Pin pin pin all the things you like!

Pinterest is a new social tool available online. I know we have plenty of them now but this one is literally taking the web by storm in these days: more and more people are signing in and  have started to... Pin!

A kind of new version of the famous DIGG, i would say, much more 2.0, easy to use, to share, to love. It's really addictive. With this you can simply like and fix on your profile forever all the things you find online and that you would like to have always with you.

You will just need to get an invitation, then sign in (also with your Facebook account) and download the PIN button in your browser tool bar. After this you will be ready to pin whatever you find online and place it in different categories, with your own description.

In the search area you can insert any interest you have and of course i couldn't resist to type food and recipes and you can't imagine what came out ... a paradise of pictures and ideas.

And waiting for my invitation, look what i found!

Look especially the first recipe on the left side.... :)

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Introduction to the pasta world and the next recipe

This twitter tale comes from an italian blogger, Massimo D'alma, who put together a myriad of Twitter messages published in the night of the 23rd of January 2011 by @giudeicampi, Giuseppe Di Martino, owner of  Pastificio dei Campi, as well as president of the consortium "Gragnano City Pasta." 

The pasta born and became what is now, thanks to its "capacity" to be a supply of food, being originally dry. 

Even in the Roman era the "lagane" with chickpeas, as told by Ovidio, were and are strips of pasta from durum wheat semolina cooked in a soup of chickpeas and vegetables. 

This "dish" cooked in the Roman time even before the 3rd century AC,  used to be made exactly like today in the south of Italy.  "De re coquinaria" of Apicius gives you the recipe for "lagane and chickpeas".

But let's start from the beginning: during the period of maximum expansion of the empire, Rome had hundreds of thousands of citizens, the wheat used to came from the colonies and was stored, without treatments in town's silos.

Few months after the harvest, these silos were starting to swarm with insects that were eating all the cereals, which were mostly durum wheat coming from the south of the Mediterranean from Sicily, or Lebanon or Egypt.

If grains were strongly attacked by insects, the silos were opened and the wheat given to all: great parties, social peace obtained and emptied silos ready for the next grain coming from other parts of the imperial world.

The same was happening in northern Europe, where the harvest was made just before the autumn in a lower temperature. Here too the people were hoarding and retaining the wheat.

These obtained free of charge, should be kept for the dark times, and then ground it. In fact this mechanical action between stones could kill the insects and their eggs, but was making it impossible to maintain, because, to avoid friction burn between the stones the corn was wet.

The flour obtained, was then mixed with water and then rolled out, dried and then cut into strips or rectangles, becoming free from infestation and food for storage and easily transportable.

In Herculaneum and Pompei were found jars with grains that were used in the creation of "pulses, vegetable soups and leaves". These were then enriched with"lagane" broken, which, releasing starch, thickened soup and made a meal of slow-release energy, or as we would say today, with a low glycemic index. 

Alternatively, these were used to prepare some mix of sweetbreads, vegetables and meat cooked, with a final look very similar to our lasagna. 

So the pasta as we know it comes from the need to store grain, but the Roman Empire could not do it, "in a centralized way", and found the way to get it done in the hauses. 

There is no doubt that this was not a rural but a urban need especially developed in the south: the harvest is done mostly in the south of the Mediterranean in May and June, when is hot and it's and it's more common the development of insects' activities. Pasta was born in the urban summer in the south of the Mediterranean, and more than 1000 years before Marco Polo!

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Some i-tech tips to improve your cooking time

Thursday on the LondonDaily Telegraph, our Italian tourism minister asked Apple to remove an Iphone application that suggests Italy is the home of "pizza, mafia, pasta and scooters". She said “I cannot allow our country to be discredited by a criminal organization".
Thinking about this Iphone app and the increasing number of them on the app store I started to look at the most famous food related ones. What a discovery: there are plenty and very useful ones for all of you who likes to learn more about Italian cuisine and products.

Let's begin by two amazing one discovered on Mashable: TopChef Recipe Finder and CookBook. The first one will help you to find recipes with your grocery shopping, season fruits and vegetables. The second instead will let you input ingredients and will suggest you some recipes that you can make using them.

Now there are special italian ones... So if you want to become a real Italian chef and know what we really eat in Italy those are perfect.
You can’t miss the app. Eataly - The Recipes: Eataly, the biggest market for quality food in the world has selected 1,000 best recipes inns throughout Italy reported by Slow Food. Moreover, thanks to the "Wheel of the Seasons" you will have the possibility to know fruits and vegetables by month & season.

And Gambero Rosso created an Iphone guide to Italian restaurants and 2010 wines... It will helps to prepare your "dolce vita" holidays and weekend or  to choose the best Barolo or Chianti of this year, to impress your hosts.

There are also Ipad applications, for those of you who have one.

In fact if you want to cook and you have an Ipad, this can be a really great support. Try one of the best app for Italian recipes, the Artusi HD app: 222 recipes coming from the traditional and real Italian tradition. You can search for recipes and when you find the one you like, quickly add it to your “Favorites” for quick access afterwards. Moreover, if there’s something worth sharing, that can be done just as easily via email.

That's not it... if you have a weekend planned in Milan, you can’t miss to have a meal in "Il Marchesino", restaurant of the Teatro la Scala. Here the same Guglielmo Marchesi, very famous Italian chef with historical fame, suggested to use the Ipad to make the menu more clear. Since September this is reality and the menu’ look stunning!

What about the Blackberry owners? Don’t worry there are some nice app. also for you! With iFood Assistant LITE powered by Kraft, you get fun, convenience and delicious inspiration, all for free. With Healthy Recipes instead, you can browse and search almost 200,000 recipes, plus save your favorites. It also provide calories, carbs, and more for each recipe. Perfect for anyone on a diet!

Do you use any application to cook or have inspiration ? Tell us your experiences about it. How do you use it ?

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