Tag Archives: Italian

Mayo09

Joe

0

I Zeppoli

If a food could be a moment in time, one of those moments would be a strong, sweet thimbleful of coffee with a hot zeppole; since we taste with smell, I have to include the breeze and the fig tree.

That’s my status on facebook right now, and it’s true.

If you drop the word “zeppole” into Google Translate, it comes up with “doughnut,” which is more or less what a zeppole is, but- like everything- it’s so much more.The word, by the way, predates the term “zeppelin” by several hundred years.

There are many occasions in the life of a yeast baker to have leftover dough: an extra pizza crust; or a too-full oven or baking stone; or maybe even an extra bit of dough saved for this purpose. I’ve never seen someone make dough specifically for zeppoli, though I am sure it has happened. Zeppoli are a happy accident of yeast baking. So what, exactly, are they?

A zeppole is a bit of yeast dough, anywhere from 1-3″ in diameter, fried and usually rolled in sugar. Sometimes a rolled up anchovy filet goes inside, or a dried fig, but usually they are plain. In sicily, the sugar coating is often cinnamon sugar, but vanilla sugar and jasmine sugar are certainly options (as is plain sugar). Vanilla sugar, I’m sure all you foodies know, is made by stuffing a whole vanilla bean inside a few cups of sugar, a great way to store your vanilla beans and get a freebie in the process. Jasmine sugar is made the same way, only with jasmine flowers, easy enough to get if you live in California. If you live in the east, I bet honeysuckle sugar would be awesome, too, though I can’t say from experience.

Pieces of dough are fried in moderately hot oil (325 neighborhood) until they puff and turn as golden as you like them: I keep mine a shade darker than beach sand. The darker they are the crustier the outside, which, if you ask me, becomes a diminishing return after about 2 minutes or so in the oil. After a quick rest on some paper towels, roll them in your sugar of choice. The sooner they’re eaten, the better.

As you might imagine these are an incidental goody more than anything else, so I hope some serendipitously find their way into your merenda, or afternoon snack. By the way, the memory of the fig tree is that of the one growing out of a crack in the pavement, that I’ve mentioned before.

Listening: Laurie Lewis, “Stealing Chickens” from the album Restless Ramblinbg Heart

Apro29

Joe

0

Learning

Learning, hopefully, is something we never stop doing. Throughout my twenties, I learned several new techonologies (new to me, anyway) to aid in the job I was doing. I learned a lot about component-level electronics, I learned how to write code, I learned a lot about the composition of plastics. I learned a lot of esoteric shit that made me a better lighting guy.

You know what’s really hard to learn? Something you already know how to do.

Case in point: I am currently enrolled at the Language School of the Italian Cultural Institute of San Francisco, La Scuola di Lingua dell’Istituto Italiano di Cultura. But- you ask- don’t you speak Italian? Well, I do and I don’t. Italy as we know it today is divided into 20 regions that all have geographic and historical context.

Historically, meaning from the time of Caesar and before to the 1800s, these regions were all independent city-states, at times under the control of the roman empire, the church, the French and Spanish crown, but always demarcated, and never considered one. Some had great fame on their own, La Serenissima, or the Republic of Venice, existed for over 1000 years and sent Marco Polo to China. But these places were divided by geography, mainly mountains: the alps to the north, which trickle down into the north to divide those landlocked regions; and the appennines below- but also by culture and by language. Most of the languages in the north evolved from the language of the Senators: High Latin. Many had neighbors influence them a great deal- Valle d’Aosta and Piemonte show a great inluence of French. For example, bagna càuda- warmed oil with anchovies served with crudite- is eaten there, and the dialect shares the words with Provençal. The Venetians hung on to the letter X, greatly influenced by the Phoenicians, and Istrian- from across the Adriatic- is a romance language influenced heavily by slavic Croatian. In the south, Vulgar Latin was the model: Sicilian is one of the oldest romance languages to wander out of Vulgar Latin, spoken as far north as The Cilento, in southern Campania, to say nothing of Napolitana, Pugliese, Alto Calabrese and dozens more. In structure and cadence- not to mention accent- these languages share very little with the Standard Italian spoken today.

So what language do they speak in Italy today? Mostly, they speak an updated and standardized dialect of Tuscan, spefically one native to the city of Florence, home of Dante Alighieri, and a direct descendent of the language used in the Commedia Divina. It shares some cadence and vocabulary with Southern Italian languages, but has deep roots in the literary and political culture of central and northern Italy. So, now that we’ve covered all that, do I speak Italian, or don’t I? Well, the answer is: I do, but not terribly well. I also speak quite a bit of Sicilian, specifically the dialects of Palermo, and to a lesser extent those of Messina. What I do speak well is Sicilian heavily dialecticized by Italian and  of course Siculish, which is common among Sicilians in the diaspora. Why do I speak this language? Well, because I spoke some Italian and some Sicilian when I came to work in the diaspora, and that’s how they all talked. It wasn’t a study so much as happenstance.

Why am I telling you about this? Well, beacause learning how to do something you already ostensibly know how to do can be very frustrating. When I say a sentence in class that I have said 1000 times to native speakers, and heard them say the exact same way another 1000 times, and get corrected- it’s a drag.

Case in point:

Teacher: Joe, dove sta il mio libro? (where’s my book)
Joe: Ah, ho misu la drocu. (Oh, I put it over there)
Teacher: LO HO MESSO LÀ
Joe: That’s what I said!
Teacher: (*^#*&@_!!!!

What can you do? I’m very romantic- some would say quixotic- and I like the idea of an independent Sicilian culture, including its language. But the fact of the matter is that nearly everyone alive in Sicily speaks Italian, and if I want to travel there and see the shops and cook with people, I know more than enough Sicilian to figure out the local color- IF I speak really excellent Italian. So here I go.

Maro31

Joe

0

Easter, Day 2

Tired.

My feet, my hands, my back; I’m tired.

I’m tired like restaurant business tired, but we got so much good stuff, and we got so much done.We went to Santa Monica Farmers’ Market at the crack of ass this morning and came back with sprouting broccoli, spanish onions, shallots, torpedo onions, green garlic, fennel bulbs, artichokes, fava beans, sage, savory, parsley, oregano, cilantro, celery, carrots (4 or 5 colors), beets, chard, potatoes, zucchini and god knows what else.


I have a few phots, but they will have to wait for tomorrow, as will the menu… too tired now.


Goodnight, moon.

Maro30

Joe

0

Easter…

Easter…

is upon us.

It’s time, bitches.

The battaria di cucina is unloaded, and tomorrow we shop (at Santa Monica Farmer’s Market). Here’s the tentative menu, subject to change tomorrow, of course:

Pani Pasquali
Torta di Riso Liguriana
Pizza Chena Cilentana
Mafalda al Serpente
Panini di Pepe

Ravioli di Fave
Fava Ravioli with Sheep’s Milk Ricotta

Capretto Stufato
Kid braised with potatoes
Contorni

Pastiera Napoletana
Neapolitan Easter Grain Pie

Granita di Limone
Eureka Lemon Granita


The goat is butchered, and it’s in the fridge. BOO YA.

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