Il Forno

Tallinn, take 4: of supermarkets and chocolate.

I have a confession to make. It might loose me whatever gourmet street cred I have – what's life without a little thrill? – but here it goes: I have an acute fascination for markets and supermarkets.

Markets are fine actually, especially if you belong to the SlowFoodite eat local fraction, which I incidentally feel pretty close to. Local products, artisan made and all that. It fits perfectly in the XXI century cool people's food culture. But supermarkets? For many they are the evil empire, the globalisation machine at its worst, selling unhealthy and badly tasting products to the unknowing masses. I won't deny I have a food snob streak in me: if I have the choice, I would mainly buy goods coming from excellent local producer, but, being pragmatic, I do quite a bit of shopping in supermarkets.

Yet, whatever the criticism, supermarkets intrigue me (and I know I am not alone in this). Those who criticise them for being one of the ugly arms of globalisation should give a closer look. Sure, they sell the whole array of soft drinks, snacks, chocolates etc. that you find everywhere, but that's just one part of the story. To me supermarkets are to food what soap operas are to performing arts: they are the manifestation of pop culture, food-pop in this case. And as pop culture they differ from country to country in a multitude of peculiar and unique details, which give each of these stores a recognisable national mark. In Italy, for example, I am pretty sure I could tell you in which region you are just by looking at the cheese and cured meats counters.

You think it is obvious? Well, so do I, but I know not everyone sees it so. If, on the other hand, you thinks that's a load of bollocks try a little experiments next time you travel abroad. Before you leave home visit your local supermarket, then visit one in your country of destination. When you go home, have a look at your store again. Notice any differences? I bet you do, and those details are what marks your local place unique to your culture.

I love to play this game whenever I am abroad so I could not miss the chance to have a go at it in Tallinn.

The closest I got to a market was the row of colourful flower shops that marks the beginning of Viru street. Unfortunately too little time in the end to visit the real central market, Kesksturg. Instead, finding a supermarket was no problem.We just had to cross the road from our bus stop and get into the Kaubamaja department store.

Zotter: 3 x 3

I have talked about Sepp Zotter and his chocolate a couple of times before. His artistically packaged chocolate bars and wide range of bold flavour combinations make him a unique name in the world of fine chocolate.

Although my first taste did not really win me over, I remained curious about the creative streak of this Austrian chocolatier. The fact is, Zotter manages to make you approach chocolate with a collectors mind. Whenever I see his chocolates on sale a part of me turns back to the eight year old who loved to trade football(soccer) cards: I wonder if there are people out there who actually trade Zotter's wraps. It wouldn't surprise me. For those, like me, who are more interested in the actual taste, the almost sixty flavours give plenty of reasons to go back for another pick over and over. And even if you have tried them all you can be sure some new creation will enrich the collection of the coming year.

In the past year and a half, the number of shops selling these chocolate bars around Jena has increased dramatically and so it has become easier to find a wider range of Zotter's collection. About a week ago, I somehow ended up with two chocolate bars I had not really intended to buy while shopping for a wine bottle to go with our dinner. A third one joined the others just the next day, equally mysteriously. I am starting to believe there must be some chocolate pixies around here.

I am a strong believer in second chances, but sometimes a third go (with three tries) is even better. Doesn't luck come in threes after all? If I had stopped at two, I would have never tasted the chocolate which is definitely my favourite among Zotter's and also one of the best flavoured bars I ever put between my teeth: dark chocolate with a filling of celeriac white chocolate, port ganache and truffle oil. The bar is dedicated to Zotter's master, Werner Matt, and I imagine extra care went into this creation. The result certainly suggests so: the celeriac aroma is just an undertone giving the white chocolate a more complex dimension and the luscious Port ganache offers the fruity freshness needed to round the taste perfectly. My only minor grudge is that the truffle, so strongly publicised on the package front, is not noticeable at all. After all its absence did not decreased the quality of this chocolate bar in any way.

Mole Poblano... from scratch.

I love spending hours cooking in my kitchen, and so nothing could be more self-fulfilling than taking the best part of the day to cook one of those long time-consuming dishes nobody seems to prepare anymore. For once, instead of a tried and tested Italian classic, I decided to give Mole Poblano, one of Mexico's most notorious dishes a try. About a year ago I had my first taste of mole. It was great, but not enough I wanted to try and make it from scratch myself.

As it often is, laziness got in the way and so I procrastinated until the theme of the new eGullet cook-off was announced. If you haven't yet give those cook-offs a look; IMO a great idea to get a group of people to cook a dish virtually together. (Past themes included classics like Pizza, Fried Chicken and Gumbo.) Guess what the new theme was? Mole clearly! Time to use those tips for mexican chilies sources and get working. Remembering Petra's source tip I was the proud owner of a few bags of Mulatos, Anchos and Pasilla chilies in matter of days (from bottom left corner, clockwise).

Zotter's Chocolate

I always thought that 34 flavours were plenty. Well, clearly that's not the case for everyone. Some people think 50 and more is better. The someone I'm referring to is Austrian chocolate maker Sepp Zotter. I ran across some of his chocolate bars in a local wine shop and became instantly intrigued. The first thing that caught my eye was the packaging. Almost all the front of the package is taken up by pleasantly designed pictures created specifically for each of the chocolate tastes by the Austrian artist Andreas H. Gratze. These little works of art are so nice they almost make me feel like collecting all 50+ of them. What I found even more interesting was the different taste combinations Zotter offers. Some chocolates are a gourmet version of classics, like the milk chocolate cream. Quite a few use the many delicious Austrian spirits distilled from fermented fruit juices. But even more intriguing are the ones offering adventurous taste pairings. Combinations like dark chocolate and pulverised shitake mushroom or Fontina (an Italian cheese) seem quite over the top but the title IMO goes to the chocolate with coffee marinated plums and caramelised bacon (speck). I considered for a while one of these three but decided to go for a less "extreme" pick: I carried home a marzipan and Kirshbrand bar, a pumpkinseed and egg flip one and one with cranberry and thyme.

Pierre Herme's Nutella Tart.

Some cookbooks should come with a warning sticker. I'm not talking about health warnings here though I could see a point sometimes. Something on the lines of "The subject of this cookbook is classified as chemical weapon according to the latest UN report. Probable side effects after ingestion: loss of taste, intense oral pain, excessive sweating, hyperventilation and next-day rectal inflammation." would go very well with The Habanero Cookbook. That's not what I mean though. The warning I have in mind should be somewhat along the lines of "The recipes contained in this book are dangerously delicious and addictive. After trying them your taste will be spoilt forever and you'll become a demanding eater." That's what should have been pasted on the cover of Chocolate Desserts by Pierre Herme. I've only made two of the recipes in the book and I'm totally hooked: will any other chocolate sweet ever taste the same after this?

40 years of Nutella and a hazelnut spread tasting.

I only recently found out that Nutella turned 40 this year. I've been eating this delicious cream since I was a kid, so I can't deny I was a bit touched by the news. I always thought Nutella-craze to be a rather Italian phenomenon but I discovered I was wrong: take this eGullet thread as an example. I was even more surprised from Pierre Herme's positive comments on Nutella in his Chocolate Desserts. I knew Nutella was nice but after reading these comments I can even eat it with gourmet confidence. So what better occasion than this to look back and Nutella's history, its cult-product status and a little hazelnut spread tasting?

IMBB cake walk: Schwarzwälder Kirschtorte

It took me a little time to decide which recipe to pick up for this edition of "Is my Blog Burning?" hosted by Renee. I was divided whether to take something I had tried before at least once, to avoid possible embarrassing failures, or try a completely new recipe, to make things a bit more interesting. I decided to go for both in a certain sense. I chose a cake I know well, cause it's one of my favourites, but had never baked myself before: Schwarzwälder Kirschtorte better known as Black forest cake. There are loads of versions for this classical cake: the old-fashioned original German one, different modern versions, some with a French touch, some with an American touch... I've even seen a deconstructed one. In this case I stay true to the original German one. Maybe it's a question of being used to it, after all I've been eating this cake at least once a year for more or less the last 30, but I think it still has an edge on the modern versions. I usually got this cake from my parents for my birthday and what started as an almost-necessity, we were living in Germany back then, became a tradition. Finally, after all these years I'd give it a go myself.

Covered in chocolate from head to toe: coffee beans

I have to thank the friend that gave me the little box above as a birthday present. Almost any nut, fruit and cereal, even if great on their own, improve when covered in chocolate... if you like chocolate that is, but I still have to meet someone who doesn't. But chocolate and coffee are a case apart: they seem made for each other. Coffee-flavoured chocolate "beans" (actually bean shaped pieces of chocolate) were always one of my favourites chocolate but I never had real coffee beans (Arabica beans here) covered in chocolate: even better! These ones are sold as "Quick Kick", a rather silly name, in the shops of the Hussel chain. They are marketed under the product line "K's soul food kitchen", which includes different sweets, candies and chocolates which should presumably be good for your mood and/or health. Honestly, when something is so yummy I really don't care if it's good for me or not :-)!

Candied orange peels or how to turn garbage into sweets

Raise your hand if you usually just throw your orange peels away. Who doesn't? It's not like you could eat them. Or is it? When I prepared Sicilian orange and fennel salad I used some nice Spanish untreated oranges. Throwing away the peels seemed a waste. I could have dried them but I still have a big jar of this stuff which I seldom use. And then, as in every classic cartoon, the little light bulb turned on. Candied orange peel! That's what I would do.

A children's favourite for grown-ups: marble cake... enriched

Sometimes I just want to let my memories guide my baking inspiration. For that reason I felt a compelling urge to bake a marble cake. Marble cake is a children classic, at least, judging from my experience, in many European countries. It comes in many different forms and variations but the main division is between home -made, or better mom-made, and commercial version (this version is strangely loved by students :-)). I can't really remember marble cake being baked in our home, except maybe a few times as me and my brother Marcello begun experimenting with baking. Our mom and dad usually went for something a bit more structured when it came to baking sweets, probably marble cake was just too simple. Still I couldn't remove this cake from my memories even if I wanted: loads and loads of birthday party marble cakes are responsible for that. I found a nice "grown up" version of the cake in the Italian version (published by Bibliotheca culinaria) of this French book from Marabout. I just had to try it.