And what about Italy then?

Lincolnshire is a county in the east of England, that being honest I never heard before, and probably I wouldn’t if I didn’t discover has been nominated recently the Uk’s foodies capital.

Especially famous for its sausages and pork dishes, it has also an old icecream production business, someone who smoke fish since 1930 and in general is the proud producer of lots of fresh ingredients that are getting better and better every year.

“Where there is good food, it encourages more good food and it encourages retailers like us to stock it." As Rachel Green, a chef and farmer originally from there, said to the Guardian recently: "We do food production quietly and in a very measured way. The people who produce don't take shortcuts."

At this point I have to go there soon to try it all, but in the same time I was thinking: “ what could be the Italian correspondent city?”

Maybe some little village in Tuscany with amazing beef, wine and lots of traditional dishes? Maybe Parma with its fresh great pasta,  sauces and its great amount of famous dishes? Neapols and Campania with is reach Buffalo Mozzarella, great tomatoes, fishes and pasta of course? Some country from the real north of Italy with the speck, the fantastic cheeses and the grappa? Or finally the islands like Sicily with is amazing fruits and vegetables, the " cannoli" and "pasta di mandorle" and olives and perfumes and flavours.

I can’t really say and I think anyone and never tried to vote for one or another. In Italy every region and sometimes even city has its own typical dishes, ingredients traditions and they are just great an unique for their differences. Form the north to south it’s a continuously explosion of flavors .

Try to visit as many regions as you can and you will agree with me.

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A typical recipe to bring you back to the seaside!

This week was weird, maybe because the temperature are getting cooler here in London or maybe just because we are scared of the approaching autumn.
Anyway it’s such a long time I was dreaming about this recipe, that a very good Italian friend of mine decided to cook it for me.

I have never prepared this special seafood pasta at home and from scratch I can tell you is not exactly a quick thing.
Anyway my fantastic friend and massive food/cook lover Maria, decided to let me try her own recipe…and I have to say it was amazing. We had a massive plate of Paccheri allo Scoglio on Saturday night, so big and so good that I totally forgot about the horrible gray weather…I could even hear the sea instead :)

Do you want to have the same great sensation? Do you want to fell again in holiday on the seaside? Happy to push far away the autumn for a bit more? Follow this recipe then.

Ingredients
 for 4 people:

-    400 of Paccheri Pastificio dei Campi. This time I really recommend you to use this brand because this dish really deserve the consistency and the absolute beuty of this pasta

-    1 kg of mussels

-    1 kg of clams

-    12 shrimp

-    500 grams of squid

-    400 g peeled prawns

-    200 grams of shrimp in their shells

-    Other mixed rockfish found according to the season: crabs, spider crabs, shrimp, etc..

-    2 cloves of garlic

-    2 small onions

-    400 grams of cherry tomatoes or 1 can of tomatoes

-    Pepper to taste

-    2 glass of white wine

-    Olive oil

-    Parsley Finely chop an onion and divide it in two putting the first bit in a big pan with olive oil, chopped parsley and pepper. Put in different pans washed mussels and clams and let them open: to do this, keep them on fire without anything and covered for a bit.

Let them cool down and then remove them from the shell, except for some that you will use as a garnish. Strain the liquid and keep it aside.
 In a large frying pan put a little bit of olive oil, garlic, peeled but whole, get heat, being careful not to burn the garlic and add the prawns. Sauté for a few minutes (2-3 should be fine) over high heat, then pour the wine. Let it evaporate and turn off the heat.

In another pan (you can use one of the mussels or clams), place the remaining onion with a little bit of oil and pepper to taste, let it cook and then add the cuttlefish into strips. Pour wine over it. Let cook for 5 minutes, then add tomatoes and cook for another 25 minutes. Add the shrimp and let the flames further 5 minutes.

Combine all ingredients in the pan with the prawns, including the cooking liquid form the mussels and clams and simmer a few more minutes. Cook the pasta al dente in boiling salted water, drain it, pour it into the pan and let it season for a few minutes on high heat (1-2 approx).Serve it on plates, and sprinkle with finely chopped parsley .

Enjoy! Can you listen the sea weaves...? :)

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The Gourmet: story of a food critic

Today for the World Book Day (3rdof March)I will write about a book that I just finished to read and that I found great. It's not a book about recipes or the biography of a great chef but an inspirational book about food and the pleasure to eat, funny, entertaining and very well written: The Gourmet by Muriel Barbery.
 
This is the story of a french food critic who everyone hates for his strong and selfish personality, who used to love any kind of pleasure, food in primis, and who used to write about it in a fantastic and delightful way.
 
Passing from his voice to the voice of his family and friends, you enter in the life and the routine of a food critic, in this case, on the verge of the death! So what can happen at this point? He just want to recall a taste he once tried and has now forgotten and that gave him one of the biggest pleasure in life.
 
So passing from young memories of simple and genuine food, like the bread and the butter, to the most complex french dishes and chef combinations of ingredients and high cuisine, he tries to find that forgotten taste.

 
Of course the best part of the book is the vivid description of the taste and the emotion that each food provoke: "Muriel Barbery's gifts as an evocative storyteller are used to mouthwatering effect in this voluptuous and poignant meditation on food and its deeper significance in our lives. I really think the writer loves food and love eating otherwise have to be impossible to express this in such a way"
 
So what taste do you think you will always remember in a very special way? I would say pizza for me of course but also a good wine or the milk and the sneacks I use to bring to school when I was little! I miss them already but thinking about it properly I would really say… the “minestrina” made with the short and little pasta by my father when I was sick… It was the best!
 
So are you curious to know about the life of a food critic or about the best taste he ever tried? Read this really lovely book and tell me what taste you will never forget!

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The twitter tale about pasta is following...

Here i recollected some sunday tweets from Giuseppe dei Campi, speaking this time about what makes Gragnano so special and the city of the pasta in Italy.

In my town the origin of pasta is lost in the centuries really! The name Gragnano come from Gens Grania, grain merchants in the 2' century BC who wanted to protect their businesses. You have to know that Gragnano has a number of unique characteristics respect other places ... tonight I'd like to explain you one, "The Mistral!".
That is the natural clock that tells to the people in Gragnano that's noon. Gragnano is set on a plateau that goes from an altitude of 250 meters on the sea (2 km) and reaches the height of 1250mt. Gragnano is located in the southeast summit of the Gulf of Naples between the mountains Lattari, extends from east to west and it's protected from all sides but open on one side only: the west, and at west of Gragnano there is the sea!

So imagine a whole green valley overlooking the sea on a plateau. Now, when the earth warms, heats the air, the warm air is lighter than the cold and tends to rise, leaving more space to the fresh air more heavy coming from the sea. This enters in Gragnano predictable and constant at noon!

This cools down and brings beneficial moisture from the sea to those who dry pasta each day out on the streets. And because this "fake" wind comes from the northwest in Gragnano we always called it "Mistral" (but is not). This is reversed at night when it takes away the moisture from Gragnano leaving it fresh and dry. When I was a boy, I used to notice it especially at night when I was coming back on a Vespa from dancing with friends. We could all smell the aroma and fragrance of pasta and even more entering in the city.
Especially the summer night breeze, nice and gentle, was carrying to the sea the smell of the work of Gragnano. The day after the same pasta, finally ready, would have take the sea to foreign markets, to the most 'beautiful kitchen and the best restaurants in the world.

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Some tips to recognize a really good pasta from the most common one.
 

After speaking about the recent English passion for food, and after the quick look at some tech tools that can help you in the kitchen, it's time I gave you some important related tips starting with some basic facts.

 

For an Italian dinner, pasta is your main ingredient and has to be chosen with care and attention: you will need to keep these tips in mind when you want to buy and eat the best pasta!

What really determines a good quality of pasta? Color, texture, smell, ingredients, origin and packaging. And I will explain why!

It all starts from the durum wheat. For Pasta dei Campi for example, it uses just italian grain, taken from an area of about 250 km around Gragnano. For the Pastificio it's very important that the grain has been cultivated in a place with historical tradition in a region like Puglia, Basilicata, Molise or Irpinia. This durum wheat has a protein content of around the 14%, compared to a normal value of about 10,5% found in classic production. It is also rare to find this type of pasta in Italy. This  amount of protein will give the consistency, taste and smell to the pasta.

 

The harvest happens just in the right moment of the maturation of the grain, the stocking follows straight away and it’s done in the same area for a perfect conservation of the prime product.
This will then be milled with care (with a low power machine) to maintain all it's original fragrance. The preparation of the mix is a delicate equilibrium between lots of components: the water temperature, semolina grain and the climate conditions. The pasta maker will coordinate them in a way to always reach the best mix possible.

Another very important factor is the bronze extraction. This material entering in contact with the pasta, will create that rough surface that will help the union with the sauce. But this has to be made in the right measure: not too rough and not too smooth.

Then there is the drying process that has to be slow and at a low temperature to maintain the fragrance. It is essential to complete all of this work and the work mentioned previously in the best way possible. This will give the pasta the right color, which should be yellowish and not amber or orange.

Finally there is the packing, completed by hand to avoid destroying the pasta. The combination of these methods should result in the highest quality pasta.

So next time you are in the supermarket, check where the pasta is made, what the ingredients are, if it looks a bit rough, and finally if the color is yellowish and not amber, dark or closer to orange.

Then if you will try Pastificio dei Campi, you will really understand the difference!

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