Why Italians Love to Talk About Food (13 page)

 

The sight of Gorgonzola did not always provoke such feelings of gratitude in everyone, however. The historian Massimo Caprara tells of the Mantuan socialist Andrea Bertazzoni, who fled to the Soviet Union after being sentenced to twenty years' imprisonment in Italy. Before getting into difficulties, Bertazzoni had worked as secretary of an agricultural cooperative in San Benedetto Po, and had specialized in zootechnics and the breeding of milch cows. Once in Russia, he decided to set up a dairy concern in the region of Rostov and managed the production of this cheese factory
with success and satisfaction, dedicating all his free time to socialist edification. The factory produced Gorgonzola. In 1936, even before the outbreak of Stalinist terror, the cheese came to the attention of one of the heads of the local GPU (Gosudarstvennoe Pravovoe Upravlenie, the Communist Secret Police, a forerunner of the KGB), Viktor Garm, and based on the external appearance of the product, the Italian specialist was immediately arrested for sabotage. Newspaper headlines read:
SOCIALIST-FASCIST SABOTAGE. TROTSKYIST AGENTS POISON THE CHEESE
. The intervention of the people's commissioner to the food industry, Anastas Mikoyan, was indispensable; though the word “Gorgonzola” meant nothing to him, he had some idea of French Roquefort. An expert in dairy technology from the commissariat of the people, a Professor Slepkov, was sent to Rostov, and confirmed the conscientiousness of the manufacturers. Nevertheless, during the war he had to change professions, suffered unimaginable hunger, became a shoemaker, and, pickax in hand, contributed to the construction of the Fergana Canal and slept in the caravansaries, on the hard earth of the Sunni Muslims.
¹⁰

The northern part of Lombardy is completely occupied by high mountains and the south by plains cultivated as rice paddies. It was in these same lowlands that the fascinating heroine of Giuseppe De Santis's
Riso amaro
(
Bitter Rice
) worked. In the film, the unforgettable actress Silvana Mangano played the part of a
mondina
(rice picker), one of the women who worked as seasonal laborers, day and night for two months, in water up to their knees, pulling up the plants in order to earn a few sacks of rice for themselves and their families. The job of
pilota
(husker) is also related to rice growing. It had nothing to do with aviation:
piloti
were the laborers assigned to husk the rice, separating the grains from the glume. The word
pilota
derives from
pilare
, to husk or hull. Still today in Villimpenta, near Mantua, the
sagra
of
risotto alla pilota
(
pilota
-style risotto) is celebrated on the second Sunday of May. On that day, a gigantic cauldron full of risotto with pork, spices, and herbs is carried into the piazza.

Risotto, as is by now known throughout the world, is the center and fulcrum of Milanese cuisine. The original risotto was made with ox marrow, golden in color and known for its medicinal taste, because the saffron used to flavor it was at the time a popular folk remedy for various ailments. Legend has it that the originator of the recipe was a master glassmaker from the studio of the famous Valerio di Fiandra (creator of the stained-glass windows of the Duomo of Milan) who in 1574 dropped a paintbrush dipped in saffron yellow into the rice. Is it true that every dish, in that century of opulence, the Baroque era, contained real gold? In our days this myth is
upheld by the distinguished restaurateur Gualtiero Marchesi, on whose plates of risotto a small lozenge of the thinnest edible gold leaf actually floats. And is it true that the saffron added to Milanese risotto has the magical properties of a love potion?

In the sixteenth century Bartolomeo Scappi provided this recipe for Lombard risotto:

 

To make a dish of Lombard-style rice
sottestata
[browned] with boneless chicken,
cervellate
[a kind of pork blood sausage with brains], and egg yolks.

Take the rice cleaned as described above and cook it in a broth in which capons, geese, and blood sausages have been cooked; and when it is cooked so that it is firm, take part of this rice and place it in a large earthenware plate or one of silver, or rather tin, and sprinkle it with cheese, sugar, and cinnamon; then place over this rice some tiny dabs of fresh butter and boneless capon breast and goose with blood sausage cut into pieces, and again sprinkle with cheese, sugar, and cinnamon. In this way three layers are created, the last drizzled with melted fresh butter and sprinkled with the same mixture; it is then placed in an oven which is not too hot, and left to bake for half an hour until it takes on a little color; sprinkle with rosewater and serve hot. This rice can also be prepared another way: that is, once cooked, place butter on a plate, along with slices of fresh, unsalted
provatura
[mozzarella made from buffalo milk], and sprinkle with sugar and cinnamon and grated cheese; over that place the rice, and on the rice put fresh raw egg yolks, depending on the amount of rice, having however made depressions in the rice where the egg yolks will be placed; then over the egg yolks add more slices of
provatura
sprinkled with sugar, cheese, and cinnamon, and then cover it all with some more rice. In this way two or three layers can be made, with a little butter on top; let it bake over hot coals, or in the oven as above, and serve hot.

 

As we see, the addition of saffron to Milanese risotto was not yet in practice. And this is not surprising: saffron came to Lombardy with the Spanish, and became established in Milanese cuisine not in the sixteenth century, but in the seventeenth.

While this one gastronomic emblem of Milan comes from Spain, the other, the veal cutlet, is of Austrian origin. This, the aforementioned Wiener schnitzel, reigns on a par with risotto on the Milanese menu, though it is called
cotoletta alla milanese
(veal cutlet dipped in beaten egg and bread crumbs). The Milanese, of course, assert that it was not the Viennese schnitzel that inspired the Milanese
cotoletta
, but vice versa. Supposedly the proof is in a certain letter from Marshal Radetzky to Count
Attems, aide-de-camp to Emperor Franz Josef, that refers to the Milanese cutlet as an amazing innovation. What reason would Marshal Radetzky have had to be amazed if the Viennese cutlet had already been discovered by culinary science? (Actually, contrary to Italians' wishes, the marshal might very well have been amazed. The Milanese cutlet, whose name comes specifically from
costola
, rib, includes the bone, while the Wiener schnitzel is boneless. The Milanese cutlet is not dredged in flour and then breaded like the Viennese one, but dipped into the egg and directly into the bread crumbs, which adhere firmly to the meat's surface. By contrast, the slice of meat that is hidden inside the Viennese schnitzel slips easily and readily out of its coating. On the whole, the Milanese
cotoletta
and Wiener schnitzel are two different dishes, though inspired by similar philosophies.)

Another typical product of Lombardy, absolutely inimitable and esteemed the world over, is
mostarda
from Cremona. It is produced starting with cooked, concentrated grape must, to which crushed mustard grains are added. Fruit—cherries, plums, pears, figs—is then left to steep in it. This sweet, spicy preparation with a divine taste is served with boiled meat.

Lombardy is hardworking, generous, solid, stubborn, and independent. Milan, by contrast, seems to have decided that having fun is laudable and that worrying is counterproductive. So it extended Carnival season to the maximum (“maximum” meaning four additional days, though even only four days subtracted from the Lenten period is worth something). The festival's desserts are particularly opulent. The cake prepared for Christmas,
panettone
, is baked and served in paper. The traditional dough of these breads contains candied fruit and raisins; in recent times, almonds, custard cream, and bits of chocolate have also been added. Then—to hell with the expense!—the cake is served warm at the table, dusted with confectioner's sugar, covered with frosting, and spread with mascarpone. The Easter cake is called the
colomba
(dove), and it is filled with caloric ingredients that reflect the same enthusiasm that characterizes
panettone
.

The cuisine of the opulent city of Mantua deserves separate attention. During the Renaissance, the architect Leon Battista Alberti and the painters Andrea Mantegna, Giulio Romano, Rubens, and van Dyck worked at the court of the Gonzagas. Europe's first operas, composed by Monteverdi and Guarini, were performed in the salons of Mantuan palazzos (without need of any scenography). At the court of Marchesa Isabella d'Este (1474–1539) banquets were given whose memory lives on today, thanks primarily to one of the leading Renaissance poets, Teofilo Folengo
(1491–1544). Folengo signed himself with the pseudonym Merlin Cocai in his famous poem
Baldus
, where the hero Cingar, describing Jove's cuisine, provides us with the twenty best recipes of the ducal table.

Queen Christina of Sweden (portrayed in a famous film of the early thirties by the inimitable Greta Garbo) went to Rome to visit the Pope in 1655 and converted to Catholicism (in Rome she is said to have founded, among other things, a society of sciences and letters, the Royal Academy, a forerunner of the Academy of Arcadia). In the course of her travels in Italy, the queen stayed at the sumptuous courts of the gentry and on November 27 was a guest of the Gonzaga princes in Mantua. The cook engaged for the occasion was one of the most illustrious and highly paid in Italy, as well as a celebrated writer: Bartolomeo Stefani, author of the book
L'arte di ben cucinare
(The art of cooking well), 1662. In his treatise Stefani transcribed from an old notebook the menu of the reception in honor of the queen, at which he had served strawberries and spinach in winter (as if both he and the queen were living in the twenty-first century). The main purpose of such cuisine, in keeping with Baroque tastes, was to inspire the awe and admiration of the guests.

Such lavish banquets were risky, however: the overfed guests might suddenly lose their taste for new dishes. To combat satiety, Mantuans began chewing slivers of Parmesan cheese between the sixteenth and seventeenth courses and between the twentieth and twenty-first courses. Even today it is thought that the taste of Parmesan “cleanses” the mouth and helps reduce strong impressions, preventing tastes and sensations from overlapping.