But first, because today is Orthodox Easter, we wish to lift a chilled tumbler of ouzo to all our Greek, Graeco-Italian, and otherwise Hellenized friends who don’t follow the Vatican calendar. We hope that, right now, many of you are carefully tending spits of roasting lambs and kokoretsi in your back yards… Despite the fact that ouzo itself clouds when iced or mixed with soda or water, its consumption has been known to bring clarity to certain issues. Maybe as you and your families gather round the mezedes (antipasti spread) of olives, stuffed vine leaves, and taramasalata someone will ponder how Greeks hailing from islands like Mykonos and Chios assumed ownership of American roadside diners and took on “Italian” pizza production. If any of you have Easter “eureka moments,” please write to us!

Sicilian Nostalgia on a Vintage Postcard

Much as we like to think our readers can barely wait until the next report from Father Guido Sarducci, our undercover correspondent at St. Peter’s, we know that most of you are not reading this page right now. Instead, you’re more likely to be worrying about whether you have enough blue corn chips and guacamole for the Cinco de Mayo party that somehow began this morning, before you’d even slept off Saturday night. Here in Sarasota,Florida, the very trucks that had pumped green beer a mere six weeks ago had already switched logos by yesterday afternoon. Gone were the shamrocks, replaced by sombreros, maracas, and blue Coronas.

Really, though, this posting was prompted by something else. Aside from enjoying good food, we also love to tell the stories behind it. So, as we were discussing what Italian slant we could give to our celebration of Cinco de Mayo, we remembered that in Volume I of Almost Italian, we’d written about Caesar Salad, which was first crafted in Tijuana. Then, we began to list the New World’s many post-Columbus culinary contributions to Italy. Most notable are several plants, all native to Mexico. These range from the hardy Opuntia ficus indica, an edible cactus that become a symbol of both Mexico and Sicily, to zucchini, new varieties of beans, and all species of peppers and TOMATOES.

Latin American Produce and Embroidered Cotton Appliqué
Copyright © 2013, Skip Lombardi

But, last week as we were watching a pair of skilled, flour-coated hands produce a sublime pizza that we devoured a few minutes later, it hit us like the contents of a just-whacked piñata:*

The not-so-secret Mexican contribution to Italian food has been PEOPLE.

In belated recognition of yet another holiday, May Day (International Workers’ Day), let everyone who eats in America take a moment to acknowledge the Mexican men, women and children who work as field hands—along with the truck drivers, rancheros, and conveyor-belt produce sorters—all of whom handle the bounty of America’s farmlands.

While many a market survey indicates that “Italian” is America’s favorite “ethnic” cuisine, those surveys rarely talk about who hustles that food onto plates. Almost every restaurant that claims to serve Italian dishes—from Domino’s Pizza and Olive Garden to Chez Panisse and Babbo—depends upon Mexican staff.

Supporting more celebrity chefs than Dansko clogs and orange Crocs, Mexican dishwashers, bus-boys, cleaners, line-cooks, chefs, and waiters are essential members of virtually every food service team in America.

We shouldn’t need chef-provocateur Anthony Bourdain** to remind us.

Gracias y Viva Mexico!

Among the topics that we’ll surely revisit several times in the course of writing Volume II of Almost Italian are the parallel food cultures of Italians who emigrated to places other than the United States. You can be sure that we’ll be heading south of the border soon…

Tourists in Tijuana, circa 1950

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Green Shamrock Ravioli at Costco? Fuggeddabbouddit!

But this year, with so many dates crying out for “Almost Italian dot commentary,” March Madness has taken on a new meaning. Clippings and notes on topics that pique our interest have buried us as deeply as the heavy snows currently marooning travelers across North America.

Okay, we admit that we’ve indulged in many distractions, especially those constant tweets to and from our Vatican sources, speculation on what the new Pope cooks.(Rumor has it the Archbishop of Buenos Aires once personally catered a baptism for a parishioner…) We’re listening to Sylvia Poggioli, Phillip Reeves, and assorted BBC correspondents, but we’ll rely on our own insiders,the Diavolo and Sarducci, for tips on any panini to which His Holiness may be partial. We have great hopes for a guy whose first papal Sunday greeting to well-wishing throngs included the exhortation “Buon Pranzo! Have a nice lunch!”

And while we’re confessing that certain temptations led us to stray from our desks, we should also admit that we scored tickets to the opera three times in one week (two live performances and the HD cinecast of the new Met production of Rigoletto, set in Las Vegas, a must-see for Almost Italians.) Furthermore, because the Vernal Equinox and spring cleaning always generate yard sales, we have recently acquired some fabulous vintage kitchen props. But, as usual, we digress…

You’d think that Almost Italians would be feeling left out (or spared?) during the week when shamrock earrings and Celtic-themed ties are the most benign signs of Irishness. Not so!

It’s easy to forget, but worth noting, that a lot of Italian-Americans are Irish, too. One need only glance at the marriage records in cities like Chicago, Boston, and New York… Before the American Civil War, half a million Irish immigrants poured through the gates at New York’s Castle Garden; they and their descendants were well ensconced when the first big waves of Italians began to arrive in the Americas during the latter half of the 19th century. Many of those Italians, single men who were members of work crews, had hoped to earn their return passage back to Italy to find brides from their own villages in the Mezzogiorno. However, a great many found their mates here among fellow Catholics, Irish girls named Molly and Lucy instead of Mariella and Lucrezia.

Frank Bruni’s Parents’ Wedding

New York Times columnist Frank Bruni’s tribute to his mother, an exuberant Irish-American who married a first-generation Pugliese-American, speaks volumes on one homemaker’s adopted identity expressed through food.

Is there any better time for us to examine the ingredients in the American melting pot than during the season when everyone from mortgage brokers and waiters to car-wash attendants and cardiologists seems to be immersed in the wearin’ o’ the green?

There’s almost nothing specific written about Irish-Italian-American food fusion, but we know it has been happening for at least a century and continues to evolve. So we want to offer an Almost Italian take on the classic Corned Beef & Cabbage.

This isn’t as crazy as it sounds. Not only is there some truth to the internet chatter that St.Patrick was really “Italian” (his parents were Romans), but Celtic culture wasn’t confined to Eire, as attested to by the raucous bagpipers of French Brittany, Iberian Galicia and a generous swath of northern Italy. Anyone hailing from Counties Kerry or Cork could be happy with Bollito Misto Piemontese, just one of many Italian one-pot dishes of root vegetables, cabbage, and meat simmered in a broth.

Our twist on Corned Beef & Cabbage is pretty simple, and, yes, in a a week or so, we’ll add our Almost Italian recipe for this Irish-American favorite to this blog. However, we’re playing catch-up. We had barely two days between the departure of the green-beer trucks and our preparations to welcome San Giuseppe, another saint-with-a-story (and recipes).

And because the new pope, Francesco, formally assumed his post in St. Peter’s yesterday, we thought that sharing a more modest dish, typical of cucina casalinga in the Eternal City, would be would be a nice nod to Rome’s home cooking, which exemplifies culinary minimalism. We also think it’s just the sort of thing Francesco might like to whip up for himself.

Pasta e Ceci
Copyright © 2013, Skip Lombardi

Since we happen to have a delicious broth remaining from our Italianized corned beef, we’ll use it for our supper tonight. But you won’t have to wait for us to divulge the Italian segretto to both the Irish classic and the Italian recipe below: it’s the battuto.

To understand a battuto in its most elemental state, remember the Holy Trinity: the diced carrot, celery, and onion Northern Italians sauté as the flavorful base of many a sauce, soup, or braise.

A battuto can be vegetarian or not, richer if it includes a little animal fat and a truly tiny amount of meat. With or without meat, the mixture expresses the essence of what the Italians call “the cooking of the poor.” But when Italians say cucina povera, it’s no put-down or accusation of stinginess. Rather, it’s a phrase that conveys more than a touch of admiration for the economy and resourceful brilliance that elevates the humblest dish.

The permissible variations of a battuto are many—lard, goose fat, butter, or olive oil for sautéing, the possible inclusion of diced pancetta, bacon,guanciale, speck, or ham—plus a few of the usual suspects: garlic, parsley, bay leaves, rosemary, thyme, marjoram, and/or oregano, black pepper, maybe even a pinch of peperoncino, and salt. Gently frying these first, before any liquid is added to your vessel, will give any savory dish a depth unachievable were you to simply drop the same raw or untempered ingredients into a simmering liquid.

Pasta e Ceci
Copyright © 2013, Skip Lombardi

Pasta e Ceci

March 19th is the Feast of St. Joseph, San Giuseppe. In our recent book, we explored American immigrant celebrations of this festival. While it is no longer confined to Italian communities, the festa is still an extraordinary demonstration of creativity and culinary charity that falls within the doldrums of Lent. However, this year, Easter also falls in March, so this month’s liturgical and kitchen calendars are crammed, almost overwhelming.

With its free-for-all feasting La Festa di San Giuseppe seems like a mini-Mardi Gras. For cooks, it’s also a fix for saintly, if compulsive, bakers so that they can party before the home stretch of Lenten days that loom until Easter.

The recipe below is a combination of pasta with chickpeas, Cicer arietinum, a Mediterranean staple long associated with San Giuseppe and eaten throughout the Italian peninsula centuries before the Christian era. The pasta forms favored by Romans are ditalini, which cook quickly within the broth of the already-cooked beans. Also called paternoster and avemarie, Our Father and Hail Mary, the short semolina tubes are reminiscent of rosary beads. Since cooks often said their evening prayers while preparing supper, some families were known to guage the cooking of their pasta according to the time it took to recite one or more prayers.

Ditalini with traditional kitchen timer
Copyright © 2013, Skip Lombardi

The dish is quickly assembled. Just be sure your chickpeas are thoroughly cooked before you begin.

Ingredients:

For the battuto:

Olive oil
1 large stalk of celery, cut into 1/2-inch dice (reserve any leaves for garnish)
1 medium onion (about 4 ounces), cut into 1/4-inch dice
1 large carrot, peeled and cut into 1/4-inch dice
4 Tablespoons flat-leaf Italian parsley including stems, finely chopped
2 Cloves garlic, peeled and finely chopped
1 bay leaf

For the soup:

1/2 teaspoon dry marjoram
1 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
8 ounces dry chickpeas, soaked and cooked according to package directions, OR
2 15-ounce cans of cooked chickpeas, drained & rinsed
8 ounces ditalini
4 Tablespoons flat-leaf Italian parsley, finely chopped.

To garnish:

Extra virgin olive oil to drizzle
Additional chopped parsley & any celery leaves
Freshly grated Parmesan (optional)

Make your battuto

Heat a 4 to 6-quart pot over medium-high heat, then add enough olive oil to coat the bottom of the pot.

Lower the heat to medium-low and add all the ingredients for the batutto. Sauté, stirring occasionally for approximately 10 minutes, or until the ingredients soften and barely begin to caramelize.

Make the soup:

Add the marjoram and a few grinds of black pepper and stir. Cook for a minute or two, allowing the herbs and pepper to begin to permeate the batutto.

Add the drained canned chickpeas (OR the home-cooked chickpeas and their cooking liquid) to the battuto. Add additional water so that you have a total of 6 cups of liquid in the pot. Adjust the heat and cook at a simmer for approximately 10 minutes.

Have your garnishes ready as the pasta will cook very quickly.

Add the ditalini to the broth and simmer, uncovered, for about 2 minutes before you test one of the ditalini.If the pasta has reached the al dente state, the soup is ready. If not, continue cooking and tasting for another 1-2 minutes.

To Serve:

Ladle the soup into shallow bowls. Drizzle a teaspoon of fruity olive oil over each portion and garnish with parsley and freshly grated Parmesan.

Serves 4-6.

For more information about the elaborate Sicilian-American observation of the Feast of San Giuseppe, see http://almostitalian.com/viva-san-giuseppe/ and http://almostitalian.com/st-josephs-pants-cavazune/

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“MARCH MADNESS, VATICAN STYLE: WHO’LL COME OUT OF THE SWEET SISTINE?“

The wonder is: WHY did it take us so long to recognize one incontrovertible truth? The German Pope Benedict XVI—now Pope Emeritus, whom many hold to be the living embodiment of sanctity— is “Almost Italian”!!!

Although we hang upon every word broadcast by our colleague Sylvia, cyber-journalists like us feel the penitential quality of attempts to cover breaking news from Rome when our local NPR station is imposing Pledge Week on denizens of the Tampa Bay region, regardless of their creed, race, or gender.

Thou Shalt Not Tweet

Meanwhile, the Curia has pulled the plugs (and chargers). No TV, Wi-Fi, radio, cellular or satellite communication devices allowed. No Android or iAnything. Linux? Carrier pigeons? Fuggedabbouddit…

The Vatican has gone dark.

The conclave swallowed its flock of 115 cardinals after sweeps for bugs and wire-taps and security pat-downs for every ecclesiast, including, of course, the Man Who Would be Pope. Extreme measures? Maybe not, for we heard a murmur that Sistine Security Forces had already confiscated a tiny voice-recorder from a portly cleric who claimed his device was a pedometer…

Adding to the challenges of the American staff of Almost Italian—it’s both Lent and Spring Break here in Florida, so we’re resigned to following the drama from afar. We’re stuck on the Gulf Coast, making marinara and serving a lot of Eggs in Purgatory to our visiting snowbird relatives, not one of whom, alas, wears crimson robes or has any access to the inside track…

Happily, the professional disappointment of being unable to provide live coverage of THE story of the new millennium is diminished by our confidence in two trusty Almost Italian stringers, both on the ground at St. Peter’s.

Fra Diavolo reports from I Giardini Vaticani

Returning from witness protection and a stint at our sister publication, WhiteSmoke.org, veteran vaticanista Michele Pezza, a.k.a. Fra Diavolo, reports that Vegas bookies are camped close to the Holy See and taking heavy action on a 40-to-1 shot, a self-effacing and little-known Sri Lankan cardinal with a taste for peperoncino. This, despite Sylvia Poggioli’s intelligence indicating that the field may narrow rapidly with a Brazilian and a Milanese as front-runners.

In an Almost Italian exclusive, Michele mixed sports metaphors (as well as espresso and grappa), sending us a private tweet from a bar around the corner from the House of Gammarelli, Sartoria per Ecclesiastici (Tailors to the Pope & Men of the Cloth). “Gamarelli will wait B4 downsizing Pope threads. Sri Lankan is bantamweight, lighter than Eddie Arcaro.”

Emerging from years of contemplation and Cayman Islands retirement for the thrill of this extraordinary assignment, Father Guido Sarducci, “GS,” is nonetheless, under deep cover. Commenting on the likelihood of a South Asian vegetarian as the next Pope, GS, whose investigative coverage of both clerical couture and gastronomy is legendary, texted: “Yeah, when Hell freezes over.”

Father Guido Sarducci

GS gives credence to another whisper from the conclave: that beneath their official robes several cardinals are wearing 100% hair T-shirts printed with graphics and the newly decreed Eleventh Commandment: Thou Shalt Not Tweet.

Cardinal sin or not, like the earlier Big Ten, the Eleventh is bound to be broken. And when that happens, our guys will be there to report it. So stay tuned as Almost Italian continues with up-to-the-decade news, useless erudition, and recipes.

Buon appetito!

Eggs in Purgatory

Eggs in Purgatory (Uova in Purgatorio)

Ingredients:

At least 3 cups of My Grandmother’s Marinara
4 – 6 Large eggs
3 Tbs. Italian flat-leaf parsley, coarsely chopped, OR
6 Large leaves of basil, snipped
Extra virgin olive oil
Freshly grated Parmesan

1 Lb. long pasta (linguine is our preference)

Preparation:

Bring a pot of water to boil for the pasta.

Heat the sauce in a large sauté pan. When it begins to simmer, carefully break the eggs into the sauce, keeping the yolks whole. You may place a lid on the pan or regulate the heat so the the sauce does not sputter. Poach the eggs until they are done to your taste (we like ours to be a bit runny so the hot yolk blends with the sauce).

When the eggs are beginning to set, salt the water for the pasta and cook the pasta to the al dente stage. The eggs should finish poaching by the time the pasta is done.

Spoon a little marinara into the bottom of each of four shallow bowls. Drain the pasta and divide it among the bowls. Spoon another 1/4 cup of sauce atop each pasta “nest.” With a spatula or large spoon, gently lift the eggs and place each in the middle of a pasta nest. Spoon a little more sauce around the eggs and over the pasta (you may have some sauce remaining).

Drizzle a teaspoon or two of olive oil over each dish and sprinkle on the herbs. Finish each dish with about a tablespoon of freshly grated Parmesan.

Serves four as a main dish.

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Our thick batter was made with olive oil.
Copyright © 2013, Skip Lombardi

Most often sold as pizzelle in North America, the wafers are also called ferratelle or nevole in Abruzzo, the Italian region most closely associated with them. Ferratelle is also the name of the iron kitchen tools with which generations of Abruzzese women made these delicacies, usually one at a time, in hand-held irons.

For both peasantry and gentry, these irons were typically wedding presents, often etched with the initials or family crests of both a bride and her groom. Clearly, these implements became treasured heirlooms. Indeed, many hand-held irons were brought to America (before the airline age and pre-boarding metal-detectors!) by impoverished Italian immigrants who arrived with little more than their clothing.

Our electric pizzelle iron
Copyright © 2013, Skip Lombardi

An alternate name, nevole (sometimes neole) is derived from the Latin nebula, sometimes translated as “a thin layer or veneer”—which we think may refer to the Abruzzese ferratelle that are made from a thick batter as opposed to those that rely on a stiffer dough. The batter is trickier to handle but may have been preferred here in America when Italian-Americans began to use counter-top electric irons rather than those held over an open flame. (A runny batter might have leaked from a hand-held iron.)

Every pizzelle iron has a mind of its own.
Copyright © 2013, Skip Lombardi

Weather permitting, it’s not a bad idea to make pizzelle outdoors…
Copyright © 2013, Skip Lombardi

Eventually, you’ll get the hang of it…
Copyright © 2013, Skip Lombardi

Copyright © 2013, Skip Lombardi

We were going to accompany Skip’s pizzelle photos with additional lore and a couple of our tweaked recipes, but we think that Adri Barr Crocetti, whose heritage is Abruzzese, has already done this so well on her own blog, that we are delighted to refer our readers to an accomplished cook who clearly has ferratelle-making in her DNA. Adri’s own family recipe for a soft dough uses butter rather than oil.

Want to try a batter? Please email us if you’d like the recipe for the batter we devised for the pizzelle in the photos here in our post.

We think Adri’s idea of browned butter is brilliant. We used olive oil for the fat in our pizzelle, even though our electric iron’s manufacturer insisted on a solid fat and warned against using a batter made with oil. We’re happy to report that we fried no circuitry and nothing exploded; both our butter-batter and oil-batter yielded delicious results.

Regardless of your recipe, be sure to allow your pizzelle to cool completely before you store them flat, in an air-tight tin or plastic container.

Remember, practice makes perfect…
As in love, even mistakes can be delicious.

Copyright © 2013, Skip Lombardi

Happy Valentine’s Day!

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Slices of Cudduruni
Copyright © 2009, Skip Lombardi

So as you plan your Superbowl menu, take a page from the Almost Italian playbook. Excerpted from our new book Almost Italian: A Cookbook & History of Italian Food in America, this recipe for cudduruni should give you the courage to say “NO” to game-day interruptions by franchise pizza chain delivery boys. Although it’s hard to resist eating this treat hot out of the oven, most Sicilians prefer cudduruni at room temperature.

Èccolo! Here’s the perfect football food. Sometimes known as “pizza strips*,” cudduruni, shares some of the characteristics of deep-dish pizza and focaccia. Nonetheless, it really is distinct from anything else in Sicilian-American cooking.

With its Sicilian pedigree, we think a sheet pan of cudduruni could well be the most diplomatic way to feed Superbowl XLVII fans and honor the contending teams. Hailing from San Francisco and Baltimore, two cities with large populations of southern Italian descent, The 49ers and The Ravens will be playing in the Big Easy, whose French Quarter was once so solidly Sicilian that it was known as Little Palermo!

Cudduruni, fresh from the oven
Copyright © 2009, Skip Lombardi

Among the qualities that distinguish cudduruni are:

• Cudduruni is always baked in a pan, even if it goes into a wood-fired oven.
• The cheese topping, if any, is parmesan or romano. Never mozzarella. (If cheese were ever incorporated in the Old World Sicilian version, it would have been the sheep’s milk pecorino of the Italian South.)
• The “sauce” is no more than canned, crushed tomatoes in a heavy purée. (Some families did use strattu, the sun-dried tomato conserve many southern Italian-Americans made at home.)

Nearly every Little Italy bakery in New England once produced some version of cudduruni. Traditionally available only on Saturday morning, the treat was typically just a slab of dough spread with the requisite olive oil, tomato purée, and parmesan. (The Palmieri Bakery in Providence, Rhode Island, still offers their brilliantly simple, cheeseless version.) A few establishments added sliced garlic or dried oregano to the topping, while a handful went all out in their expression of abbondanza by tossing on ground beef, sausage, or anchovies before the pan went into the oven.

Skip recalls-

Our recipe here is a little more conservative with the oil. By using parchment paper, we have an easier clean-up and still get that delicious, baked-with-olive-oil flavor.

Cudduruni

Ingredients:

1 Lb. Pizza dough at room temperature
2 – 3 Tbs. Olive oil
1 1/2 Cups crushed tomatoes in heavy purée
1 tsp. Crushed red pepper flakes (peperoncini)
1/2 Cup freshly grated parmesan or romano cheese

Preparation:

Use a baking dish or heavy sheet pan at least 9 x 14 inches. Cut a sheet of parchment paper large enough cover the bottom and sides of the pan. (It’s okay if the paper sticks up a little above the sides.) Fit the paper into the pan and set it aside.
Preheat the oven to 375 F.

If you’re using parchment paper, lightly flour the dough, then stretch and roll it out to approximately the size of your pan. Place the rolled-out dough into the pan and stretch it to meet the sides.

If you’re not using parchment, lightly coat the bottom of a sheet pan with olive oil. Place the dough in the center of the sheet pan, then press and stretch to flatten the dough to fill the pan.

Coat the top of the dough with a couple of tablespoons of olive oil. Then, using a large spoon or ladle, spread the crushed tomatoes over the oiled dough.

Sprinkle the red pepper flakes and grated cheese evenly over the tomatoes.

Bake for approximately 40 minutes in the middle of the preheated oven.

Serves a sofa-full of fans.

Anche un po di vino va bene
Copyright © 2009, Skip Lombardi

Trust us: cudduruni really IS delicious at room temperature, and in our opinion, that makes it ideal football fare.**

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Our most popular AlmostItalian.com post, with thousands of page-views year ’round (but especially just before Christmas), Scungilli put us on the map. Earlier in 2012, when we published Almost Italian: A Cookbook & History of Italian Food in America, we removed the scungilli post from the blog, and it became an entire chapter of the book, which we refer to as Volume I…

Scungilli, fresh off the boat
Copyright © 2011, Holly Chase

We’re continuing our explorations of Italian ingredients and techniques outside Italy, writing posts that we hope will eventually comprise Volume II of Almost Italian.

It was only a matter of time before scungilli would grab more column space. So when The New York Times gave some recent ink to the rediscovery of whelks by that city’s chefs, we thought we should serve our readers a little holiday treat from our new book. Thus, we’ve brought back our four-year-old post with step-by-step instructions for cleaning and cooking scungilli. Like making our own cavatelli, marinara, and Easter Pie, we think cleaning fresh scungilli is worth the trouble, and that’s why we included those recipes and many others like them in our book.

Most tinned scungilli are also labeled “conch.” The latter are warm-water species.
Copyright © 2012, Skip Lombardi

Whether you use the related, but less flavorful species that are sold in tins, or buy your own channeled whelks, live, in their shells, you can enjoy both the marinated salad and pasta with red sauce recipes below.

Whether you invite scungilli to the Feast of the Seven Fishes or simply enjoy them with pasta, they make a celebratory meal to share with those you love.

Buon Appetito e Buon Natale !

Photo # 1—Close-up of fresh scungilli

Scungilli, very large marine snails, are firmly fixed in Italian-American cuisine—whether served chilled in an insalata di mare or hot in a marinara sauce.  The cold-water species, Busycotypus canaliculatus, channeled whelk, is the one most commonly gathered in New England by those who still bother to fuss with the snails’ labor-intensive preparation. Their meat is dense, chewy, and quite sweet. Larger Italian grocery stores may stock frozen scungilli and most carry tins of “conch”—though the latter are usually different species, from warmer waters in the Gulf of Mexico, Caribbean, and South Asia.

Although they are not as popular today as calamari, or even octopus and eel, scungilli would be one of the dishes a skilled nonna might prepare for a holiday spread, especially for the Feast of the Seven Fishes on Christmas Eve.

While cooking scungilli is molto semplice, their cleaning has been described as penitential. That’s why a 29-oz can of prepared scungilli costs as much as $26. Nonetheless, the ease of digital photography has inspired us to pick up where Nonna left off. In this post we will document the cleaning of scungilli for current and future ‘Almost Italians.’ So, if someone brings you a 50-lb bag of live whelks, gather all hands and follow these directions. Then, you can freeze your prepped scungilli meat to use on short notice throughout the year.

Photo # 2—Scungilli ready for steaming

Try to get some seaweed with your live whelks. Rinse the shells and seaweed in clean water. (Scungilli shells may be encrusted with barnacles. Don’t bother trying to remove them.)

Place an inch of water (preferably sea-water) and some seaweed in a large pot. Bring the pot to a boil, reduce to a simmer, cover, and steam the whelks for 10 minutes.

Photo # 3—Removing the Scungilli from their Shells

Remove the pot from the burner and uncover. Lift the shells  from the pot with tongs. Place them on a cutting board or large plate until they are cool enough to handle. With a short paring knife or narrow metal spatula, lift open each snail’s operculum, a hard, horn-like oval window protecting the opening of the shell. It may stick to the snail meat or it may come right off. (See photo # 5; the operculum is in the foreground.)

Gently wedge the blade into the shell and let it help you pull out the coiled snail flesh and “attachments” in one piece.

Photo # 4—Scungilli, out of their Shells

The snail parts you want to keep stop at the dark part of the coil, the snail’s digestive tract. Cut that off and discard.

Photo # 5—Deconstructed Whelk
Seaweed, entire snail with innards attached, empty shell, & operculum

Photo # 6—Cooked scungilli, partially trimmed

Cut each of the snails cross-wise in half, to expose the internal digestive tract. Rinse each piece well, leaving an empty channel (Photo # 7)

Photo # 7—Two cleaned scungilli (each has been halved)

With a very sharp knife, carefully pare away the tougher dark bits on the outside of the scungilli pieces.  This is for aesthetic reasons; reserve these dark trimmings to use in a tomato-based sauce (recipe below).

Set aside the pale, waxy and (relatively) more attractive pieces of scungilli for salads or non-tomato sauces.

Photo # 8—Trimmed scungilli ready to slice for salad

At this stage, the trimmed scungilli are still rather tough, but they will be further tenderized by the additional steps and preparations below. Freezing will also tenderize cleaned scungilli. If you slice the scungilli 3/8″ thick before freezing, it will only have to be thawed before marinating. The acids of the marinade will complete the tenderization.

If you’ve been curious (or nostalgic) enough to read this far, buon appetito! But if you don’t think that cleaning wild gastropods is how you want to spend your Saturday afternoon, you can look for a deal on another species…

You may find inexpensive tins of conch.
Their texture is softer, their flavor less briny.

Insalata di Scungilli

Ingredients:

8-10 oz. Fresh scungilli  (cooked, cleaned, and sliced as above)
I /8 tsp Finely chopped fresh garlic
1/2 Medium Bermuda onion sliced in very thin rings
1/4 tsp salt
1/2 tsp freshly ground black pepper
1/2 tsp red pepper flakes (peperoncini)
Rind of one lemon, grated
Juice of one lemon
1/2 tsp fresh oregano, finely snipped
1-2 Tbs red wine vinegar
2 Tbs Extra virgin olive oil

1 Large, vine-ripened tomato, coarsely chopped (about 8 oz.)
1/4 Cup finely sliced celery
1/4 Cup coarsely chopped Italian flat-leaf  parsley
1 Tbs Fresh basil, finely snipped
Leaves from one heart of Romaine lettuce

Preparation:

In a 1-quart mixing bowl or other non-reactive container, combine the first 11 ingredients; stir to combine. Cover and set aside in a cool place for at least 30 minutes before serving.  You may combine and chill these ingredients up to 12 hours ahead of serving.

Just before serving, add the remaining ingredients and taste for salt and acidity, adding a little more vinegar or oil, to taste.

To Serve:

Serve in small bowls. You may tear the lettuce into large pieces and toss with the scungilli or keep the leaves whole, adding them as crisp garnishes to each serving.

Serves 4-6 as an antipasto or salad.

Scungilli alla Marinara

Ingredients:

8-10 oz. Prepared scungilli, finely diced (1/4 inch pieces)
3/4 cup clam broth or any liquid left from tinned or thawed scungilli (optional)
2 Cups of My Grandmother’s Marinara Sauce
1/4 Cup Italian flat-leaf parsley, coarsely chopped
2 Tbs. Snipped fresh basil
Additional sprigs of parsley for garnish
1 lb cooked gemelli or other short pasta

Preparation:

In a large, non-reactive saute pan, simmer the marinara sauce, scungilli, and any additional broth or liquid for 20-30 minutes.

Cook the pasta according to directions, but drain it when it is slightly underdone.

Add the drained pasta to the marinara and allow it to cook in the sauce till it has reached the al dente state. Stir in the herbs and serve the pasta and sauce in shallow bowls. Garnish with parsley sprigs.

Serves 4

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Since we were both born under Gemini, the sign of the celestial twins, some would say that we are a team of four, rather than a duo. But even the existence of our multiple personalities doesn’t explain how we manage our lives and passions for culinary history, good writing, and hands-on cooking. All we can say is that multi-tasking is in our DNA.

Claiming descent from families that included artists, antiquarians, and pack-rats, one of us became a dealer in vintage textiles and furnishings. You’ve seen more than a few of those—the old linens, Deco dishes, and artfully tarnished silverware—in our food photographs on this blog and in our recently published book, Almost Italian: A Cookbook and History of Italian Food in America.

Vintage Cocktail Forks

Because we never know what we may need, we are always on the prowl for what we call our “props,” to use the terminology of a theatrical stage manager. (One of us worked on Broadway, and both of us think of the kitchen counter as a stage.)

In our quest, we go to garage sales, thrift shops, salvage yards, and art galleries. We give more than a cursory glance at our neighbors’ curbside giveaways and throwaways. We never know where we’ll find the perfect piece of weathered cypress board or THE cobalt-glazed bowl to set off the wilted greens and pasta.

Those things tend to linger in our batterie de cuisine or the “prop closet” and may be used in multiple photos. But there comes a time to clear some space and deaccession a few of the appealing objects we’ve acquired along the way, many of which have nothing whatsoever to do with the kitchen. Need a 1970′s tartan? A gypsy scarf? A deck of poker cards from Uruguay? What about an original airbrush painting of a Hawaiian cockatoo? We do have a 1962 cookbook with attitude (pure Madmen) as well as a set of twelve miniature orange cocktail forks in their original box. June Cleaver would love them.

To paraphrase Frenchman Brillat-Savarin: tell us what you collect and we’ll tell you who you are.

How to Appeal to a Man’s Appetites
1962 First Edition Cookbook by Toby Stein

And speaking of cookbooks, we’re delighted that so many of you have already bought an electronic copy of Almost Italian.Thank you! However, we’ve come to realize that many of our readers are not everyday cooks and want only certain recipes, most notably those associated with the Italian-American celebration of the Christmas Eve Feast of the Seven Fishes.

In response, we’ve put together AN ALMOST ITALIAN HOLIDAY SAMPLER, a mini eBook with just eight fish and seafood recipes, great photos, plus some background on the grandest meal in the Italian calendar. To top it off, we’ve included an Italian food spoof of the Twelve Days of Christmas as well as nostalgic recollections of our own holidays. Use the link below, at the bottom of this post, to go to our page on ETSY.com, where you’ll find a more extensive description and excerpts from AN ALMOST ITALIAN HOLIDAY SAMPLER.

Our HOLIDAY SAMPLER is a small eBook and priced accordingly, low enough for you to send out multiple copies, maybe even INSTEAD of greeting cards. So, how do you get? We email it to you as a PDF file, which can then be read on any computer, smartphone, tablet, or eReader.

If you don’t want to risk splashing marinara on your iPad, you’ll be happy to know that the PDF file is easy to print. You’ll be able print paper copies (including the color photos)for your non-techie relatives and, thus, share the prep work for your own family’s Feast of the Seven Fishes.

We invite you to the weirdly wonderful, virtual world of ETSY.com, where we have our online shop, PROPZ. You’ll see AN ALMOST ITALIAN HOLIDAY SAMPLER among all the other curiosities in our shop.

But wait—there’s more….

Through January 6, 2013 you can apply the discount coupon code below to anything in the online shop, which includes many of our own kitchen props.

www.etsy.com/shop/PROPZ

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Because it’s Hanukkah, we would love to claim that our recipe below is both Italian AND Jewish, one with a long Sephardic tradition. But the truth is that it’s our own invention, inspired by a singular Italian pasta shape. You could say it’s almost Jewish… and maybe, just maybe, aspirationally Italian. Allow us to explain:

Stelle, Star-shaped Pasta
Copyright © 2012, Skip Lombardi

Ordinarily, Italian cooks use, stelle, extremely tiny pasta stars, to embellish clear broth in just the same way that they use other miniscule forms like alphabeti, seme di melone, and acini di pepe. We are not aware of any other traditional use for stelle in the Italian kitchen.

However, we do know that a very nice orzata can be made using the rice-shaped pasta, orzo. (Orzata is made the same way as risotto, except that the cook uses pasta rather than grains of rice.) So we thought about using the stelle rather than orzo. Unfortunately, unlike the orzo, the flat stars tend to stick to each other. But then we remembered the classic eastern European combination of pasta and buckwheat—the Ashkenazi Jewish deli staple known as kasha varnishkes, which is simply a buckwheat pilaf enlivened with carmelized onions and pasta, most often with the bow-ties Italians call farfalle (butterflies).

Kasha with Stars or Grano Saraceno con Stelle
Copyright © 2012, Skip Lombardi

Why not an Italian take on that? One of us has Sephardic ancestors, so the six-pointed stelle made the challenge irresistible. Besides, we rationalized, cooks in both northern and southern Italy do include buckwheat in many recipes for polenta and pasta. Grano saraceno (Saracen grain, the centuries-old, and politically incorrect Italian name referring to the swarthy color of buckwheat) grows best in cool, damp regions less favorable to the cultivation of winter and summer wheat.

Delicious as a vegetarian main dish or pilaf contorno for your brisket or roast chicken—Kasha with Stars, Kasha mit Sternen—our Almost Italo-ebraico Grano Saraceno con Stelle will light up your table. Leftovers are delicious cold or gently microwaved.

Ingredients:

1 1/4 Cups buckwheat groats
1 large egg

Olive oil
3/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
1/4 teaspoon salt
3 cloves garlic, minced
1 large onion, sliced into 1/8-inch half-moon slivers
1 bay leaf
1 stalk celery, cut into 1/4-inch dice
1/2 teaspoon peperoncino (dry red pepper flakes, optional)

2-3 Cups warm water or broth

1 Cup stelle, tiny pasta stars– or other tiny shape
A few teaspoons of extra virgin olive oil, to finish

3/4 cup chopped flat-leaf Italian parsley
3/4 cup toasted walnut pieces, coarsely chopped
3/4 cup crumbled ricotta salata or feta cheese*

*Optional, but nice if you are serving this as a main dish

Preparation:

In a small bowl, beat the egg lightly with a fork. Stir all the buckwheat into the beaten egg and continue to stir until the egg has evenly coated all the grains. Don’t worry if there is a little extra egg or if the mixture is very stiff.

Heat a dry 12″ sauté pan over medium heat. Do NOT add any oil at this time.

Add all the egg-coated buckwheat to the pan and spread it out. The grain will become fragrant as it begins to toast. Stir it with a fork or wooden spoon to break up any lumps and when all the grains are separate, reduce the heat to medium-low. Keep stirring and toasting for 5-7 minutes. Some grains will begin to darken. Remove the toasted buckwheat to a bowl and set aside.

NOTE: These steps are essential to keep the buckwheat grains separate.

To the same toasting pan, add the olive oil, seasonings, garlic, onion, and celery. Sauté over medium heat for 7-10 minutes or until the onion is lightly caramelized.

Meanwhile, in a separate, 1-quart saucepan with a lid, bring 3 cups of water to a boil for the pasta stars.

When it comes to a boil, add 1 teaspoon of salt and stir in 1 cup of stars. Turn off the heat under the pot and cover it. Set the timer for 2 minutes.

After 2 minutes gently stir the pasta with a fork or chopstick. Cover and set the timer for 2 more minutes. Next, test the pasta; it should be slightly less than al dente. Drain the pasta and slide it into a small bowl. Drizzle the cooked stars with a teaspoon of extra virgin oil and gently stir it into the pasta to keep the shapes from sticking together. Set the bowl aside.

Stir the toasted buckwheat into the caramelized onions and seasonings in the sauté pan. Raise the heat to medium and add 1 cup of warm water or broth to the pan. Stir the grain gently as the water will be quickly absorbed. Add another 1/2 cup of warm liquid and stir until it is nearly absorbed. Add one more 1/2 cup of liquid, reduce the heat to low, and cover the pan.

After 5 minutes, check to see that the grain is not sticking. Stir in a little more more water or broth if the grain is still too hard for your taste. The buckwheat should be light and slightly chewy. When you like the texture, turn off the burner and gently fold in the reserved pasta. Taste for salt and pepper. Drizzle a couple of teaspoons of extra virgin olive oil over the pilaf and fluff with a fork. Cover the pan to keep it warm.

To serve: Divide the buckwheat pilaf into portions. Sprinkle the chopped parsley, toasted walnuts and (optional) cheese over each serving.

Serves 4 as a main dish or 6-8 as a farinaceous side

Buon appetito e auguri per La Festa delle Luci!

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The Condimento: Garlic, Olive Oil, and Hot Red Pepper Flakes
Copyright © 2012, Skip Lombardi

So what did Nonna serve when her cupboard was nearly bare? She and other immigrant families relied on a pasta dish that exemplifies la cucina dei poveri, the food of the poor.

Whether you’re feeling rich or poor, you’ll enjoy a zesty southern Italian preparation that is simplicity itself. Is Pasta con Aglio, Olio, e Peperoncino a balanced meal? No, but in your case, Thanksgiving excess took care of the calories and vitamins last week. You and your liver could use a break.

When Nonna’s larder lacked even a rind of cheese, this is what the immigrant family enjoyed. The key component is the bread crumb mixture, pane gratatto, which the ever-wry immigrants called “false cheese” or formaggio dei poveri. Sautéed with a little olive oil, the crumbs become a condimento that satisfies the palate’s craving for fat. It’s the perfect example of cholesterol-free fast food. Maybe Mayor Bloomberg could fast-track the licensing of a few food trucks to serve this around New York City?

Ingredients:

1 pound spaghetti or linguine

2 Tablespoons olive oil
3 large cloves garlic, finely chopped
1 Tablespoon peperoncino, crushed red pepper flakes
1/2 to 3/4 cup dry, unseasoned bread crumbs
Coarsely ground black pepper & salt, to taste

A little extra virgin olive oil, to finish

Preparation:

Begin to cook the pasta in boiling, salted water.
As the pasta cooks, prepare your condimento:

In a sauté pan, heat 2 Tablespoons of olive oil over medium heat and sauté the chopped garlic for one minute, or until is is fragrant. Add the peperoncino, a few grinds of black pepper, and bread crumbs to the pan and stir until the crumbs are lightly toasted, 3 to 4 minutes. If you are using the fresh parsley and/or citrus rind, add those now and stir to combine with the crumbs. Remove the pan from the heat.

As soon as the pasta is al dente, drain it well. Immediately, toss the hot pasta in a large bowl with one tablespoon of the extra virgin oil. With tongs, or two spoons, gently lift the pasta strands a few times so they are coated with the oil. Add all of the reserved crumb mixture and gently combine it with the hot pasta. Taste one strand and, if needed, add salt to taste.

Divide the pasta into 4 – 6 portions and, if you like, drizzle each with another spoonful of extra virgin oil.

Buon appetito!

Serves 4 – 6 as a light meal.

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