A perfect example of this brief moment between seasons: Bruscandoli (wild hops) in the basket (spring!) and the cardi on the right (a winter relative of the artichoke that soon will be on its way out). Speaking of artichokes, do not be lured by the little sign saying “castraure.” The implication, I think, is that they are the first flower off the extraordinary local plant, the “violet artichoke of Sant’ Erasmo.” If these are castraure (cas-trah-OO-reh) they are most certainly not from Sant’ Erasmo. Supposing these morsels came from Sant’ Erasmo (which they haven’t), they would be botoi (BOH-toh-ee), which are good, but are the second-growing edible flower on the artichoke plant. True castraure of the violet artichoke are tiny, much smaller than these robust characters. Also: It’s far too early for artichokes here anyway — what is on sale comes from hothouses elsewhere. Some vendors label them correctly as botoi, but people have somehow become obsessed by castraure. Eat whatever they’re called these days, by all means, but imagining a true castraura in Venice at the end of March is to imagine the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.This is a castraura. When it is cut, the plant will produce a number of botoi, the somewhat larger artichokes on sale in the market in the photo above. Here you can just barely make out the baby botolo beneath the castraura.Simple design to show what the artichoke plant brings forth (taken from a little book written by a farmer on Sant’ Erasmo). “Botoi” is the plural of “botolo.” To look at the abundance of “castraure” on sale during the season, there would have to be fields here the size of Nebraska. Or one Nebraska and two Leichtensteins.If all goes well, the “violet artichoke of Sant’ Erasmo” begins to appear in May. Grab them while you can. Watch out for the stabby pointy bit at the tip of each leaf.Another grinding of culinary gears: Asparagus and melons. The local asparagus has just begun to arrive, but the melons are coming from somewhere probably not in Italy. Their moment in northern Italy, and Venice, is July/August. Note that many labels say “Italia,” but don’t name any more particular location. My main question is not where it comes from, but why you would want to eat a melon in April? Not being sarcastic. Your winter mouth wants pears and oranges. Don’t confuse it.
People sometimes ask us where you can eat well and not pay a fortune. To which Lino always replies: “Your house.”
It’s not as much of a pleasantry as it might seem. Unhappily, I am always struck by how routine, predictable, unimaginative, so many of the restaurant offerings are here. Also expensive, especially when you’re looking at the price/value index. Hence Lino’s risposte.
I am sorry that this situation persists, because anyone who has access to a kitchen and the Rialto market can eat like freaking kings. There are so many delectable, unsung, seasonal products on sale that although I realize you do not intend to spend your priceless Venetian vacation toiling in the kitchen, you really ought to be able to try some of these things somehow. And your kitchen seems to be the only option.
Just now is a wonderfully delicate moment in the vegetable realm. We are balanced perfectly between the old winter-long standbys (looking at you, cauliflower), and the glittering spring offerings. This moment of culinary equipoise is even lovelier because, like spring flowers, you know you don’t have much time to enjoy them. I’m forced to say that seasonal food is being elbowed to one side by an ever-increasing number of out-of-season comestibles, which I ignore. Cherries in January? Nope. Melons in March? WHY?
Before we leave winter behind, here are a few delights that are not cauliflower:
If you like slightly bitter radicchio, reach for these little blossoms. They’re generally called “field radicchio,” but these are cultivated, not wild. In any case they are wonderful.The little green tufts are definitely cultivated, and are also sold independently of their red cousins. They are a special item that are famously grown in the fields near Roncade (a few miles from Treviso). They are known as the ‘verdon di Roncade” (the big green from Roncade). They have a sort of generic lettuce-y flavor, and the leaves are slightly thick. Not so much crunchy as chewy. Really good if you’ve had enough cabbage by now.This shows up briefly in February. The “cavolo” is not literally a cabbage; its more correct name is “broccolo fiolaro” because you eat the tender parts of the plant they call “fioi” (children) in Venetian. Creazzo is in the province of Vicenza. Nothing against spinach, but this is better. Toothier.This mass of greenery appears briefly now. They didn’t even bother to write its name — “rosolina” — perhaps because its stay is so brief. I was told that this is the poppy plant before it flowers. My source said that when the blooms begin to appear May-ish), the leaves become too bitter to eat. Meanwhile, they have a charming little nutty undertone. Note to purists: There is a plant known as rosolina, defined as an “evergreen shrub with white flowers.” That’s somebody else’s rosolina. I could have devoted quite a lot of time to researching this, but have stopped for now.I suppose anyone who has been to Venice in the winter knows the “late” (tardivo) radicchio from Treviso. Delicately bitter, it makes a divine risotto (among other things). In January we went to the Festival of Radicchio in Mirano, near Venice, where the students at the agricultural school “8 Marzo Konrad Lorenz” showed us each step of the production process. I thought it just came out of the ground like this. So very wrong….The plant grows in the field till harvest time, then is brought to the school to be prepared for sale. The water has to be changed several times while the boxes are waiting for the next step. Yes, it looks like this, a mass of botanical clumps run amok. But hidden inside is the radicchio we want.You see the delicate white and red leaves inside the other leaves.The crates are brought indoors where the students demonstrated essentially how you butcher them.At this point they still look pretty grotty.Just slice all that rootage away and trim the stem.A good rinse and they’re just about ready to be boxed and sent to your trusty vegetable vendor. Whatever the price may be, I’d say it’s justifiable.
There are always a few pushy items that want to be considered spring treats, but have anticipated their cue by several acts. They aren’t local, obviously.
I have no idea where these radishes came from, but while they are trying to impress me with their multicolored marvelousness, they’re still here too early.Even the normal red radishes are upstarts, as are the peas in the crate next to them. We’ll be seeing local peas in May, when we will gorge on that trusty Venetian standby, “risi e bisi” (rice and peas).This is the first time I have ever seen morel mushrooms here in Venice. They are known as a spring mushroom, I discover, unlike the others that come out in the fall. They can be cultivated, but I can’t say that’s the case here. A minor mystery which I will not pursue much.
And the dependable heralds of spring:
Not a plant, but I couldn’t resist adding this. An April Fool’s Day prank here is called “pesce d’aprile”,” or April fish. I will get to the bottom of this expression some other time, but meanwhile, the wags at the pasticceria Rosa Salva in Calle Fiubera (San Marco) have created just the sort of fish everybody can enjoy. No bones. Too bad they’re not made all year. A tiny note that makes me smile: They bothered putting on eyes. And white eyes. Which technically ought to mean that they’re cooked, because when you boil or grill a fish, you know it’s done when the eyes turn white. Well, I thought it was funny, anyway.Bruscandoli (wild hops) on the left, and carletti on the right.Carletti (Silene rigonfia or Silene vulgaris) are the leaves of a pinkish-whiteish flower that doesn’t take long to appear. These have an almost imperceptible flavor (I’m going to delete “almost”). Lino used to go out and collect them along the Lido shoreline, then throw them into a risotto. I’m all for eating wild but unless they contain some fabulous antioxidant properties I can’t see the point of bothering. Still, man does not live by radicchio alone.Chives, or “barba del frate” (friar’s beard) are usually the first to show up. It used also to be called “sultan’s beard,” but that reference evidently has been retired.This work of culinary art was in the window of the pastificio Serenissima on the Salizzada dei Greci. Fresh pasta is always a delight, and there are fewer and fewer shops making it. They recently were making truffle tagliatelle. We had to imprison the pasta in a covered glass container on the windowsill, otherwise the entire refrigerator would have reeked of truffle. Truffle milk? Why has nobody thought of this?
Eggplant from Sant’ Erasmo — in season, looking good, and all’s right with the world.
We have been gasping under a suffocating heatwave for at least two weeks (months, years…losing track of everything), with temperatures in the 90s (F) and humidity beyond calculating.
My vital functions are down to the minimum, and evidently my brain isn’t on the “Save First” list, so my posts will also be at the minimum for a short while.
But there was a lady the other morning at the fruit and vegetable boat who gave me an unexpected little jolt.
I had just begun to tell Massimo and his cigarette what I wanted when the lady came bustling up behind me. She already had her vegetation in a thin plastic bag, but she announced that it was threatening to give out at any moment.
Without so much as a by-your-leave (I guess when my brain disappears, the rest of me goes with it?) she extended the bag toward Massimo to demonstrate its fragility and asked him to give her another one. She spoke in Italian but I couldn’t place the accent — it seemed to come from somewhere in the central regions. But I could tell by her behavior that she wasn’t from around here.
“A stronger one,” she added in a way that blended a whiff of anxiety with a strong gust of busybody. “You can see that this one isn’t going to hold out. It really is too thin. Just think if I were to try to take it onto the vaporetto and it broke, I don’t know what I’d do.” She did seem a little keyed up. “So another bag, please. I’ll pay.”
“You know, you could also carry your own canvas shopping bag,” Massimo remarked in a noncommittal way. (He said “canvas,” although everybody uses ripstop nylon these days. Anyway, she knew what he meant.) It was very nice, the way he accommodated her without creating any further anxiety while at the same time letting her know that her fate, where her fruit was concerned, didn’t have to depend on him, or the firemen, or the police divers, or anybody but herself.
“Oh no, I don’t like those bags,” she quickly replied, implying that he’d suggested something her mother had warned her never to be seen with. My own mother was certainly implacable where it came to some things, such as my walking barefoot in the summer on the sidewalk just in front our house, because people would think I belonged to the Jukes and the Kallikaks.
Massimo handed her the never-fail sturdier green plastic bag. “Ten cents.” Asking for the money confirmed that she isn’t from around here; I think he was making a point.
She paid. She left.
This is a shortish-lived fruit that could well be from Sant’ Erasmo, or environs. The sign bears the magic word “nostrane” — “local.”
“Wow,” I said as he turned his attention back to me. “No canvas bags.” He gave a little shrug and an even littler smile.
“Yesterday she asked for lemons from Sant’ Erasmo,” he said. “And bananas from Sant’ Erasmo.” (To any reader who might not remember that these delicacies do not, are not, and could not be grown on Sant’ Erasmo — well, maybe the lemons could, I’m not sure — it would be like asking for mangosteens or manioc from Sant’ Erasmo).
“They’re really good,” I said, smiling with fake sincerity. “A lot of people don’t know that. Did you give them to her?”
“Of course.”
What is more treacherous than a very thin and overloaded plastic bag? A tiny bit of information that you don’t understand. Just because she had seen “Sant’ Erasmo” listed on various signs stuck into piles of local produce — eggplants, string beans, leeks — she interpreted this as “best” because it’s right next door, the closest loca that a vore could want.
I was sorry that she’d let herself improvise, because she was clearly so sure of herself in every way. Food for thought. From Sant’ Erasmo.
These plums have no visible provenance, but they’re looking very tempting. I wouldn’t insist on knowing their hometown.
Just kidding. Lamentations seem no longer to apply to the spiritual life; if you feel a lamentation coming on, it’s usually related to politics or family members, certainly not to yourself.
But Ash Wednesday (“le ceneri“) is still a crucial day in the Christian calendar, and even though people have become very lax about denying themselves meat today, the day remains a vestigial holiday for the butchers. Those few that remain. Those even fewer who maintain the Old Ways. Of course, the public can still buy all the meat it wants at the supermarkets, so closing the butcher shop is by now just a symbol. But a good one, if you have turned your thoughts toward penance, even for just a minute.
Of course, there’s that famous gap between the letter and the spirit of the law, and I’d like to share an amazing menu for your consideration. It was displayed in an expensive restaurant in Udine right across the street from the Patriarchal Palace and adjoining church, and I supposed that the proprietors might be wanting to look good for the patriarch even though the rank of patriarch is no more, and the archbishop lives a 15-minute walk away.
I have never seen a menu created and advertised as being for Ash Wednesday (I thought bread and water pretty much covered the nutritional options, or at least week-old beans and a frightening lettuce from the back of the fridge). The idea of promoting a day of renunciation with items as listed — EVEN THOUGH THEY DO NOT BREAK ANY RULES (except in spirit) — seems totally in keeping with the zeitgeist, and times being what they are. I mean, there isn’t any clause saying you’re only allowed to eat horrible food. I THINK the notion is that you shouldn’t be wallowing in your food fixations for one little 24-hour cycle in the entire year. But then I think: If the owners were inclined to give such a gracious nod to contrition, they might at least have lowered the prices. Why should the customer always be the one to repent when the bill comes?
The restaurant is named “Allegria,” or “gaiety” or “jollification.” Bear that in mind as you read on. From the top: The antipastos: Steamed mussels and clams with pepper; herring; creamy stockfish; mixed fish antipasto; “rati” (for which I am still seeking the definition, though at merely 2.50 euros it can’t be anything astonishing). First courses: Chickpea and octopus soup; spaghetti with clams; “tuffoli” (a pasta somewhat like rigatoni, but shorter) with codfish, small tomatoes and taggiasche olives; barley and beans, a typical dish of the Friuli region, in which the city resides. Second courses: Stockfish in the style of Vicenza; small medallion of turbot with braised vegetables; cuttlefish confit with artichokes; red “rosa of Gorizia” radicchio with anchovies and aged Montasio cheese; “lidric cul poc” is an extremely prized type of wild radicchio with hard-boiled eggs. Dessert: (I’m sorry, what? You get dessert on Ash Wednesday?) “Bonet” of hazelnut with crunchy things, usually amaretto cookies. A “bonet” is a typical Piedmont confection like a very firm creme caramel; marinated pineapple (I’m guessing in some sort of fabulous liqueur) with coconut gelato. I’ll tell you what: If you have lunch here you’re going to have plenty to talk to your confessor about. Go look up “gluttony” and see if there’s a loophole for the day of the ashes. I myself will be going off shortly to confess the sin of envy.“Wednesday Closed: Ashes” — this sign behind the lamb chops and veal roast looks like it’s announcing a party. Parties were yesterday, buddyroe. You’re supposed to be serious today.And sing a few verses of “I’ll be seeing you, in all the old familiar places” to the frittelle. (I’ll be looking at the moon, but I’ll be seeing frittelle…..). They’re the demon poster children of Ash Wednesday combining so many things you can’t have anymore. You know, everything worth living for, which is code for “fat and sugar.” Technically speaking. I’m sure there’s a loophole somewhere.I discovered this little hieroglyphic of happiness in a small campo. Let not the wholesome spirit of spiritual discipline (sounds better than “giving up for”) distract us from the beautiful things that didn’t get the memo about deprivation.Ditto this cat, in deep meditation and Vitamin D absorption. Satisfied with the simple things in life. Perhaps dreaming of finding a rat on a boat someday.Ditto the first few violets of the spring, also benefiting from the sun. They’re not thinking about anything, which is what makes them so wonderful, in addition to being beautiful, making perfume and being good to eat when candied.One violet, complete with morning shadow. Things are looking up.
Lino’s version is as basic as you can get, and even a three-inch square is enough to hold you for several hours. Chestnut flour, water, a pinch of salt, a scattering of rosemary.
Regional cookery is one of the zillion things that Italy is so proud of and so admired for. (End of preposition storm.) But the funny thing is that a dish will be super-famous as being from one place, and then you discover its stolen-at-birth sibling in a completely different region, and then you discover it again, and again, and sometimes even again. The reason is simple: People all over Italy have the same needs (eating) and many of the same ingredients, and what develops is something like a theme and variations.
Take castagnaccio (kas-ta-NYA-cho). Perhaps its most noted version is from Tuscany, but there are variations from Naples, Corsica, Emilia-Romagna, Liguria, Piemonte, Calabria, and even the Veneto — anywhere there are chestnut trees, in fact. The names may change along the way — baldino, pattona, ghirighio, castigna’, pane di castagna, migliaccio, gnaccia, and in Venice, “gardo” — but the essential ingredients originally couldn’t rise beyond the gravity pull of poverty: chestnut flour and water, and a little olive oil. Then came raisins and pinoli nuts and sugar, even wine and milk and orange peel and chocolate. But I don’t see how you can improve on the basics, which produce something super-dense, not too sweet, and loaded with winter-useful calories (193 per 100 grams).
Chestnuts were the perennial backup when you had no more flour of any sort, and not even polenta. When the countryfolk would burn the effigy on Epiphany (the “befana”), eyes used to be fixed on the direction the sparks flew. People still look, but now it’s more like a game, though it wasn’t always so. The doggerel makes that clear: “Se le falive va a marina / Tol su saco e va a farina / Se le falive va a montagne / Tol su saco e va a castagne” (if the sparks fly toward the sea (east), take your sack and go to make flour (the wheat harvest will be good) / If the sparks fly toward the mountains (west), take your sack and go gather chestnuts.”)
But like so many other “poor” dishes, castagnaccio is apparently being rediscovered by people who have had enough of smoked salmon and foie gras (just an expression — does anybody still eat foie gras?). Anyway, Lino is impervious to fashions and fads. He’s always eaten something, he’s going to continue eating it. Every so often the urge for castagnaccio will strike him and off he goes to acquire some chestnut flour. It is reliably available at the ever-amazing Mascari. (Full disclosure: I have no connection with this shop.) He doesn’t add either pinoli nuts or raisins, but sticks to the bare bones of the recipe, with a sprinkling of rosemary.
Lino remembers that there was a little shop at the corner of the Riva degli Schiavoni and Calle de la Pescaria which sold slices of gardo and also a “cake” made of chickpea flour. That was all, he sold nothing else.
The nameless shop is now the Ristorante Bar Vittoria and I would doubt that they offer anything chestnut-like to their customers.
As it happens, however, a bar-cafe in via Garibaldi has recently taken up the baton:
It says “Castagnaccio alla Toscana with raisins, pinoli and rosemary” and “Cecina alla Livornese,” that is, “cake” made of chickpeas (ceci) in the style of Livorno (also in Tuscany). That is a subject I’m not pursuing today.
The internet is full of recipes, but here’s the simplest version of castagnaccio, if you want to chance your arm:
Ingredients: 750 ml water, 500 gr chestnut flour, some fresh rosemary “needles,” a pinch of salt, 6 spoonfuls of extra-virgin olive oil, to keep it soft.
Heat the oven to 200 degrees C or 350 F. Put the flour in a bowl and add the water slowly while stirring. Spread a little olive oil on the bottom of the pan. Pour the batter into the pan and bake for one hour. (Note: The pan, or casserole, or whatever you’re using, shouldn’t be so broad that the batter only barely covers it. Use your judgment, but bear in mind that this isn’t going to rise.) The surface of the final product should have slight cracks or fissures.
Modify it as you wish, of course; I’ll never know. In fact, the heathen thought of topping it with whipped cream or ice cream did cross my mind, but I quashed it. We like the basics here.
