Entries tagged with 'Italy'
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Gina is back in Italy for an overdue vacanza, so for the next few weeks, Seriously Italian is morphing back into Snapshots from Italy as she shares with you some of her favorite food outings. [Photographs: Gina DePalma] I've begun my trip with a visit to the province of Cosenza in Calabria, the southern "foot" of Italy's boot. My mother's family is based here, and it is a place I have been hearing and dreaming about since I was a tot. Seeing the town where my grandparents were born and married and where my mother spent a portion of her childhood was emotion-packed for sure; the journey was made even more meaningful by the staggeringly good food. At meal after...
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Associated Press This is amazing. Archaeologists digging on Rome's Palatine Hill have unearthed what they believe to be Nero's revolving banquet hall, which has been referenced in ancient biographies of the Roman emperor. The room was likely built "to entertain government officials and VIPs": The purported main dining room, with a diameter of over 50 feet (16 meters), rested upon a 13-foot (4-meter) wide pillar and four spherical mechanisms that, likely powered by a constant flow of water, rotated the structure. The hall, situated as it was, would have had one of the best views of Rome even without the rotating razzamatazz. Nero ruled from 37 to 68 A.D.—about 1,900 years before the first modern-day revolving restaurant would be...
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Hellooo, hall of prosciutto. [Photograph: Sara Rosso] Sara Rosso of Ms. Adventures in Italy recently toured a prosciuttificio (prosciutto-making establishment) during the Festival del Prosciutto di Parma currently taking place in and around Parma, Italy. She's writing a serious of posts (accompanied by beautiful photos) in her blog to give readers a glimpse into the prosciutto-making process, the first one being about the preliminary salting process. Related Photo of the Day: Army of Orecchiette Photo of the Day: Italian Gelato in a Brioche Coffee Crack, an Espresso Drink in Italy...
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Editor's note: On Thursdays, Babbo pastry chef Gina DePalma checks in with Seriously Italian. After a stint in Rome, she's back in the States, channeling her inner Italian spirit via recipes and intel on delicious Italian eats. Take it away, Gina! Photo from effe8 on Flickr I couldn’t help it. They were calling to me: black, shiny, bulgingly beautiful eggplants, piled high at the market. Magnifica! The skin was so smooth and glossy, I could have reapplied my lip gloss in its reflection. Sometimes a vegetable beckons in unexpected ways, compelling and beguiling. I lost my head and loaded up. Mom rolled her eyes when I got home. “That’s a lot of eggplant.” She was right; I went overboard, and...
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Editor's note: On Thursdays, Babbo pastry chef Gina DePalma checks in with Seriously Italian. After a stint in Rome, she's back in the States, channeling her inner Italian spirit via recipes and intel on delicious Italian eats. Take it away, Gina! Fregola is a unique, rolled semolina pasta from the Sardinian region of Cagliari. It is most often compared to the large, pearly Israeli couscous, but I see it as way more exciting. Made with coarse semolina, fregola—or fregula—lacks the polished finish of Israeli couscous; it is misshapen and has a nubby, rough texture that makes it perfect for sopping up and conducting the flavors of sauce and broth. Another key flavor element is the toasting. After the simple dough...
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Luxembourger artist Simone Decker shows what Venice would look like if covered in huge gobs of chewed-up gum in her sculpture series, Chewing in Venice. [via BOOOOOOOM] Related Chewed Gum T-Shirt Amazing Chewing Gum Art...
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"It's not surprising that we're witnessing a cheesemaking resurgence of sorts in that part of the world." Photograph from dearanxiety on Flickr Last week, there was an interesting story from the McClatchy newspapers about a group of Italian agronomists helping some Palestinian farmers set up an Italian sheep cheese operation in the West Bank. The dairy goes by the name of Golden Sheep, and produces a small variety of Italian cheeses like pecorino (a generic term for an aged sheep cheese), smoked ricotta, and scamorza (a close relative of mozzarella). The economy in the West Bank is, for obvious reasons, relatively stagnant, and the agronomists at Italy's Ucodep have launched this development project to help get some money flowing. The...
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Last week, a law nicknamed the "anti-kebab law" was passed in the Lombardy region of Italy (which includes Milan), reports the New York Times. While it applies to all fast-food and takeout eateries, including gelaterias, it seems to be targeted at the mostly immigrant entrepreneurs behind the kebab joints. Under the new legislation, customers can no longer dilly-dally on the adjacent sidewalks outside the joints, and the joints themselves must close by 1 a.m. (prime time for meat on a spit). Protesters have called this a thinly veiled stab at immigrants, and in response, are rallying on Facebook. With 4,279 members, "No alla legge anti-kebab della Regione Lombardia. Disobbedienza alimentare" has inspired many emphatic wall postings. The center-right majority...
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Editor's note: Serious Eats correspondent Carey Jones, eating her way around Italy, will be reporting back from Rome, Bologna, Tuscany, and Puglia. This is, without question, the best carrot I have ever eaten. As foods go, individual carrots aren’t that memorable, any more than particular Yukon Golds are memorable. And I say this as a girl who ranks carrots among her very favorite foods. Though I practically lived off of carrot sticks at a low point in my college meal plan days, I’d be hard pressed to recall a single, specific carrot I’d ever eaten. Until this one, in the seaside town of Polignano a Mare in Puglia. Sipping an aperitivo at Ristorante da Tuccino, one of the region’s most...
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Editor’s note: Serious Eats correspondent Carey Jones, eating her way around Italy, will be reporting back from Rome, Bologna, Tuscany, and Puglia. Two dizzying weeks of giddy gluttony in Italy, eating my way from Bologna to Lecce, acquainted me with a number of veggies, pastas, and sea creatures I’d neither seen nor tasted before. But one of the best single bites of the entire journey came in the town of Manduria, when I took my first mouthful of grano stompato—a centuries-old peasant meal that reminded me just how simple and sublime the right ingredients can be. The name of this dish, also called cranu stumpatu, translates to “stomped grain”—and it’s nearly as simple as it sounds. Whole grains of durum...
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