Italians and their food

Every great culture will tell you that their cuisine is the best. Gourmands will tell you that classical French cooking reigns supreme. It is what most "Fine Dining" restaurants base their dishes on. Chinese, real Chinese, not the typical overcooked, greasy Chow Mien found in most Chinese restaurants, Italian, Thai, Spanish, Indian and various other cuisines can make their case as well. People from those cultures will tell you their food is the best. It's what they grew up eating and what they are the most familiar with. I grew up eating Italian food. I won't tell you it is the best cuisine in the world, since you may have grown up eating other types of food, but I will tell you that Italians celebrate great food more than any other culture I know. A great meal is almost a religious experience. Friends and family gather to eat, drink, talk and argue, but the focus is always on the food. There's always too much. Maybe we fear we'll run out of food tomorrow, or someone will waste away. Great food and lots of it is a sign of prosperity even if we're not really well off. During the Depression, my Grandmother would feed her family and half the neighborhood great meals (always more than enough for everyone) even though they were no better off than any one else and worse off than most. Whenever my family gets together, no matter how many their are, we always wind up congregating in the kitchen, no matter how small the kitchen may be. We talk about what is being cooked at the moment and what we're going to have for the next meal, or some great dish we had recently, or some great dish we want to try. It's not an obsession. Nobody in my family is overweight or has an eating disorder. It's just an appreciation for one of life's great pleasures. Oh. The picture above is a seafood cous cous my wife had on the last night of our most recent trip to Sicily. As in most Italian dishes, it was made with ingredients caught or harvested that day, prepared simply, served with great pride, and proportioned to feed a family of four.

In Praise of the Braise

I love to cook. I'm really good at it. This time of year particularly suits my cooking and eating style. Hearty foods on chilly nights. Dinner cooked in one pot with some hot crunchy bread. One of my favorite methods of cooking is braising. It's really quite simple and fool proof if you follow some basic techniques. A good braise includes meat or poultry, some savory vegetables, a good meat or vegetable stock that includes an acidic element like wine or tomatoes and a variety of spices. You need a good heavy pot ( I love cast iron because it heats evenly, is virtually indestructible and you can use it on a stove top or in the oven) . Braising is a style of cooking that evolved as a method of cooking tough cuts of meat by people that couldn't afford better cuts. Many classical or high cuisine dishes are direct descendants of these peasant dishes. Coq au Vin is one. The dish pictured here is one I made that has some Moroccan influences. Here you go.

The meat. One cut up (organic) chicken. I always buy whole chickens and cut them up myself. I remove the wings, thighs, legs and breasts from the body and have a nice carcass to make stock with.

The vegetables. 1 large onion thinly sliced, two good size carrots diced small, 2 or 3 celery sticks diced small. 3 or 4 garlic cloves crushed and 2 cans of garbanzo beans.

The stock. 1 quart chicken stock. (Your own home made is best, but it is easy to find good organic chicken broth these days) and 1 16 oz can of whole tomatoes.

The spices. Olive oil, 1 t salt, 1 t pepper, 1/4 t cinnamon, 1/4 t cumin, 1/4 t cloves, 1/4 t nutmeg 1/2 cup golden raisins and 1/4 cup honey.

Put it together. Dredge chicken in some flour. Heat pot, add olive oil, heat oil till smoking, reduce heat to medium, add chicken and brown on all sides. Remove chicken. Add carrot, onion, celery and garlic into pot and brown. Add chicken back to pot. Add stock, tomatoes, garbanzo beans and spices except for raisins and honey. Lower heat to med low, cover and let cook for 1 hour. Add honey and cook for another 1/2 hour. Add raisins and cook for final 1/2 hour. Adjust salt to taste. Serve with rice, hot crunchy bread or flour tortillas. Enjoy.

Sunday Gravy

I learned to cook from my mother. She he learned to cook from her mother. My grandmother was the best cook I ever met. She did things with food that still amaze me. I remember the smells and tastes like they were yesterday. I make my Sunday gravy the way my mother did. It's really good, but not as good as hers. She makes hers the way my grandmother did. It's really good, but not as good as my grandmothers'. It's funny how you can do things the same, use the same ingredients and techniques but somehow it still turns out differently.

There are as many different sauces and recipes for pasta as there are people. Quick tomato sauces, sauces with a cream base, plain olive oil, garlic and hot pepper etc. To me, Sunday Gravy is the true test of a good cook. It's a meat sauce that cooks for a good part of the day. It fills the house with a wonderful aroma and by the time it is done, your mouth is watering and and you can't wait to dig in. Forget the salad, pass the pasta. My grandmother would often use pigs feet as the meat for her sauce. I never really got into eating them, but they really add an incredible flavor to the gravy. Sometimes she would also add Italian sausage or meatballs. Sometimes all three. Most often the Sunday Gravy was served over pasta, sometimes over her home made ravioli (unbelievably good meat ravioli). Rich and intense in color and flavor, her Sunday Gravy was a labor of love. She suffered from Rheumatoid Arthritis for most of her adult life so just standing at the stove was painful. I often wonder if that was an element in the greatness of her cooking. She loved cooking for the people she loved, and it came through. Following is my recipe for Sunday Gravy. Enjoy.

The meat. I think pork makes the best Sunday Gravy. Not a lean cut, something with some fat and bone. Pork ribs work really well. Cut them into 3 inch lengths. Beef short ribs work well also. You can add some Italian Sausage as well. Use a couple of pounds of meat not including the sausage.

The tomatoes. I really like ground tomatoes. They add a really nice texture. You can add tomato paste for a thicker sauce if you like. Since it cooks all day, I usually leave it out.

The spices. My family is from Sicily and the cooking was influenced by the cuisines of North Africa. Sweet spices are used in many savory dishes. I use cloves, anise seeds, fennel seeds salt, pepper, sugar and red wine in my Sunday Gravy.

The rest. Good olive oil, onions and garlic.

Put it together.

Heat large pot (6 quart or larger) over medium heat. Add olive oil and heat till smoking. Add meat (not the sausage) and brown. Reduce heat a bit. A good rule to keep things from sticking is to heat the pot, add and heat the oil, then add the item to be browned. Remove the meat after it has browned. Add one large diced onion. Saute 5 minutes. Add 4 cloves diced garlic. Saute till onions are translucent. Add 4 whole cloves, 1 teaspoon anise and fennel seeds. Saute a couple of minutes more. Return meat to the pot. Add 3 large cans ground tomatoes and bring to a boil. reduce heat to low. Add 1 tablespoon of sugar and one cup of red wine. Add fresh ground pepper and a teaspoon of salt. Be careful with the salt. Since the Gravy is going to cook all day(at least 4 hours) it is really easy to over salt. If you are going to add sausage, brown it and add it to the gravy at this point. Stir every 10 to 15 minutes so the gravy doesn't burn on the bottom. Taste when you stir and adjust seasonings, more sugar, wine, pepper. You want a nice balance of sweet from the sugar and acid from the wine. Let it cook at least four hours partially covered. Just before serving, add salt to taste. A little under salted is good if you are going to top your pasta with Parmesian cheese. Serve over your favorite style of pasta, something that will stand up to the gravy. Enjoy.

Chilies

My main criteria in choosing where to live is whether or not I can grow tomatoes and peppers. I am not what you could call an expert gardener, but I do pretty well with tomatoes and peppers of the heirloom variety. I like spicy food. I really like spicy food. There are definitely some things that adding heat to will destroy, but for the most part, I will add some sort of heat to whatever I am eating. As usual I grew a good variety of peppers this year; Back Hungarian, Bulgarian Carrot, Fish, Jalapeno, Serrano and Thai Dragon. As the season progresses, I will add fresh peppers to what I cook as the peppers ripen. Some I pick green, others l let mature fully until they turn red, orange or purple depending on the variety. Some I will hang on strings and let dry. This year was good in terms of production. As a matter of fact, I still have some Thai Dragons on the vine. I don't really know why some years are better than others. If I did, I could call myself an expert gardener. I love almost all members of the edible Nightshade family. (Frankly I don't understand eggplant. To me it's like eating an oil soaked sponge most of the time.) This may explain my addiction to tobacco. Peppers are really quite easy to grow. I use the organic method and therefor I lose a certain amount to bugs but I am willing lose some and not poison the ground. This year I made a couple of batches of Harissa, a Middle Eastern chili paste inspired by the wonderful Moroccan restaurant I work at as a server. It's very simple and very delicious. Here's the recipe;

8 ounces dried hot chilies, stems removed. Leave the seeds. (If you don't have your own dried chilies, use De Arbol, Japones or any other type you like. )

2 cloves Garlic

Olive oil

1/2 teaspoon Cumin seed

1/2 teaspoon Caraway seeds

Put the dry ingredients in a blender and turn it on. Drizzle enough olive oil into the blender to make a paste, but don't puree it. Leave some texture. Store in a jar. It will keep indefinitely in the fridge.

This is a great thing to add to soups, stews, eggs or anything else you like hot. Add it to your own portion unless everyone likes thier food spicy. Enjoy.