Il Forno

Gaeta: il mercato (the market)

Back when Italy still was divided into a number of Kingdoms – i.e. till the second half of the XIXth century – Gaeta marked the border between the Kingdom of the two Sicilies (aka Kingdom of Naples) and the Papal state. For centuries Gaeta was an important military port as the remaining fortifications still show today. Today the city lives more of commerce and tourism than warfare, and the wealth and size of the city have benefited from that. Leaving behind the historical chatter, for those into food Gaeta has three intriguing items on offer: olive (olives) di Gaeta, tiella Gaetana (a savory stuffed flatbread) and the weekly market. Leaving the former two for upcoming posts, I'll show you around the market.

The city's market takes place every Wednesday not far from the railway station of Gaeta(there are a number of entry points, so it is best to just ask the locals). It is pretty much divided into a part dedicated to food and one to almost anything else with goods ranging from shoes and cheap clothes to kitsch home decorations and cheap plastic toys for kids. You can guess which part I was interested in.

Among the many "salumeria" stalls – selling, as customary in Italy, cured meats and cheeses, but also milk, bread and eggs – one particularly caught my eye. Beside the standard cheese selection, they had a selection of farmhouse goat and sheep cheeses. In any big city market these would have been presented in a specially attractive set-up, advertised with great clamour and sold at dear prices. As often in Italy, qualityis taken as obvious, so here the cheeses simply come in polystyrene boxes straight from the producer and are sold at dirt-cheap prices: the small goat cheese went for 1 Euro each, with the pecorini only slightly more expensive. I couldn't resist the temptation and a couple of goat cheeses and a small young pecorino.

Dedicated to Cheese part I; Swiss cheese and cheese shopping.

When it comes to cheese varieties the French can claim 365 cheeses, Italy over 400, but the real champions seem to be the Swiss; according to some sources the little landlocked Alpine country has over 450 different varieties to offer. It might all be cheesy chest thumping (in all three cases) – after all the distinctions between some cheese sorts are feeble to say the least – but it gives an idea of the cheese-making tradition of these countries. One could ask why there is so little to choose from abroad. You can walk into a European metropolitan supermarket and you'll find tens of French and Italian cheeses (though almost always more of the former) but always the same three-four Swiss ones. Be it London, Berlin or Rome, you'll inevitably see Emmenthaler, Gruyere and maybe one or two between Appenzeller, Tete de Moine and Sbrinz on sale. Where are the other 445?

I suspected that, given Switzerland's size, the best stuff never really gets out of the 26 cantons. After all connecting a country with such a cheese-making tradition mainly with pretty tasteless supermarket Emmenthaler, or even worse its imitations. To test if my idea was right, what could have been better than a little cheese shopping directly on location, exactly what I did on my visit to Zurich a few month's ago. Thanks to my Swiss friend and guest Boris I had a destination, Dettling Kaese-spezialgeschaeft, and at least one cheese to look for, Freiburger Käse (aka Freyburger Vacherin).

Wine, no cheese?

Contrary to what some of you might believe from this blog I do have quite a few interests beyond food... promise! Strangely though, wherever I turn my head food seems to pop up.

Take science: it is my job and definitely one of my favourite subjects. Apart the many very specialised journals I have to read on the job, I'm an avid reader of NewScientist magazine, simply the coolest "generic" science magazine out there. Strangely it is stuffed with food news, like last week's interview with Harold McGee, that seem to catch my attention more than the pure science stuff. While browsing their news pages of their web-site, for example, I ran into an interesting column on wine-cheese pairing : essentially the juice of the story is that wine-cheese pairing just don't work. But is it true?

Southern Italian cheeses, part II: Ragusano, the king of Sicilian cheese.

There's cheese, and there's... well other cheese. Something like ricotta scanta has the beauty of inventive and food-saving consciousness. Yet cheeses can also be real masterpieces, in the sense of a craftsman's best work. Just like the best caciocavalli and provoloni out there: caiocavallo Podolico, provolone del Monaco, some of the best caciocavalli Silani, and my own favourite, Ragusano.

You don't often hear about Southern Italian cheese when the best Italian cheeses are named. It's almost always the Parmigiano Reggiano, Gorgonzola, Taleggio triad. What a lack of fantasy! It's a pity that these are the only cheeses mentioned, because Italy has more than 400 to choose from and many are at least as delicious and at times breathtaking as these three. Southern Italian cheeses suffer from another problem. They're clearly "something different", coming from a unique gastronomic background, much unlike Northern Italian cheese which often share characteristics with their alpine relatives, be they French, Swiss or Austrian. And different is good in my book, as long as it ain't weird.

Southern Italian cheeses, part I: Ricotta scanta

A few weeks ago, on the eGullet Socitey's forums, someone was arguing that French cheese is better than Italian because of their dominating the stinky cheese scene. Let's forget about the silly "who's better" question, both countries have great traditions, different, sure, but both delicious. Yet, when it comes to stinky, It's hard to meet a stinkier cheese than the Italian ricotta scanta. It can hold nicely with the more olfactory-challenging blue cheeses, Vacherin, Munster and the like.

In Italian we have a saying: del porco non si butta niente, meaning you can use any part of the pig. I often have the feeling that cheese is treated in a similar way in some parts of Italy. Take ricotta, practically a byproduct of cheese making: once cheese is made there still quite a lot of nourishing protein in the whey. Milk has two main proteins (plus many others in lesser amounts) casein and lactalbumin: while casein clots once it is exposed to rennet, taking along most of the milk's fat, lactoalbumin does not. We'll never know who came up with the idea of heating whey to 90-100°C, probably someone in ancient Greece. but whoever did had just discovered ricotta. Lactoalbumin cheeses are not exclusive to Italy, there are examples in many Mediterranean countries, yet no other country consumes as much as Italians do with ricotta. OK, so you've still got some whey left from the ricotta, does that got thrown out? Usually not, it still has some milk sugar lactose, which can have its uses. Sometimes this "second" whey is used as starter culture to acidify the curds used to make pasta filata, spun curd, cheeses like mozzarella or caciocavallo. See, nothing wasted!

Darling, did you dig up the cheese? or the tale of Formaggio di Fossa.

I had intended to post a bit more about the contents of the package I got from Italy, but too much got eaten before I even had a chance to take a picture. Sometimes it's quite hard to resist a fridge full of delicious food, only waiting for you to bite into it. Something did survive the slaughter, though: half a Formaggio di Fossa di Sogliano cheese. Given my fascination with fermented foods, formaggio di fossa is one of my favourites: it's twice fermented!

Farmhouse cheese German style: Riekehof Tultewitz

Sometimes I have the feeling that this little part of Germany I'm living in could become a really nice place for food lovers, if only a few things would change. The state (Bundesland) Jena is in, Thuringia, is called the green heart of Germany not without reason. Green fields, woods and slowly flowing rivers are all make up for a gentle and pretty landscape... at least once the snow's gone :-). It is also a fertile land with a long history for meat products (especially wurst, which deserves a post apart) and produce. Still, with the exception of maybe Bratwurst and asparagus, Thuringia, and part of the neighbouring Bundesländer which have a very similar landscape/economy, are not exactly famous for their gastronomic products. And here we come to the ifs I mentioned before. The effect of the socialist/materialist education people grew up with in the East still has a strong effect. Many still look for decent quality for low-low prices and are seldom ready to pay a more for something made with more care and consequently higher work-costs, especially when it comes to food. This means that few are ready to take the risk and venture into the quality food production business. So I decided I will post about the few local brave producers that decide to take the "hard path" to food quality whenever I discover one. I don't know if it will help these producers much, after all I'm not writing in German for a mainly German public, but a little is better than nothing. I'll start today with a local cheese maker: Riekehof Tultewitz.

It came from outer space! Sage Derby

Before I start this post let me excuse myself with any Derbyshire-men or women, who might get the feeling I'm making fun of one of their traditional cheeses. OK I might make a joke about how it looks now and then but you'll see it's not ill meant. After all I'm sure you've got a great sense of humour :-).

The first time I saw Sage Derby Cheese in the UK I had a series of weird associations. I first thought "alien cheese", then "Kermit the frog" and ended thinking about lava lamps. The Green wax encasing the cheese and the also green veins might somehow explain how those thoughts came about :-). I have to admit the colour put me off quite a bit and just ignored this cheese when buying my cheese. Stupid, I know: I should have at least asked what it was. I would have found out that Sage Derby has been made since the 17th century, that the green veins come from spinach juice and that it once was a special cheese for Christmas and Harvest. Instead I thought it was some weird modern product made to appeal to sci-fi obsessed teenagers. Prejudice plus ignorance is always bound to turn onto yourself.

Mozzarella: so famous yet so overlooked

Mozzarella: The cheese that everyone believes to know. When you think about mozzarella what comes to your mind? The pre-grated stuff  to put on pizza or those pale gummy cheese balls sold in little bags stored in whey maybe? But how many have tasted the real DOC (controlled denomination) Mozzarella di Bufala Campana? Many things are called Mozzarella out there, but the original is a different thing altogether. Maybe I should cool down a bit and start all over. It's only that mozzarella, even for a half-Neapolitan as me, is a subject of love, pride, and because the misuse of the name, anger.