Stomachs on legs are proud to present

Italians love to tell you how great the food in Italy is. They go on and on about, fresh cheese this, seasonal that. They initiated the Slow Food movement for crying out loud. Taken at face value it seems that Italians have forever been in step with nature, seasonal produce and local artisanal producers. This is just one of the many ways that Italians not so subtly demonstrate that they are well, better than us.

Apparently, however Italian food historian Montanari (1996:161) begs to differ.

Montanari emphasises just how much producers and consumers have traditionally seen seasonality as an affliction. He says 'symbiosis with nature and dependence upon her rhythms was once practically complete, but this is not to say that such a state of affairs was desirable; indeed, at times it was identified as a form of slavery'. This was especially true of the poorer sections of society, where consumption of foods such as grains and legumes was the norm precisely because these foods could be easily conserved. Access to fresh and perishable foods - such as vegetables, meat ad fish - was the luxury of an elite few. This, 'the desire to overcome the seasonality of products and the dependence on nature and region was acute, though the methods for doing so were expensive (and prestigious); they required wealth and power'. Montanari therefore concludes that it is 'doubtful whether we can attribute either a happy symbiosis with nature or and enthusiastic love for the seasonality of food to "traditional" food culture

In Morgan, K., T. Marsden and J. Murdoch, 2006. Worlds of Food: Place, Power, and Provenance in the Food Chain. Oxford: Oxford University Press, pg, 9

I used the River Cafe cook book as a basic guide for this.

Soaked white beans over night and removed their skins.

Cooked white beans in simmering water for about an hour with whole head of garlic and old herbs (thyme, marjoram)

Sauteed onion, garlic, carrot and celery, flat leaf parsley and added canned tomato and simmered. Added beans, some mushed up some whole. Added lots of salt and pepper and then torn up old bread.

Served.

When I went to eat it I realised that the soup is both delicious, with the bread adding a creamy texture, but it was also entirely vegan friendly. Definitely hearty food for tough times

This recipe is vegetarian but is so lush and yummy it doesn't feel like your missing out on anything. Do I sound like Nigella? I have been somewhat of a domestic goddess of late in an attempt to save our pennies before our impending trip to the states and japan





Basically make polenta as per directions and when cooked stir in lots of parmesan and butter and then blob out in a baking tray or spring form cake pan lined with baking paper. On top place cooked spinach, or zucchini or any vege you like along with sliced red onion and crumble goats cheese all over it (or gorgonzola or any yummy creamy cheese you like) then beat 4 to 6 eggs with some milk or cream and pour over the whole big yummy mess and bake in a pre-heated oven until firmish- about 40 mins.

Serve with tomato ragout, home made or bought and crusty bread.

The other night after arriving home from the gracious hospitality of Austin Bush and his Lad Prao tour of Crokmai Thai Laos, ant egg and bamboo soup, followed by an excursion to Parking Toys for a bottle of Johnny and the charming entertainment of a Thai 1990s indie electro-rock cover band who play their own down beat version of "I see you baby, shakin that ass" whilst all seated, Thai style.....



Hock and I went to bed drunk and he tortured me with videos of one of NYC's most famous pizza joints.

It was hell. You know when you're quite drunk and longing for the greasiness that ant egg and bamboo soup doesn't quite fulfill....and there's nothing in the fridge and you just need cheesy bread and all he did was tell me stories of this old Scilian man who makes pizza one by one, very slowly as if he was making you a pizza especially for you in his home. No matter how busy he never speeds up. He just makes pizza, 7 days a week at exactly the same pace. Then he showed me this video and for days I couldn't stop thinking about the perfect pizza.



So the following weekend Hock made pizza, at home, just for me. First a simple margherita, and the second porcini mushroom and marscapone. The recipe from Heston Blumenthal's "In Search of Perfection" didn't quite meet Hock's idea of perfection, but it did mine.




It's not quite New York, but it was a good pizza


Pizza in a mundane setting

This is a guest post by apple muffin expert/Melbourne promoter & DJ/gypsy-type Clare Bousfield aka Bellaphonic, who has just finished a 6-month sabbatical in a secret outpost near Roma.

Says Clare: "Give this a try – can’t beat a three ingredient dinner!"

Red Raddicchio
(for rough pastas, i.e. Those with lines, penne rigate etc..)

1lb Radicchio (cleaned and dried. Slice thin into julienne strips)
3oz Bacon (must be smoked. Slice super thin, almost see through, then stack the strips and slice all the way down the stack, so you have thin strips)
1cup cream

Put bacon in the pan on high heat so fat melts and bacon roasts. Continue until bacon is nicely browned
Add radicchio, continue to incorporate flipping from bottom up. You will see the radicchio turn brown. Keep the heat high or the radicchio will lose its water and boil instead of fry
When radicchio is all brown, add cream. Then pepper and salt to taste. Lower fire and cook for 4-5 minutes until cream thickens a bit. If preparing ahead, stop cooking almost immediately and wait until pasta is boiling to cook for 2 more minutes.
Mix in al dente pasta and serve with fresh parmigiano.

mmm... deliciously bitter goodness!

X clare

In case you haven't noticed, I'm a bit of a cookbook slut. And the River Cafe cookbooks are amongst my favourites. They're written nicely, the recipes are very cleverly selected - curated, if you will - from Italy's wealth of offerings, and they do not rely on cream and butter but more often artfully employ red chillies, lemon, anchovies, herbs or judicious applications of heat. However, though I'm usually turned off by cream, I must say their fennel-parmesan gratin is fine, and their calorifically splendid Penne con Sugo di Salsiccie alla Cloe is a staple of ours by now. (It must be the latent German in me that enjoys those dishes).
Other staples include cucumber, fresh chilli, mint, lemon and mascarpone; a way of serving potatoes half-mashed with tonnes of parsely, and grassy-tasting olive oil; various pasta or polenta techniques; and zucchini trifolati with tomato, which is insanely good.

Sage is one of my favourite herbs, and it's Rose Gray and Ruth Rogers who've shown me the best ways to deploy it in the kitchen.

Dishes I still need to try from their cookbooks include a soup of broccoli with red wine, roast duck with purple figs, Vignole (fresh peas, broad beans, mint, prosciutto etc), Ossobuco in Bianco (veal shin with anchovies, white wine, lemon, parsley etc), and Maiale al Latte (pork cooked with milk, sage and lemon).

So anyways, to visit their restaurant, which has sat at its far flung outpost in the West of London beside a gray-ish section of the River Thames since 1987, has long been a goal of mine. (Although it has nothing to do with my desire to go there, the place has held a Michelin star since 1998).

I was happy to achieve this goal shortly before Christmas with some friends who had booked a lunch there unbeknownst to me.

Atmosphere: very pleasant. I think I had expected the place to be a bit more cosy (with a name like River Cafe), but the most rustic thing there was the customers (see photo at top). The restaurant itself had a vibe somewhere between school teacher's canteen, (with the floor to ceiling windows casting gray London light on one side), and a vaguely chic early '90s bar (with the long stainless steel counter, and a glimpse of the wood-burning oven at the far end).



Service: excellent. A large team of wait staff performed their duties swiftly and skillfully. Some were attractive beanpoles of Russian or East African descent, all seemed contented: a well-looked after and efficient team. The Maitre-D was very friendly and made a big fuss over our not-so-impressive camera; the female Sommelier was down to earth but very knowledgeable, it was easy to imagine her as a peer or friend e.g. part of the old Verona crew in Auckland. They all sat down to a staff meal shortly after ours was served, which seemed familial. I've always found it absurd when restaurants banned one from eating in front of the customers. Like, god forbid the customers should think that the staff need to breathe or drink water, either.



Food: the highlight for all of us I think was the two pasta dishes: tortellini of roast pork belly with sage leaves and butter, just a handful of soft expertly made pasta....mmm....and farfalle with cavalo nero and new season's olive oil from Fèlsina.
Herbacious, savoury, just delicious. Happily I found the recipe for the farfalle in The River Cafe Cookbook so I'll share it at the bottom of this post later tonight.



My main was probably the most disappointing, but only because (for the second time) I forgot that I don't like monkfish. If a rubber eraser mated with a squid, this would be the dense and chewy offspring. However the Fritto Misto - with artichoke and sage and lots of lemon squeezed on top - were yummy.



The lamb with rosemary branch and puy lentils, and the snapper/sea bream with roast pumpkin, borlotti beans and pesto, were very fine.





The cost was not insane for the size of the portions (note: when I say 'not insane', I mean 'not insane if you are thinking in terms of euros or British pounds') and considering that it included a very nice bottle of white, Soave la Rocca, & a glass each of prosecco with clementine orange juice and Campari as a pre-Christmas tipple. Beautiful! I recommend this drink very highly, in fact I might have one right now.



Thames Wharf Studio/Rainville Rd
Hammersmith
London
W6 9HA
Telephone: +44 (0)20 7386 4200
(easiest to get a cab from District Line or Hammersmith tube stations)

My sister's husband is Canadian, and on their recent trip to Canada she wrote me about the foods which they particularly enjoyed feasting on.

"Breakfast pitas (a wholegrains, fruit and cinnamon pita bread, best toasted with honey or jam), poutine (Quebec speciality- hot chips, melted cheese curds and gravy), perogies (a Ukranian dumpling filled with cheese and mash, and fried with onions and bacon, and served with sour cream), beaver tails (kind of a hot pastry oval covered in sugar and lemon), Doritos (the perfect junk food spicey corn chip), Montreal bagels (chewy like no other), pickled eggplant (spicy and salty and sort of chewy crunchy, usually eaten in a bagel sandwich), wild blueberries (tiny and tasty, and best eaten seconds after picking from an island in the lake, only reachable by canoe)."

We're coming up to our 5th week in Toronto, and we only ate a couple of things on that list. The breakfast pitas are indeed dope, while the poutine was pretty good but undoubtedly better in Quebec.

Still, Toronto is a city of many cultures and thus the list of foods one could or should try is very long.

The airport in Toronto is rather grey and shabby, and one's first impression upon being downtown is of a city that continually knocks down and rebuilds, so that the Financial district and the more conservative (east) end of Queen West is peppered with Gap, Zara, HMV and countless shiny new fusion restaurants with names like 'Spring Roll'. Very 'New World'. But interesting in that it has all the towering buildings and wide avenues of a huge city, but lacks the underlying anxiety of big cities in the States.

As Torsten Schmidt put it: "it's certainly a mash-up of post-colonial, imperial, British-empire city, you get a lot of that, and then definitely it's a city on the North American continent. And a lot of those elements are juxtaposed and funnily... can you say "inter-diced?" And this whole thing about the grid system, you think you've got it all worked out, and then sneakily those grids sometimes change lanes, and you're like, hang on we were just here...but now we're over there.

But what I can't put my finger on is... obviously the quality of life is pretty high here. And it seems like the whole multicultural thing is true - every city with over 500 inhabitants claims to be multicultural because they've got a kebab stand and a Chinese take-away - but you do really see a nice, diverse mix of people here. And they all seem to get along, at least on the surface level. There's no underlying tension like, say, in London. But that can be a good thing as well. Toronto seems very middle-class, very safe, and it's like you're at school. You know the really pretty girl with the really nice haircut and the nice clothes - is this really the girl you'd like to ask to dance? I hope that in the next few weeks we're gonna find the moles and the freckles and a bit of cross-eyedness."

The story of Toronto is largely one of immigrants, and it's when you venture into the culturally-infused neighbourhoods that you find the quirks you were looking for, as well as the quaint little stores that are more than fifty years old. With the largest number of foreign-language speaking residents of any city besides Miami (don't ask me how they figured that out), the West Indian and Portuguese communities have had a particularly big influence on the cultural development of the city, and there are quite a few streets devoted to Chinatown, Little India, Greektown, Little Italy, Koreatown, and Cabbagetown (home of original Irish settlers) too.

So what dishes are specially typical of Toronto then? As part of the event we're working at in Toronto, some local writers made "A Jaywalker's Guide to Toronto". In the "Snack Attack" section, Graham Duncan wrote "If Toronto had a signature dish, it must be the Italian sandwich."

I haven't been able to find any explanation online of why exactly this must be so (Graham says it's basically because the Italian community here was the largest influx of sandwich-creating immigrants), nor could I find any tales of why the Italian Canadian sandwich involves breaded, deep-fried cutlets of veal, beef or chicken, hot & spicy tomato sauce and a chilli or roasted green capsicum or two on a soft kaiser roll. (Somewhat different to the typical Italian American sandwich, which looks more like your regular Subway fare on a split baguette).

We got ours (a chicken one) from San Francesco on Clinton St in Little Italy, which also sells Italian pear nectar at a very reasonable price. It was good, but very junk foody. Fat pieces of fried chicken. Tasty sauce, almost but not quite unbearably spicy. Certainly not the most delicious thing we've eaten in Toronto, but I can imagine that if you grew up eating them they'd be a nice comfort food...
The best thing was the location, a quiet corner of Little Italy, with crickets singing in the trees and the glow of Bitondo's pizzeria across the street and Italian people pulling up in cars for their takeaways. (Bitondo's, despite the authentic mobster-looking staff, is not so good: the sausage tastes faintly of fennel but the pizza is thick and ungainly).