civi lt À tavola - accademia italiana della cucina · december 2016 / n. 288 editor in chief paolo...

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ACCADEMIA ITALIANA DELLA CUCINAA CULTURAL INSTITUTION OF THE REPUBLIC OF ITALY

FOUNDED IN 1953 BY ORIO VERGANI

www.accademia1953.it

CIVILTÀDELLATAVOLAACCADEMIA ITALIANA DELLA CUCINA

INTERNATIONAL

EDITION

CdT_288_COVER_INGLESE_Acca 11/12/16 21:33 Pagina 1

FOCUS2 A wonderful year (Paolo Petroni)

ACADEMIC COUNCIL3 The good, the fair and the beautiful (Silvia De Lorenzo)

CULTURE AND RESEARCH5 A press conference for a prestigious publication (Gianni Fossati)

6 Christmas dinner in Sicily (Claudio Barba)

8 Nougat (Antonella Marani)

On the cover: Graphic elaboration of thepainting The Madonna of the Magnificat (1481)by Sandro Botticelli, displayed in the UffiziGallery in Florence.

PAGE 1

INTERNATIONAL EDITION

DECEMBER 2016 / N. 288

EDITOR IN CHIEFPAOLO PETRONI

COPY EDITORSILVIA DE LORENZO

LAYOUTSIMONA MONGIU

TRANSLATORANTONIA FRASER FUJINAGA

THIS ISSUE INCLUDES ARTICLES BYClaudio Barba,

Silvia De Lorenzo,Gianni Fossati,

Antonella Marani,Paolo Petroni.

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PUBLISHERACCADEMIA ITALIANA DELLA CUCINA

VIA NAPO TORRIANI 31 - 20124 MILANOTEL. 02 66987018 - FAX 02 66987008

[email protected]@[email protected]

www.accademia1953.it

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MONTHLY MAGAZINEREG. N. 4049 - 29-5-1956

TRIBUNALE DI MILANO

Rivista associataall’Unione StampaPeriodica Italiana

L’ACCADEMIA ITALIANA DELLA CUCINAFOUNDED IN 1953 BY ORIO VERGANI

AND LUIGI BERTETT, DINO BUZZATI TRAVERSO,CESARE CHIODI, GIANNINO CITTERIO,

ERNESTO DONÀ DALLE ROSE, MICHELE GUIDO FRANCI,GIANNI MAZZOCCHI BASTONI, ARNOLDO MONDADORI, ATTILIO NAVA, ARTURO ORVIETO, SEVERINO PAGANI,

ALDO PASSANTE, GIANLUIGI PONTI, GIÒ PONTI,DINO VILLANI, EDOARDO VISCONTI DI MODRONE,

WHIT MASSIMO ALBERINI AND VINCENZO BUONASSISI.

CIVILTÀDELLATAVOLAACCADEMIA ITALIANA DELLA CUCINA

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S O M M A R I OT A B L E O F C O N T E N T S

President Paolo Petroni, the President’s Council, the secretariat in Milan and the magazine’s editorial office

wish all Academicians in Italy and worldwide

a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year

The secretariat in Milan and the editorial office in Rome will be closed from the 24th of December to the 8th of January

F C U S

BY PAOLO PETRONIPresident of the Academy

T he “Week of High-Quality Italian Cooking”, organisedby Embassies, Consulates and Italian Cultural Instituteswith the often crucial support of our Academy’s foreign

Delegations, recently came to an end. This project was part ofthe programme for promoting Italian cuisine initiated by theItalian Foreign Ministry’s Directorate General for Cultural andEconomic Promotion and Innovation. Our Delegates andLegates, through numerous events arranged with Italian di-plomatic missions, contributed substantially to the success ofthis felicitous programme, which saw our Ministries of Agri-culture, Foreign and Education concretely supporting Italiancuisine abroad for the first time, aided inter alia by the chefswho served as “Ambassadors of Taste” under the guidance ofCristina Bowerman. In addition to the Academy’s brilliantoverseas activities, it is worth mentioning the new Delegationsand Legations which were opened in the course of this year:Moscow, Tokyo, Jakarta, Stuttgart, Glasgow City, Pittsburgh,and Brisbane. Lastly, in these past few days we inaugurated aDelegation in Jordan in accordance with the wishes of ourAmbassador Giovanni Brauzzi, and in early 2017 we will opena Delegation in Astana, Kazakhstan, a project initiated by ourAmbassador Stefano Ravagnan.In the national sphere, not only have we opened the Delegationsof Brescia-Terre dei Fontanili and Matera, but we also have thepleasure of reporting our substantial interaction with theMinistry of Agriculture and Food and the Ministry of Culture.They expressed appreciation for our presence at their conferences,including one of considerable importance which took place in

Pietrarsa (near Naples), with the participation of Prime MinisterRenzi and the Minister of Culture, Dario Franceschini. Severalother conferences were organised by our own Delegations.The esteemed members of the “Franco Marenghi” Study Centreengaged in a particularly interesting dialogue during theirmeeting at the Gualtiero Marchesi Foundation: this was animportant opportunity to discuss the state of Italian cuisineand restaurants and formulate guidelines on the path to befollowed by the Academy. Special thanks are due to ourRegional Study Centers for their dedication in punctually pu-blishing the valuable volume The Cuisine of Reuse (La Cucinadel riuso) and for the texts of the new Food Culture Library.This book series, which is a companion to the Academy’srecipe book Traditions of the Table (La tradizione a tavola), willmake our work more available to the general public, whichwill thereby have more opportunities to know what theAcademy is and does. This is a decisive and important step indisseminating and raising awareness about our activities. Inaddition to the past few month’s many events, Academics areexperiencing a moment of intense passion, and are eagerlyfurthering the Academy’s goals: to develop food culture, raisepublic awareness about the Academy, and participate in theinitiatives organised by government bodies which strive topromote Italian cuisine and high-quality Italian food products.It is also a considerable pleasure to meet in friendship duringour convivial gatherings. And so we come to the end of 2016:a wonderful year! Let’s all work hard together for a splendid2017. Warmest greetings!

A wonderful yearAn intense and constructive effort to reach our goals.

S O M M A R I OA C A D E M I C C O U N C I L

T he beautiful is undoubtedly thescene of this autumn’s meetingof the Academic Advisory Coun-

cil. Venice welcomes the Regional Co-ordinators and Consultants with its ti-meless charm and stunning weather.The Council’s meeting opens with awelcome by President Paolo Petroni,who recounts the Academy’s many im-portant and successful activities duringthis year’s final months. He emphasisesthe increasingly frequent collaborationwith the Ministries of Agricultural Policyand Foreign Affairs. For instance, themost recent meeting in Villa Madamafinalised the first International Weekof Italian Cuisine, of which the Academyis a crucial partner, and the events or-ganised by its Delegations. Petroni alsoannounces the establishment of Lega-tions in Moscow and Tokyo, which, to-gether with the other five already createdover the course of the year, demonstratethat ‘success breeds success’. Movingon to the fundraising activities for thequake-stricken areas during the Ecu-menical Dinner, he announces that asurvey has been instituted to identify

the correct recipients who will receivethe reconstruction funds during a spe-cially arranged ceremony, and thanksthe Academicians who generously an-swered the call for aid. The next order of business is the 2017budget. Roberto Ariani shares with theDelegation Advisory Board membershis satisfaction regarding a solid androbustly encouraging budget. With sub-scriptions on the rise, a strict attentionto expenses, a resumption of contribu-tions from the Ministry of Culture, andthe loyalty of the Academicians whodestined the discretionary 0.5% of theirincome tax to the Academy, the budgetfor 2017 looks to be resolutely in theblack, allowing membership dues to re-main unaltered. Following the reportby Gianni Limberti, President of theBoard of Auditors, the Advisory Boardunanimously approves the budget for2017. And this is the fair.President Petroni takes the floor againto discuss the Academy’s new publishingventures. Particularly important, becauseof its function of spreading awarenessabout the Academy among a larger pu-

BY SILVIA DE LORENZO

Completed projects, new events, rosy budgets and the pleasure of good company: this is today’s Academy.

The good, the fair and the beautiful

S O M M A R I OA C A D E M I C C O U N C I L

blic and capture the attention of foodieseverywhere, is the new Food CultureLibrary, a book series which, thanks toan agreement with the Bolis publishinghouse, will make the Cultural Gastro-nomic Itineraries books available in aform updated for a new readership,now enriched with images in colour.The first volume, Sauces and Gravies inRegional Cooking Tradition (Sughi e salsenella cucina della tradizione regionale),has already been printed and will beavailable in bookshops in time for Chri-stmas; this is presented proudly andwith evident emotion, and participantsreceive complimentary copies. The FoodCulture Library’s volumes will appearsemi-annually: in spring an existing vo-lume will be republished, the next beingSea and Freshwater Fish (I pesci di maree d’acqua dolce); and the book dedicatedto the yearly theme will appear in theautumn. Paolo Petroni announces thatthe theme of the 2017 Ecumenical Din-ner, as determined by the Franco Ma-renghi Study Center and approved bythe Presidential Council, will be thecuisine of cheese. The meeting concludes with an an-nouncement of the upcoming Delegates’Forum, an important opportunity toengage in dialogue and discussion onthe Academy’s ongoing improvement.The meeting will occur from the 21st tothe 23rd of April at the Forte Village Re-sort in Santa Margherita di Pula, nearCagliari (Sardinia). Following the coffeebreak, the regional coordinators meet.The speakers are many: some encouragea closer liaison between Delegates andRegional Study Center Directors, whileothers talk about their positive expe-riences which often give rise to satisfyingconcrete results. The convivial gatherings

are not merely ancillary to the meetingbut constitute an ‘event within theevent’: sophisticated cuisine. The wel-come dinner takes place in “Da Fiore”,a traditional ‘bàcaro’ (Venetian ‘tapasbar’) which was transformed thirty-fiveyears ago into one of the city’s most fa-mous restaurants by husband and wifeMara and Maurizio Martin. Today theyand their son Damiano continueto dedicate themselves passio-nately to Venetian culinary tra-ditions, with results which theAcademicians were able to ap-preciate fully. Just a few of thedishes offered are baby octopusin celery salad, Caorle scallopsau gratin, whipped salt cod, andfried soft-shell crabs from Bu-rano. The end of the meal bringsanother surprise, with a differentdessert for each guest. The end of the meeting is mar-ked by a buffet lunch at thePrincipe Hotel’s Sivoli Restau-rant, with a wide variety of tra-ditional local appetisers inclu-ding mussels au gratin with Ve-netian herbs and sweet and soursardines (sarde in saor), followedby a seafood risotto, Vicenza-style salt cod and tiramisù.It is at the gala dinner that themost exalted cuisine is displayed.At the trattoria “Il Gatto Nero”in Burano, everything has re-tained its simple traditional cha-racter. Ruggero Bovo, who hasowned it since 1965, speaks ofthe traditions inherent in therestaurant’s cuisine which hehas offered to local families fromthe very beginning in partnershipwith his irreplaceable wife Lucia

on a constant quest for ancestral flavours.These are all represented on the menuof this delicious dinner, with dishes toonumerous to list: prawns in a nest ofpolenta, salt cod with musky octopus,Burano-style risottowith gobies, an in-credibly light scampi and squid fry, andeel stew, all paired with excellent wines. At the end of the dinner, Paolo Petroniexpresses his appreciation for what hedefines “a representative display of su-perlative traditional cuisine preparedwith passion” - a sentiment which re-sonates among the guests. He then con-fers upon Ruggero and Lucia a well-de-served Orio Vergani Medal, an honourreserved for the stewards of Italian cui-sine. And all of this is the good.

SILVIA DE LORENZO

S O M M A R I OC U L T U R E & R E S E A R C H

T he first volume of the FoodCulture Librarywas ‘christened’in the evocative setting of Fi-

lippo La Mantia’s atmospheric and ele-gant yet functional and conceptuallyinnovative restaurant. The volume re-presents a journey through Italy’s re-gions through recipes from its localcuisines. The press conference was at-tended by many journalists from na-tional newspapers and presided overby President Paolo Petroni, SecretaryGeneral Roberto Ariani, Study CenterPresident Alfredo Pelle, and CesareLonghi, President of the Bolis publi-shing house, as well as myself. Introducing the theme, Paolo Petroniemphasised that Sauces and Graviesin Regional Cooking Tradition (Sughi esalse nella cucina della tradizione re-gionale) is not merely a source of re-gional recipes but a publication rich

in historical references and anecdotes,the result of years of study and researchby the Academy’s Regional Study Cen-ters. He also honoured the Academy’sfounder, Orio Vergani, who allied him-self with a group of illustrious repre-sentatives of culture, industry and pu-blishing to create an entity with a highcultural profile, which he intentionallyidentified as an academy in the tradi-tion of the Italian Renaissance andancient Greece before it. That memory,continues Petroni, has not dissipatedbut has been developed and spreadthroughout Italy and the world bythousands of Academicians who havemeditated upon this message and in-tuitively perceived it also as a culturaldimension of food.This volume represents an importantcontribution to the protection of re-gional cuisines and products, whichare increasingly threatened by facelessfood industries, with a view to pre-serving Italy’s cultural heritage andidentity. What we have is a veritableregional mosaic, within which one canrediscover a community’s nature, hi-

story, customs and language. Throughthis book, the Academy stresses thefundamental role and versatility ofsauces in creating harmony in a dish:condiments can add even more com-plexity to dishes which can alreadystand alone, and also add a creativetouch even to the simplest meals. Theyalso contribute to food memory: therecollection of a dish is often associatedwith a detail which, over time, becomesits main focus. Seventy recipes present the coloursand flavours of the different Italianregions from north to south: from thecheesy or buttery dips typical of nor-thern regions to the game-centric pre-parations typical of central Italy andfinally to the spicier sauces, dominatedby tomato and olive oil, found in thecuisine of the Mediterranean areas.Region by region, the book celebratesthe distinctive character of spices andother ingredients used in the courseof history. This is a mission of continuous researchand creativity, whose beating heartresides in the “Franco Marenghi” StudyCenter whence radiate the pathwaysof the Academy’s cultural activities.Alfredo Pelle, the Study Center’s Pre-sident, points out how the task of in-vestigation and study is manifestedlocally through the Regional StudyCenters, and the distinctive value ofthese monographs, including the oneunder discussion, is bound to the hi-story of the land itself. It is no coinci-dence that the Academy is an activepartner in the Foreign and AgriculturalMinistries’ projects to promote andprotect high-quality cuisine.

BY GIANNI FOSSATIMember of the President’s Council

The first volume of the Food Culture Library is presented in Milan.

A press conference for a prestigious publication

C U L T U R E A N D R E S E A R C HS O M M A R I OC U L T U R E & R E S E A R C H

Sicilian Christmas customs haveremained intact, with traditionalsinging and folk musical drama

narrating the stories associated with theholiday.Of central importance are the novene,which are sung by the entire familybefore the nativity scene, which is givenspecial importance in the island’s folkmemory of Christmas. At midnight, theimage of the baby Jesus is placed in themanger by the youngest member of thefamily. Christmas is therefore a holyfeast but also a feast for the table. Sicilian families reckon the timing ofChristmas not by the Gregorian calendarbut by the return of relatives who havemoved away. It matters little whetherthe date of Christmas hasn’t arrived yet:the celebrations begin when all the chil-dren, siblings, uncles, aunts and cousinsassemble around the same festive table.Christmas dinner is a homage to vene-

rable Sicilian traditions, an establishedinstitution from which nobody is exempt.The same rituals have been repeatedfor years and indeed centuries; this is agastronomic journey with deep roots inthe history of Sicilian cuisine inheritedfrom the Greeks, the Spanish, the Frenchand the Arabs. The dishes are rustic,but the table is set with the best tablewareand record-breaking servings; the dinneris the indisputable domain of women. While the guests wait, they whet theirappetite by snacking on grilled chickpeas,almonds and walnuts accompanied bydried figs. Next are arancine, rice dum-plings which must contain meat. Popu-larised throughout the country by thewritings of Andrea Camilleri, these ‘littleoranges’ have deep roots in the region’sculinary history, through ancestral recipeseach with its own secrets to render themespecially tantalising and flavoursome.It is thought that these dumplings werebrought to Sicily by the Arabs, who ha-bitually accompanied their meals withsaffron-infused rice mixed with herbsand meat. The custom of breading thesedumplings, instead, is attributed to thecourt of Frederick II, an innovation toallow this dish to be transported onjourneys or hunting expeditions. In Pa-lermo, the 13th of December, the feastof St. Lucy, is another occasion whichcalls for arancine, a tradition which con-tinues today.The ouverture of the Christmas dinnercontinues with pastries called ammiscate,with olives and mortadella (a form ofcured luncheon meat) or sausage. Alsotermed miscate, these are among themany gifts bestowed by Sicilians uponthe rest of the world, even though not

everyone has been lucky enough to trythem. They go by various names, de-pending on the area of the Agrigentoregion where they originate: m’briulate,miscatedda, n’friulata. Next there is thesalt cod expertly chosen by the womenof the house. It is cooked in a variety ofways according to family tradition, butoften in the Sicilian style, with no tomato,but instead flavoured with black olivesand capers from Pantelleria. The fish,of course, must absolutely be fried.Then there is the sfincione: a sort ofthick pizza dressed with tomato, onion,caciocavallo cheese, black olives andsalted sardines. There are also the won-derful cardoons, artichokes and cauli-flowers, first boiled and then breadedand fried. The batter varies betweenhomes, but the visual result is alwaysthe same: a warm and colourful dishbrought to the table amid resoundingapplause. These are widespread in allSicilian cookery, and this frying methodis of Arab origin, ultimately throughthose masters of battering and frying:the Chinese. All this is accompanied bycopious amounts of strong local redwine, often produced in the family’sown vineyard.Pride of place is given to the centenaria,the ‘hundred-year’ bottle skilfully ex-tracted from a family barrel establishedby the ancestors, whence a fixed amountis poured every year and replaced withthe same amount of new wine, so thatthe barrel’s contents will never run outand will always be ready for holidays orother important occasions. It’s a highlyalcoholic wine with a fortified flavourwhich concludes the meal.Finally, fruit is served: vividly coloured

BY CLAUDIO BARBADelegate for Agrigento

The date is immaterial: Christmas begins when relatives gather.

Christmas dinner in Sicily


oranges, tangerines and citrons. Thegrand finale is a triumph of sweets: buc-cellati (Sicilian Christmas biscuits), mu-stazzoli di vinu cotto (wine-soaked bi-scuits), and cubaita (Sicilian-style nougatof Arab origin, from the Arabic termqubbiat), a skilful blend of almonds, pi-stachios, honey and chocolate. We returnto Camilleri, who describes it thus: “cu-baita is simple and strong, a warrior’ssweet: it must be left between the palateand the tongue to soften, it must becoaxed almost lovingly to let itself beeaten; it invites meditative pondering”.At the centre of the table, the cassataholds court. Its name is thought to derivefrom the Arabic qa’sat (basin) or fromLatin caseum (cheese). It is typically Si-cilian and as such has been officially re-cognised and included on the list of Tra-ditional Food Products by the Ministryof Agricultural Policy, following an ini-tiative by the regional government ofSicily.Cassata dates from Arab rule over Sicilyin the 9th to 11th centuries. The Arabshad introduced sugar cane in Palermo,

as well as lemon, citron, bitter orange,tangerines, and almonds. In combinationwith the fresh ricotta which had beenmade in Sicily from sheep’s milk sinceprehistoric times, these formed the basicingredients of cassata, which originallywas no more than a shortcrust shellfilled with sugared ricotta and then ba-ked. In the Norman period, ‘royal dough’or Martorana dough was developed inthe Martorana convent in Palermo: thiswas a paste of almond flour and sugar,dyed green with herbal extracts, whichreplaced the shortcrust pastry. Hencethe baked cassata was replaced by oneprepared cold. Chocolate was introducedfrom Spain, and candied fruit was addedin the Baroque period. The addition ofan iced sugar coating with candied fruitcovering the entire confection like opaqueglass could be derived from the Englishword ‘glass’, whence ‘glassata’ (‘iced’),‘classata’ and ‘cassata’. Initially, cassatawas the domain of Sicilian nuns, whoguarded it as part of their sophisticatedconfectionery tradition and prepared itonly for Easter. An official document

from the first synod of Sicilian bishopsin Mazara del Vallo, dating from 1575,declares that “one cannot do withoutcassata during the holidays”. A Sicilianproverb states: “tintu è cu nun mancia acassata a matina ri Pasqua” (“Woe betidewhomever eats no cassata on Eastermorning”). The characteristic decorationwith zuccata (candied pumpkin) wasintroduced in 1873 (on the occasion ofa display in Vienna) by a pastry chefand knight from Palermo, SalvatoreGulì, who developed his creations inCorso Vittorio Emanuele in the centreof Palermo.At last there is the toast at midnight.When all seems to have come to an endand body and soul appear to have re-gained their peace and serenity, Siciliansmeet again at midnight on the 25th ofDecember, exhausted but not defeated,to polish off the leftovers of the twoprevious interminable days during whichflavours, traditions, and a unique am-biance persist and are handed downover the years.

CLAUDIO BARBA

We recently carried out an entirely anonymous CAWI(computer assisted web interview) survey using a ran-dom sample of Academicians to learn their opinionsabout our magazine, Civiltà della Tavola.Respondents were asked to award a score from 1 (mini-mum) to 10 (maximum) to the contents and the designof the magazine.332 Academicians answered, of whom 63 were femaleand 269 were male. These are the results of the survey:

Those who assigned a score from 1 to 6 were asked toexplain why. Here are the resulting suggestions: “Wesuggest a unifying theme for the articles; a column ormonthly space dedicated to wine culture; more concisearticles; the addition of articles by food professionals;less internal information about the activities of the De-legations; more food education; a move away fromoverly specialised subject matter which is often uninte-resting to those who are not experts; more recipes; andnews about events outside the Academy”.

Score Contents Design

Scores from 1 to 5 5.4% 5.1%



Score of 10 14.5% 10.8%

AVERAGE SCORE 8.0 7.8

HOW POPULAR IS OUR MAGAZINE45.5%

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Assessment of the contents of the magazine Civiltà della Tavola


N ougat, known as mandorlatoor mandolato, is a traditionalChristmas sweet of the Veneto

region, almost identifiable as a materialsymbol of that holiday. Writing aboutit means leaping back in time and re-tracing a wonderful culinary adventure:more than a century of history and tra-dition marked by a constant quest forquality which has never abated. This isalso an interesting sweet because of thesymbolism of its main ingredients: ho-ney, almonds and eggs. It is well-known that honey was con-sidered a sacred food in many ancientcivilisations. Alongside its nutritionaland curative properties, it has also al-ways held ritual and cultural valuerecognised in almost every part of theworld. It was always a symbol of swe-etness but also the food of sages andphilosophers par excellence: it is saidthat Pythagoras ate nothing but honey.

There is a Greek myth narrating howJupiter was fed by the bees of MountIda. The ancient Romans celebratedthe winter solstice by exchanging ho-ney, dates and figs, according to aritual intended to attract good fortuneas expressed by the poet Horace: “sweetbe the year that has begun”.In Jewish tradition, the almond is asymbol of life, the first tree to bloomwhen spring arrives. To crack and eatalmonds is symbolic of discovering se-crets. The egg too is a symbol of lifeand rebirth, and a bringer of good for-tune in many cultures. Nougat is en-veloped in a pure white layer of eggwhite: sticks of nougat, their roughtexture covered in such a delicate coa-ting, bring to mind mountain rocksclothed in snow, tantalising to the eyeeven before they reach the palate.If we accept such ancient symbolic va-lues, the offer of nougat is a gesture

expressing the wish of serenity andwisdom for the new year.The confection’s original recipe seemsto date to the 13th century, when theScala family held sway over Verona.More precisely, Professor Mario Visentin,in his books La meraviglia gastronomicadi Cologna Veneta: Il Mandorlato (Nou-gat: the Gastronomic Marvel of ColognaVeneta), published in 2001, and Il Man-dorlato Marani (Marani Nougat), printedin 1974, declares that it appeared onlyin 1852 in Cologna Veneta (Verona).There the pharmacist Antonio Finco,desirous of offering his friends a who-lesome sweet, allegedly invented nou-gat. Later, another pharmacist in thesame town, my great-grandfather ItaloMarani, perfected the recipe, obtainingthe white colour and crunchy textureso loved today. He began producing itin his pharmacy, thereby becoming thecreator of the first factory to which his

BY ANTONELLA MARANICortina d’Ampezzo Academician

This delicious sweet is also interesting because of the symbolism of its ingredients: honey, almonds and eggs.

Nougat


name would be forever bound. Nougatis prepared with almonds, honey, sugar,egg white and a thin wafer on the un-derside. It has a characteristic roughupper surface not covered by the wafer,allowing the mosaic of almonds to beclearly visible, immersed in a shinywhite substrate.The difference between torrone andnougat is subtle, and resides in thedifferent method of production as wellas geographical origin. Preparationmethods and ingredients are similar.Torrone contains more types of nuts,such as hazelnuts, pistachios, peanuts,almonds, sesame seeds or walnuts; in-stead, Cologna Veneta nougat containsonly almonds. Like every piece of culi-nary heritage, torrone and nougat havedisputed and imaginative origin myths.It is claimed for instance that torroneis of Arab or Samnitic origin. It seemsthat in Cremona a sweet which camefrom the East, similar to today’s torrone,was known even in the Middle Ages.Production was high within a coupleof centuries, although its ingredientswere not local. The earliest extant re-ports of the sweet’s popularity are con-tained in documents dating from the16th century. The Spaniards, then sta-tioned in Lombardy, were great loversof this confection, and they may be re-sponsible for its modern recipe; its po-pularity was such that there were pro-posals to exclude it from the list offoods prohibited by laws intended tocurb luxury. From artisanal workshopsto modern factories, this popular sweetlacked only the cachet of nobility. Andso, the legend: in 1441, to celebratethe wedding of Francesco Sforza andBianca Maria Visconti, the court con-fectioner prepared a monumental cakedepicting the city’s celebrated belltower, whose memory would be foreverenshrined in the sweet’s name (‘torre’meaning ‘tower’; ‘torrone’ meaning‘great tower’). More plausibly, the namehas Spanish origins: turron, from theLatin torreo, “I grill”. Indeed, far frombeing solely represented in Lombardy,torrone is a sweet which is commonamong all the nations which face the

Mediterranean, where the Asiatic al-mond found its chosen soil. The de-lectable union of its fruits, with or wi-thout their internal skins, whether toa-sted or not, with honey, sugar and eggwhite could originate from an exoticalmond and sugar brittle flavouredwith rosewater described in an Arabictext translated between the 12th and13th centuries, this in turn being a va-riant of cubbaita or giuggiolona, basedon sesame and honey and still commonall over the Mediterranean. So we mayowe yet another delicacy to the Arabs,though Spain and Sicily made it theirown and then disseminated it throu-ghout the Mediterranean through tradeand conquest.Torronehas naturally absorbed regionalinfluences. In Piemonte, the hazelnutsof the Langhe area, lightly toasted, re-place almonds. Cremona is famous forits torrone, either brittle or soft, withalmonds, but also its nougat - mandorlato- which is hard and glassy, as the originalversions of torroneapparently were andas the nougat of Cologna Veneta still is.Farther south, in Abruzzo, a specificproduction method and a different com-bination of ingredients led in the 19th

century to a new chocolate and hazelnutversion of torrone, with a very soft tex-ture which melts in the mouth like agianduia chocolate. In the Campaniaregion, torronewith hazelnuts is typicalof the area around Avellino and Bene-vento, where an ancient artisanal tra-dition gave rise in the early twentiethcentury to a vast industry which sup-plements the ‘classic’ almond or hazelnutversions of torrone with innovationssuch as miniature torrone bites withtoasted almonds covered in pearl sugar.Almond is triumphant even farthersouth. Alongside the torrone of Pugliaand Calabria, the Sicilian version is no-table for its tradition and quality. Al-monds and pistachios are embeddedin fragrant pastes flavoured with localhoney and citrus fruits. In the Sardinianarea of Tonara, a form of torrone is pre-pared with Sardinian honey and strictlylocal hazelnuts or walnuts. It is also unclear precisely when nougat

was invented. It is said that it was al-ready well-known during the VenetianRepublic’s era of hegemony: from 1406to 1797 Cologna was included in its‘ducal’ territory. An early reference tonougat is contained in a text by LodovicoDolce dating from 1540. In 1564, anobleman of Vicenza of the Monza fa-mily wrote in his diary that on the 21st

of December he had spent four lira andsixteen pence on four boxes of “man-dolàto”. The aristocratic Venetian writerAlvise Zorzi wrote in his book La vitaquotidiana a Venezia nel secolo di Tiziano(Daily Life in Venice in the Century ofTitian): “during the sixteenth centurythere were other customary gifts: flat-bread on Easter Sunday, nougat (man-dorlato) and preserves for Christmas,and chestnuts and quince jelly on Mar-tinmas”.Nougat requires a very specific prepa-ration: crucial are the proportions ofthe ingredients and their very slowmethod of cooking, lasting approxi-mately 12 hours. Once cooking is com-plete, the paste is worked by hand,cut into sticks and immediately wrap-ped while still warm, to preserve aromaand fragrance. Then the confection isallowed to dry over many hours untilits water content falls below 5%, whichmakes it less perishable in conditionsof ordinary heat and humidity. Qualitycontrol is paramount, and one mustexplode the myth whereby nougat is‘fattening’: in fact, 100 grammes ofnougat provide approximately 400 ca-lories (of which 8% are protein, 43%are fat and 49% are carbohydrate). This is less calorie-dense than choco-late, which has 900 calories per 100grammes, because it has a lower fatcontent. Additionally, the fats in al-monds are monounsaturates, whichare ‘good fats’, and this makes nougatmore nutritious than other sweets,such as cakes and buns, which arehigh in saturated fats.Furthermore, nougat is rich in ma-gnesium, potassium, iron and zinc,which are indispensable to proper nu-trition.

ANTONELLA MARANI

civi lt À tavola - accademia italiana della cucina · december 2016 / n. 288 editor in chief paolo...

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