Rivalling Spaghetti with Meatballs, Chicken alla Cacciatora is certainly one of the defining dishes of Italian-American cuisine. Italians in the first waves of of emigration, many of whom were desperately poor, might only have heard of dishes prepared ‘hunter’s style.’

Photograph courtesy Jackie Messineo

And even if they had been fortunate enough to have actually tasted them, such dishes would more likely have featured pigeon or hare, small game ensnared or felled with a slingshot. Poverty in 19^th-century Italy, especially following the Risorgiamento, was so severe that few contadini would have been able to afford a gun, and most were without legal access to the game in forests and fields controlled by i galantuomini, the landed classes. ¹

In Italy, domestic fowl had never been widely consumed. Even in modern Italy, chicken has yet to gain favor as an everyday dish. ² So before we turn on the stove, it is worth considering the Italian origins of a dish that became a staple on the American red-sauce circuit .

We gleaned some hints as to the recipe’s evolution from food historian, Gillian Riley and her new book, The Oxford Companion to Italian Food. She reminds us that Italian cuisine maintained many of the ancient medical divisions of foods into “hot” and “cold.” The divisions have nothing to do with temperature but are part of a system of classification similar to what persists in Chinese and other Asian cuisines to this day. That is, certain foods are considered “invigorating” and thus hot or warming (yang), while others are calming and cooling (yin).

Pigeon, because of its dark, rich-tasting flesh, was considered a “hot” food and thus a meat to be complemented by something cooling—which is to say, fresh and acidic. The medieval method for preparing pigeon often incorporated verjuice, the juice of unripe fruit, usually grapes. Among Italian recipes for game and other meats, it is this acidic inclusion that makes a dish ‘alla cacciatora.’

Following World War II, as Italian-American restaurants expanded their menus beyond foods remembered from “the old country,” many began to include chicken, whose firm texture and neutral flavor made it adaptable to myriad treatments. While European Italians may not have eaten much chicken, their American descendants took to it readily—for its economy and availability, and especially for its versatility. Because it could support many of the flavors previously used for veal dishes, chicken became a common stand-in for veal—a meat that, even in America, was considered a luxury.

Along with so-called variety meats, like tripe and liver, game had rarely been offered in the neighborhood restaurants. Meanwhile, the new medium of television had given Americans a furry personality as lovable as Beatrix Potter’s cotton-tails. It is no exaggeration to say that chicken made Italian restaurants safe for Bugs Bunny.

Back in the Old World, rabbit or hare alla cacciatora continued to be sautéed with garlic and fresh herbs before wine and vinegar (or citrus juice) were added to deglaze the pan and create a quick, uncomplicated sauce. Tomatoes were an American addition, yet another acidic element, and one that non-Italians immediately recognized as “Italian.” Then, too, this was the beginning of an increased use of color photography in cookbooks and print advertising, particularly in womens’ magazines. Delicious as these dishes may have been without them, tomatoes made for better photos. Not until America’s Little Italy recipes began to migrate back to Europe, did tomatoes appear in Italian alla cacciatora renditions.

Another Italian-American embellishment—mushrooms—remain absent from most Italian alla cacciatora recipes. Their inclusion may well be yet another example of the immigrants’ sense of humor. Hunters whose shots were less sure might still have salvaged their days in the woods if they were successful foragers. Even if they didn’t come home with a sack full of game, they might have found some mushrooms. (Boletus edulis, which Italians call porcini, grow wild in both Italy and North America.)

Continuing our deconstruction of alla cacciatora americana, we’ve no compelling answer as to how sweet peppers found their way into the American preparation. But we wouldn’t be surprised to learn that an enthusiastic Italian-American chef thought that green bell peppers, along with white chicken and red tomato sauce, were a fine way to pay homage to his grandparents’ homeland by evoking the colors of the Italian flag, the beloved tricolore.

Ingredients:

1 3 1/2 Lb. Chicken, cut into 8 – 10 pieces
1 Cup flour, seasoned with salt and freshly ground black pepper
2 – 4 Tbs. Olive oil
1 Lb. White mushrooms, quartered
2 Green bell peppers, cored, seeded, and sliced into 1 in. strips
1 Medium onion, finely chopped
4 Cloves garlic, peeled and finely chopped
1/2 Cup dry red wine
2 Cups marinara sauce
2 – 4 Tbs. Fresh oregano, finely chopped
4 Tbs. Flat-leaf Italian parsley, finely chopped
Parmesan

Preparation:

Pour the seasoned flour into a paper grocery bag. Add the chicken pieces, close the bag, and shake to coat completely.

Heat a large sauté pan over medium-high heat, then add 2 Tbs. of the olive oil. Remove the chicken pieces from the bag, shake off the excess flour, and add the chicken pieces to the pan. Sauté until brown, about 4 – 5 minutes per side. Transfer the chicken to a plate.

Return the pan to the heat. Add the mushrooms, peppers, onion, and garlic, and sauté until the onion becomes translucent, about 10 minutes.

Raise the heat to high, and add the wine. Cook for 1 – 2 minutes to evaporate the alcohol. Reduce the heat to a simmer and mix in the marinara sauce.

Return the chicken pieces to the sauté pan, spooning the sauce over them. Add the oregano. Simmer until the chicken is tender, about 20 minutes.

Transfer the chicken to a platter. Cook the sauce until slightly thickened, about 3 minutes. Ladle the sauce over the chicken. Garnish with the parsley and serve family-style, passing the Parmesan separately at the table. Traditionally, this would be served with a side of pasta.

Serves four.

^1. Additional information on post-Risorgiamento Italy can be found in an excellent book by Hasia Diner; Hungering for America: Italian, Irish, and Jewish Foodways in the Age of Migration; Harvard University Press, 2001.

^2. For further discussion of Italian chicken consumption, see Part IV of our Introduction.

By the 1980′s and early ’90′s, neighborhood Italian restaurants found that their patrons, many of whom had ventured into uptown oases of northern Italian cuisine, were seeking lighter fare. Dishes swimming in the traditional red sauce began to face stiff competition from combinations like Chicken with Ziti and Broccoli—a dish with Neapolitan antecedents. It was during this time that Italian-American chefs began to exploit the possibilities of skinless, boneless chicken breasts. Frequently substituted for veal scallopini, the uniform breasts were already portion-sized and far less expensive than veal.

Both the economy and neutral taste of the mass-marketed chicken breasts allowed them to become a sort of blank canvas on which both home cooks and restaurant chefs sought to create their masterpieces, those “signature” dishes. New names sprang up on menus, in local newspaper food columns, on the back of boxes of pasta… Pollo al Limone, chicken with white wine and lemon juice, could take on myriad new identities with the addition of mushrooms or sun-dried tomatoes or artichoke hearts… And if you were gilding the lily and wanted to use all three luxury ingredients and a little white wine? Eccolo! Chicken Verdicchio!

In the case of naming this preparation, we can’t help wondering if someone simply thought “Verdicchio” sounded appropriately mellifluous and sophisticated or if Verdicchio happened to be the only white wine a particular chef had on hand when all the ingredients first came together.

Would Chardonnay, Pinot Grigio, or Trebbiano serve as well here? We think so, but since this varietal grape gave the recipe its name, we’ll let Verdicchio stand.

Ingredients:

4 Boneless chicken breasts
1 Cup flour
Salt & freshly ground black pepper
2 Tbs. Olive oil
1 Lb. White mushrooms, sliced
½ Cup sun-dried tomatoes (see Note)
1 9 Oz. package frozen artichokes, thawed and halved
1 Cup Verdicchio (or other dry white wine)
Juice of 1 lemon
4 Tbs. Flat-leaf Italian parsley, finely chopped

Preparation:

Place the chicken breasts between two sheets of plastic wrap and pound them with a meat mallet or a rolling pin until they’ve reached a uniform thickness of approximately 3/8 inch. Season the breasts on both sides with salt and pepper, and reserve on a plate.

Pour the flour into a shallow-sided dish and season with salt and pepper. Dredge the chicken breasts, shaking off the excess, and reserve.

Heat a large sauté pan over medium-high heat, then add the olive oil. Cook the chicken breasts for approximately 2 minutes per side, or until the edges have begun to turn white. Remove from the pan and reserve on a plate, covering them loosely with aluminum foil.

Add the mushrooms, sun-dried tomatoes, and artichokes to the pan. Season with salt and pepper, and sauté until the mushrooms have begun to release some of their liquid, about 5 minutes.

Raise the heat to high, and add the wine. Boil for 1 – 2 minutes to evaporate the alcohol.

Add the lemon juice, lower the heat to medium low, return the chicken breasts to the pan, and simmer for 10 minutes.

To Serve:

Place one chicken breast on each of four dinner plates, spoon some of the sauce over each breast, and garnish with the chopped parsley. Most of the neighborhood restaurants of the day would have served Chicken Verdicchio over linguine.

Serves four.

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Gathering recipes for the first edition of Almost Italian, we included over twenty different Italian-American preparations for chicken.

Given European Italians’ relative indifference to their own poultry, we were surprised. As we’ve already written, the chickens the immigrants had known back home were small, sinewy birds, better suited for egg production or the soup pot than for Chicken alla Cacciatora.

But Italians new to America quickly took to an inexpensive source of protein. Back in Calabria in 1910, a man might have eaten chicken once or twice a year, but here in America even on his $10.00 per week wages, he could afford to provide his family with chicken every week.

Assuring a supply of both eggs and meat, the urban immigrants built poultry coops on tenement rooftops, while those who moved to rural areas could raise larger flocks.

The immigrants’ early recipes followed the old treatments they knew for dealing with tough fowl—stewing and braising the whole bird, more for the stock than for the meat. But as Italians settled into America where chicken was meatier, more tender, and much more plentiful, they developed new recipes. Birds were cut into portion-sized pieces as with Chicken alla Cacciatora. With more birds, there were more livers, giblets, and necks to be gathered for those long-simmered sauces Italians enjoyed over pasta.

Veal had never been as popular here as in Italy, and when it was available, it was still expensive. But Italian cooks discovered that less expensive chicken breasts could be pounded and sautéed as cutlets—or rolled around other ingredients like cheese and spinach. Restaurant menus printed after World War II feature Chicken Francese, a breaded chicken breast, sautéed in butter and finished with a sauce of butter, lemon juice, and white wine.

Chicken Francese was so well received that chefs soon began turning out all manner of dishes involving chicken breasts. By the late 1970’s food writers Craig Claiborne and Florence Fabricant were busy informing eager New York Times readers about the latest neighborhood restaurant to offer Chicken Marco Polo, Chicken Saltimbocca, Chicken Margherita, and Chicken Marsala.

Of course it would have been unthinkable to discard the legs, thighs, and wings, and these continued to go into stews and braises, as well as new recipes like Chicken alla Contadina, and Chicken Scarpariello.

For the next few weeks, Almost Italian will focus on chicken recipes. While we’ve already presented a few chicken dishes from the Italian-American repertoire, we still have a lot of ground to cover. From ubiquitous dishes like Chicken Parmesan to regional American favorites like Chicken Vesuvio and relative newcomers like Chicken Fra Diavolo, we’ll be looking at the vast array of Italian-American chicken recipes. Stay tuned and send us your comments.

Chicken Francese

In 1891, Italian cookery writer Pellegrino Artusi published several recipes (including one for gooseberries) served, alla Francese ‘in the style of the French.’ The description refers to dredging an item in beaten eggs and flour before sautéeing.

Ingredients:

4 Skinless, boneless chicken breasts
Salt & freshly ground black pepper
1 Egg, lightly beaten
1 Cup flour
1/4 Cup olive oil
1/2 Cup dry white wine
1 Cup chicken stock
Juice of 1/2 lemon
4 Tbs. flat-leaf Italian Parsley

Preparation:

Place the chicken breasts between two sheets of plastic wrap and pound them with a meat mallet or a rolling pin to a uniform thickness of approximately 3/8 in. Season the breasts on both sides with salt and pepper, and reserve on a plate.

Pour the flour into a shallow-sided dish and season with salt and pepper. Pour the eggs into another shallow-sided dish and season them with salt and pepper as well.

Dip each chicken breast into the eggs, covering both sides. Remove and drain for a moment, then dredge each breast in the flour and reserve on a plate.

Heat a large sauté pan over medium-high heat, then add the oil. Add the chicken breasts and sauté until the breasts begin to turn white around the edges (Approximately 2 – 3 minutes per side). If necessary, do this step in batches. Don’t crowd the pan.

Remove the breasts and reserve on a plate, covering them loosely with aluminum foil.

Raise the heat to high, and add the wine. Boil for 1 – 2 minutes to evaporate the alcohol, and to reduce, stirring with a wooden spoon to loosen any bits of chicken that have caramelized on the bottom of the pan.

Add the chicken stock, the lemon juice, and the lemon zest, and boil for approximately 5 minutes until the sauce is reduced to approximately 2/3 cup. Turn off the heat, but leave the pan on the burner.

Add the reserved chicken breasts, basting them with the sauce as they reheat.

To Serve:

Place one chicken breast on each of four dinner plates. Spoon the sauce over each one, and garnish with the chopped parsley.

Serves four

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Most Italians in the first waves of immigration had been too poor to have eaten much sausage in Italy. Early records of the immigrant communities include recollections such as one southern Italian’s first tasting pork when he joined a lumber camp in Maine.

Nevertheless, contadini would have been pressed into service on the day their padrone decided to butcher a pig. The padrone may well have rewarded his staff, allowing them small portions of meat to take home. Religious holidays in Italy were also opportunities for the well-off to extend some largesse to their workers and servants, who were sometimes allotted meat for festive meals.

New Italian immigrants who may have had sausage-making skills saved their money and dreamed of the day when they might open macellerie, butcher shops, in a world where meat was an everyday commodity. In the meantime, they may have convinced established German-American butchers to add a bit of fennel seed or dried basil to a batch of sausage stuffing.

Among the Italians who realized their dreams, Eduardo Faicco established his first shop on in Greenwich Village in 1900. G. Esposito & Sons started the Jersey Pork Store in Carroll Gardens, Brooklyn in 1920. John Landi, one of Esposito’s early employees, subsequently opened Landi’s Brooklyn Pork Store in 1928. All three shops continue to thrive today. The latter two stores have adapted to the American scene with something unimaginable four generations ago: they have Websites. Such sites seem to portend a vigorous virtual life for the Little Italys, extending their real estate into cyberspace.

We’re not certain where the irresistible pairing of Sausage and Peppers first occurred, but our research confirms that southern Italian immigrants were celebrating their “marriage” before Prohibition at the Feast of Our Lady of Mount Carmel in Italian Harlem.

The first Italian-American sausages were probably grilled over an open fire. The 1950′s saw panel trucks equipped with propane stoves for roadside diners—what mobile cooks still use at construction sites and factory parking lots. Liquid propane, the cooking fuel of today’s street festival griddles, didn’t find its way into practical use for gas-powered grills until the 1960′s.

Outdoor grilling imbues the sausages with the spirit of summer, but the dish is also delicious and easily made indoors—in a single skillet.

Ingredients:

8 Links sweet or hot Italian sausages (or a combination of the two)
2 Tbs. Olive oil
4 Cloves garlic, peeled and thinly sliced
4 Red or Green bell peppers, seeded and cut lengthwise into half-inch strips
2 Medium yellow onions, thinly sliced
Salt & freshly ground black pepper
3 Tbs. coarsely chopped Italian parsley

Preparation:

Parcook the sausages in enough water to cover, for approximately 8 minutes. Drain and reserve.

Heat a large sauté pan over medium heat, then add the olive oil. Add the sausages and cook, turning occasionally until they begin to brown. Add the garlic, peppers and onions, stirring and shaking the pan to coat them with olive oil. Season with salt and pepper, and cook, stirring occasionally until the peppers are wilted; approximately fifteen minutes.

To Serve:

Divide among four plates and garnish with the parsley.

Serves four

Even so, nothing appeared especially mysterious… yet we knew of no other Italian dish that paired chicken and sausage. After what amounted to real sleuthing, we did find Pollo con Salsicie, Chicken with Sausages in a 1919 volume published in New York: The Italian Cookbook, The Art of Eating Well, compiled by Mrs. Maria Gentile. As culinary historians, we’ve learned that recipes rarely spring up fully developed overnight; rather, they evolve.

We and many other commentators on the development of an Italian-American cuisine have written about the early 20th century phenomenon of men designated as “stay-at-home” cooks. Italian men, leaving their families behind in Italy while they sought work in America, often banded together, either in tenements or work camps. Pooling resources to stretch their budgets, they would chose one man to shop and cook for the rest of them.

An Italian “fraternity cook” might never have learned the subtle applications of herbs and spices that would have been passed down from Nonna to granddaughter. Furthermore, in American mill towns populated by other ethnic groups, ingredients like dried oregano and fennel seed may have been difficult to acquire. Nonetheless, there were other devices a cook could use to give his meals the flavor of home. Even a piece of kielbasa or andouille would have had the tastes of pork, garlic, black pepper, and perhaps anise, that could approximate Italian seasoning. And if there were indeed an Italian butcher, well, there would have been Italian sausages laced with fennel seed and red pepper flakes.

While the Italian male cooks may have lacked kitchen finesse, they knew from back home that a tiny bit of pancetta or salami could flavorfully enrich an entire pot of beans. Sausage, fatty and seasoned, stood in—not only for the cooking fat of a cured pork product—but also for the spices and herbs used in the Mezzogiorno. It is ironic that meat, the most precious ingredient back in Italy, could have replaced what would have been the cheapest elements of a meal: the home-grown or foraged seasonings.

And it’s easy to comprehend how wine came into the dish. Even in America, those early chickens would have been tough birds that benefited from the tenderizing effect of a little vino. And vino was readily available, no matter what the immigrant’s financial condition. The pungent peppers, a New World fruit that had gone from South and Central America to the Mediterranean and back, were very likely home-pickled in vinegar, in an earthenware crock. The salt, acidity, and heat from the pickling liquid added yet another dimension to braised chicken already seasoned by sausages.

Various sources theorize about the origins of the name of the dish. Is it “shoemaker-style” because a cobbler might have eaten this dish or because the dish was “cobbled together” from ingredients common to a poor man’s larder? Pino Luongo suggests that the name is derived from scarpetta, a piece of bread that would have been used to soak up the wonderful sauce.

Most intriguing is a comment by the late Pierre Franey, writing about Shoemaker’s Chicken in The New York Times (1977).

We’ve found confirmation of this slang usage in The Urban Dictionary:

We feel differently: that the name implies a true compliment. Scarpariello, may well have been a testament to the resourcefulness of immigrant cooks who achieved such seductive flavor from so few ingredients.

Ingredients:

2 – 3 Tbs. Olive oil
4 Links Italian sausage (about 1 lb)
2 ½ — 3 Lb. Frying chicken cut into 8 pieces (or 8 chicken thighs, skin-on)
1 Medium yellow onion, finely diced
4 Cloves garlic, peeled, and sliced thinly
1/2 tsp. peperoncini (hot red pepper flakes)
1 Cup dry white wine
2/3 Cup pickling liquid from the cherry peppers
6 to 8 pickled hot cherry peppers–seeded and coarsely chopped
2 Tbs. Fresh oregano, finely chopped
4 Tbs. Flat-leaf Italian parsley, finely chopped
Salt & freshly ground black pepper
Juice and grated rind of 1 lemon
4 Tbs. Flat-leaf Italian parsley, finely chopped

Preparation:

Heat a large sauté pan over medium heat, then add just enough olive oil to cover the bottom. Add the sausages and sauté, regulating the heat to reduce spattering. Turn regularly until they’ve browned; about 8 minutes. Remove and reserve.

Add the chicken pieces to the sauté pan and cook, turning occasionally, until the pieces are golden brown all over; about 15 minutes. Remove the chicken pieces from the pan and reserve on a plate, covering them with aluminum foil.

Add the onions, garlic, and red pepper flakes; sauté until the onion has wilted.

Raise the heat to high, and add the wine. Boil for about 2 minutes, stirring with a wooden spoon to loosen any bits of chicken and sausage that have caramelized on the bottom of the pan.

Lower the heat to a simmer and add the pickling liquid, the cherry peppers, the oregano, and parsley. Taste for seasoning and add salt and pepper as necessary. Simmer for four or five minutes to concentrate the sauce.

While the liquid is simmering, cut the sausages into rounds. Return the sausages and chicken to the pan, and allow to simmer for about 12 minutes. Grate the lemon rind. Add the rind and lemon juice to the pan and simmer for another minute or two.

To Serve:

Remove the chicken and sausage pieces to a platter; cover with the sauce and garnish with the remaining parsley. Many neighborhood restaurants serve Chicken Scarpariello as main dish, without a “side order” of pasta. You may follow their lead, but have plenty of good crusty bread on hand to be sure diners can mop up the delectable sauce.

Serves four

It is well-documented that Tuscan Sirio Maccione, owner of Le Cirque, invented Pasta Primavera in 1978. Entertaining a clutch of food writers, chefs, and other gourmets at his Upper East Side establishment, then considered one of New York’s prime “frog ponds” (high-end French restaurants), Signor Maccione devised a spur-of-the-moment dish of pasta. The story goes that a meeting turned into lunch and the maestro went into his kitchen, foraged among the prep stations, and created a new dish.

“What do you call this?” asked one of the happy diners.

Since he had used asparagus, baby peas, and tiny green beans, the restaurateur replied, “Pasta Primavera,” referring to the spring vegetables. Signor Maccione’s caprice was an instant hit.

Like many skilled, spontaneous cooks, the creator gave his dish no further thought. However, one of the guests happened to have been Craig Claiborne—then food editor for The New York Times—who promptly wrote an article about this “spectacular” new “northern Italian” preparation.

Within a week, hip and well-heeled New Yorkers were clamoring for Pasta Primavera. However, that spontaneous creation wasn’t on the menu—not yet anyway. Hurried meetings and tastings were convened. Soon, Le Cirque’s chefs had a replicable version of that first Pasta Primavera. In the meantime, the restaurant’s clientele learned to order it “off the menu.” Pasta Primavera attained star status on the cover of the premier edition of Food & Wine Magazine in 1978.

In the final quarter of the 20th century, greater numbers of American tourists traveling to Europe—especially to Italy—gained an awareness of northern Italian food. The perception that the subtle northern sauces made with butter and cream were “lighter” made them fashionable and gave them a marketing edge over the familiar Italian-American red sauces. (In fact, many “white” northern sauces are considerably more caloric than southern tomato sauces).

The inclusion of so many different vegetables in a pasta preparation is a dead giveaway that this dish was invented here. Chinese-American restaurateurs learned to make economical use of seven or eight colorful vegetables in the same chicken stir-fry, while back-home, Chinese dishes tended to highlight a single vegetable. The same restraint is characteristic of traditional Italian combinations of pasta with verdure, vegetables. Pasta with broccoli, pasta with asparagus or baby peas, but never with so many varied primizie, the earliest and often most costly baby vegetables. That such a number of fresh ingredients would be joined by yet more costly mushrooms, pine nuts, olive oil, cream, butter…and cheese(!) would be comically bewildering to any Italian. Nonetheless, this dish is a glorious expression of excess.

Signor Maccione may be a native of Montecatini in Tuscany, but Pasta Primavera could only have happened here. Whether you call this Almost Italian… Almost Northern Italian… North American Northern Italian… or just “Delicious!”—here is a meal that celebrates spring!

Ingredients:

1 Oz. Dried porcini
1 Cup warm water
½ Lbs. asparagus, trimmed and cut into 1-inch pieces
¼ Lbs. green beans cut into 1-in. pieces
¾ Cup frozen baby peas, thawed
2 Cloves garlic, peeled and finely chopped
½ tsp. Crushed red pepper flakes
4 Tbs. Extra-virgin olive oil
1 Lbs. Spaghetti or Linguine
4 Tbs. Unsalted butter
2/3 Cup heavy cream
1 tsp. Finely grated fresh lemon zest
1 Cup freshly grated Parmigiano
¼ Cup finely chopped fresh flat-leaf parsley
¼ Cup finely chopped fresh basil
1/3 Cup pine nuts, lightly toasted
Additional Parmigiano

Preparation:

Soak the porcini in warm water in a small bowl for 30 minutes. Remove from the water, squeezing the excess liquid back into the bowl. Pour the soaking liquid through a sieve lined with a dampened paper towel into a small bowl and reserve. Rinse the porcini to remove any grit, then squeeze dry, and chop coarsely.

Cook the asparagus and beans in a 6- to 8-quart pot of boiling salted water for 3 minutes. Add the peas and cook until the beans and asparagus are just tender, about 1 – 2 minutes more. Transfer the vegetables to a bowl of ice and cold water to halt their cooking. Reserve the water in the pot for cooking the pasta. Drain the cooled vegetables in a colander.

Heat a large sauté pan over medium-low heat and add the olive oil. Add the minced garlic, and the pepperoncino, and sauté for about 1 minute, until the garlic becomes fragrant. Add the drained vegetables, season with salt and pepper, and cook, stirring, for about 2 minutes, then transfer to a bowl.

Return the water in the pot to a boil and cook the pasta until al dente. Drain the pasta in a colander. Add the butter, cream, lemon zest, and porcini to the now-empty, but still warm pasta pot and simmer for 2 minutes. Stir in the cheese and add the pasta, tossing to coat and adding as much of reserved porcini soaking liquid as necessary (1/2 to 2/3 cup) to keep the pasta well coated. Add the green vegetables, parsley, basil, and pine nuts. Taste for seasoning, add salt and pepper as necessary, and toss to combine.

To Serve:

Divide the pasta among six warmed plates and garnish with Parmigiano shavings.

Serves six

When Italian immigrants opened their urban eateries, their clientele included significant numbers of German and Irish immigrants who had more interest in pasta with tomato sauce than in still-identifiable vegetables sautéed with garlic and olive oil. (One might dispute whether tomato sauce itself is a vegetable, but we’ll leave that to contemporary politicians wrangling over nutrition in school lunch programs.)

Even today, Rao’s Restaurant, arguably the most exclusive Italian-American restaurant in the Western Hemisphere, serves only four cooked vegetable “sides:” rapini (broccoli rabe), broccoli, Savoy cabbage, and escarole.

Yet, Italians loved vegetables and were skillful gardeners who introduced several Old World vegetables to Americans—notably, broccoli, fennel, zucchini, and escarole. And while the new immigrants were able to enjoy semolina pasta and meat far more often than they had in Italy, their cucina casalinga still centered on vegetables and pulses.

For evenings at home when neither pasta nor meat were on the menu, Italian-Americans often cooked some form of “beans and greens.” Back in Italy, the greens were likely to have been foraged—wild dandelions, borage, sorrel—whatever local goats and sheep had not yet nibbled. But here, southern Italian immigrants combined cannellini with spinach or escarole to make a dish that was neither contorno, vegetable dish, nor zuppa, soup.

As neighborhood restaurants gentrified, expanding their menus to include separate antipasto and soup courses, they began to offer variant forms of Minestrone, Pasta e Fagiole, as well a Scarola e Fagiole, a thick soup of escarole and beans.

By the 1980′s, as Americans became more conscious of the much-vaunted Mediterranean Food Pyramid, Escarole and Bean Soup, along with nothing more than a piece of good crusty bread, attained status as a trendy, complete, and virtuous meal.

Note: We use water rather than chicken stock, although you’re welcome to use either. Generally, the only time Nonna would have used chicken stock in a soup would have been when she had just boiled a stewing fowl. Like all good cooks, she would have found a use for the flavorful broth.

Escarole and Beans

Ingredients:

2-3 Tbsp. Olive oil
3 – 4 Cloves garlic, thinly sliced
1/2 tsp. crushed red pepper flakes
1 Head escarole, approximately 1 Lb., washed and chopped into bite-sized pieces
2 14 oz. cans cannellini, drained and rinsed
Salt & freshly ground black pepper
Freshly grated Parmesan
Slices of rustic bread

Preparation:

Heat a soup pot over medium-high heat and add enough olive oil to cover the bottom. Add the garlic and red pepper flakes and sauté for a minute or two. Add the escarole and stir to coat with the oil. Sauté, stirring occasionally, until the escarole begins to wilt.

Stir in the beans. Lower the heat, add up to a cup of water (more if you prefer it soupier), season with salt and pepper, and simmer for five to ten minutes.

To Serve:

Divide equally among four soup bowls, drizzle a little more olive oil over each serving, and garnish with the Parmesan. Serve with a slice of good crusty bread. Or, garnish with homemade croutons.

Serves four

Photo courtesy of Sugieeee

That clientele was primarily non-Italian because the actual residents of the Little Italy neighborhoods saw no reason to pay for food they would themselves cook at home. But as neighborhood restaurants flourished, an equally vibrant but somewhat different cuisine was simultaneously developing in the tenement apartments of the new immigrants.

Sundays were particularly important to Italian-Americans. No matter what Papa did for a living during during the week, it was, in most cases, hard, physical labor. So Sunday was literally a day of rest.

Regardless of whether or not they went to church, Italian families nearly always gathered at home in reverential celebration of the abundance they had found in America. As NYU professor Hasia Diner emphasizes it was ironic that Italian “immigrants had to leave home to eat the food of home.”^1.

That a newly-arrived Italian could earn ten dollars a week as a brick-layer or dockworker was empowerment, opportunity beyond anything that had been available to him back in Sicily or Apulia. He could earn a living wage and not only house his family, but feed them well. And in the early 20^th century, that meant he could afford to feed them meat.

Oral and written histories are replete with recollections of the immigrants’ amazement at the availability and affordability of meat. That a family in America could afford once a week what might have been indulged in once or twice a year back in Italy (during a religious feast or wedding), was cause for jubilation.

Long after the hunger that propelled Italians to the New World had been appeased and first-generation Italian-Americans had moved off on their own, they continued to gather at “Mom’s house” for a Sunday afternoon meal any non-Italian would call a “feast.” This classic repast would include several types of meat braised in tomato sauce. For a first course, Mama would appropriate some of the sauce to serve over pasta. The meats would follow, accompanied by salad and bread.

Exhorting her family to Mangia, mangia, “Eat, eat!” it was always a woman, usually La Nonna, the matriarch, who came to symbolize the warmth and expansive generosity of Italian-American culture. Grandmothers, daughters, and daughters-in-law presided over kitchens and dining rooms in America. For many of these women, it was their transformation of ingredients here in the New World that gave them economic and social power. Italian women who had learned to cook—in Italy or America, from their stints as domestics in more affluent homes or from members of their own families—gained status as they created meals of abbondanza e nostalgia, evoking a homeland that had denied them the food they so proudly served here.

Following World War II, returning veterans, including many maturing first-generation Italian-Americans, joined the migration to the suburbs. Taking with them what had now become “old family recipes,” the new suburbanites assured that “Mom’s Sunday Gravy” became as much of a staple in North Jersey and on Long Island as it had been around the cramped apartment kitchen tables on Mulberry Street.

Just as food sustained strong family ties between generations of Italian-Americans, it has also maintained urban Little Italys. Like the stereotypical Nonna, with her pot of basil on the fire-escape, many a pasta or salume supplier has proved just as reluctant to leave the familiar, the core neighborhoods where immigrants first used food as the primary tool with which to form their identity as Italian-Americans.

^1. Hungering for America: Italian, Irish, and Jewish Foodways in the Age of Migration by Hasia R. Diner; Harvard University Press, 2003.

Sunday Gravy

Ingredients:

3 – 4 Tbs. extra virgin olive oil
6 Garlic cloves peeled
1 Lb. Piece of boneless beef such as eye of the round, or shoulder steak
1 Lb. Piece of boneless Pork shoulder
3 Tbs. Tomato paste
1/2 Cup dry red wine
3 28 oz. cans Italian plum tomatoes (preferably San Marzano)
1 Lb. Hot or sweet Italian sausages (or a combination)
1 Recipe for Italian Meatballs
Salt & freshly ground black pepper
4 Tbs. Fresh oregano, finely chopped
4 Tbs. Fresh basil, finely chopped
4 Tbs. Flat-leaf Italian parsley, finely chopped

Preparation:

Heat a large, heavy-bottomed casserole or Dutch oven over medium heat, then add the garlic. (Don’t allow the garlic to brown.) Add the meat, turning frequently to brown on both sides. As the meat is browned, remove it and reserve. If necessary, brown the meat in batches.

Combine the tomato paste and wine and add to the pot. Raise the heat to high. Stirring constantly, boil for a minute or two to evaporate the alcohol. Add the tomatoes and their juices, breaking up the tomatoes with the back of a fork as they go in. As the sauce begins to bubble, lower the heat so the tomatoes simmer gently. Taste for seasoning and add salt and pepper as necessary. Stir in the oregano, basil, and parsley.

Return the beef and pork to the pot. Partially cover the pot and simmer gently, stirring occasionally, for two hours, or until the meat begins to fall apart. Add the sausages and meatballs, and simmer gently for another hour.

Remove the meat from the sauce, and place in a large bowl, or on a platter. Cover loosely with aluminum foil.

To Serve:

Serve the sauce over pasta—typically penne, ziti, or rigatoni. Allow 1/4 Lb. dry pasta per person. Serve the meat as a separate course with salad and bread.

Serves 10 – 12

Does anyone under 35 (or 45, or even under 55) remember Lent? Our generations of gratification probably don’t think of a pre-packaged Jenny Craig meal the same way our parents and grandparents viewed meatless meals in the six weeks prior to Easter. These days, abstinence from the food we enjoy probably means we’re trying to look good in a bathing suit. Lent, on the other hand, was supposed to be contemplative and its dietary limitations soul-strengthening. The cottage cheese and fruit plate or the tuna casserole made with canned cream of mushroom soup—a Lenten lunch was usually a little frumpy.

Nonetheless, there were some meatless, guilt-free pleasures to be had before sushi and sashimi came ashore.

Italian-Americans have long enjoyed pepper and egg sandwiches on Ash Wednesday, the first day of Lent. One suspects their appeal may have much to do with their simplicity—welcome comfort food after the excesses of Carnevale or Martedi Grasso. In Chicago’s Italian-American community, pepper and egg sandwiches enliven meatless Fridays throughout the entire Lenten period.

Not quite a fritatta, a pepper and egg sandwich is the combination of garlic, bell peppers, and onion, sautéed in olive oil until the peppers are wilted. Beaten eggs are added, and the whole mixture cooked until the eggs are done. The peppers and eggs are served inside a hearty loaf. Possible embellishments include either provolone or mozzarella and pale green pepperoncini, which add an acidic bite that contrasts with the sweetness of the fried bell peppers.

Since the 1950′s, and possibly earlier, the “pepp and egg” sandwich has been a popular lunch or snack. When I was a child, my Sicilian Methodist family spent summers on Long Island Sound in Connecticut, where we and other Italian-American families would pack picnic baskets full of pepper and egg sandwiches for an afternoon at the beach. As an adult, I encountered the sandwiches again in Rockport, Massachusetts, where I lived briefly among descendants of Calabrese, who favored them as picnic food. The photo above is a roadside diner near the New Jersey shore. No matter where they’ve turned up, no one has ever considered these meatless sandwiches the food of abstinence, especially not when they might be washed down with a cold beer or two.

Ingredients:

1 or 2 Tbs. olive oil
1 Clove garlic, finely minced
1/2 tsp Crushed red pepper flakes
1 Medium onion, thinly sliced
1/2 Red bell pepper, thinly sliced
1/2 Green bell pepper, thinly sliced
3 eggs, beaten
Salt & freshly ground black pepper
1 Loaf Italian bread (such as a bastone or a ciabatta)

Preparation:

Heat a sauté pan over medium heat then add enough olive oil to cover the bottom. Add the garlic and the crushed red pepper and sauté for a minute or two. Add the onion and peppers, regulating the heat so the onions don’t burn. Sauté until the peppers have softened.

Raise the heat to medium-high and add the beaten eggs. Stir to combine with the onions and peppers and season with salt and pepper. Cook, stirring occasionally, until the eggs are set.

Slice the bread lengthwise without cutting all the way through. When the eggs are done, gently slide them onto the bread to make a sandwich and cut the loaf into four portions.

Serves 2 – 4

ike a wind from the steppes, this dish swept through Manhattan in the early 1970′s. Every trattoria and ristorante from Mulberry Street to the Upper East Side rushed to feature a version on the menu. Maitre d’s everywhere were preparing Penne alla Vodka table-side as they made a grand show of igniting vodka in sauté pans.

Around the same time, vodka distillers tried to launch Penne alla Vodka in Italy itself, with lavish media events in fashionable locations in Rome. Despite the hoopla, the dish never gained more than a toehold in Italy, while here in America, it was immediately popular and remains so today, appearing on the menus of neighborhood Italian restaurants no matter where you go. Penne alla Vodka, like a rerun of Anita Ekberg bathing in the Trevi Fountain, is an ever-refreshing expression of la dolce vita.

While Italians have never been major consumers of vodka, and rarely cook with it, we have found a clue to the origins of Penne alla Vodka. The classic Italian Pasta al Limone, Pasta with Lemon, is sauced with both juice and zest of lemon, cream, and a shot of grappa (a colorless spirit made from distilled grape must). The more assertive flavor and higher price of grappa may well have inspired someone to use milder, cheaper vodka—a spirit more widely available in America than grappa. Indeed, 0ur research has turned up many modern Pasta al Limone recipes which call for vodka without even mentioning it as a substitute for grappa.

There are two important things to note about Pasta alla Vodka, and they provide a clear illustration of how a dish becomes part of a “tradition.” The subtle inclusion of vodka (popularly associated with climes far colder than Lombardia and Alto Adige) and the use of cream (which tones down the marinara sauce’ s acidity and—and perhaps more importantly—lightens the color of the sauce) meant that 1970′s “red-sauce” restaurants seeking to present refined, upscale dishes could offer a new one, the “Almost Northern Italian,” Pasta alla Vodka.

The 70′s urge to flambée was irresistible, and many diners assumed that pyrotechnics were crucial to the taste of the finished pasta. Rest assured, they are not. Even if no one lights a match, the alcohol burns off. There is no need to flambée the vodka and this dish can be safely enjoyed by those under legal drinking age.

If you happen to have a little marinara sauce on hand, Penne alla Vodka goes from stove-top to table very quickly.

Penne alla Vodka

Ingredients:

1 Lb. Penne
2 Cloves garlic, finely sliced
2 Tbs. Unsalted butter
2 Cups marinara sauce (your Nonna’s or mine) *
1/2 Cup unflavored vodka
1/2 tsp. Crushed red pepper flakes
Salt & freshly ground black pepper
1/2 Cup heavy cream
4 Tbs. Flat-leaf Italian parsley, finely chopped

Preparation:

Place a large pot of water (at least 6 quarts) over high heat and bring to the boil.

Meanwhile, heat a sauté pan over medium heat and add the olive oil. Add the garlic and cook for about 2 minutes, until soft, but not browned. Add the marinara sauce and the vodka.

Raise the heat until sauce is bubbling gently. Stir and cook for 3 minutes to evaporate the alcohol. Add the red pepper flakes and taste for seasoning. Add salt and pepper as necessary.

Add the penne to the boiling water, and while it is cooking, add the cream to the tomato sauce and simmer 2 or 3 minutes. Drain the pasta well, toss with the sauce.

To Serve:

Divide equally among four plates, and garnish with the parsley.

Serves four.

* Link to the recipe for my grandmother’s marinara sauce.