Science in the Kitchen and the Art of Eating Well (114 page)

15
. See the note on “battuto” in the next recipe.

16
“Battuto” provides the foundation for numberless dishes. It usually consists of finely chopped prosciutto or “pancetta,” onion and/or garlic, and other ingredients; once sautéed, it is called “soffritto.”

17
A facetious revision of Dante’s declaration (Inferno xxxii, 7-9) of his difficulty in describing “the bottom of the universe,” i.e. the lowest circle of Hell.

18
These are old Tuscan silver coins.

19
Carlo Goldoni (1707-1793) is considered one of the most eminent Italian playwrights.

20
A play on the Tuscan expression, “It goes with it like Pilate in the Credo,” which means that the two items in question are not especially suited to each other. See Pauli,
Tuscan Proverbs Researched as to Their Origins, p
. 76.

21
In Italian the expression “to walk like prawn” (“camminare come i gamberi”) commonly means “to walk backwards” (or “sideways”), somewhat like the English “to move like a crab.”

22
“Pasta asciutta” (literally, “dry pasta”) is the common term for pasta served by itself with a sauce, and not in a broth (hence, “dry”).

23
One of the many fanciful names given to the various kinds of pasta—for example, butterflies (farfalle), angel hair (capelli d’angelo), little ears (orecchiette), priest-chokers (strozzapreti), and so on.

24
Artusi clearly intends, by the term “ravioli,” a different sort of dumpling from what we commonly understand by that term. This becomes even more apparent in recipe 99.

25
Brandade
of cod, a traditional Provencal dish.

26
Jean-Anthelme Brillat-Savarin (1755-1826), a celebrated French gastronomist and magistrate, perhaps best known today for his book,
La physiologie du goût
(1825).

27
Moritz Schiff (Frankfurt am Main 1822-Geneva 1896), physiologist and naturalist. Director at Frankfurt of the Department of Ornithology at the Museum of Zoology, from 1854 to 1863 he taught comparative anatomy at the University of Bern; from 1853 to 1878 he was professor of physiology at the Institute of Advanced Studies in Florence. From 1876 until his death he was professor of physiology at the University of Geneva.

28
The expression “al canapè” was formerly used to mean a layer of bread or biscuit on which a dressing of meat, fish, etc., was served.

29
The Italian term is “frittata,” which nowadays is distinguished from the omelette by the fact that it is not folded in two when nearly cooked. Artusi’s omelettes for Recipes 146 and 152 are, however, folded, and for this and stylistic considerations, we have translated frittata as omelette.

30
The coin referred to here is medium size, by current North American standards.

31
See the note to recipe 146.

32
This is an old coin, much larger than the coin mentioned previously (see notes to recipes 146 and 161).

33
A marshy, coastal region of Tuscany on the Tyrrhenian Sea.

34
See the note to recipe 162.

35
A marshy region in Tuscany, famous for its horses. See note to recipe 163.

36
Stenterello is a character in the “commedia dell’arte,” known particularly for his cow-ardice and constant hunger.

37
“Tondone” literally means “large disk.”

38
This is a German word denoting a doughnut-shaped fritter, related to the bagel.

39
Artusi here is punning on the word for pastry puff, “bomba,” which also means bomb.

40
This is a German word for a small leavened bun, shaped like a crescent moon.

41
Decameron
VII, 7, translated by G.H. McWilliam (Penguin, 1972). The parenthesis is Artusi’s.

42
“Must” is the juice of grapes before it has fermented to produce wine. Artusi is referring here to concentrated must, i.e., must that is boiled down to between 2/3 and 1/2 of its original volume.

43
A traditional drink of the Romagna region, composed of half anisette and half rosolio, “fumetto” (little cloud) is so called because when poured in water it makes a little cloud.

44
See note to pteceding recipe.

45
Coratella
is specifically the heart, lungs, and spleen of a small animal.

46
Artusi’s wry (though inconsistent) italicization of the word cutlet, here and elsewhere in the text, is intended to underscore the word’s French derivation (
côtelette
).

47
So called (all’uccelletto) because of the sage, often used to season dishes of small wild birds.

48
Name of a famous tower in Bologna.

49
An allusion to the supposed aphrodisiacal powers of truffles.

50
See recipe 191.

51
A “pasticcio” is a sort of baked savory pie usually containing vegetables and/or meat, bound with bechamel or eggs.

52
Artusi was a student of letters; Orsini of jurisprudence. The latter was a famous Romagnoi patriot and freedom advocate. Orsini was one of the Italian patriots responsible for the attempt on Napoleon Ill’s life on January 14, 1858. Captured, he was the protagonist of a famous trial, at the end of which he received the death sentence and was executed.

53
Artusi is referring to Napoleon Ill’s involvement in Italy’s Second War of Independence (1859), successfully fought by Piedmont with the support of the French against the Austro-Hungarian Empire.

54
“Bondiole” are a linked variety of boiling sausage nearly spherical in shape. Ground pork is stuffed into turkey bladders, which are then tied together.

55
See recipe 192.

56
A distilled water, named for the Queen of Hungary, for whose use it was first prepared; made with rosemary flowers infused in wine spirits, and used as a restorative.

57
The acid juice (literally “green juice”) from unripened grapes, used as a condiment and for deglazing.

58
Artusi is making fun of an Italian transcription of the English “pigeon pie.”

59
In Italian “timballo” also means timbal or kettledrum,

60
Artusi is making a pun on the word “robinet,” meaning “faucet.”

61
“Coteghino,” or today more commonly “cotechino,” is a rather large sausage made with pork rind mixed with lean pork and back fat, usually flavored with salt, pepper, cloves, and cinnamon. This sausage is meant to be cooked before it is eaten. It is a fat-rich, hearty food.

62
The fatty membrane that lines the stomach of a pig.

63
A “sformato” is a kind of savory pudding, usually made in a mold with a coarse purée of vegetables, chicken, or fish, usually bound with eggs and bechamel sauce.

64
Giacomo Leopardi (1798-1837) a celebrated Italian poet and essayist, best known for his lyrical verses.

65
An aromatic plant of the mint family, also called “basil thyme.”

66
A flavorful dried grape from the Middle East.

67
Artusi is referring here to the bloody struggles between the supporters of the Emperor (Ghibellines) and the supporters of the Pope (Guelphs) that brought strife to Italy in the late Middle Ages. The Ghibellines were defeated, but the antagonism between the two parties resurfaced as a struggle between the White and the Black factions in the Guelph party.

68
A sausage mixture stuffed into a boned pig’s foot.

69
Giuseppe Rigutini (1829-1903), a lexicographer whose works include a
Dictionary of Spoken Italian
.

70
In the original Italian, this is a pun on the word “passato” (meaning “purée” in this context), which also means “past.” The pun also plays on Artusi’s running polemic against the “modern” fashion of using French words in gastronomy.

70
The juice of grapes before it has fermented to produce wine.

71
See note to recipe 382.

72
As Edward Giobbi points out, what Artusi means by “broccoli di rapa” is not what is now known in English as “broccoli rabe” or “rapini,” but rather “cime di rapa” or turnip greens.

73
Needless to say, this is a monastic order known for its austere way of life.

74
The term barbarous is derived from a Greek root which literally means “foreign.”

75
Lest the reader be confused, we should note a small lapse on Artusi’s part. The author says “Mediterranean (Sea)” when he means the Tyrrhenian Sea (Italy’s west coast) in contrast to the Adriatic Sea (Italy’s east coast), both of which are part of the Mediterranean Sea.

76
In 1861.

77
Also called angel fish or monk fish.

78
An official in the government of Augustus, Pollio died in 15 B.C. The stratagem used by Augustus (ruled 27 B.C.-14 A.D.) was to break all of the remaining crystal goblets himself.

79
Highly prized by the ancient Greeks and Romans, “garum” was a sauce made by soaking fish intestines and pieces of fish in brine with aromatic herbs; it was used as a condiment in cooking, as well as added to dishes at the table.

80
This type of lobster is smaller than the lobster familiar to North Americans, and does not have claws. Also called spiny lobster or langouste.

81
The cockle shell or scallop is a symbol of St. James the Greater, and was traditionally worn by pilgrims traveling to the shrine of the saint in Santiago de Compostela, Spain.

82
The term “pesce azzurro” (blue fish), or, as Artusi more poetically writes, “pesci turchini,” includes tuna, sardines, anchovies, mackerel, and herring.

83
If you find this confusing, see the note to recipe 455.

84
In Italian, “cicale” can mean both cicadas and squill.

85
Actually, they are both
Squilla mantis
.

86
Purgatory, XXIV, 24.

87
Renato Fucini (1843-1921) was the author of poetry and prose in both the Italian language and the Tuscan dialect, and very knowledgeable about the Tuscan countryside; some of his works were written under the anagrammatic pseudonym
Neri Tanfucio
.

88
A sauce for fish, usually made with some kind of greens, parsley, garlic, and olive oil; probably derived from the Arabic word
samîn
.

89
This is the case in Italian, where the thigh is called “anca” (hip), the leg “coscia” (thigh), and so on.

89
A deep brown dessert wine.

90
An ancient variety of hard wheat, made up of small brown grains.

91
Act IV, scene 2 (published in 1524).

92
See note to recipe 328.

93
Similar to a T-bonc steak. In contemporary Italian the term “bistecca” is mostly used to identify a method of cooking rather than a particular cut of meat.

95
This sugar is made by keeping a whole vanilla bean closed up in a canister of confectioners’ sugar.

94
See the note in Artusi’s introduction to the section on sauces.

96
This is an old Norman term dating back to 1404, from
brier {broyer), “
to break apart.”

97
Pasta frolla
, a short pastry made with butter and/or lard and eggs.

98
Frangipane
is a pastry cream that takes its name from the Marquis Muzio Frangiparii, a sixteenth-century nobleman living in Paris who invented a perfume based on bitter almonds.

99
A sugar-based liqueur; see recipe 747.

100
Made by coarsely grinding durum wheat.

101
Artusi is talking about baking powder.

102
A particularly flavorful, plump dried grape from the Middle East.

103
Decameron
V, 2.

104
An epigram from Filippo Panati’s
Works in Verse and Prose
(Florence, 1824).

105
A concentrated, highly aromatic golden-colored wine, usually sweet but sometimes dry. It gets its name from the fact that it is used for the celebration of the eucharist during mass.

106
Marietta Sabatini, Artusi’s cook.

107
I.e., a thickening agent such as cornstarch.

108
Farro
, an ancient variety of wheat with small brown grains.

109
In classical mythology, Cerberus is the three-headed dog that guards the entrance to theinfernal regions.

110
A cordial flavored with rose petals, cloves, cinnamon, etc.

111
A liqueur that derives its red color from the kermes insect. It is made with spices and scented with rose, jasmine, and iris.

112
Quintains are tilting posts (used in the medieval sport of tilting), and, by extension, frivolous pastimes.