Il Forno

Tiella Gaetana.

From time to time I get e-mails from Americans (and I mean Argentineans as well as US Americans) asking for some particular Italian recipe their grandmother used to make. I am happy to help whenever I can, I love those trips down memory lane, but occasionally I feel terribly sorry for not being able to lend my hand in their recipe search. Sometimes it is because, while I know the dish well, I have no idea of how the recipe looks like. Yet more often, I simply have no idea what dish they are talking about: the name might be familiar, but the description of the dish is not. The problem is that Italy simply does not have a national cuisine, but rather a collection of local ones that at times can change dramatically just going over the next hill. So, even for a born and raised Italian like me,m Italy remains an immense cooking school, with a promise of something new around the next road bend.

Shortly before leaving for my Italian break, I had one of these ah-ah!/I am learning something new moments. I was reading William Black's "Al Dente", a very well written and enjoyable book about Italian food and history, and stumbled upon his description of Tiella Gaetana, the stuffed "bread" typical of Gaeta . Now, I spent many of my childhood summer holidays in the area near Gaeta, so I had heard the name before, but I must admit I had no idea what the dish was. Black describes food in such a delicious way – something he definitely has a knack for – that I knew I had to get a bite of tiella as soon as I could. I also wanted to learn more about it.

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.

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.

Ingredient of the day: fresh green peppercorns

Surprises are always nice and lately this little city of Jena has been surprising me, from a culinary standpoint more and more. First farmhouse raw milk cheese, then a great artisan bakery and now this. Last Tuesday, after about six month's time from my last visit, I dropped into a local shop selling mainly Indian goods looking for mustard seeds. I couldn't believe my eyes as I noticed a large shelfful of fresh Asian produce: Thai red shallots, various herbs, a few different Chinese greens and so on. Sadly none of those delicious Thai aubergines, sold out in a matter of hours the shop-keeper said. I bought a few different ingredients but what tempted me the most was the green peppercorns. I like the pickled ones but these looked much better: bright green instead of greyish-green, very pretty all bunched up together. And the taste was even better, brighter, fresher and hotter than the pickled stuff. What to do with them?

The return of the artichoke, part I: the ravioli

As you might have hinted before I do like artichokes. Actually, they've become one of my favourite vegetables. My dearest parents :-P, having read my previous post decided to include a few globes of the mammola Romana variety in a delicacies laden package they sent, about which contents I've at least in part already posted about. Aren't they beautiful? Almost a shame to cook them, but only almost. Having enough for either a really big serving for two or two different dishes in a smaller amount I decided for the latter. The more recipes I can try the happier I am. The first dish tried was ravioli di carciofi or artichoke ravioli.

Salame felino

One of the musts for Easter lunch in many parts of Italy, and certainly in my family, is the antipasto of boiled eggs, salami, oil preserves, especially artichokes and often one or more savoury Easter breads. Excluding the bread, what I like the most is the salami. A few different kinds can be served at the same time and everyone tries and decides for a favourite. Here in Germany there are quite a few nice salamis but none that can compete with Italian ones, at least according to the opinion of my patriotic taste buds :-). The risk of spending a sad salami free Easter was swept away by the arrival, some days ago, of a packet from Italy, containing, along a few other delicacies, three different salami. I didn't really manage to resist till Sunday and had to open at least one: the Salame Felino.

Berbe-what?

Since Jena is a small-ish town our local market has a few quite good stalls but not much variety. Lucky for me, every now and then new stands appear for one or two weeks and are then off to another market. Some of these are really nice, like the one we had last week, selling a huge choice of dried fruit. After some thought I picked a few: dried persimmons, mango, peaches and sour cherries (my favourites, both sweet and sour). After tasting some, I also got a little bag of those little red berries you see in the foreground. And here I need your help. These come from Iran and are the fruits of a shrub. I couldn't really make up their name on the shield. They're called somethings close to berbenits or berbemits, couldn't read the handwriting so well. They're quite tart and can be used for tea. Any clue what they could be? Thanks!

Food shopping in Leipzig

Taking courage after Clotilde's nice comment to my bakeries post, I decided to write a bit more often about nice food shops around here. Last Friday's day trip to Leipzig was quite successful in this respect. I visited two shops a friend, Goetz, strongly recommended and came back, happy, with a slightly lighter wallet and carrying three rather full shopping bags containing some Asian and some Italian goodies. So to say something to travel far away and something to feel at home.