Magnaccioni E-Book

Anne Pia

• Herausgeber: Luath Press
• Kategorie: Sachliteratur, Reportagen, Biografien
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 226

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2023

Beschreibung

Magnaccioni: (Roman dialect) people who live to eat well.  I know no other word that captures that rare gift, that supremely basic human quality of eating with mind, eyes and heart and radiating uncontainable pleasure in so doing. In Magnaccioni, Anne Pia wants to make you feel tempted, greedy. She celebrates her heritage, the way of life, food, wine, music and dialect of southern Italy. Writing as a passionate food aficionada, she shares family recipes and food she has enjoyed in Italy based on la cucina povera, la cucina di terra – the use of fresh produce and simple ingredients to create sumptuous, joyful feasts. This book is a glorious and bold celebration of a very special culture and a fundamental way of looking at life and food which Anne is proud to call her own. Wine and music are essential in the mix that is southern Italian life. Anne guides you through her own pairings to her food so that you may join her in becoming joyful magnaccioni!

Leseprobe

ANNE PIA was born in Edinburgh. The grandchild of Italian immigrants, she was raised surrounded by the culture, traditions, food and dialect of southern Italy. Her grandmother cooked the food of her native Viticuso: simple food using fresh seasonal produce with an emphasis on vegetables and grains – and feast day food, such as 18-egg frittatas for Easter Sunday mornings. Fresh ice cream churning, the hissing of a coffee machine and the latest Italian pop songs were the soundtrack to Anne’s time in the family café – The Copper Kettle – in Bruntsfield. Throughout her life Anne has spent extensive periods in Italy living with Italian families and this has furthered her passion for and her ability to cook la cucina povera.

Anne’s career as a writer has focused on identity, immigration, language, otherness and sexuality. Her first book, Language of My Choosing, was shortlisted for the Saltire Award for Best New Book of 2017. It was published in Italian in 2018 and later that year was awarded the Premio Flaiano Italianistica: La Cultura Italiana nel Mondo. Anne’s subsequent books of poetry and essays have been well received and in 2022 she was invited to join the judging panel for the Scottish National Book Awards, a role she is undertaking again in 2023.

This is more than a cookery book. It is a glorious ‘Te Deum’ to Italy expressed through food, wine, music and anecdote. When you feel the ‘nostalgia d’Italia’ really badly and can’t hop on a flight straight away, open this book, plunge in and all will be well.

RONNIE CONVERY, HONORARY ITALIAN CONSUL

With prose which demands to be read and recipes just begging to be cooked, all written with the style and poetic flair which we have come to expect from Anne Pia, Magnaccioni: My Food… My Italy stands alongside the work of Diane Henry, Simon Hopkinson, and Nigel Slater – writers whose cookbooks you return to again and again.

ALISTAIR BRAIDWOOD, SCOTS WHAY HAE!

By the same author:

Non-Fiction

Language of My Choosing (Luath Press, 2017)

Keeping Away the Spiders: Essays on Breaching Barriers (Luath Press, 2020)

Poetry

Transitory (Luath Press, 2018)

The Sweetness of Demons (Vagabond Voices, 2021)

Dragons Wear Lipstick (Dreich, 2022)

For Geraldine,

for her endless support and steadfast love.

First published 2023

ISBN 978-1-80425-125-6 hardback

ISBN: 978-1-80425-090-7 paperback

The author’s right to be identified as author of this book under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 has been asserted.

Typeset in 10.5 point Sabon LT Pro by

Main Point Books, Edinburgh

Text and photographs © Anne Pia 2023

Contents

Introduction

A place to start

fritto misto

sage oil

Antipasti… relaxing with guests

focaccia

piadine (Italian flatbreads)

PLATEFULS OF SUNSHINE

marinaded tomatoes (pomodori all’aglio)

tomato and onion salad (insalata di pomodori)

stuffed beef tomatoes (pomodori ripieni)

MUSHROOMS

mushrooms with lemons and walnuts (funghi con noci e limone)

CAULIFLOWER

cauliflower with olives and lemons (cavolfiore con olive e limone)

cauliflower with tuna (cavolfiore con tonno)

POTATO SALAD

simple potato salad (insalata di patate)

SMOKED HADDOCK

smoked haddock Italian style (pesce scozzese)

ARTICHOKES

sautéed artichokes with garlic and lemons (carciofi trifolati)

BROCCOLI AND BROCCOLETTI

broccoli fritters (frittelle di broccoli)

SALUMI (CURED MEATS)

Le frittate

a simple frittata (frittata di terra) for two

frittata with Savoy cabbage, onion and potato (la frittata con verza, cipollo e patate)

frittata with leftover pasta (frittata di pasta)

mozza frittata (frittata con mozzarella)

the Easter frittata (frittata pasqualina)

L’ora dell’aperitivo

traditional crostini (crostini semplici)

The best of life

SOME NOTES ON PREPARING PASTA

a basic beef sugo (ragù napoletano or ragù di manzo)

ragù di salsiccia

a light tomato sauce (sugo di pomodori freschi)

a medium to rich tomato sauce (sugo di pomodori)

the soffritto

trofie with pesto (trofie al pesto genovese)

trofie with potatoes and green beans trofie al pesto, con patate e fagiolini)

stuffed pasta shells (conchiglioni ripieni)

bolognese sauce

béchamel sauce

pasta and bean stew Viticuso style (pasta e fagiol’ alla viticusar)

orzo with pesto and hazelnuts (orzo al pesto con nocciole)

spaghetti with a garlic and olive oil sauce (spaghetti all’aglio e olio)

La cucina povera

BRODO (BROTH OR STOCK)

vegetable stock

chicken stock

beef stock

pastina (small pasta for soup)

pastina in a broth (pastina in brodo)

stracciatella

PICCHIAPÒ

picchiapò

uova al sugo di pomodoro

a hearty soup (la minestra)

green minestrone (minestrone alla ligure)

pappa or pappocce’

RISOTTO

risotto with smoked haddock and peas (risotto di pesci e piselli)

risotto with mushrooms and black olives (risotto alla romana)

risotto with aubergines, basil and feta (risotto alle melanzane con basilico e feta)

risotto with beetroot, mint and goats cheese (risotto alla barbietola con formaggio di capra)

POLENTA

classic polenta (polenta al sugo di pomodoro)

scagliozzi (street food of the south)

Ports, boats and Marechiaro

fish soup (zuppa di pesci)

La cucina di terra

rough bread salad (panzanella)

BEANS, PULSES AND GREENS

Mariuccia’s lentils (insalata di lenticchie)

chickpea salad with black olives, green beans and lemons (insalata di ceci con olive, fagioli e limone)

bean and tuna salad with capers (insalata di fagioli con tonno e caperi)

butter bean salad with rocket and beef tomatoes (fagioli bianchi con rucola e pomodoro)

bean stew (fagioli all’uccelletto)

butter bean casserole (fagioli bianchi al forno)

sautéed greens (cicoria, cavolo nero, spinaci ripassati)

roasted fennel (finocchio al forno)

brussels sprouts with pancetta (cavoletti di Bruxelles o broccoletti con aglio e pancetta)

DRESSINGS

gremolata

pepperoncino

agrodolce

pangrattato

The sweet South

homemade ricotta (ricotta fresca)

A particular way of life

The food

The wine

The music

The language

Key to family collage

Acknowledgements

Introduction

Fiumicino airport

THE DISPLAY OF breads and bakes, of panini, fetching friselle, pane casareccio, pizze bianche (crisp and blistered and enough in themselves with just some salt); of Roman panatelle, fat, round and soft, topped with a light, golden crust, loaded and dripping, filled with a duo of folded, wafer-thin pancetta and guanciale, or salsiccia and caciocavallo cheese, sliced triangles of creamy, tangy goodness. Mozzarella in carrozza; a sandwich with hunks of mozzarella cheese, dipped in flour and milk then fried… glowing, crusty with melting cheese and mortadella focaccia with thick sliced provolone cheese wedges… all of these and more, at the counter of an airport café in Rome’s Fiumicino airport, have me wide-eyed and spellbound. My appetite explodes; my insides growl. I want to eat everything. I am at a loss as to what to choose.

My choice for coffee is simple. Any one of the dozen or so coffees on offer will do. No debate here about whether or not it will be good. It’s always good in Italy, even at airports. Indeed, it is particularly good at airports and railway stations, because Italians are always on the move and Italians need their coffee. Maybe I will have a caffè corretto with a little grappa added, to go with this one-time breakfast treat. Maybe I shouldn’t, it is only 10.30 in the morning after all.

I sweep the area with my gaze. I love watching Italians eat. I see elegantly turned out women, all sunglasses and hair, bangled and strappy, trousered and bloused; professional men, proudly male, in dark suits with white, white shirts and carefully knotted ties. Despite their Roman maniere, and all the affectations of people who know they are seen, and indeed want to be, they are tucking into their food con cuore (with a voracity from the depths of them). There is something unrestrainedly visceral about this. They bite hard, and – God Bless them for it – take huge mouthfuls, chew with vigour, savour every moment, talk at the same time, stop neither; and all in a context of refined, considered, stylish presentation. And I love these people.

Backstory and legend

As Letitia Clark comments in her book on the food of Sardinia, Bitter Honey: ‘Recipe books are not just books of recipes. They are also chronicles of traditions, stories, and memories’.

I was born in Edinburgh, into a post-war immigrant Italian family and brought up by my Italian grandmother, Mariuccia (née Coletta). In 1913, she and my grandfather, Emilio Rossi travelled to Scotland from Viticuso, a small village in Lazio, southern Italy. They settled in the Bonnington area of Edinburgh. Through their warm friendly manner, hard work and a real will to make a life here, they earned the affection and respect of their Scottish neighbours. However, very soon after Italy declared war on Britain in WW2, my grandfather was arrested as an Italian national and together with around 700 other Italian men was loaded onto the ill-fated Arandora Star, a converted passenger liner, which left from Liverpool on 2 July 1940 bound for Canada. The unmarked boat was still in British waters when it was torpedoed by a passing German submarine. My grandfather drowned, along with his brother, Pietro Rossi and most of the other Prisoners of War, some as young as 16 years old. The whole event took a short half hour. The dying took longer.

Every Italian family in Scotland was affected. On top of their traditional domestic responsibilities of children and home – and in our case, helping in the family café – women were now forced to take charge of family businesses and become primary breadwinners. Most were unable to read and write even in their own language. An even greater challenge was that of rebuilding trust, regaining acceptance and respectability within a community which had largely turned against them. This they did through graciousness, generosity and their winning ways. Many of my Scottish friends speak with huge affection of the hospitality shown to them by their Italian neighbours. The door was always open and they were always given a place at the family table, always energetically encouraged to ‘eat up’. Many saw themselves as part of these families. These strong, resilient women ensured through the values they passed on that their children and grandchildren had every opportunity to thrive, to deepen roots and to belong. As a community, we owe much to them.

Mariuccia (Grandma)

My creative memoir Language of My Choosing tells the story of the lifelong inspiration and influence of my grandma who was one of those women. Born almost ten years after she was widowed, I never cease to be amazed at her struggle and her determination to survive, at her wonderful belief, despite it all, in the generosity of the Scots and in human nature.

I grew up in and around the family café, The Copper Kettle, in Edinburgh’s Bruntsfield. My mother took over the running of the business when I was six years old and my father had left. My grandmother looked after me from then until her death in 1964 when I was 14. My childhood memories are different to those of the Scottish girls I was at school with; they are of Grandma around the kitchen and a home life dominated by café opening hours. The Copper Kettle was usually open every day of the year, including Christmas and New Year, and stayed open until late at night. I have then, magical memories of fresh ice cream churning, of frothy coffees and a hissing coffee machine, and the Viennese, earth-dark coffee beans that made our café so popular. Memories too of later, risky menu adventures, such as the brief departure from a menu with chips (always home cut!) to lemon sole cooked with muscatel raisins, and steak pizzaiuola (thin cuts poached in a rich tomato sauce).

I learned so much from Grandma. I clearly remember her careful tones in broken English, interspersed with choice words and old sayings in a Lazio dialect. I was in awe of her. She was fierce and energetic. Tenderness was less her way. Yet I loved her quaint mantras, her sage, old world wisdom and philosophy of life. I am reminded of her often and I am warmed by Italian friends on social media who articulate that same simple world view; speaking their truth and their joy in nature, outpouring their gratitude and deep respect for all that the land brings. Anna del Conte rightly tells us that Italians like to eat what they see growing. My Italian friends living in Roccasecca, Picinisco and Casalvieri put up canny shots of baskets overflowing with ripe kiwi and cherries, of courgettes freshly picked and preserved in jars, laid down for another season. They post photos of their olive groves, their orange trees ripe for the harvesting in carefully tended orchards. This for me is photographic poetry.

Grandma’s survival in the hardest times came from her belief in the importance of fresh produce. Her diet and what we ate at home consisted mainly of vegetables and pulses. I can still see her quickening her pace in excitement at suddenly coming upon a delicately green, crunchy-leaved display of newly arrived frisée lettuces outside the local greengrocers. Rushing home with two in her bag, she first graced them with an olive oil and vinegar dressing… first the oil and then the vinegar. To this she added minced garlic and a chopped, hard-boiled egg. The taste of this salad with its eggy dressing was just delicious.

It was Grandma’s values, the woman that she was through her personal journey of survival and my early years of being steeped in the rich simplicity of rural Italian cuisine, together with the spinning plates, the rock and roll, high octane years of café life, which underpin my lifelong affair with food and the kitchen.

Typically, women of her time and tradition were never wasteful. Grandma’s repertoire of dishes was limited, based on few ingredients and even fewer cooking techniques. But she turned leftovers into feasts. Her sugo was quintessential. Her pizzas irreplaceable, the dough made with only two ingredients, flour and eggs… and only two ingredients for a topping… strips of tomato and golden, sizzling garlic; finished of course with olive oil. Tomatoes even in Scotland were plentiful but lacking the sweetness of the Mezzogiorno sun. To achieve the flavours she craved, she grew herbs, parsley and mint mainly, in a small patch of earth behind her Bruntsfield flat.

Living to eat

Magnaccioni: My Food… My Italy celebrates this precious cultural legacy. Magnaccioni is a Roman word meaning people ‘who live to eat well’, who seek plenty of good fare. In southern Italian homes magnaccioni are approved of, encouraged to eat and ask for more. I admit to still being seduced by these old ideas. If you like your food you are trustworthy, wholesome and genuine. You are vibrant, a lover of all that life offers, someone to be invited and enjoyed. Because of this cultural philosophy, no meal for me is a quickly put together, rustled up affair. Whether alone or with my partner and family every meal is planned as pleasure. Eating for me and for those around me is always something to look forward to. I am an enthusiastic home cook.

When you come to my home, I want you to be happy. And I show my love and appreciation of you through cooking for you. When my girls come home, when visitors come from afar, it is not unusual for me to start preparations several days in advance and to cook for two or three days. These are joyful days well spent. And how better surely, to comfort, coddle or seduce than to put up a plate of crunchy fried fish, made golden with a virgin oil from the Molise area of Italy; richly studded with small slivers of garlic and fresh oregano leaves which have been lovingly cultivated in terracotta. What better than a fat chicken, stuffed with lemons, garlic and rosemary, served at room temperature, on pristine platters, laced with assorted green salad leaves and a scattering of fried sage leaves.

Healing powers

When I am overworked, anxious or stressed, food comforts and reassures me. And at every high point in life a celebratory meal, a feast, a zuppa di pesci, a fine ossobuco, or a mighty platter of meats and cheese, food marks the merrymaking and jubilation. Food can also bring me hope. It can restore me to positivity and optimism. The early days of the pandemic were days of empty city centre streets and blacked out shops; days when to walk in Edinburgh’s main streets which had previously been thronging thoroughfares, felt frightening because I walked alone… the built environment succumbing to forces we could no longer keep at bay. In the days that followed, a friend brought me olive oil from the grove of a family friend in Picinisco. Still in the recycled Cinzano bottle into which it had been decanted, the oil shone wondrously golden, warm and strength-giving on my kitchen counter. To me it said: the earth goes on, the sun will return. You will embrace your people again.

Cucina povera… cucina di terra

The recipes in this book come from my experience of eating wonderful and plentiful home-cooked meals, and watching them being prepared, often in very basic kitchens, by women expert at their craft whose skills had been handed down through generations. These are women who know instinctively, by eye, by feel, smell or touch, how to get the best from whatever is ripe for the picking. Homes such as these are where the culinary inventiveness and genius of Italy is to be found. It is in home kitchens where la cucina povera, la cucina di terra, a style of cooking that is basic, culled from peasant fare, based mainly on vegetables and pulses, often on leftovers too, is at its very best. This is una cucina which is unselfconscious, straightforward, coming directly from ground to table; it is fresh, nourishing, for both body and spirit. Meat and fish do show up; cured meats such as salami, prosciutto, cotechino and salsiccia too, but in small quantities, as trimmings, flavourings or for celebrations.

Rural Italy knows how best to respect the land and be alive to climate and the environment.

As Marcella Hazan, the goddess of Italian cooking, writes:

There is no such thing as Italian haute cuisine, because there are no high roads or low roads in Italian cooking. All roads lead to the home, to la cucina di casa – the only one that deserves to be called Italian cooking.

My kitchen is basic with little equipment. I have an old-school Moka for my espresso and a cafetière for guests. (I leave the art of lattes and macchiatos to the many fine baristas around Edinburgh). My only real indulgence is a food processor. I smash garlic with a knife, separate eggs with my hands and beat them with a fork. I squeeze lemons through my fingers to catch the pips. And there is no better pesto than one you make in your kitchen in ten minutes. If you have nuts, a suitable herb (and most are), olive oil and garlic, you have a pesto! If you don’t have a food processor, a basic grater or a mortar and pestle will do, though it will take a bit longer.

Lifestyle and philosophy

There is little more exciting for me than a market overflowing with aromas, purposeful people intent on getting the best cut for dinner, or a cheese that matches what is in the cellar; with newly pulled lettuces bristling with freshness, cauliflowers in magnificent bloom, onions ochred, yellow or pale and silky, garlic plump and purple (sometimes flamingo pink) trailing over benches, crowding and bulging from wicker baskets; and peppers, large and curvy, red as lanterns; all these make me giddy with excitement. And I see myself living another life in a small Roman kitchen, or a small French town, bustling about with gigantic stock pots, working dough and tending marjoram, oregano, mint and some rosemary perhaps, at my doorstep. Food is my constant life adventure. Between lovers and within family, it is interplay, bonding, enjoying the sweetness of familiarity brought by years. Food is flighty, often capricious on the stove and flirtatious on the chopping board, sometimes promising little and then to everyone’s surprise, giving all and more, making you, the cook, proud. Food is also theatre, a song that reverberates around your walls, a beacon of hope and promise for a gathering, a common language with which we can connect. It is an aesthetic, and a wondrous example of the beauty within and around us in our world. Ultimately food can, across worlds, societies, cultures, seas and landscapes, link us directly to that elemental surge of life within underlands and overlands; and between all the layers of the wondrous planet we inhabit. Food is most surely the ultimate and supreme gift from this generous, boundless universe that we are privileged to share.

There is little science or chemistry in these pages. My inspiration has been those writers for whom recipes are not the whole story… whose interest lies equally in the culture, traditions and particular philosophy of life, purposefully articulated through what and who is in the kitchen and what food is on the plate. I can think of no better evocation of the shops and streets, the day-to-day of Rome’s Testaccio district, than Rachel Roddy’s stories about handfuls of herbs and her dealings with the local fishmonger. In Tokyo Stories, Tim Anderson brings the vibrant, bustling streets of Tokyo alive through his descriptions of fast food which provide a fascinating and authentic insight into life in Japan. In Ammu, Asma Khan transports us right to the table of an Indian home kitchen. She weaves family history and memories with recipes and we suddenly find ourselves enjoying her mother’s cooking with Asma herself, a child, among her many, excitable relatives. I treasure time spent with my cookery books (pictured above) as I do with dear friends and family.

Taking my lead from Nigel Slater and Jamie Oliver, as a general rule, I like to present my food on serving dishes in the middle of the table so people can help themselves. It is so appetising to see platters of heaped green vegetables drizzled with something tangy and glistening on one side, a deep pot of something sizzling and richly dark centre stage and a bowl of a herby dressing to be handed around. Helping yourself and others is also a lovely way of creating a sense of togetherness. For me, this is preferable to being given a set plate with all I might eat on it. It may be for that reason that almost as much as Italian food, I love the dishes of Spain, Greece, China, Vietnam and the Levant. Like an Italian table, every meal vibrant with colour and choice.

In this book, I have not been specific about measurements and quantities, or about how many people the recipes will serve. Experienced or inexperienced as you might be, I encourage you to trust your own instinct as a cook and adapt quantities and flavourings as you think appropriate but always keeping to the italianismo of it. Cheddar cheese is not an alternative to a gritty hunk of pecorino and bacon will never provide what prosciutto can give a dish (not even a prosciutto cotto will do). Quantities depend also on appetite and enjoyment. Magnaccioni, unashamedly may sometimes go well beyond what is commonly decent and why not? My own view is that it’s best to make too much… leftovers, like a good Indian stew or a sugo from Venafro, generally taste even better the next day. Especially when they reappear as a pasta frittata, strands and moist egg temptingly entwined; or quite simply a pasta al forno, still rich and red, bubbling and bathed in mozzarella and pecorino.

Magnaccioni is then, less a cookery book, more a celebration of the people, culture, way of life and food of southern Italy. It is a book to be dipped into. The recipes I have chosen to include are all about flavouring and good quality fresh produce, requiring few ingredients.

Where I mention ‘Italy’ and ‘Italians’, generally I am referring to traditions in the cultural South… the Mezzogiorno… and very often, specifically to la ciociarìa, the culture, language and traditions in the area around Rome and Naples. Italy has only been a unified nation for 150 years. Its many dialects – 36 in all – each with its own distinctive sound, vocabulary and idioms, and its diverse traditions, still warmly resonate, especially throughout the South. Increasingly these ‘old languages’ are now celebrated in song and in the literature of today. Italy and italianismo, is then, a complex business. Campanilismo means one’s cultural identity is defined by exactly where in Italy one comes from: sono Toscano, sono da Milano, sono cresciuto in Sardegna (I’m Tuscan; I come from Milan; I grew up in Sardinia). When I visit Milan or Florence, I am often asked where I come from or how is it that I speak Italian so well. In Rome and the south, that question is never asked. My Italian, south of Umbria, has come home. The further south I travel, the more fluent, or native, I become.

These regional, linguistic and cultural differences apply to food as well; to cooking styles, to choices about ingredients and to what people like to eat. That’s what makes eating in Italy so exciting. The food of Rome is not the food of Milan. Nor is the food of Milan or Venice the food of Tuscany or Sicily. Somewhere in the centre of this colourful and idiosyncratic country, butter for sautéing and dressing a finished dish, becomes olive oil. Polenta and rice become pasta and patate… maybe at a pinch, crespelle (savoury pancakes usually stuffed and cooked in the oven). From Tuscany downwards, it is the glorious tomato in all its luscious incarnations, in all the different states of ripeness and colour that is queen of the kitchen in all that is required of it: be it a hearty ragú for pasta, a tasty topping for pizza, a rich sauce combined with grated pecorino for a bubbling crespelle or even as an alternative presentation of focaccia rather than rosemary and rock salt which is more traditional. Large, soft, misshapen tomatoes, vivid green, near black or a ruby red, or a mix of all three will add drama and sweetness to an insaladone (a big salad), and layered in large slices with stale bread and onions, kept at room temperature even for a day or two, will deliver mouth watering, irresistible panzanellas (bread salads). When stuffed with salty ham, gran padano cheese and breadcrumbs with maybe a chopped olive or two or a few capers, then toasted in olive oil in a hot oven, tomatoes can be stretched to a complete meal. For me, while I choose tomatoes in some form almost every day, I often have them for breakfast, grated or chopped on toasted bread, the tomato is particularly magnificent as First Lady in an insalata di pomodori con cipolla e olio vergine, (a tomato and onion salad with virgin olive oil). It is in the South that we also find lush olives and by extension, the prized first pressing of cloudy, green, smokey yet indulgently creamy oil from the hand-picked fruits of the grove. Exported italianismo… pizza and pasta, in no way come close to what Italy has to offer; it would be such a missed opportunity to think otherwise. Like its lingua franca, the common language, neither pizza nor pasta sumptuous as they are, fully represent the endless choices for meat-eaters, for lovers particularly of rabbit, boar, veal and even offal (a speciality particularly in Rome). On a peninsula where the sea is never far, the choice of fish and plump, fresh seafood is without limits as are ways of cooking them. And vegetarians can feast in equal measure on dishes of various lentils, on barley and on exciting dishes of tasty beans, be they green, fava, cannellini or borlotti.