There’s nothing like “ciao-ing” Italian style, particularly in Emilia-Romagna, where all things celebrate the pig. My husband and I just spent two weeks in the region, where we rented a small apartment from an oil painter and his mosaic-teaching wife on their farm in the tiny town of Mondaino (near Urbino).

One of the most eye-opening aspects of this trip—from a culinary standpoint—was how well your every-day Italian eats. Whether you’re rich or poor, everyone has access to high-quality ingredients. That’s because most markets sell ripe, in-season fruits and vegetables, locally-raised meats, and hand-crafted cheeses from nearby farms. Sure, you’ll see kids munching on potato chips and candy bars. But you’re hard-pressed to find families sustaining themselves on frozen dinners, buckets of fast food, and the cheap, processed junk Americans call nourishment. The reason for this, in part, is because pasta is a huge part of the country’s diet. It’s cheap, versatile, easy to prepare, and pretty hard to screw up.

Yet, even gas station restaurants, called Auto Grills, crank out amazing food! Pull into one and you’ll find baskets of fresh rolls and whole-grain bread ready to split open and stuff with salami, prosciutto, and balls of fresh mozzarella, along with gorgeous arugula salads topped with tuna and white beans, homemade soups, panini sandwiches stuffed with eggplant, red peppers, and Provolone, and wood-oven crisped pizzas. In one corner of the cafeteria, I even spotted a bin of sautéed Swiss chard with raisins and pine nuts. All this at a pit stop!

Our first couple meals took place in Bologna, a small student-filled city brimming with picturesque portals, outdoor cafes, boutiques, and shoe shops. Bologna is the gastronomic capital of Italy and a scrumptious place to visit for a couple of days (We loved the funky, modern, boutique hotel, Novecento, 4/3 Piazza Galileo.) You’ll find pork in every form, made into sausages, salami, mortadella, and the famous Prosciutto de Parma, along with roasted hot and cold pork dishes and various pork-rich ragus. Being summer, we feasted on silky, soft strips of prosciutto draped over juicy cantaloupe wedges and balls of buffalo mozzarella. Parmesan Reggiano, also made in nearby Parma, is the only cheese offered for sprinkling over pastas (there was no Pecorino), which range from the heavy signature tagliatelle Bolognese, meat tortellini in broth, and pumpkin-stuffed tortellini sauced with butter and sage. In a nod to the heat, we ordered lighter pastas, such as ricotta stuffed half-moons topped with sautéed zucchini, fresh tomato, and carrots. We also enjoyed the summer antipasti plates of sliced raw tuna, swordfish, and sea bass dressed with olive oil and salt—sashimi Italian style. As for dessert, we found plenty of cool, creamy panna cotta and, of course, gelato.

We never cooked at our apartment, except to make coffee because we were too excited to zip about in our rented car and sample the region’s bounty, either in the country or along the coast. For a country experience, you can’t beat eating in an agritourismo. Usually attached to a family’s home, these restaurants grow their own vegetables and fruits, make their own cheeses, and raise their own animals and bees for honey. Usually, there are no menus, simply a handful of starters, pastas, and main courses that the Mama or Papa has prepared that night. At an agritourismo called Belvedere in Melto, we had a standout dinner featuring fresh pasta topped with buttery artichoke hearts and an entrée of tender farm-raised rabbit stuffed with its own organs (brains, pancreas, and liver). We raved so much about the Italian pinot noir paired with the rabbit (it’s very unusual to find Pinot Noir in Italy), the owner sent us home with a bottle. In Italy, the spirit of sharing knows no bounds.

In coastal cities and towns like Rimini, Cattolica, and Pesaro, we feasted on the bounty of the Adriatic Sea. We’d usually share two seafood appetizers—maybe grilled sardines with lemon and smoked swordfish—and then share two pastas—perhaps spaghetti with clams and fresh ziti with mussels and tomato. Then, we’d split a grilled fish entrée and a green salad, washing everything down with the area’s buttery Verdicchio white wines. You’d have thought we would have gained weight eating all this food. Yet, we didn’t, mainly because portion are reasonable and we were quite active. Also, eating in this fashion involved ingesting no additives, preservatives, fillers, or other scary ingredients. Meals are fresh and pure and made with minimal sugars, salt, and fats.

Two days before flying home, we stayed in Rome, where you can dine in one of two ways. One route is to visit the old-style Roman trattorias to savor traditional dishes, like pasta with veal ragu, grilled pork shoulder, and tiramisu. The other option is to visit the more modern spots (often located in chi-chi complexes along with a bar, café,  clothing boutique, flower store, and wine shop), where you’ll find menu items like Parmesan mousse with mint and arugula gnocchi with tomatoes, pine nuts, and sheep’s milk ricotta. We tried both the traditional and modern restaurants with terrific results. Then, we had one final stop: Gelateria Del Teatro (70 Via di St. Simone), a tiny artisinal gelato shop offering dozens of funky flavors made from organically grown fruits, flowers, herbs, and spices. We tried the summer favorite of ricotta gelato streaked with raspberries and minced sage, dark chocolate with orange peel, and finally a fig with roasted pine nuts. It was a sweet, final bite, encapsulating our entire vacation in Italy: la dolce vita.

Don’t Buy Your Next Olive Oil Until You Read this!

Getting down and dirty in Puglia

By Victoria Abbott Riccardi

A few months back I was invited to Puglia to learn about olive oil. Puglia, in case you’re wondering, is the heel of Italy’s boot. The folks at the Italian Trade Commission in Manhattan invited me on this trip. Years ago, when I was writing a story on broccoli rabe for The Boston Globe, I called the Commission to find out more about the vegetable—was it in the broccoli family, the cabbage family, or some other family? 

“Well, I can’t tell you anything about broccoli rabe,” said a very nice woman, “but I can tell you we have a trip to Sicily coming up to learn about the region’s oil. How’d you like to go?” You can guess what I said. 

Ten years later, the Commission invited me to Puglia to learn about this region’s oil too. It was a fun, tasty, and highly informative trip. Not only did I learn a lot about Italian olive oil, but I learned some dirty little secrets about the industry. 

Okay, first the facts, some of which you may know. When shopping for olive oil, you always want to buy Extra-virgin Olive Oil (EVOO) and, ideally, cold pressed. Here is why. Extra-virgin olive oil is the gorgeous, green goo you get when the olives are pressed for the first time. Since olives dislike heat when being pressed, you want your oil to have been cold pressed, which means there was no heat involved when the olives were squeezed, either in an old-fashioned press (where the olives are sandwiched between two rope-like rounds) or in a metal vat with a granite grinding stone (granite never gets hot). This first cold pressing releases a rich, grassy oil that is loaded, and I mean loaded, with nutrients and disease-fighting compounds, including antioxidants (which fight cancer). So this is the stuff you want.

 

 

Second, the color of the olive oil means nothing! Usually EVOO ranges in color from chartreuse to yellow-green. These variations merely indicate the skin color of the types of olives that were pressed. 

Finally, there are three things that can ruin olive oil—sunlight, oxygen, and heat. They all can turn your oil rancid, resulting in an “off” odor and bitter taste. To avoid sunlight and heat, store your olive oil in a dark, cool place, such as a cupboard in a pantry, and not on top of your stove. To avoid oxidation, buy your EVOO in small bottles, so you can use it up and replace it every month or so.

Now, here’s the down and dirty. Italy does not produce enough olives for all the olive oil it exports. Hmmmm. That means lots of olive oil from Italy is blended with—gasp—oils from other countries! The most common ones are Tunisia, Greece, and Spain, all of which produce excellent olive oil, but it’s not Italian. When you are paying big bucks for a 100 percent Italian olive oil, you want just that. Thus, check the label to make sure the oil is made from olives grown and pressed in Italy. Some sneaky manufactures sell “Italian” olive oil made entirely from olives grown outside Italy. They get away with this by bottling the foreign oil in Italy, so they can say on the label that it’s “oil from Italy.” 

Something else you should know—after that first lovely pressing, the remaining gook (mashed olives and pits) is used again. Companies press it a second, third, and maybe even fourth time, using chemicals (solvents) to extract lower quality oil. You should avoid this stuff.  

So what was Puglia like? Sumptuous. In addition to its rugged coastline dotted with fishing villages, the inland area has a rustic feel and abounds with olive trees and trulli, ancient, conical dwellings that are unique to the region. Resembling upside down ice cream cones, they are topped with crosses and other symbols related to Christian, primitive, and magic traditions.

 

 

And the food—swoon! Because so much of Puglia lies along the coast, seafood also stars in many dishes—garlicky baked mussels, fried sardines with lemon, and pasta with shrimp, chickpeas, and clams. Further inland, you’ll find lots of pork, beans, and wild greens. Orecchiette (priest’s caps) is the region’s traditional pasta shape and usually arrives sauced with olive oil, garlic, hot peppers, anchovies and my little friend broccoli rabe (who is in the cabbage and turnip family, by the way). Toasted breadcrumbs, or poor man’s cheese, top many pasta dishes, since Puglia historically was so impoverished. And, velvety Puglian olive oil moistens and flavors almost every dish in the region. The oil is considered so smooth and elegant, in fact, it’s often sent to other parts of Italy to blend with more prickly tasting oils to soften them out. To give you a taste of the region, here is a traditional Puglian pasta dish from my travels…

 

Orecchiette With Broccoli Rabe

Serves 4

 

 

 

 

 

 

Orecchiette with Broccoli Rabe

 

 

 

 

 

 

Some people say you shouldn’t cook with extra-virgin olive oil. This is not true. In Italy everyone cooks with EVOO, choosing bold tasting oils for sautéing and more delicate EVOO for dressing vegetables and fish. 

 

 

1 pound broccoli rabe, ends trimmed, greens rinsed and chopped

1/3 cup extra-virgin olive oil 

6 anchovies rolled around capers

1/4 teaspoon hot pepper flakes

4 cloves garlic, minced

Sea salt and freshly ground black pepper

1 pound orecchiette pasta

 

1. Place a large pot of water for cooking the pasta over high heat. Fill a large saucepan with 2 inches of water and bring to a boil. Add the broccoli rabe to the saucepan. When the water returns to a boil, cover, and cook the broccoli rabe over medium-high heat for 6 minutes, stirring occasionally. Drain.

2. Place the same large saucepan you used to cook the broccoli rabe over medium-high heat. Add the olive oil, anchovies, and hot pepper flakes. Cook the anchovies, crushing them with a wooden spoon, until they sort of “melt” into the oil. Add the cooked broccoli rabe and garlic. Saute the mixture for 5 to 6 minutes, or until broccoli rabe is tender and dark green. Season with salt and pepper.

3. Add the orecchiette to the boiling water, along with a generous pinch of salt. Cook the pasta, according to package directions, until al dente, about 8 minutes. Drain the pasta and stir it into the broccoli rabe mixture. To serve, portion the orecchiette mixture onto four pasta plates and serve with toasted bread crumbs (or grated Pecorino Romano cheese). 

Enjoy!

 

Victoria Abbott Riccardi is author of Untangling My Chopsticks: A Culinary Sojourn in Kyoto (Broadway Books, 2003) and a freelance food and travel writer.

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