Garantito IGP: San Silvestro

 

This time I take the stand.

In 1984 I spent a couple of weeks on a Paleolithic dig in Gavorrano, one of the towns in the Val di Cornia; the work consisted of digging trenches in an area that was destined to become a road and sifting the dirt in search of man-made flint chips and such. Which we found in abundance, though no other traces of humanity had survived in that particular spot.

But one day we piled into our van and rattled over to the Valle dei Manienti, where Riccardo Francovich, an archaeologist with the University of Siena, and his students were peeling back a huge briar patch that had overgrown a hilltop; we could see crumbling walls in the areas they had already cleared and were told we were looking at the remains of a medieval mining town called San Silvestro. By the time the team finished clearing they had found a tower at the top of the hill, with immediately below it a cistern, a courtyard, and a tiny church, and about 50 houses below, within the town walls.

Some background is in order: The hills inland of Populonia, a promontory on the central Tuscan coast, are called the Colline Metallifere - the Metalliferous Hills. The area is a mineralogist's paradise, and if you're driving along you will see many spectacular splashes of colors on the hillsides, where ore veins come to the surface.

In the past people did more than appreciate the beauty of these deposits: The region is honeycombed with mines, some dating back to the Etruscans. The veins of the Valle dei Manienti (directly inland of the town of San Vincenzo) were instead worked during the early Middle ages by the Conti della Gherardesca, who extracted silver-bearing lead, copper and iron. The miners needed somewhere to live, and since they were providing a valuable service to their lords, the Counts built them a fortified town. San Silvestro flourished for about 300 years before changing economic conditions made the operation uneconomical, and then it was abandoned.

San Slivestro is now the centerpiece of a fascinating archeominarary park with hiking trails, mine shafts you can visit (with a guide), and traces of all sorts of mining ventures, dating from the Etruscans through the post-war period. It's a perfect change of pace if you're spending a few days at the beach, especially if the wind kicks up, stirring the waves, and the lifeguards won't let you in the water because of the undertow.

You should park in the Valle del Temperino, and begin with the museum, which has a nice mineral collection, with some beautiful specimens from the various mines, and exhibits devoted to miners and mining. Guided tours of one of the mine shafts sunk at the turn of the century by the Etruscan Copper Estates Mines (an English company that worked the veins from 1900 to 1907 and then went out of business) depart hourly on the half hour in June, and on the half hour in July and August. They require covered shoes, and since the air is chill, a sweater.

The shaft leads through country rock to skarn deposits (mixed sulfides, including silver bearing galena (lead sulfide), chalcopyrite (copper iron sulfide), sphalerite (zinc sulfide) and in some cases cassiterite (tin oxide)) that formed as a result of the interaction between intruding magmas and the mineral-rich solutions they contained with the calcareous rocks they intruded -- quite interesting, and the shaft intersects a number of older shafts as well that reveal the older mining techniques.

Once you have seen the mine shaft, it's a short walk to the Museo del Minatore, or Miner's museum, with interesting displays of equipment. The departure point of the narrow-guage rail line that follows one of the longer shafts through the mountain to the Valle Lanzi (named after the Tyrolian miners Archduke Cosimo summoned and quartered there in the 1500s) and the town of San Silvestro is next to the Museo; it's an interesting ride. If you'd instead rather say above ground, it's a three-hour hike on a well marked trail with rest stops and lots of things to see, everything from powder houses and another section of the narrow guage rail line built by the English company to pre-Roman shafts and pits.

San Silvestro itself is quite beautiful, and even though only the walls remain enough has survived to give you a good idea of what life must have been like: The boredom of the guards, who scratched the patterns of board games into the steps by the gate; the constant need for water, which led the inhabitants to chip grooves into the bedrock to guide rainwater to cisterns....

Though the park wardens give guided tours (on the hour in June, and on the half-hour in July and August), you may want to explore the village at your own pace. It should take about an hour, and once you're done, you should also look at the experimental station, where the archaeologists reconstructed the smelting furnaces to find out how efficient they were. Quite, and indeed the village was completely self-sufficient with regards to iron. Copper was also refined on site. Silver was not, however: It occurs in galena, lead sulfide, and the Counts Gherardesca found it more practical to smelt the mineral into lead, and then extract the silver from the lead once they'd transported it to Pisa (bandits were a problem, and lead ingots are a lot harder to steal than flakes of silver). Even so, the skeletons of a couple of people dead of ax wounds were found in the slag heaps by the foundry; they differed physically from the people whose bones were found in the cemetery, and may have been thieves, or even pirates.

Getting there: Campiglia Marittima is close to the coast. Take the Aurelia, the Roman road to Marseilles (it's at last four lanes), to San Vincenzo Sud; follow the signs for Campiglia Marittima, and then those for the Parco Archeominerario. It's about 10 kilometers.

For more information (quite a bit more), check out the Parco Archeominerario di San Silvestro's site.  The hours change depending upon the month (though opening is almost always at 10 AM), and you should therefore check the hours page. There's also a simple trattoria, if you get hungry.


Published Simultaneously by IGP, I Giovani Promettenti.

We Are:
Carlo Macchi
Kyle Phillips
Luciano Pignataro
Roberto Giuliani
Stefano Tesi

Visiting Torino: The Mole Antonelliana

This Time, I take the stand:

 

I must confess, when I go to Piemonte it's usually for the wines, and when I do make it to Torino it's on the occasion of Slowfood's Salone del Gusto. However, Daughter C is a great fan of the Egyptians, and we therefore took her to see the Museo Egizio in Torino, one of the world's richest and most exciting collections of Egyptian artifacts.

And, when we emerged from the museum couldn't help but notice Torino's most prominent landmark, the Mole Antonelliana, a slender quadrilateral cupola whose immensely long spire seems to puncture the sky.

It wasn't planned like that, however: After the government of the newly unified Italian State relaxed the strictures on non-Catholic religious buildings in the early 1860s, the city's Jewish community asked Alessandro Antonelli to design a Synagogue for them. Construction began in 1863, but proceeded with difficulty because the he raised the cupola from the planned 47 meters to 113. Technical difficulties and cost overruns led the Community to halt construction in 1869 and apply a temporary roof to what they had.

In 1873 the City negotiated an exchange, giving the Jewish community a different area to build their synagogue, and dedicating the Cupola to King Vittorio Emanuele II. Construction resumed, with the cupola and its spire eventually reaching 167.5 meters, or about 545 feet, and thus becoming the tallest masonry structure in Europe. Alas, though Antonelli continued to work on the structure until he was past 90, using an observation basket that dangled from the center of the dome to check the work, he didn't live to see it finished. Rather, his son Costanzo completed the cupola in the early 1900s, while the decoration of the dome's interior was handled by Annibale Rigotti between 1905 and 1908.

Unfortunately, the weight of the considerably increased upper section proved more than the foundations were capable of standing (the fact that the cupola was built over a section of city walls Napoleon had demolished probably exacerbated the instability), and after a tornado ripped off 47 meters of the spire in 1953 architects wove a reinforced concrete skeleton into the structure to provide additional support.

After the restoration was completed the Mole Antonelliana was used to host temporary shows, and to showcase Torino, as it were: The observation basket Alessandro used was transformed into a glass elevator that rises quickly through the cupola, like a spider whizzing up a thread to stop at the base of the spire, where there is an ample observation deck offers an absolutely stunning view of the city.

Which, with just the occasional show, wasn't enough to draw people. So the city had an inspired idea, and transformed the cupola into the national Cinema Museum: the entrance leads directly to the elevator, where one waits about a half hour (at least, we did) and then whoosh up to the observation post; as you enter the elevator try to take a place by the glass wall, unless you are very afraid of heights, because the view as you rise through the air is delightful.

Depending upon the temperature you'll spend anywhere from 5 to a lot more minutes on the observation deck before returning to the elevator and descending to the museum, which begins with a large, fascinating section dedicated to pre-cinema animation techniques (shadow puppets, animations, dime-store viewers and so on) followed by a floor dedicated to cinematographic techniques with all sorts of cinematic keepsakes, including a black lace bustier belonging to MM, which is (from a male perspective) most impressive.

There's a ramp around the drum of the cupola with a great many poster boards and film posters, and down on the floor of the cupola are pieces of sets, including one designed by Gabriele D'Annunzio, more mementos including a set piece from Alien, and two viewing areas equipped with couches and continuous feeds; if you get tired of watching what's on the screen you simply look up at the cupola, whose lighting changes regularly, sometimes darker, sometimes lighter, and sometimes with images projected over it. Always interesting.

To be honest, though I paid the admission because I wanted to enjoy the view, I'd happily go back and spend more hours simply enjoying the Mole Antonelliana's interior. It's one of the most interesting museums (and buildings) I've been in in many years. I'll be posting photos on the blog version of the newsletter, at http://www.cosabolle.com, so do check them out. And for more information on the Museo del Cinema, see http://www.museonazionaledelcinema.it/en/pages/site_overview/site_overview.php


Published Simultaneously by IGP, I Giovani Promettenti.

We Are:
Carlo Macchi
Kyle Phillips
Luciano Pignataro
Roberto Giuliani
Stefano Tesi

Garantito IGP: Cornello dei Tasso, and The Postal System

This time, I take the stand:

The first few km of the Val Brembana, which goes extends into the Alps behind Bergamo, are decidedly nondescript, with an abundance of relatively recent buildings jumbled together on the valley floor. However, after a few tunnels the construction started to thin, and in the space of a few more km (and more tunnels) you'll find yourself at the bottom of a V, with mountains rising up all around you.

At Camerata Cornello turn off the main road and climb through a series of switchbacks; you'll soon reach a parking garage built for the residents of Cornello dei Tassi, who live a little further on, down the old Via Mercatorum, the medieval commercial route (a wide, well packed trail) that followed the flank of the valley due to an impassable gorge on the valley floor. The Via Mercatorum passes literally through Cornello -- the ground floors of the buildings on its path are porticoed, allowing people to pass under them -- and as a result Cornello was an important stopping point where merchants could rest their animals and themselves, and if the weather was bad enjoy some shelter. They could also trade, and talk, and we will return to this.

The town of Cornello can easily be seen in the space of an hour -- the porticoed section is about a hundred yards long, and the other major local attraction is the parish church, a XII Century Romanesque church dedicated to Saints Cornelio and Cipriano. To reach it, go through the porticoed section, turn right, and climb to a parallel lane. The church's façade is simple rather sever stone work, and you'll note that the tower is slightly out of kilter. Inside there are many frescoes dating to the XV-XVI centuries depicting people of all walks of life. Some are quite nice, but the one that really caught my eye is to the left as you enter: Sant'Elvio, the patron saint of Maniscalchi, or blacksmiths, who simply removes the horse's foreleg to affix the shoe to the hoof without worrying about what the animal is doing. A miracle, and then he (one assumes) reattaches the leg when he has finished. Beautiful.

As I said, the traders who stopped in Cornello also talked, and it didn't take long for the scions of the Tasso Family, one of the leading local families, to wonder if those who were talking might also want the services of a courier to send missives forward or back. So, in the XIII Century Odone De Taxo set up such a service. It proved successful, but one can only have so much success if one works from a town in an Alpine valley. So part of the family moved to Venice, and managed to become the Official Couriers for the Venetian Republic. They did well, and another branch of the family moved to Rome, where they became Maestri delle Poste Papali -- the Papal Postmasters.

Others instead entered into the service of the Holy Roman Emperor, and again did well: In 1512 the Emperor Maximillian bestowed a title upon the family, with a coat of arms featuring a badger (tasso) and a postal bugle, enriched by the Imperial Eagle. The family also worked for Maxiimillian's cousins, the Kings of Spain, and for several centuries various branches of the Tasso Family (part of the German branch became Princes of Thurn and Taxis) ran the postal system throughout much of Europe, establishing routes between hundreds of cities and precise schedules.

They became fabulously wealthy, and continued to provide postal services throughout Europe until well into the 19th century, by which time the various European governments had realized that government-controlled national postal systems were perhaps a good idea. Indeed, when the European governments met in the 1850s to discuss postal matters, the Tasso Family joined them at the table, and subsequently issued stamps for its routes, which continued to function until 1866, when the Prussians unified Germany and nationalized the German postal system. At this point the Tasso family ceded its operations to the various national postal systems and turned its attentions to other ventures.

Not bad for a family that started out sending packets up and down an Alpine valley! And they are well remembered in Cornello, which changed its name to Cornello Dei Tassi, and hosts a small but fascinating museum dedicated to the Tasso family and the postal system they established, with stamps, letters, portraits of royal sponsors, and much more.

And why is Cornello now served by a mule track rather than a paved road, you wonder? Because in 1592 the Venetians, who ruled Bergamo at the time, overcame the obstacles on the valley floor and built a new, easier to travel road called the Via Priula. Cornello became isolated, and while this did mean hardships for generations of its inhabitants (an Abbot who visited in 1899 spoke of poor mountaineers who spent their summers working in France, to earn enough to survive the winters), because of the isolation the town remains unchanged, and is one of the best preserved Alpine trading villages anywhere. And well worth a visit.

Published Simultaneously by IGP, I Giovani Promettenti.

We Are:
Carlo Macchi
Kyle Phillips
Luciano Pignataro
Roberto Giuliani
Stefano Tesi

Garantito IGP: I Balmetti di Borgofranco

This time I take the Stand:

If you drive north from Torino towards the Valle D'Aosta, you'll find yourself following the valley now occupied by the Dora Baltea. It wasn't carved by the river, however -- it's glacial in origin, and shortly after Ivrea you'll come to something unique, so far as I know: Borgofranco D'Ivrea's Balmetti.

Balmetti are houses with cellars built into the glacial moraine along the line where the mountains jut up from the flat valley floor, and what makes them unique are ore (singular ora), fissures in the moraines that emit steady streams of cold air. And I do mean cold; they're 8 degrees C (45 F) in summer, and a little more in winter. In short, the people of the town have naturally refrigerated cellers, and they're fascinating, as is the story behind them.

Borgofranco has existed at least since the 1200s, and the town proper is located a ways out on the valley floor. People must have known about the cold air issuing from the fissures along the valley wall, but don't appear to have thought about putting it to use until the 1600s, when the first balmetti were built, and used primarily to store wine.

It wasn't until the early 1800s, however, that the townspeople decided to exploit the resource in earnest, building an uninterrupted street of balmetti along the valley wall (if you walk down the street, you see a row of low houses built back into the mountain), and it would appear that the decision stemmed at least in part from changing customs:

Historically, an organization called the Badia had handled popular festivals and fairs (especially Carnevale) in Borgofranco. However, it declined in popularity in the mid-1800s, during which time two things were happening: First, the breath of cultural fresh air associated with the brief establishment of the Napoleonic government had led to new ideas about how to celebrate Carnival and otherwise make merry; Second, the Church, reacting to the innovations, had clamped down. Put simply, those who wanted to have a good time decided to do so out of town, where churchly-inspired moralists would neither see nor comment, and built the Balmetti as a sort of party row, as it were. Even the street names reflect the area's destination: Via del Buonamore, Via di Bacco, and Via della Coppa, respectively the Street of Good Love, Bacchus's Way, and The Cup's Way.

Of course once the balmetti were built, they were also put to other uses, including storage -- primarily grapes and wine -- and industry, though one that fits perfectly with the purpose of the street: In about 1900 the Degiacomini family, brewmasters from Sondrio, built a brewery, using the cool air from the ore to regulate fermentation temperatures. It has since gone out of business (there is talk of readapting the structure), but you can visit the balmetti -- there are about 200 of them, kept cool by close to 300 vents, and the local tourist office has set up a small museum in one of the nicest ones, while its offices are in the second story of the building.

The old brewery

In addition to the concentration of balmetti on these streets there are several individual balmetti built into the valley wall just a little further up the valley. When should you think about visiting? The balmetti are central to three celebrations: Carnevale, in February (when you could stop during a ski trip), in June, when there's the Andoma ai Balmit (Let's go the the Balmetti) festival, a very convivial open house, and in September, at the harvest. Italy has many unusual treats, and this is one of them.

Getting there: Borgofranco is just north of Ivrea. Exit the A 5 highway at Quincinetto, and turn right towards Settimo Vittone. The balmetti are in a hamlet called Quinto. For further information, contact the Pro Loco, through the town's site.


Published Simultaneously by IGP, I Giovani Promettenti.

We Are:
Carlo Macchi
Kyle Phillips
Luciano Pignataro
Roberto Giuliani
Stefano Tesi

L'Abbazia di Santa Giustina: Unexpected beauty in the Alessandrino

This time I take the stand:

Several years ago I went to a presentation organized by the Viticoltori dell'Acquese, the cooperative winery of Aqui Terme. It was late fall and the event was late in the afternoon, by which time banks of fog were rising and thickening among the trees as the light fell; I wondered what I had gotten myself into as I drove slowly through the flatlands of Alessandria, hoping I wouldn't miss a sign for Sezzadio.

I didn't, and eventually reached a large, rather forbidding farm complex. Imagine my surprise when I got out of the car, walked around the building, and beheld a spectacular Romanesque basilica!

Santa Giustina was founded, legends say, in the early 700s by Liutprando, a devout Lombard King who stopped at the site to take a nap, setting the reliquary with Santa Giustina's remains that he always carried with him on the bough of a tree. He awoke to find it dancing in the branches just out of reach, and decided that the Saint was telling him she wanted a church in that spot. So he gave the orders, and a Paleochristian church was built.

Santa Giustina subsequently became an important outpost of the Benedictines; the original church, which has elegant floor mosaics of the kind one also finds in Rome, became the crypt of their church, which is a classic Romanesque basilica with a central nave flanked by two aisles, a transept that's higher than the nave, and three apses.

The monastery changed hands several times over the centuries, and following the Napoleonic suppression of 1810 the church was transformed into a grain elevator. In 1863 it was bought by Senator Angelo Frascara, and when he began stripping away the whitewash (applied in the 1600s), in 1912, he found a fragments of an Annunciation in the left apse, and a beautiful XV century fresco cycle with scenes of Christ's passion and the Last Judgment in the central apse. A number of the columns of the nave are also decorated, with a black-and-white checkerboard pattern; many of the black squares have fascinating graffiti scratched into them, some of which might even be Renaissance in age.

The Senator also transformed part of the monastic complex into an extremely elegant villa with beautiful Romantic gardens, which is now used to host conventions, wedding receptions and so on. Visitors to the church are welcome, and if you call ahead you'll probably also be able to wander the grounds and perhaps visit the public sections of the villa. For further information see http://www.villabadia.com

To reach Santa Giustina, take the A 22 highway to the Alessandria Sud exit, and then follow signs for Acqui until you reach the turnoff for Sezzadio (to the right); you'll also see signs for the Abbazia. It's about 20 km from the A 22.

It's difficult to imagine a more unexpected pretty stopping place, and I am grateful to the Viticoltori deall'Acquese for introducing me to it.


Published Simultaneously by IGP, I Giovani Promettenti.

We Are:
Carlo Macchi
Kyle Phillips
Luciano Pignataro
Roberto Giuliani
Stefano Tesi

Garantito IGP: Il Monte Forato

This time I take the stand:

My in-laws have a summer home at Cinquale, a beach town on the thin strip of flatland between the sea and the Apuans, and if you swim out a ways and look inland, you'll see (on a clear day) a mountain with a spot of blue in it: it's called Monte Forato, The Holed Mountain, and over the years I spent quite a bit of time looking at it.

One day I asked the people at the next umbrella, who live in nearby Montignoso year round, about it. "My father laid out the trail, came the reply. It's an easy hike from Stazzema. Takes about 3 hours."

So I procured a map, got my hiking shoes, and decided to go one morning. A hike is not the sort of thing one can write volumes about, but one can accompany notes with pictures. Briefly:

If you are driving to the area, you will want to take the A 12 (Genova-Collesalvetti) and exit at Versilia. From there, follow the signs for Stazzema, which lead into the mountains, stopping at some point to fill your water bottle and buy lunch (I got a sandwich and 2 peaches).

You can drive all the way up to Stazzema (439 m ASL) and park in the square, and I did, driving past Santa Maria Assunta, a pretty Romanesque church built where the Madonna is said to have appeared, whose foundations date to the IX century, while the façade has a 14th century rosette.

However, parking in Stazzema means you will have to walk through town -- there are some pretty houses, some dating to the 1700s, and there's a bell tower with the Medici coat of arms, dating to 1739 -- because the road narrows considerably, and then up a steep hill, adding about a hundred (or so it seemed) meters to your climb.

So I suggest you bear right at one of the hairpin turns below Stazzema, following a sign for Casa Giorgini, an Agritursmo located in what was once the home of Admiral Giorgini, who wanted a place that offered spectacular views of mountains and sea.

The road leads up past a sawmill, and you should park where it becomes dirt, at the mouth of the number 6 trail (you'll see a red and white CAI (Club Alpino Italiano) maker with a 6 in it). The trail is the old mule track that led up, over the pass, and down to Fornovalasco, a town in Garfagnana, and as such it is paved, with steps in the steeper parts, and though it does climb steadily it is easy going, also because it is almost entirely in shadow in the morning.

Initially you'll be walking though woods, but after about 45 minutes you'll come to Casa Giorgini (735 m ASL), and begin to see the mountains (Pania and Corchia) on the other side of the valley though the trees. A bit a bit after that you'll note that the bedrock has changed from black to white; you are now walking on the calcareous rocks that form the backbone of the Apuane and are responsible for both the marble quarries and - where water infiltrates and dissolves - the region's spectacular caves.

More beautiful views, a spring with bracingly cold water, and you will climb steadily; remain on the number 6 trail until you come to the pass, the Foce di Petrosciana (960 m ASL) and behold all of Garfagnana laid out below you.

By the time you reach the pass you will have walked for about 2 hours, and be 2/3 of the way there. Exactly at the pass you will see, to your left, trail 110, which goes up the naked rock. Scramble up (at least I did), and the first quarter mile or so is steep, with a couple of sections I did on hands and knees, and one section with a rope to hold on to, and then the trail becomes wooded again and easy, though it again climbs steadily. After about 45 minutes you will come around a bend, and see a cliff. Look closer and you'll realize you're looking at the arch, and it is big.

The trail circles around to the back of the arch, where I found a great many people, including a church youth group, relaxing and having lunch.

I climbed up the scree slope to slightly above the arch, found a spot (at about 1200 m ASL) with a beautiful view, ate, and relaxed for about a half hour before starting back down.

(A brief aside: The arch is impressive, at least 50 meters (150 feet) in diameter, and though one could cross it I decided not to. Legend has it that the mountain was pierced in the course of a battle between demons and hermits, or perhaps demons and the Madonna. As you behold the span, the legend doesn't seem so far-fetched.)

The walk down took about the same as the walk up - 3 1/2 hours, and was noticeably warmer, because by then the sun had come around and was shining on the trail.

Published Simultaneously by IGP, I Giovani Promettenti.

We Are:
Carlo Macchi
Kyle Phillips
Luciano Pignataro
Roberto Giuliani
Stefano Tesi

Garantito IGP: It's March, and the Sap Is Running

This time I take the Stand:



Spring has come early this year, and the fruit trees are abloom in Chianti, adding splashes of pink and white to the hillsides. Beautiful to look at, and a sign things are coming back to life.

If you have followed me over the years, you will know that my father was an archaeologist, and that because of that I grew up spending summers in Tuscany, and moved here as soon as I finished college.

Dad was of course Not Tuscan; he grew up on a farm in Vermont, and though he left the rural life behind, he never forgot it, and once when we visited my maternal grandparents, who lived in Springfield VT, in March -- I must have been about eight -- he looked out at the snow-covered ground, checked the thermometer, muttered something about the sap running, and called a friend who had stayed on the farm.

We put on our boots and coats, and were soon driving up a slushy dirt road into the forest, while he explained that sugaring was a seasonal activity, which only took place during the early spring when days were above freezing, while the nights were not, and the sap flowed abundant in the maple trees.

I listened without really understanding, Pennsylvania city boy that I was -- in my experience maple syrup came from a glass bottle, and I had never thought about how it got there -- but things became much clearer when we reached our destination and Dad's friend was in the farm yard, hitching a sledge with a large metal tank to a horse. They shook hands while I wondered what was going on, and then we set off into the woods, where all the maples had buckets hanging from taps driven into their trunks.

And I found myself wading through the snow to the trees, taking the buckets, removing the lids (and ice if there was any), and pouring the sap, which I tasted, and found to be sweet, into the tank. It was quiet work, the snow muffling our footsteps, and as we wound our way through the grove the horse began to lean into the harness as the level of the sap in the tank rose.

The air had that bluish cast it gets at dusk when it's cloudy and there's snow on the ground by the time we got to the sugaring shed, a weathered wooden building with a slatted cupola that was emitting clouds of steam, and I vaguely remember looking in, seeing the glow of the fire under the evaporator and the bubbling sap.

Dad's friend told me that it took 10 gallons of sap to make a gallon of syrup (Wickipedia says it takes more, from 20-50 depending upon the sugar content of the sap, and that maple syrup is about 66% sugar), and I thought about that as we headed home, me holding the bottle of syrup he had given us. That evening we had sugar on snow, a treat from my father's childhood:

He set the syrup to boil on the stove, and while it was concentrating further filled a baking pan with clean snow. When the syrup was reduced in volume by about 50% he poured it in strips on the snow, where it hardened instantly. Home made maple candy!

Memories of simpler times.



Published Simultaneously by IGP, I Giovani Promettenti.

We Are:
Carlo Macchi
Kyle Phillips
Luciano Pignataro
Roberto Giuliani
Stefano Tesi

Garantito IGP: Coffee, Anyone?

This time I take the stand, because Stefano Tesi, whose turn it was, is snowed in and emailed to say that the only power in the house was the fading battery of his Blackberry. So here we go:

Different people have different obsessions, and Enrico Maltoni's is espresso machines. Not just espresso pots, though he also has plenty of those, but espresso machines of the kind one finds in Italian bars, and also their precursors. He has hundreds of the things, and also gives talks about them.

The first machines for making large quantities of coffee, he says, were built in the late 1800s - early 1900s, while the first true espresso machine that used steam pressure to force hot water though the coffee grounds was made in 1901 by Ingegner Luigi Bezzera. It was an imposing machine, essentially a tall column of boiling hot water (there was a safety valve too) with cup holders on either side. But it did make espresso, and machines based on the design quickly became popular, though they were expensive enough that only larger locales in larger cities could afford them. Soon all the elegant bars were offering espresso, made by a barrista whose primary job was to tend the espresso machine.

Carefully, because the espresso machines based on Ingegner Bezzera's design could explode -- in 1946 one did, causing enough of a stir that a drawing of the scene made the cover of the Domenica Del Corriere.

One big problem with the Bezzera design is that it produces the same sort of espresso coffee one gets from a home pot, be it a Mocha pot or a Neapolitan pot. The coffee is strong, and black, and bitter, and that's it.

In 1946, however, Achille Gaggia had a brilliant intuition and built a machine with pistons to collect the steaming hot water and force it through the coffee grounds under a pressure of about 8 atmospheres. The resulting coffee is creamy, a revolutionary advancement, and indeed the early piston machines say Caffé Crema Naturale to emphasize this fact.

The piston machines require a fair amount of physical strength to use, and barristi must have greeted the introduction, in the early 1960s, of machines with electric motors to work the pistons with considerable joy. And now, thanks to new technologies, the barrista can tailor each cup of coffee to the client's tastes.

We have come a great ways since 1901. And the place of the coffee machine has changed too. The early machines were objects of considerable pride, designed by stylists, made with brass and chrome puffed to a high shine, and placed on the bar, between the barrista and the client. The first piston machines were too, but things began to change in the 1960s, with the introduction of less expensive materials (plastic entered the picture in the 1980s), and during this period the position of the machine also changed -- no longer front and center, but rather on the shelf behind the bar; the change freed space on the bar so more people could enjoy coffee at once, and also, I think, allowed a closer relationship between barrista and client: the machine is no longer in the way.

For more information, and a truly astonishing number of pictures, check Enrico Maltoni's site.


Published Simultaneously by IGP, I Giovani Promettenti.

We Are:
Carlo Macchi
Kyle Phillips
Luciano Pignataro
Roberto Giuliani
Stefano Tesi

Garantito IGP: La Cucina al Tempo di Guerra

This time I take the stand, and begin with an aside:

Day before yesterday Giulio Gambelli, an extraordinarily humble man whose knowledge of Sangiovese was second to none, and who had a hand in many of the great Tuscan Sangiovese-based wines, left us to discuss wines with the Creator, whose great gain is our great loss.

I didn't know him well, because though our paths did occasionally cross, I was too shy to say much, and he too hard of hearing to understand what little I did say. I expect he thought me a bit slow, but was much too polite to say so.

I do have one story however: a number of years ago I was at a restaurant with a couple of friends, one a winemaker and another an importer. We started with a Morellino di Scansano of the sort I like, one that remembers "ino" is a diminutive, and is light, sassy, and deft on its feet, and then tried a wine the Gambero/Slowfood people raved about, awarding the first vintage to appear in the Guida the coveted (especially then) 3 glasses. We were swishing, muttering about nice concentration, admiring the color, discussing balance, and taking tiny sips, until the Importer said, "The hell with this. I want to drink!" and ordered a bottle of Pergole Torte, one of Giulio's creations.

When we left the Pergole was gone, while the other bottle was still more than half full.

Thank you, Giulio.


Returning to the topic at hand, there's no getting around it, times are tough and people are cutting back. And this is perhaps one of the reasons that Vallardi has reprinted Lunella de Seta's La Cucina al Tempo di Guerra, a book that came out in 1942 to help Italian housewives do their part for the War Effort, by "winning the daily battle to feed their families."

It makes for interesting reading. Because there was rationing, and it bit deep. But before helping people to figure out how to cook without many of the ingredients they were accustomed to, she thought it best to stress that even in times of want one must carry on -- the table set as always, but using a brightly colored tablecloth that won't show stains (with soap rationing daily laundry wasn't an option), use pots and baking tins that can also double as serving dishes to reduce the number of pots to wash, and so on.

And then there are the recipes, and here one naturally wonders what -- given rationing -- is missing. Meats and fats especially, as well as white flour (when calling for flour she generally specifies segale, rye), and also whole milk, which she does call for, but also says how to substitute for more than once. Coffee too; it had vanished completely from all but the most fortunate tables, and she says not just how to make coffee from orzo, toasted barely, but also from toasted ground acorns (there is also a pudding with acorn flour).

And what is present? Meat extract and bouillon, which are used extensively to perk up soups, canned meats -- about half the recipes in the meats section are for canned meat prepared one way or another, while many of the rest are for barnyard animals, rabbit especially -- and legumes, vegetables, greens, and fruit.

The vegetable kingdom is as one might expect very important; in introducing salads she says that given the situation, one can enjoy nutritious meals without being a slave to tradition, and simply have a soup or other first course followed by a salad -- something that seems natural now but that was a big break with tradition then.

Equally important are legumes, which she notes have less fat than meats, but ounce for ounce have as much or more of the other nutritional needs, i.e. protein, carbohydrates, and calories -- and greens, which she says are much healthier than meats, providing the "body with what it needs to counter losses of energy and keep itself in perfect shape," whereas meat proteins "slowly intoxicate, to a greater or lesser degree depending upon one's constitution." Again, ideas that are widely accepted now but that were revolutionary then.

Taken as a whole it is a fascinating book, and though I might not feel the need to use meat extract (and likely not canned meat either) many of the book's 346 recipes are still current, and the sorts of things that are nice to fall back upon in the new age of frugality we seem to be entering.

To finish up, a recipe is a must, and given the cold wet weather we're having this Zuppa Aristocratica would be nice if you like spinach:

Zuppa Aristocratica - Recipe 84

A refined, and particularly nutritious dish.

Wash spinach very well as usual, boil it, squeeze it dry, chop it very finely, and put it through a wire mesh strainer to make an airy cream.

In the meantime, prepare in a pot a béchamel sauce of sorts, with a tablespoon of butter, a tablespoon of rye flour, and the proportionate volume of milk, salting to taste and bringing the mixture to a boil.

Mix the spinach well into the pot, and add another cup of milk to dilute the mixture. In the meantime, line the bottom of your soup tureen with croutons.

If you lack milk, or want to be more frugal, rather than add milk to the butter-and-flour mixture at the outset you could use water, adding, when the dish is heated through, a cup of whole milk and a tablespoon of unsweetened condensed milk.

For more information, see http://www.vallardi.it/catalogo/scheda/la-cucina-del-tempo-di-guerra.html



Published Simultaneously by IGP, I Giovani Promettenti.

We Are:
Carlo Macchi
Kyle Phillips
Luciano Pignataro
Roberto Giuliani
Stefano Tesi