Il Forno

An expert eye on pizza

Some time ago I wrote about the proposed certification of Real Pizza Napoletana. Marco who had at the time replied to me in the comments, he's a serious expert on the matter and is writing a book on the theme, was kind enough to send me a few pics to explain his arguments on the matter, which I happily publish below. Note: I added a few corrections after talking to Marco again.

Pizza as we know it today has its roots in the Neapolitan tradition: pizza is not an uncommon name for baked goods in central and southern Italy, but it's definition as a flat disc of dough topped with sauce and, today, almost anything coming to your mind, came straight from Napoli. Whether you believe the story about Pizza Margherita being invented by Raffaele Esposito, the pizzaiolo of Pizzeria Brandi, or if the whole thing was just a smart renaming of an existing pizza, the Neapolitan style was always a rather simple one far from today's excessive toppings. Neapolitan pizza is mainly a simple item: common toppings are the aforementioned Margherita, tomato, fiordilatte (cow milk mozzarella), and basil: marinara (a delicious one depicted above), with tomato, oregano and garlic; or simple modifications of these two.

Trinacria amore mio

I try, from time to time, to spend a good word on producers, chefs, winemakers, which I have tried and particularly liked. I don’t know if this does these people any good, but if even one person follows my suggestions and tries these products out, I’d be happy. For once I’d like to spend a word on something that I haven’t yet tried, it would have been impossible to since it will start operating next year, but which I’ve been following in its evolution with great interest in the past few months: Love Sicily, the tourist service run by fellow bloggers Katia and Ronald.

You might know Katia and Ronald from their Via Ritiro n.7 blog, and, if you’ve taken part to one of the last IMBB events will almost certainly have come across the incredibly useful Is My Blog Burning Website Ronald put together to keep track of the various food and wine blogging events. . Some months ago Katia and Ronald started putting together an Internet based travel service, called Love Sicily . As the name says, the region their service specializes in is Sicily, while Love comes from Katia’s last name, Amore.

IMBB #10, cookie swap: Checkerboard Cookies

This edition of Is My Blog Burning is certainly the longest planned one to date. Jennifer, our blogging Domestic Goddess wrote to me back in April with the idea, long before IMBB became so popular and before I had to keep a written record of the upcoming hosts. Good idea of Jennifer to catch the ideal spot for a pre-Christmas cookie swap ahead of time!

I took the chance to do some father-son cookie baking. I have to say that cooking with a small kid can be slightly complicated if you’re doing precision work, but it was great fun. Saami seems to be taking from his parents: he can use the rolling pin quite nicely, he can knead and he tastes everything to be sure it is fine. The funniest part was cutting out cookies with cookie dough cutters. After seeing how it worked Saami started enthusiastically cutting one cookie after the other at such a speed that he looked like a baker gone mad. He had a lot of fun too. We made a few different things: simple sugar dough cookies, spekulatius and cinnamon stars. And clearly the cookies for this IMBB edition, checkerboard cookies.

Osteria Bertagnolli in Weimar.

Anyone who has lived abroad probably knows the feeling of going to a restaurant supposedly serving your own national cooking which almost inevitably is instead ranges from a badly executed fake of the original to a serious attempt to murder the culinary traditions of your own country. If you come from Island you’d probably have little chance to experience such an event; I mean how many Icelandic restaurants do you know next to your home? If you’re Italian or Chinese, and with growing frequency Indian, Thai or Japanese, you’ll perfectly know what I mean. I often wonder what a native Bengali would say tasting the Chicken Korma I often order from my favourite Indian place in Jena.

A few weeks ago I decided to give another Italian place a try. I usually avoid Italians abroad because: a) the dishes are as authentic as the Rolex I constantly get offered via spam mails; b) the cooks and staff have not only never been to Italy in their life, but they have also no clue whatsoever about Italian cooking; c) I can usually cook the same dishes at home better than the restaurant chef, which is more an insult to the chef than a compliment to myself. I’ve been disappointed so many times that whenever a friend utters the dreaded words “let’s go for Italian tonight” I start to worry. I know there are many good Italians abroad, but they’re either fancy places, like Locanda Locatelli in London, or small little known hole-in-the-wall places known only to a few. This new restaurant on the other hand seemed like an easygoing place and came with good reviews, both in the press (Feinschmecker Magazine) and in more informal discussion forums. With mixed feelings I set of to Osteria Bertagnolli in Weimar.

Technical Problems

Due to problems I'm having with my laptop, posting will probably be slower than usual in the next two weeks.

UPDATE: I have to thank the people at Apple Europe for their great job. They repaired my iBook in one day, instead of the 14 they told me it usually takes, and so as soon as I get all my data back on my HD I'll be able to post again. See you soon...

Snow and hot chocolate

The first snow has fallen on Jena today. After yesterday's post I was in the perfect mood for a nice cup of hot chocolate made with cioccolato Modicano. I still had a bar of chili flavored chocolate from Antica Dolceria Rizza and that made for a thick, rich and just ever so slighlty hot cup of heaven.

 

My slightly modified method for a cup of Modicano chocolate

35 grams cioccolato Modicano, finely chopped
50 ml milk
50 ml water

Heat the milk and water together with the chocolate, stirring constantly till everything is melted. Keep stirring from time to time until you see the first bubble of the about to boil milk. Remove from the flame and use an immersion blender to make the chocolate frothy.

Enjoy!

Cioccolato Modicano and a thought

A few weeks ago, thanks to my parents spending their holiday in Sicily this year, I received a few food gifts coming directly from this beautiful island. It's a bit of a surprise to find out that one of the few places (with Mexico clearly) probably producing chocolate in the same way it was made centuries ago is the town of Modica. Even the flavorings used in the chocolate bars, cinnamon and chili above all, recall the spices added to hot chocolate both in Mexico and in Spain during the XVI century. The most famous producers today are Bonaiuto, who helped to get the products known outside the local area, and Antica Dolceria Rizza. The texture of cioccolato Modicano is unlike any of the bars you're used to put under your teeth: the outer chocolate shell (at least for Bonaiuto's bars, Rizza has no outer shell) encases a rough textured chocolate full of undissolved sugar crystals. I'm not going to talk too much about this unusual but delicious chocolate, apart maybe to tell that it's great to make hot drinking chocolate, since Katia and Roland from Via Ritiro no./ have already said all both on their blog and on this eGullet thread.

Instead I'll share a little experience that I owe to the magic of Xocoatl. The first time I had cioccolato modicano, a cinnamon flavored bar from Bonaiuto, about five years ago, I positively hated it. I was expecting some special chocolate bar, smooth and melting on my tongue, instead I found my mouth full of those weird sugar crystals and something which can't be described better than fine chocolate powder. It was unexpected. At the same time it was intriguing, it wasn't chocolate as I knew but it tasted, after the first confusing moment, good. It might seem a silly example, but that little piece of chocolate made me understand why so many creative chefs play with names in their dishes: they create an expectation and turn it upside down. In a way creative cuisine could almost be seen as a huge practical joke on the customer. With the exception that this practical joke often tastes great. Now, if I could only get a reservation at el Bulli ;-).

You notice you've been too busy working...

... when you completely forget your own blog's birthday!

Can't believe it has been a year already.