to seize reality, rescuing us from feeling God like a rare flower!”. Wine is the only nated by the inner sun! How true and like “the martyred slaves of Time”. Wine means of escape from a sad and desolate burning is that second youth that man is the manifestation of the divine within life, but above all, for Baudelaire it in- draws from it!”. the human, the essence of social inter- spires art and creativity. In The Wine action, always infused with positive of Lovers, the poet euphorically invites connotations. “‘Nothing equals the joy his paramour to “ride away on the wine” “A god we shall create together, of the drinking man, if not the joy of the in the marvellous dream world: “Gently and we shall soar heavenwards” wine upon being drunk’. Wine plays an balanced upon the wings / of the intel- intimate part in human life - so intimate, ligent whirlwind / in parallel ecstasy, / indeed, that I would not be at all sur- My sister, floating side by side, / We’ll One of Baudelaire’s prose poems says: prised if some enlightened soul, attract- flee without ever stopping / To the par- “So as not to feel the horrible burden of ed by the pantheistic concept, were to adise of my dreams!”. Wine thus becomes time that breaks your back and bends attribute a kind of personality to it. Wine a metaphor for the beauty of the wom- you to the earth, you have to be contin- and man appear to me as two friendly an, who is a flask of wine from which to ually drunk. But on what? Wine, poetry wrestling-mates, forever in combat, and drink, and a cupboard full of liqueurs, or virtue, as you wish. But be drunk.” This ever reconciled. The vanquished always perfumes and wines. Upon seeing her, union with wine is intimate enough embraces the victor”. the poet has the same sensation as one to create a poem which elevates us to Giuseppe Benelli

Page 4 Cuisine l Products l Food Technology Throw some flowers in the pot!

by Roberto Zottar Gorizia Delegate

Edible flowers ired of washed-out, colourless Testament and the Qur’an recount some food? It is spring, and we can ben- of the ‘gastronomic’ properties of certain are a feast not only T efit from the flowers that have flowers; and various traditions have not always played an important role in forgotten their presumed aphrodisiacal for the eyes, but also various cuisines. A dish decorated with properties, exploited through jams, des- for the palate. a pansy assumes another air, another serts and liqueurs. The Romans used colour, perfume and significance. We rose petals or violets to flavour food can also garnish dishes with nasturtium or add aroma to wine, and Apicius, in or velvety rose petals: edible flowers his De re coquinaria, explained how to provide a feast not only for the eyes, but prepare a dish of ‘roses with brains and also for the palate. Borage tastes of wa- eggs”. While Charlemagne infused his termelon; marigold (calendula) adds a wine with delicate carnations, in Eliz- subtle tang; the beautiful flowers of abethan England primroses were ap- rocket add a peppery bite. preciated in fruit salads, and the Victo- Cooking with flowers may seem a nov- rians used roses in a wide variety of elty, but it has a long history: the Chinese dishes; in America, the Pilgrims used have used them for millennia; the Old yellow marigolds to flavour meat broths.

Many foods that we consider vegetables are in fact flowers: artichoke, broccoli, cabbage

Eating flowers may seem rather odd, but we have all eaten them, perhaps without being aware of it. Several foods that we consider vegetables are in fact flowers, including artichokes, broccoli and cab- bage, while capers are flower buds and that plant’s real fruits, also edible, are caperberries (cucunci). Salted dandelion buds are similar to capers. Fresh, dried, salted or in infusion: there are many ways of using flowers in food and we are now witnessing a renaissance of this idea, such that some supermarkets sell pre-packed edible flowers. However, be careful before go- ing into the garden to pick flowers! Some flowers of common plants are

Page 5 poisonous, including tomato, auber- ing “Throw some flowers in the pot!”: an which, these days, we certainly all need. gine, oleander, cyclamen, poinsettia and appeal to cheerfulness and imagination Roberto Zottar belladonna (deadly nightshade), which is also a hallucinogenic. Safe to eat, in- stead, are the flowers of acacia, yarrow, wild garlic, orange, borage, calendula (marigold), chamomile, honeysuckle, centaurea, chrysanthemum, dahlia, corn- flower, carnation, jasmine, geranium, sunflower, wistaria, hibiscus (whence karkadè tea is also made), iris, lavender, lilac, magnolia, mallow, daisy, nastur- tium, poppy, passiflora, peach, primrose, black locust, rose, elder, linden, clover, tulip, and pansy.

In risotto or fruit salad; PRIMROSE fried or in salad Its name, from Latin ‘first rose’ (also primula, ‘little first’), reveals that this is among the first flowers to appear in spring. Foodwise, it is the flowers that are mainly used in salads and soups, with meat or in omelettes; but its roots, Gianfranco Vissani covers his risotto rhizomes and leaves are also edible. Primrose flowers can yield an excellent with ‘pink flowers, peach blossoms’ jam and lend flavour to several sweets and vinegar. In some regional cuisi- (quoting a famous Italian song by Lucio nes, the primrose-lettuce combination is a classic, as a salad which, eaten Battisti), while chef Igles Corelli pre- in the evening, facilitates restful and pleasant sleep. Indeed, primroses and pares a lobster and elderflower salad their relatives, cowslips, also have many health benefits: root and rhizome and a dish of chicken with acacia flowers. are very rich in triterpene saponins, and have expectorant and mucolytic Fried courgette flowers, a recipe of properties. Substances related to salicylic acid, primeverin and primulaverin, Italian-Spanish origin, are a decadent have analgesic, anti-inflammatory and anti-rheumatic properties. A decoction finger food, crunchy on the outside and of the leaves exerts anti-spasmodic and sedative action and is therefore with a soft heart if stuffed with mozza- helpful against migraines. rella and anchovies. They must simply be dipped in a batter of flour and icy water before being fried in oil. Elderflowers or black locust flowers can also be fried, but are sweet: dipped in a batter of flour (ideally rice flour) and water, or flour and beer, they are fried in oil, sprinkled with sugar and eaten. Pansies, fragrant and beautiful, can be used fresh or dried. They are versatile in the kitchen, whether in seasonal salads or battered and fried. They can also be candied and used as flavouring for ice cream. Among the many floral cookery books, DAISY let us recall the whimsical tomes of Ita- Also known as ‘lawn daisy’, this common flower can be harvested between lo Calvino’s gardener, Libereso Gugliel- March and June and may be dried and kept in glass jars. Flowering earlier mi, who wrote Mangiare il giardino (Eat- than the marguerite or ox-eye daisy which blooms in May, the lawn daisy ing the Garden) and Cucinare il giardino can be used in salads, but also complements risotto and soup. Its flowers (Cooking the Garden). are faintly bitter and stimulate diuresis and sweating, with a detoxifying To paraphrase a well-known pacifist effect: this action is best exploited by mixing daisies with other wild plants sentiment from the hippie ‘flower chil- having the same property, such as dandelion, chicory or nettle. dren’ of the 1960s, we could end by say-

Page 6 Cuisine l Products l Food Technology Ginger and its many names

by Maurizia Debiaggi, Singapore-Malaysia-Indonesia Academician and Anna Lanzani, Buenos Aires Academician

Ginger’s millenarian inger: is it love at first sight? Un- digestive properties. It has now been likely. But what an intriguing in- scientifically demonstrated that italso history and culinary Ggredient! We know the dense and has anti-oxidant and anti-coagulant spiced cake known as pan pepato (‘pep- properties, and that it is ‘heart-healthy’, uses, present and future. per bread’) and the medicinal properties fights ‘flu-like symptoms and contributes of ginger infusions, but how much do we to lowering blood cholesterol. know about ginger, which occupies the Perusing ancient manuscripts, we realise humble end, in contrast with prized saf- that, having been appreciated in the west fron, in the ranking of spices vying for a for its nutritional characteristics, ginger place at the table? Let us explore its his- then joined sugar and cinnamon in the tory and culinary potential, present and riot of Renaissance flavours. future. But first things first. The West rediscovered the salutary prop- erties of zingiber officinale some time ago, confirming what was already known for Its first recorded reference millennia farther east: its root, or more is in the Analects attributed specifically rhizome, whether fresh or to Confucius powdered, has anti-inflammatory and

Known for at least seven millennia in what is now called south and south-east Asia, ginger made its first written appearance in the Lun-yu, the Analects attributed to Confucius (6th century BC) and gathered in the Warring States period. The text rec- ommends eating it at every meal, but in moderation, to avoid raising the body’s internal temperature excessively. It was a relative latecomer, as spices go, in the Mediterranean, but it seems to have been known to the Romans by the 1st century BC. It was clearly known to Pliny the Elder (24-79 AD) and Dioscorides (40-90 AD), whose De Materia Medica de- scribes its digestive, thermogenic and antidotal (anti-venom) properties. In De re coquinaria (4th century AD), Api- cius mentions ginger 14 times. It is not only an ingredient in meatballs, chicken and pork fillings, dressings for salad or peas, cold meats, roasts, pork belly or goat, but is also a protagonist of “seasoned salts

Page 7 aiding digestion”, able to “fight every ill”, demonstrating how the ancient Romans already considered it a panacea for health.

It appears under multiple names in mediaeval cookbooks

Ginger reappears at the dawn of the Middle Ages in the splendid (and sadly, little-known) De Observatione Ciborum Barely a generation later, the innovator Artusi referred to zenzero (finally using by the Byzantine physician Anthimus: a Maestro Martino da Como (De arte the modern Italian word for it) only once: dietary treatise addressed to the Frankish coquinaria) mentioned zenzevero for- in a caciucco (fish soup), “that I learned in king Theodoric the Great to convince ty-five times in cakes, sauces and soups. Viareggio… far less flavoursome than the him to adopt healthier food habits and a Worth trying are his mixed meat and previous recipe, but lighter and more more varied, less bland cuisine: “Hare, cheese ravioli with ground spices and digestible”. ideally young, combats diarrhoea with a ginger, “no larger than a chestnut”. In We would have to wait until the 1970s sauce of sweet pepper, cloves, lavender the same period, Bartolomeo Sacchi, before ginger became mainstream and gingiber”. known as Platina, included ginger, which again, as new gastronomic paradigms Under the name zinzebre, ‘our hero’ re- “aids the liver and those with an ache or arose, including nouvelle cuisine and appears in the Liber de Coquina, the foun- fatigue of the heart”, in “yellow fare”, a healthy-eating models, cognisant of tainhead of all mediaeval European cook- sort of thick and greasy chicken broth nutritional science and beneficial in- books, probably composed at the court flavoured with sugar and cinnamon. gredients. of Frederick II. It is only mentioned once At the height of the Renaissance, (though the manuscript that has survived Cristoforo da Messisbugo, in service to our day is a later copy of the presumed to the house of Este, mentioned gen- Ginger made a comeback original, and has parts missing), in a mem- gevro 13 times, not only as a filling of in Italy through the creativity orable recipe for sweets filled with fried “medium or small dumplings” per- of great chefs apples, walnuts, raisins and figs. fumed with rosewater, but also in sweet Shortly thereafter, the anonymous Tus- cakes of chicken, fava beans or arti- can author of the Libro della cocina (Book chokes, cinnamon-flavoured meatballs Ginger thus managed to ‘reconquer’ Ital- of Cookery) suggests zenzovo in 4 reci- and savori (seasonings), and with mush- ian cuisine amid a creative rediscovery by pes: chicken broth, savori (flavourings) rooms, fish dumplings, broths, soups great chefs. Examples that cannot be for roasts, fried chicken, and even and potaggi (potages). overlooked include Carlo Cracco’s rice blancmange, the ‘flagship dessert’ of with Szechuan pepper, ginger and pink mediaeval cuisine. The anonymous pepper, or his creamy ginger and cocoa Venetian author of the Libro per cuoco Artusi finally called it by risotto with offal ragout and peas; and (Cook’s Book) mentions it 34 times, call- its current name we can only applaud the flair of Massi- ing it zenzevro, in sauces to accompa- miliano Alajmo who created ginger ny meats, “nel brodo de polasto, nel pas- essential oil to spray over prawns with tero de carne de porcho e nelle ‘Specie fine The centuries passed, and while food was pistachio and orange. Among many oth- a tute cosse’” (‘in chicken broth, in pork reorganised along a duality of ‘sweet vs er examples, we end with the unforget- meatloaf and in ‘fine spices for all things’ savoury’, little space remained for the table Gualtiero Marchesi, who used - a sort of mediaeval curry powder). pungent notes of ginger, which did not ginger in his scallop salad and in the In 1431, the German cook Johannes de fit well into this dichotomy. In 1773 Vin- stuffing of the acclaimed and revolution- Buckenheim, in the service of Pope cenzo Corrado, a gentleman-in-waiting ary open raviolo. It’s a long road from Martin V, described in his kitchen note- to the king of the Two Sicilies and a pal- here to taking ginger into the pantries of book, the Registrum Coquine (another adin and great compiler of Neapolitan average Italians alongside their tradition- little-known ‘pearl’ which is a joy to read), cuisine, included only one zenzaro rec- al aromatic herbs and saffron, but we a “polastro pro italicis” (chicken for Ital- ipe in his wide-ranging opus: “salsiccio- hope that, as in other European cuisines, ians), a chicken and pigeon timbale fla- ni di Bologna” (‘large Bologna sausages’), ginger will gain popularity: perhaps even voured with cinnamon, ‘good green a very aromatic, air-cured and smoked the ginger grown in Ragusa! spices’, raw eggs and zinsibere. preparation. Slightly over a century later, Maurizia Debiaggi, Anna Lanzani

Page 8 Restaurants and Cooks Cioppino in San Francisco

by Claudio Tarchi San Francisco Delegate

A recipe inspired by the Sicilian mother of the famous restaurateur Al Scoma.

020 marked the hundredth birth- day of the legendary San Franci- 2sco restaurateur Al Scoma, who passed away in 2007. Born in Oakland, a city in the San Fran- cisco Bay Area, he had a vocation for work from a young age: he sold new- spapers and flowers in San Francisco’s Little Italy and later was a municipal health inspector, an occupation which gave him a chance to become acquain- ted with many restaurants and bars in the city. own boat, the restaurant still fishes in red by Scoma’s mother, who had Sicilian In 1965, he and his brother Joe began the Bay and along the coast, returning roots: he chose to call it “Lazy Man’s operating a small bar with six stools at to the pier with the day’s catch. Custo- Cioppino”. Pier 47 of the famous Fisherman Wharf, mers can view the catch being unlo- Little remains of the cacciucco from Li- initially serving breakfast to fishermen aded and directly delivered to the vorno and Viareggio and the ciupin from returning from night fishing. Next he cooks in the kitchen. Genoa, but while Thanksgiving is cele- transformed the bar into a restaurant The restaurant, frequented by locals, brated in the USA with gargantuan tur- with a capacity exceeding 300, even- tourists and many celebrities, prepares keys, in San Francisco the cioppino is tually a historic reference point in the a dish which seems to have been inspi- boss. city and nationwide. For decades, Sco- ma’s has been among the major inde- pendent restaurants in the USA, with THE RECIPE over 400,000 meals served and a revenue surpassing 10 million dollars! Ingredients: sliced cod, clams, mussels, squid (those of nearby Monterey are famous), prawns (with heads and shells), scallops, steamed crab meat (the SF Bay is famed for it) salt, Sicilian origano (Al said it made all the difference), Scoma’s may well have been tomato purée, clam broth. the first restaurant in the USA Preparation: pour the tomato purée into a hot saucepan; after 5 minutes add with a ‘pier-to-table’ menu the clam broth. Cook for another 5 minutes or until it starts boiling. Add the cod, scallops, clams, mussels, squid and finally prawns. Cook no more than another 10 minutes. Taste for salt; add generous origano. Serve in a terrine In the 1990s, Scoma’s may well have with a heap of fresh crabmeat and 2 slices of toasted sourdough (the natural- been the first restaurant in the USA to ly leavened bread of the old-time gold prospectors). establish a ‘pier-to-table’ menu. With its

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