Overthinking Food

"They're just apples."

Lately I've been having a lot of light bulb moments. Not big life changing ones, mind you, just little ones that cause me to think and make small course corrections like a captain sailing a ship on calm waters.  I had one of these this morning while I was visiting the Ventimiglia market in Italy.  It happened like this...

The Ventimiglia market is a large, vibrant, covered market made up of six long rows of vendors selling every type of Italian food you can imagine. 

The middle three rows are piled high with fruit and vegetables imported from everywhere in Italy, France and Spain. Rows one and six span the length of the sides like culinary bookends for the fruits and vegetables.  This is where the bakeries, pastry shops, cheese specialists, delicatessens, butchers, dry goods and fresh pasta sellers are set up.  Bunched up at the back there's a fish monger, a few florists, and a stall that sells luggage, hats, and aprons. 

When I visit, I tend to shop everywhere but the fifth row is by far my favourite. It's reserved for a dozen or so local producers, many of whom are older Italian women from the surrounding countryside. Their tables are overflowing with a seasonal mishmash of fruits and vegetables made up of, it seems, whatever they happened to gather from their garden that morning or the day before. 

I was strolling down row five, buying up this and that, when I spotted one of the women selling pretty little apples. I almost missed them altogether because they were partially hidden by some bitter greens that she'd piled haphazardly around them. 

I'd never seen little apples like these before so I wanted to know all about them. What breed were they?  Was the tree native to here?  Are they always this small? Where was her farm?

I started my food interrogation with "what were they called?" but instead of answering, she shrugged, put a handful or two of them into a little white bag and replied, "they're just apples." 

I laughed out loud.  "They're just apples." I repeated. This was my lightbulb moment which was:  perhaps that's all I needed to know.

Over the years, I've developed a habit of asking growers a lot of questions about the food I'm buying. Sometimes they share interesting information about their products, perhaps a recipe. I love hearing their stories and look forward to repeating them when I serve meals made with the ingredients.  

This insatiable need to know the story behind the food we eat has become a trend lately. We crave accountability and provenance and we love a good food story and I confess I'm as guilty as the next person.  Just ask my friend Colin who sells his products at the Lansdowne Farmers' Market in Ottawa.  He jokingly calls me a "food spy" because when we first met, I asked him so many questions about what he was selling he grew suspicious.   

To my Italian apple vendor in row five, her apples were just apples.  Simple.  There was no story.  Her apples were delicious, pretty, and a only a few Euro per kilo. 

So this is my story about having no story about the apples.  Old habits die hard.

Citron Carpaccio and a Change of Heart

Every spring, I go on a bit of a citrus binge at the local markets, buying up bergamots, kumquats, grapefruit and citron whenever I spot them followed by a leisurely afternoon in the kitchen making marmalade and jam.  I've been getting some interesting results with poaching citron peel so I'm always especially on the lookout for them.

The Octopus

 

For all of its perceived sophistication, the Côte d'Azur has some remarkably peasant-like activities going on here and there. You'll spot them if you're paying attention and you know where to look. 

For instance, one of our neighbours keeps a hen house with an annoying rooster that crows throughout the day starting at around 5AM.  We have yet to locate the little bugger.

Further inland, you'll still spot villagers with baskets heading into the woods to forage for wild mushrooms and  most mornings in the early Fall, I hear the "pop, pop, pop" of hunters shooting at wild boar in the hills surrounding us.  

These modest pastimes are quite a contrast to those which generally speaking, occupy the moneyed set in nearby Monaco. They can be found swirling around the Casino Square foraging for trinkets at Chanel or Graff depending on their budgets.

Every now and then, we have little encounters that keep it all real and today we had one such encounter.

Hubby and I often hike in Italy from the mountains down to the sea on what we call "The Cactus Walk," so called because the middle part of the walk takes us along a narrow gravel path through a series of sprawling commercial greenhouses filled with little cacti. Before we discovered The Cactus Walk, I'd always wondered where all those little cacti came from!

After passing through the greenhouses, we continue along a creaky, narrow, metal footpath clinging to one side of a steep valley.  When we're not clutching on to the guardrail for dear life and carefully watching where we're stepping, we sometimes pause and take a moment to marvel at how the valley has been gradually overtaken by morning glories over the past few years.

A marker for The Way of St James

Next, we cross a little bridge over some railway tracks and connect with The Way of St James, a Christian Pilgrimage route dating back to the mid 11th century. Eventually, the path descends closer to the sea where there are rocks to climb on with pretty tide pools.  Further along is a charming little beach. Today was a holiday in Italy and France so the beach was busy with families and couples sunning themselves and paddling around in the calm water. 

On the path beside the beach, we spotted a bare-footed man walking a few paces in front of us toting something on a stick.  His grey hair, tanned skin and proximity to the beach reminded me of one of Robert Capa photos of Picasso on the Côte d'Azur .  When we got closer we realized he had an octopus.

We stopped for a chat. 

The man was Italian but luckily we were able to communicate with each other in French.

Dinner captured

He told us that catching octopus was quite easy. He stood in the shallow water near the rocks on the sea shore, dipped in his hooked stick and scooped out dinner. 

He'd been catching fish this way for 40 years but lately he's noticed how few fish there were. Octopus, he said, were still an easy catch.

When I asked him how he was going to prepare it, he said he'd ripen the octopus for a day or so to tenderize it and then serve it with potatoes and large Spanish beans.

If he wanted rosemary to season his dish, there was a big patch of it growing wild further along the path.  I'd grabbed branches of it just to take a sniff now and then. 

Personally, I'd rather spend my time on the beach fishing like he does rather than a trip to Chanel any day.

Pow Pow your Dinner

As a vegetarian, I have to admit that all the outrage over horse meat being found where only beef should be leaves me a bit baffled as to what the fuss is all about.

In Italy and France, horse meat is a speciality item and the shops who sell it in France are called Boucheries Chevalines. In a weird, ironic twist, the UK's Guardian newspaper reports that they've been doing a booming business recently since the horse meat scandal broke.

I agree that if you're told you're getting beef and you get horse meat instead, you're the victim of deception and fraud but it seems to me that both horses and cows would be equally fine to eat.

I've been a vegetarian for 36 years so the idea of eating animals seems a bit odd to me in the first place, especially when there are so many other good things to eat.  One thing's for sure, If I were to eat meat these days, I'd want to be sure of where it came from.  I think I'd either hunt it, raise it myself, or drive out to a farm and point out to the farmer which animal I'd like to buy. 

I find the large scale killing of animals in commercial slaughterhouses undeniably disturbing as I think even most meat eaters would, but I'm quite OK with the killing of animals for food when it's done on a small scale and in a humane and traditional way.

I have two stories to tell you about that...

Years ago, Hubby and I rented a beautiful villa in Tuscany in a tiny town called Cotto.  The population swelled to 11 when we arrived but the number of ginger coloured cats remained at 5 for the duration of our stay.

It was Easter weekend and over the Easter holiday, Italians traditionally eat lamb.

Early one morning, I think it was Saturday, we heard a big commotion outside our dining room window.  Curious about what all the fuss was about, we pushed opened the shutters to see that a small crowd had  gathered below along with a few of Cotto's village cats.

It seems that our side yard was the village's abattoir.  Instead of recoiling, I watched for a while as the butcher skilfully and quickly gutted and skinned the lamb while it was dangling from a sturdy pole made from a branch.

After some time had passed, the small crowd dispersed along with the cats, but I continued to watch the butcher at work with an odd mixture of distaste and fascination.  I imagined that every Easter, the same scene has been taking place on the same spot for generations.  The serene setting, the presence of the villagers and the gentle but skilful way the butcher was dealing with the lamb all seemed quite natural to me.  Perhaps more importantly, it seemed to be done with respect.  I doubt much of that lamb was wasted.

Fast forward from Spring in Tuscany to Fall in Imperia, where we were hiking with friends in the rolling hills east and inland from Monaco.

After our hike to the top of the mountain, we made our way back to the village and  halfway down, we came across a hunter standing by the side of the road with a huge, dead, wild boar.  He'd just shot it in the forest and dragged it to the roadside where he was waiting for friends to arrive to help him haul the beast back to the village in the valley below.

When I pulled out my camera and asked to take a photo, he smiled and proudly lifted the boar's head so that they could both be in the picture.
 

When we got back in the village, it was evidently a good day for hunting wild boar.

A group of hunters had arrived before us and had started to gut the wild boar while the villagers and a few dogs had gathered to watch the gory action.

While we watched, I got the feeling that much like the abattoir in Cotto, hunting wild boar and gutting them in the village was a tradition that had been taking place for centuries.  I imagine the meat was destined for the dinner table that night and what was left was headed for grateful friends and the freezer.

Both of these encounters were by chance and both times I struggled with what I was seeing as anyone would, I think, carnivore or not.

But in both cases it was a simple, timeless, communal process and ultimately, traceable.

I don't know about you but I'm quite OK with that.

Video of the hunters discussing their hunt (in Italian)

Earn Danger Pay. How to Trim a Spiny Artichoke

The spring épine artichokes are hitting the markets in Liguria and they're a seasonal treat not to be missed!  I admit they aren't the friendliest looking things, more like something a Klingon would eat, but don't let that put you off.  Knowing how to prepare them is really quite empowering.

As a public service, throughout the markets in Italy you'll find burly men wielding sharp knives, skilfully removing the tough, spiky outer leaves, rubbing the half naked remains with a lemon and then with one quick stroke, "swoosh!" - off goes the stalk!  Nice thing is there's no extra charge and it sure makes transporting them a lot safer.

Even if you've brought home some trimmed ones, they'll still need more preparation before they're edible.   Unlike most artichokes, épines are fabulous eaten raw and the best part is their soft, tender centre leaves and heart.

They're the star of one of my favourite traditional Ligurian salads, Carciofi Crudi, Rucola e Parmigiano or Raw Artichoke, Arugula and Parmesan Salad.

I often wonder who the first brave person was who looked at these artichokes and said, "Hmm, maybe we can eat these!"  Whomever it was, he or she must have been either extraordinarily courageous, voraciously hungry, or both.

So sharpen your knives, take a few deep breaths and let's get to it!

A hazardous job!

First, take a deep breath and face your prey

Begin by pulling off the tough outer leaves. Be careful - the spikes are sharp and really hurt.

Cut the stalk from the head.  Set the stalk aside.

Use a vegetable peeler and peel the lower part of the head where it meets the stalk.  Peel it enough to make it smooth.  Rub lemon around the entire artichoke when you've finished peeling it. 

Trim the spikes off of the tip of the artichoke

Slice it in half.  Rub each half with lemon.

Use a melon baller and scoop out the furry bit.  That's the choke.

Scrape the melon baller down towards the tip to remove some of the innermost leaves that still have spiky ends.

Trim the tip a bit more if you see more spikes. If you are going to eat the artichoke raw, bite into one of the outer leaves.  If it seems too fibrous to eat, pull off a few more leaves until you reach ones that are more tender.

I'm preparing these for an Carciofi Crudi, Rucola e Parmigiano salad otherwise known as Raw Artichoke, Arugula and Parmesan Salad so I flipped the cut side down and sliced them thinly.  At this point you can place them in acidulated water if you're using them in a different recipe.

To prepare the stalks, use your vegetable peeler to remove the fibrous outer layer.

Halve the peeled stalk and cut it into pieces.

Here are the finished artichokes coated with lemon and olive oil, ready for the Artichoke, Arugula and Parmesan Salad.

There!  You've graduated from artichoke school. Brave, fearless you!

Spring Comes to Liguria

Zucchini Blossoms.  I'm told they make fabulous tempura!

What with travelling, French train strikes, goofing around with friends, and other diversions, this Saturday was the first time I've been able to visit my favourite market in Ventimiglia since the beginning of April. 

Together with two of my most dedicated foodie friends we stuffed our wheeled carts with  insanely fresh artichokes, tomatoes, Parmesan, hazelnuts, and other spring goodies until the wheels were about to collapse.  Then we went for a lovely lunch in a restaurant I've been wanting to try and we talked about food.  A fabulous day by all accounts!

The spring season in Liguria is advancing fabulously as you can see from these photos. We're seeing asparagus everywhere, peas, fava beans, and the fabulous Merinda tomatoes from Sicily have made their début.   According to some vendors, very soon we shall have morels!

Spring turnips with skin like silk

Epine artichokes that are fabulous raw

Merinda tomatoes.  'Tis the season to make sauce

A Goat, a Buffalo, Four Cows and lots of Bread

Ah, butter.  That stuff that we all love and we're never supposed to eat any more lest our arteries clog and we all die instantly. 

Well, we took our lives into our own hands this Saturday when my good friend Meghan, who knows more about food than I ever will, showed up on Friday night for a weekend pyjama party with an intriguing hostess gift, some Au Bon Beurre butter from one of her food shops in Beaulieu .

Clearly she knows me well.  I love interesting  food gifts and I had never heard of this butter before.

Fresh butter four days a week

Instead of digging in on the spot we saved it until the next day when we could buy some carb-worthy wood oven baked bread from our neighbourhood Boulangerie, which we all agreed would be the best thing we could think of on which to taste it.   Besides, if we were all going to die from eating  loads of butter, our last moments should at least be forbidden, pleasurable ones.

Early the next day I trotted into  town,  bought three different breads and then, as one does on a Saturday,  we all piled into the car and headed to the fresh food market in Ventimiglia, Italy.



At the market, not far into the locavore or "Ladies' Row", we  spotted an artisanal butter from the Piedmont, available on only certain days of the week.    How could we resist that?

A buffalo and four cows

We bought some to taste with the butter that Meghan brought and then things got a bit out of hand.  By the time we finished shopping, we had 6 different butters to taste.  Three were French and three were Italian. One was made from goat milk, one from buffalo milk, and 4 were made from cow milk, one of them raw.

Hand crafted fresh butter from Cuneo in the Piedmonte

It all made sense to us.  Lately we'd become a bit disappointed with the quality and taste of what was once our all-time favourite butter, Echiré and we were looking for a suitable replacement.

The first time I had Echiré was ages ago at Alain Ducasse's 3 Michelin starred restaurant, Le Louis XV in Monaco.  The servers ceremoniously place little wooden baskets of it  before you,  one salted and one sweet, to portend the arrival of the  bread cart.  The Echiré butter elevated the already fabulous bread  to a course unto itself.   But I digress...

Back home, we unpacked our goodies and left all 6 of the butters on the counter to temper, sharpened the bread knife  and dug in for a tasting. 

On the butter tasting menu from France:

• Baratte d'or by Sevre & Belle from the Poitou-Charentes Region
• Le Gall, raw milk butter from Bretagne
• Au Bon Beurre from Nord-Pas-de-Calais on the Belgian border

And from Italy:

• Mandara Burro di Bufala from Naples
• Bottero Bruno cow's milk butter from Cuneo in the Piedmont
• Mamabe Burro di Capra from Cesena in Emilia-Romagna with an 84% butter fat content.
  

Worth the calories

After many slices of bread were consumed, each slathered in tempered butter we had some observations..

1.  The fresh, Piedmontese butter from the Ventimiglia market was creamy, smelt divine and was a rich yellow colour.  The butter was made in a pretty mould and we all loved the  hand crafted look of it.  The girls found it to have a slightly fermented note but hubby didn't share this opinion.

2.  The Buffalo milk butter was mild with an unpleasant waxy mouth feel.  It was also the whitest of the butters, just a bit darker than shortening or lard.

Goat milk butter.  Lame packaging, delicious taste

3.  The goat butter was also slightly waxy in the mouth,  white, and had a very mild goat cheese flavour.  It smelt stronger of goat than it tasted.  At first we weren't going to buy it because the packaging was a bit juvenile but cooler heads prevailed.

4.  The Au Bon Beurre  smelt sweet and floral and was a deeper yellow than the others.  It also had the softest, most spreadable texture right from the fridge.

5.  The Baratte d'or and the Le Gall butters were quite similar in appearance, light yellow,  dense, and also had the most neutral flavour.

And the winner  was...

Meghan's Au Bon Beurre from Nord-Pas-de-Calais on the Belgian border!  The taste was sweet, deep, and it had a rich, almost caramel like after taste.  We all agreed it was the butter we would like to have poured over a bowl of fresh, hot popcorn.

Just another day in an Italian dairy case

Well, the next day we ate salad, popped asprin and drank lots of water just for good measure and I can  say that it was all worth it now that we've found our new favourite butter.

I'm making short bread cookies with the remaining French butter, Italian cornmeal cookies or Paste di Meliga with the Italian butter and I'm holding on to the winning butter to melt and pour on popcorn for this Saturday's movie night.

Thank you Meghan.  You're welcome here any time!

Farinata Anyone? I Made it Myself....

With our jet lag on the wane and a breathtakingly beautiful day set before us, hubby and I ventured out for the afternoon and decided to go up and east instead of down and west which is our usual path.  In this case, up and east was across the border into Italy.

The view from La Grotta

If you've lived in the region for a while, you may know the charming Bar la Grotta.  It's the first place you hit in Italy just across the upper French border crossing.  You can sit for hours while you have drinks and enjoy the stunning views of the French coast from the terrace.   Inside they have a small stock of Italian foods,wine, booze, reasonably priced scotch, and Italian lottery tickets so you can stock up after you pay the tab.  Since we hadn't been there in ages, I took some time to poke around the shelves inside to see what was new.

Generally speaking, I'm not a fan of pre-packaged products but when I spotted a boxed mix for Farinata for a mere €2.99, I thought I'd give it a try and I'm glad I did.  It's just one of a bunch of baking products  that Italian food manufacturer, Lo Conte makes as part of their "Magic Flour" line.

French Socca in Monaco's Port Hercule

Farinata is a traditional Italian peasant food made with chick pea flour, salt, water, and olive oil. In France Farinata is known as Socca and if you've ever been to an outdoor event in France or the outdoor market in Antibes, you've probably eaten it or at least seen it.  The best stuff is made in a traditional wood burning oven from a Socciste who bakes it at ultra-high temperatures in big, round copper-bottomed trays.  You can tell if it's good by the long lines of people waiting for it like hungry birds.

When we got home, I ran to the kitchen and went to it.

The kit consists of a 300g bag of chick pea and rice flours and a little 20g bag of flavouring, a mixture of powdered rosemary, mint, and salt.  It makes two pans of Farinata,  each is enough to serve 6-8 people as a generous snack or appetiser.  It has the added bonus of being gluten free so it's ideal for anyone who's following a wheat-free diet.

Pretty golden chick pea flour

After translating the instructions, which were quite vague, I mixed up two batches, one with and one without the herbs and both were  delicious although we preferred the herbed version.  In fact, we munched on them for the rest of the afternoon.

It didn't quite measure up to what comes from a traditional Socca vendor but for a home baked version made in an everyday oven, without the complex flavour imparted by a wood fire,  it was still delicious.  Add a glass or two of rosé and it would make a nice snack or appetizer to share with friends.

You can probably find the Farinata kit in most Italian grocery stores but why not get a nice view in the bargain?

Here then, are the English instructions with my extra, detailed notes should you ever decide to make it yourself.  I recommend that you do!

Equipment

Pan 25cm x 32cm

Wire whisk

200ºC or 385ºF, 25 minutes plus 3-4 minutes broiling

Method

For 1/2 of the box or one pan of Farinata or, 6 servings.

Into a medium bowl, measure 150g or 1- 1/2 cups of the flour mixture and 10g or 1 tablespoon/half of the herb mixture.

To this you add 500ml or 2 cups of water, 20g or 2 tablespoons of olive oil.

If you're not adding the herbs, add  1 teaspoon or 6 g salt.

Mix well with a whisk.  Let the mixture rest while you preheat the oven to 200ºC or 385ºF.

Coat the pan with 2 tablespoons or 20g of oil.

Before you bake the Farinata, to avoid spilling the mixture which is quite liquid, put the oiled pan in the oven and then pour the mixture into the pan.

After 25 minutes of baking, turn on the broiler and broil the Farinata for 3-4 minutes to brown the top.

In keeping with tradition, you should cut the Farinata into small squares and serve the plain Farinata topped with  ground pepper.  And of course, eat it with your hands.

Enjoy!