>> From the Library of
Congress in Washington, D.C.
[ Pause ]
>> Grant Harris: Well distinguished
guests, ladies and gentlemen,
good afternoon and welcome
to the Library of Congress.
I am Grant Harris.
I am head of the European Reading
Room here, and in partnership
with the Embassy of
Italy here in Washington
and also the Italian Cultural
Institute, we are delighted
to welcome friends from the Embassy
and the Cultural Institute and all
of you especially are
very special guests.
The award-winning author,
Francine Segan,
who will present "Italian
Gastronomic Traditions
and Innovations: the
Historical, Cultural,
and Economic Importance
of Food in Italy".
I would like to recognize, first,
the wife of the Italian ambassador,
Mrs. [Inaudible], and her two
guests, Mrs. Maria [Inaudible],
who is, where has she got.
There she is running
back to her seat now.
Who is in charge of educational
activities at the Vatican Museum,
and her husband, Mr. Alberto Ricci,
head of health services
for the Vatican also.
I would also like to recognize a
few other people who might be here.
Maria [Inaudible] who is a
special events coordinator
at the Woodrow Wilson
Center for Scholars.
Maria [Inaudible] Alvarez,
the cultural attache
at the embassy of Guatemala.
A representative for
[Inaudible] at the Cultural Office
of the embassy of Austria.
That would be Ms. Evelyn
Kraut if she's here.
Dr. Elizabeth M. Balls at the
Washington College of [Inaudible].
She's her, thank you.
[Inaudible] the program chair,
Associates of the American
Foreign Service Worldwide
and Foreign Born Spouse
State Liaison.
I won't try to parse
all of that for you.
It's a great title.
Is she here?
OK. Diana Famia.
Is Diana Famia here?
No, OK. Well, she has spoken
here also in the past.
She is president of
the Greater Washington,
D.C. region national organization
of Italian-American Women,
and we probably have a few
members of that association here.
So welcome to you.
Also a representative
from Congressman Doyle's
office, Marco Malarte.
And I have to now mention
the masterminds behind this.
I'm just a talking head,
but the masterminds really
are Mr. Ranato [inaudible],
the cultural attache at the embassy
of Italy over here, and Lucia Wolfe,
who is the Italian specialist
and waving her hand back there,
here at the Library of Congress,
and has put all the words
in my mouth pretty much.
Ms. Segan lives with her family in
New York City where she is active
in enlightening Americans
and the world
on Italian gastronomic traditions
and their current evolution.
She does that as an acclaimed
food historian, author,
lecturer, and TV personality.
I will not even try to list all or
any of the TV shows she has been
on nor any of the newspapers and
periodicals in which she has written
or been cited nor all of
the cultural institutions,
any of them where she has lectured.
It's a lot.
I would much rather have you spend
more time listening to Ms. Sagan,
but I will do, however,
because we are book men
and book women here today, and by
the way, many of you are sitting
in the middle of the
Italian reference collection.
I will mention the
delectable titles of her books.
I really enjoy these titles.
That alone is genius as
far as I'm concerned.
I list these books because we do
appreciate having a book woman here
at the Library.
So her titles, the first two are
about Italian food very clearly,
"Pasta Modern: New and
Inspired Recipes from Italy",
and "Dolci: Italy's Sweets".
But then she moves out to
the rest of the worlds.
"Icons of American Cooking".
"Entertaining from Ancient Rome to
the Super Bowl: An Encyclopedia".
"Opera Lover's Cookbook".
"The Philosopher's Kitchen:
Recipes from Ancient Greece
and Rome for the Modern Cook".
"Movie Menus: Recipes for Perfect
Meals with your Favorite Films".
"Shakespeare's Kitchen: Renaissance
Recipes for the Contemporary Cook".
There are probably a few more.
Those are the ones I was told of.
Some of them are on display right
here over, these book cradles.
Very briefly, let me mention that
the Library of Congress is proud
of its collections
from and about Italy.
We have probably more than
half a million volumes.
We haven't given Lucia time enough
to count all of those volumes yet,
but she's working on
describing them more.
She's doing a great job with that.
These are books from and
about Italy, mostly from Italy
with perhaps 10,000
volumes arriving each year
of Italy's best scholarship
and literature.
We are proud of have Ms. Segan's
works among those collections.
The Library is open to
readers six days a week.
So please come and visit us.
The European division is
responsible for providing reference
and for developing the
Library's collections relating
to continental Europe.
We hope you have a
pleasant time here today.
We thank all of you for coming.
It's now time for me to
mention cellphone manners.
That's all I'll say
about cellphones.
Please be aware that this event
is being recorded for the Library
of Congress for a webcast.
So if you do ask a
question later on,
just be aware that you might
be part of that webcast.
So now please, finally,
after all my talking,
please help me welcome
Francine Segan.
[ Applause ]
>> Francine Segan: I am
so honored to be here.
I've had a chance to say
hello to some of you,
and this is such a delight to be
able to share my love of Italy.
As was mentioned, I've written
so many books, which is such fun,
but some of the most fun
were my Italian volumes
on desserts and on pasta.
I also translated some books, and
just did a chapter on Italian sweets
for an encyclopedia
for Oxford Press.
I write for different magazines.
Sometimes they write about me.
This is about my talks
on aphrodisiacs.
And, of course, some TV
including a show I do
where I interview famous
people including, for example,
F. Marie Abraham, on
why they love Italy.
And I had the honor last
year of giving the gift to,
from Italy to Mayor de
Blasio, New York City's mayor,
and here he is raving about
the wonderful truffle.
So before I get started
on today's talk,
I'd like to wish everyone a
[talking in foreign language],
Happy Father's Day in Italy.
The traditional sweet that
would be enjoyed today.
So when I was thinking about
what can I talk about today
of all the thousands and thousands
of iconic dishes like pizza,
all the foods, what
could I narrow down.
What would I mention?
Could I talk and focus about all
the things that come from the earth
in Italy like the wonderful
truffles, white truffles
from [inaudible], black truffles
from [inaudible], or olives
and the long history
since ancient times
and the importance of olive oil.
Balsamic vinegar, medicinal
and a culinary delight,
or all the wonderful [inaudible].
Things like [inaudible], which is
this wonderful substance that's
pressed between the marble, the
very marble that Michelangelo went
to mine in Tuscany for
carving the Michelangelo
that presses this wonderful
substance.
Other kinds of [inaudible]
like, of course, [inaudible]
or the uber [inaudible], the
little center [inaudible].
Even simple things like
risotto can be elegant,
or it can be a street food
like [inaudible] in Sicily.
Even bread in Italy is marvelous,
and the bread from [inaudible] is
so special that the town of
[inaudible] kicked out a McDonald's.
There was a revolt because the
panini, the sandwiches there are
so fabulous because the bread is so
fabulous that they were succeeded
in removing a McDonald's, and there
was even a wonderful documentary
[inaudible] written about that.
The vegetables, the fruits, the
beautiful linens from Sorrento,
the new, the foods that
came from the New World
that were relatively new to Italy,
but what the Italians did with them,
the tomatoes from [inaudible],
polenta.
What they did, and chocolate, which
is going to be the topic of a talk
that I'm giving tomorrow
at the embassy
because Italian chocolate
history is extremely important.
They, not only was Columbus the
person who discovered chocolate
and brought it to the Old
World, but they made many,
many innovations beginning
with adding something
that is a very fundamental,
the nuts in Italy as wonderful,
including the beautiful
hazelnuts from Piedmont,
and when the Napoleonic Wars
caused a shortage of chocolate,
they wanted to expand the small
reserve of cocoa that they had,
and so they thought
what could they mix,
and they combined Piedmont
hazelnuts with chocolate
and created a fourth
chocolate flavor.
In America, we know white chocolate,
milk chocolate, dark chocolate,
but in Europe, a very important
fourth flavor is [inaudible],
a mix of hazelnut and chocolate,
which then after World War
II they made a spread also
with hazelnuts and chocolate.
Chocolate history,
chocolate in Italy,
once it got into Italy's hands,
they made profound impacts,
and it was written
about even at the time.
So I could talk about chocolate,
and I will tomorrow night.
Now, what could I talk about on the
country that invented slow food.
On the country that has hundreds
of DOP, DOC, IPG products.
A country that Mimi Sheridan, who's
a very famous "New York Times",
ex "New York Times" restaurant
critic, and the author of a book
"1,000 Things to Eat
Before You Die".
She talks about foods from fifty,
more than fifty countries, however,
more than ten percent of the book
is dedicated to Italian foods.
Americans and others
love visiting Italy
for experiencing the food,
the people, the culture.
Italian food in America is
the number one most important
as far as restaurants.
The most, restaurants in
America are Italian restaurants.
Wine. I could do several
lectures just on wine.
Since ancient Roman
times, wine was considered
to be a specially healthy, and a way
for you to manage your health was
to eat slowly, and the ancients
used to write that by drinking wine,
you would know how to
pace yourself for a meal.
And, in fact, they used to say a
dinner without wine is a dog's meal,
and this is a wine cup in the
village [inaudible] in Rome.
In Italy, there's some
lovely museums to look
at the history of wine in Italy.
One is in Umbria where
you'll see a collection
of very interesting Renaissance
glasses called [inaudible].
Drink if you can.
These are glasses that
were whimsical.
That were a way to
celebrate the delight of wine,
and each glass looks as if
you couldn't possibly drink
through the glass, but it was a
little secret, and you had to,
as the diner, you discovered
what that secret was.
Perhaps a little special hole
at the bottom that you would sip
through one of the sides.
They also made jugs
that looked whimsical
as if you couldn't pour the wine.
In Florence right now
at the [inaudible],
there's a beautiful exhibit from an
artist who's done lovely drawings
of designs for various wine
glasses and wine pitchers.
A food, a drink that is
revered since time began.
Italy has twenty regions,
as you know,
and I give a lecture on each region.
It's called "Undiscovered Italy".
I do it here at the
Smithsonian and other cities.
So I can easily talk
about just one region
for the whole time that we have.
So I decided instead I would
focus today on two topics,
my two topics of my last books.
One on Italy's pasta, and
one on Italy's desserts.
So today I'll just have to limit
myself to pasta and desserts
to give you just a little
taste of the profound range
and influence Italy
has had on cuisine.
So now some myths about pasta.
One is that it clearly was not
something that Marco Polo discovered
in China because there
are documents of factories
that commercially sold
pasta since 800 A.D.,
and there's even earlier references.
It's clearly an Italian food.
And also you can see although
other cultures have lovely noodles,
Italy has hundreds and
hundreds of shapes,
beautiful interesting
shapes with whimsical names.
So like linguine, which means
little tongues, or [inaudible]
which is radiator for
some of the inventions.
So some of these shapes
are very old.
Some because of new inventions that
were created in the 20's and later.
So dry pasta, so many kinds,
but let's focus a little bit
on some of the handmade pasta.
Things like [inaudible]
so many ravioli.
Some of the ones that I think
are more unusual are [inaudible]
which are these round beautiful
discs of pasta that you press
between these two gorgeous
forms, and they are delicious
because it has a wonderful
texture on both sides.
So it absorbs the sauces, and
also the stamps are so beautiful.
From the same region,
[inaudible], but also parts
of northern Tuscany,
there's [inaudible].
Now [inaudible] is a kind of
pancake pasta, if you will,
made on a [inaudible],
this big terra cotta form,
and there's [inaudible].
In fact, there's [inaudible]
for every food.
But there's a lovely
song about [inaudible],
and then this big pancake
is then cut
into little round [inaudible]
shapes that is then tossed
with whatever sauce you like.
[Inaudible] pesto is
very traditional.
Another shape that I
love is [inaudible].
It has, you make this beautiful
little square of dough.
You wrap it around the
rod, and then you press it
against this form that's called a
[inaudible] cone to make ridges,
and what I love is the kind
of dog ate my homework story
of the origin of this pasta.
The idea is that a poor woman,
a farmer was making [inaudible],
the typical pasta from the area,
because her husband was bringing
home his boss, but as she turned
to take care of the, her baby, the
cat ate the [inaudible] filling.
She had no more.
He was coming very soon.
So she wanted to improvise.
So she had to just make the
little squares more interesting
since there would be no filing,
and so she created this
interesting ridged beautiful pasta.
Another pasta so tiny, [inaudible].
Teeny weeny little nibs of
pasta, which is often served
with [inaudible], peas
and [inaudible],
and [inaudible] is a
private part of the angel.
Another pasta, [inaudible],
is served with tiny,
traditionally with tiny little
meatballs, and [inaudible] is made
on this device, which means guitar.
It's this beautiful box
that you roll out the pasta,
then press it with the rolling
pin, and what's special is
that each edge, so you
get a four-edged pasta
so that the surface is wonderful
for having a great mouth feel
in comparison to the silky sauces.
Another sauce that I, another pasta
that I love is called [inaudible].
It's also called [inaudible],
and depending on what region,
and basically a pasta that,
again, you take the little sheet,
and you roll it around a rod.
It could be a knitting
needle, anything.
Even a spoke to an umbrella,
and then you pull it
off, a wonderful shape.
Another interesting
shape that's sort of,
I call it the Goldilocks
pasta, is [inaudible],
which is just this
beautiful curly pasta,
and one of the ways
they serve it there is
with artichokes and dried prunes.
A lovely, many, many sauces
in Italy have that kind
of savory and sweet naturally.
To really show the manual
dexterity of the people of Sardinia,
I think you can look at
their beautiful baskets
and also [inaudible], which is
this gorgeous handmade pasta
that looks like a wreath.
Just a little work of art.
The opposite end, sort of the
biggest pasta, thick as your thumb,
is called macaroni [inaudible],
which is this pulled pasta.
You start out with enough flour
for a portion for, let's say,
four or six people, and then it's
just pulled and stretched and pulled
and stretched, and it
becomes the servings.
You are served this
wonderful dish to share.
Quite lovely.
A fun place to go if
you like [inaudible],
if you like pasta risotto polenta
is [inaudible] Italia, a festival,
a three-day festival in
[inaudible] in Umbria
where the streets turn
into a delight.
People dress in pasta and risotto.
There's fashion shows.
There's tastings in
beautiful courtyards.
Chefs from all over Italy come
to show why polenta risotto
and pasta are so special in
the hands of Italian Chefs.
And someplace that I'm very
looking forward to visiting many,
many times starting May 1st until
November 1st is Expo Milano.
The Milano 2015 Expo.
This year, the theme of
the Expo every five years,
but it's feeding the
planet, and there's going
to be a pavilion on pasta.
There's going to be a
pavilion on the future of food
where you could have 3D printed
food, even pasta, printed.
They'll be a beautiful
pavilion of vertical farming.
It will really be a very special
place to visit not only Italy,
but to see a gorgeous, the
gorgeous history of food.
They'll be a beautiful
pavilion on the history of art
in [inaudible] of, the
history of food in art.
And also there, there'll be an
[inaudible] chef of the week.
Michelin [inaudible]
Italy, like [inaudible],
every week of the 26 weeks,
there'll be a different chef
that will be there cooking something
that will show a specialty of Italy.
Now, I thought, take a little break
from our pasta talk for a second,
to share some of my favorite sayings
that have to do with food in Italy.
In America, we say you
have rose-colored glasses.
In Italy, they say you slices
of salami on your eyes.
[Talking in Foreign Language]
In Italy, they say you have salt
on your pumpkin if you're very,
about somebody very
smart and clever.
To sop up the very last of
the sauce, they say [Talking
in Foreign Language],
doing the shoe,
because it leaves a
little track mark
in your dish when you
use your bread.
And then in America we
say a cherry on top.
In Italy, they say,
like, cheese on pasta.
So I said I would only talk about
pasta and dessert, but for a second,
I have to talk about Italian
cheese because it goes with pasta,
and it goes with dessert.
There are hundreds and hundreds of
very important cheeses, and a very,
very long culinary
tradition of cheese in Italy.
Pecorino, [inaudible] from Sicily,
the king of cheese what they
call [inaudible], mozzarella,
a DOP from [inaudible], which
is sort of uber mozzarella.
You open it, and there's kind
of this just creaminess inside.
Gorgonzola, DOP from [inaudible].
That whole [inaudible] Valley
has wonderful, wonderful cheeses,
including [inaudible], which is
used many, many savory dishes,
but the ubiquitous tiramisu.
See how I weaved in, now
transitioning to desserts.
So Italian desserts.
So many and such a long history.
So many cookies from [inaudible],
and in Italy, unlike America
where we're sort of a milk
and cookies kind of country,
dipping our cookies in milk, in
Italy, it's wine, dessert wines
and cookies, and there are many
wonderful dessert wines to pair
with sweets like [inaudible]
is a classic with [inaudible],
and every region has dozens and
dozens of exceptional cookies.
What I love about them, like
[inaudible] which are little cookies
with hazelnut flour and a touch
of chocolate holding the two centers
together, is how much the cookies
of Italy celebrate
the nuts of Italy.
So there's always something
wholesome, a protein,
that balances the sweetness,
and they're never too sweet.
One of my favorites are [inaudible].
Has anybody ever had [inaudible]?
[Inaudible] are a delight,
four ingredients - flour,
honey, almonds, and pepper.
Four ingredients.
No eggs, no sugar, no anything
else, leavening, nothing.
You just mix those together, bake
it, and then cut them in very thin.
So it's, it really is a
very, hundreds and hundreds
of years old recipe
because in the past,
which it seems very modern now,
[inaudible] pepper in dessert,
but it was very, very much when you
taste it, you realize that the honey
and the nuts with that little bit of
pepper has just a wonderful balance
of flavors, and it was thought very
hopeful and also a wonderful gift
to give exotic and expensive
spices to guests after dinner.
There's also the whimsical
[inaudible].
This faux peach, two little halves
of cookies that have a pastry cream
in the middle, and then
are rolled in a liquor
from Italy called [inaudible], which
has got about forty different spices
and was first developed in
Tuscany, and it's delicious,
and it was banned,
it's banned in America.
We can't get it.
I've been lobbying
myself for five years,
ever since I started researching it
because it's a liquor that seasons
so many important desserts like
[inaudible], yet it's banned
because 180 years ago in Italy, they
used to put the shell of an insect
to give it the red coloring.
And if you drink two gallons of it,
you might get a little stomachache,
and so it's banned here in America,
even though for the
past seventy years,
they have not been using
that insect to color it.
We still haven't accepted it here.
So you have to try this when you're
Italy or bring back a little bottle.
Cannoli. Probably one of America's
top five favorite desserts.
Come from the name for the little
rod, the [inaudible] that's used
to make cannoli, and
at Carnival time,
you'll even see gigantic
cannoli to celebrate [inaudible].
Another dessert from Sicily
is [inaudible], a beautiful,
beautiful artistic dessert.
Italy also invented gelato
in Sicily, and the many,
many kinds of flavors of gelato.
One of my favorites is how
we have breakfast in Sicily,
which is gelato in a brioche.
It's all your food groups.
We've got, especially if
you do pistachio ice cream,
you've got the little protein,
and you've got the brioche.
It's an egg brioche.
And then inventions that even in the
1950's when they made [inaudible]
because he ran out a plate
bowl to serve the dessert.
They had to kind of invent
this plate serving ice cream,
to even the way to put a
cartoon on an ice cream sandwich.
And then [inaudible].
So many wonderful flavors, and so
celebrating the wonderful foods,
the natural foods of Italy
like lemon [inaudible],
almond [inaudible],
coffee [inaudible].
You even get your vegetable groups
when you eat Italian desserts.
They have many, many
vegetable desserts.
Now this idea of having
savory/sweet is something
that dates to the Middle Ages.
Because there wasn't
such a clear demarcation
between dessert course
and your savory courses.
So, for example, this wonderful
dessert called [inaudible] is a
spinach pie with almond, and
this dates to the Renaissance,
and it's actually has a kind
of little tie in with Florence
because the name [inaudible]
has two meanings.
One is [inaudible] is the fret
to adjust a musical instrument,
and [inaudible] is also a
fool, especially about money.
And that second meaning came because
the family [inaudible] that lived,
the [inaudible] family that lived in
Florence didn't sell their building
when they were building
the [inaudible].
They held out for a higher
price, and so the town decided
to rearrange the angle and
not buy their property.
And so for centuries, they
were known as the idiots,
the fools because they lost
this wonderful opportunity
to sell their property to be
the ground for the [inaudible].
And so it got that second name,
but even today, you can find,
especially in the province of
Lucca, you can find lots of sweets
that are made with vegetables.
You can find the [inaudible],
and you can find all kinds
of [inaudible], and even
the beautiful [inaudible],
which is thinly sliced zucchini.
It's amazing.
We, you know, we have carrot cake.
So it's kind of the same idea that
vegetables have a natural sweetness
or some vegetables
play off very nicely
against the sweetness of sugar.
[Inaudible], a mimosa cake.
So today is the Father's Day of
Italy, and just a few days ago
on March 8th there was [inaudible],
the International Day of Women.
Here in the States we
don't it up quite the way
that they do it in Italy.
In Italy, it is really a celebration
where women celebrate female
friendship, and you'll see women
that day with little mimosa flowers,
and the mimosa became the sort
of informal mascot, the flower
of the holiday because it grows
in Italy at about that same time
as the festival, the [inaudible].
Everybody, anyone been to an Italian
wedding, and received the confetti,
the almond coated in sugar?
This also has a very, very, very
long history, a thousand years
of coating nuts, and
even spices in sugar.
The nuts - almonds, pine nuts,
other nuts - and also giving them
for other occasions,
not just weddings.
A christening, a graduation,
and depending on the color,
you go to certain sweet
shops in Italy
and buy the color-coordinated
confetti depending
on the holiday, what
you're celebrating.
And the spices are very
unusual and something especially
at the holiday time that you
have after you have dinner,
sugar-coated rosemary,
sugar-coated fennel.
There, [inaudible] helping for
digestive or palate cleanser.
And the way that they're made
still today you can get some
beautiful [inaudible].
Still artisan but other
cities, [inaudible] also.
A very ancient tradition of
sugar coating where you turn the,
whatever the ingredient
is, the nuts or the spices,
and trickle down some
sugar as it tumbles.
[Inaudible] Strong bread is also
from the Renaissance, which is a mix
of many spices, dried fruit, and
nuts, and this was considered
to be an essential
food for the wintertime
to keep you warm, to
keep you nourished.
It, they thought that all that
combination of those herbs
and spices and fruit and nuts were
healthy and certainly delicious.
Each holiday has its desserts.
[Inaudible], of course, has many,
many desserts like [inaudible]
which has a million names depending
on what region you come from.
There's little fried bits of
dough, but there's fried ravioli
that could be filled with chocolate
or filled with the chestnuts.
Many, many fried desserts.
And in Italy there's
even an expression.
Fried even chair legs are delicious.
Coming up soon is Easter, and Easter
has some delicious desserts as well.
You wave this under an Italian,
and they could be blindfolded,
and 99 Italians will know what this.
[Inaudible] has a very
distinct aroma.
It's orange blossom flour water, but
very fragrant, and it's wonderful,
whole grain, and [inaudible].
Then [inaudible], a yeasty cake
with little bits of candied orange.
Speaking of Easter, in
[inaudible] there's many,
many towns that have very
interesting Easter traditions.
In the province of Modena and
Amelia, you'll find a little game
that they do in many of the hill
towns where go into the piazza,
and you come with your, a
boiled egg, and you crack it
against another, a
friend, and whoever breaks,
whosever egg breaks has to give
up their egg to the other person.
That's sort of a wonderful
competition.
And in [inaudible] which is a
small little town in Umbria known
for its lace work,
when you go through it,
not only is there a lace museum,
but you'll see all the ladies
doing lace work outside.
They play a game on [inaudible],
which is the Monday after Easter,
which in Italy is a holiday,
usually a day where families
spend together and have a picnic.
This town hosts a gigantic party
outside where two teams of four
or six men each play a game that's
a very traditional game called
[inaudible] where they take a
wheel of cheese, a ten kilo wheel
of cheese, and with a special
cord, and it's sort of like discus.
They roll this cheese through the
town to see which team gets it
to the end of the square first,
and then in the town square,
there's a big party where there
are wonderful pizza [inaudible],
which is a kind of, not a pizza
but a bread, a round bread,
a cheese bread with
cheese served in sandwiches
to everyone who's gone to the town.
And then there's a gigantic
chocolate egg in the town square
that they open up, use
a hammer and crack it,
and everybody grabs pieces
of the chocolate egg.
Really fun.
Christmas in Italy is a delight.
So many things and so many sweets.
[Inaudible] little fried
dough balls covered in honey,
dates to ancient Roman times.
[Inaudible] is this little strip of
pasta that you then pinch and roll
and pinch and roll to make a kind
of rosette that's then fried,
and you serve it either with a honey
or with a reduced wine,
a wonderful [inaudible].
Panettone is probably the
most famous Italian cake
for Christmas time.
Panettone is tall, yeasty, eggy,
raisins, dried candied fruit.
There's very strict rules about
what, where the ingredients can come
from and what percentages of each
ingredient have to be in panettone,
and what I found so interesting
when I was writing "Dolci",
I went to visit very
panettone makers.
And I was amazing from
the small artisan shops
that made only a couple of
hundred to big, big companies.
The one thing that even the very,
very big companies,
this is a mother yeast.
It's made from a natural
yeast that has to be tended.
They have, like, a
little yeast nursery.
Even big companies where
it's kept in a basket,
and an employee is assigned
maybe twenty of these babies
where they have to turn them
and nurture them for the thirty
or forty days it takes until
they develop into the yeast.
And this natural yeast is what makes
panettone so special in the flavor,
but also when you look
at the ingredient list,
there are no preservatives,
and I couldn't believe this.
So I did a test myself.
I kept ten panettone from ten
different makers in my closet
because they all assured
me that even in June, six,
nine months later, they promised
me the panettone would be fresh.
And, first of all, my
closet smelled fantastic.
I could have rented
out my apartment.
It, just from the smell.
It's a realtor's delight,
but it was true.
Every single one maintained
its softness because of
that natural yeast
and no preservatives.
And the pairing for panettone,
the tradition is asti spumante,
a little glass of asti spumante,
but there's another panettone that,
we have the sweet one, but then
there's a panettone [inaudible],
a savory panettone.
Has anybody ever had
panettone [inaudible]?
In several of my Italian friends, I
kind of give them a job when I come.
You must find for me something
that I don't know here in America,
and so I really have this bevy
of hundreds of Italian friends
that are always searching for
the interesting and unusual,
and this is one that [inaudible]
they do in several regions
where you make the panettone.
They also sell it commercially
during the holidays,
and this panettone is not sweet.
It's like a brioche bread
but in the panettone shape,
and because of that pretty dome-like
shape, you slice it horizontally,
and you do different layers
of savory sandwich fillings.
Then you cut them into
little triangles.
And so guests eat these
little sandwiches.
It's such a festive way.
I have a recipe to make it at
home, and I have alternates
for the panettone mold,
too, if you want to try it.
The other Christmas
cake is [inaudible],
golden cake because it's
very brioche, like panettone
but without the candied fruit
inside, and one of the fun things
about its shape is that
it lends itself so nicely
to cutting it horizontally,
and creating this kind
of Christmas tree sort
of shape, which I love.
And you can put in between the
layers another classic Italian
creation, [inaudible].
And in Italy when I went to
[inaudible], a wonderful restaurant
to learn how to make some recipes
because it's from that area,
they showed me how
to make [inaudible],
which is such an easy recipe.
Egg and sugar in equal
amounts and [inaudible],
which you use the shell of the egg.
So if you use three eggs, you use
three cups of the three eggshells
of the [inaudible],
and then just heat it
until it's wonderful and delicious.
Now the Italians have many, many
sayings about staying at the table.
That you don't know someone
unless you have dinner with them.
That staying at the
table, you don't age.
[Talking in Foreign Language],
which I totally believe.
It's my little time machine.
And in Italy, they
linger over their food.
They, and, therefore, appreciate
it I think more and eat less.
And each course, there's
a flavor, there's a wine,
there's conversation, and there
is a very interesting phenomenon.
If you go to an Italian
restaurant, and you order dessert.
You've had a wonderful meal.
You've had your wines, now you
order dessert, and you order a cup
of coffee the way we do with
our dessert here in America.
In Italy, you're going to wait
for the coffee, and you're going
to wait, and you call
the waiter, and you say,
excuse me [Talking
in Foreign Language].
But you haven't finished
your dessert.
Because in Italy, you don't
serve coffee with dessert.
Dessert is served with
dessert wines,
and coffee is the very last thing.
It would feel rude to
serve you the coffee.
It's almost a sign of the end,
and so they want to postpone that.
Now I thought that I would talk a
little bit about coffee for the end
of our talk before I take questions
because coffee is taken
very seriously in Italy,
and coffee was introduced
into Europe through Italy.
People think through [inaudible],
but it's actually [inaudible].
There's many ways that
the Italians serve coffee,
and there's a big debate
between [inaudible]
in a glass cup or in a cup cup.
You could have it short.
You could have it long.
You could have a double.
You could have, which just
means the amount of water.
Cappuccino in the morning,
but even little children know,
not after 11:00, 12:00,
no cappuccino.
But there's many, many ways that
coffee is enjoyed in the morning.
The coffee with a little
bit, a little touch of milk,
marked with a little milk, or
milk marked with a little coffee.
Latte [inaudible] if you
want hot milk with just
that little touch of coffee.
And then a wonderful,
wonderful tradition [inaudible]
which is coffee on the house.
There's a tradition that it's
kind of, like, pass it on where
in some coffee shops, you
will pay for an extra coffee
and give the ticket to the owner.
So that if someone comes
in, perhaps a student,
perhaps a visitor who's
lost a wallet,
he can have a cup of
coffee on the house.
There are many, many,
many coffee inventions.
Because coffee and chocolate
came into Italy at the same time,
and also came, chocolate first
came into Italy through Piedmont.
Some of the places where some
of these combinations of coffee
and chocolate was naturally
in [inaudible]
because before the 1600's, there was
no coffee, no chocolate in Europe.
One of my favorites is [inaudible],
a layer, who's had [inaudible].
You know what I mean?
For the rest of you, let
me try to do it justice.
A layer of dense, dense, sweet
dark chocolate, a shot of espresso,
a foam, a creamy foam
of cool foam on top,
and so you sip the cool foam,
you get to the bitter espresso,
then you get the sweet
thickness of chocolate.
It's wonderful, and it's
always served by candlelight
in this one place that's
very famous for it
in Torino called Cafe [Inaudible].
Another drink, combination of
coffee and chocolate is [inaudible]
from Alessandria, another province,
another city in [inaudible]
is Moroccan
because it's a city that's
known for its hat making.
And so they called the coffee for
the color of the Moroccan leather,
and it's got cocoa powder in the
glass, and then the hot coffee,
and then your foam, and
then more cocoa powder.
And then the summertime, we've
got some coffee creations.
The Italians, and I have to agree.
Coffee is a very expensive product.
Good coffee, it grows
in very fine places.
It's roasted to the
proper temperature.
It's carefully ground,
and for iced coffee,
we leave it in the
refrigerator for a week.
This makes no sense.
It makes no sense to the Italians.
It certainly makes
no sense to gourmets.
The volatile oils get ruined.
It's not the way to
have iced coffee.
The way to have iced coffee is the
way the Italians do [inaudible],
which is in a shaker.
You put ice, you put a shot
of espresso in to the ice,
and you shake it until
the, it's cold,
and then you strain it into a glass.
And so you still get
some of the creama,
and that's a fabulous
way to have iced coffee.
Another one, more in
the south of Italy,
is [inaudible], which
is cold espresso.
So espresso but then hot espresso
poured over ice so it becomes cold,
and then with a lovely
touch of almond milk.
It's a kind of almond syrup that's
a specialty because the almonds are
so wonderful in that
part of the country.
There are cocktails, too, for
the wintertime when it's cold.
[Inaudible] is, it means to
float, and it's a lovely drink
because it has three layers.
One layer is a mix of some, several
kinds of liquors that were heated
up in the foamer, and then a
little bit, you then take the,
a little piece of linen and then
gently pour onto the espresso
so it floats over the liquors, and
then you give it a little aroma
of bay leaf, and the third
layer is just the creme of it.
Just naturally comes to the top.
So it's really a very, very special
delicious drink in the wintertime.
And then [inaudible] from the north
in this wonderful cup [inaudible].
So it's this beautiful round,
wooden coffee cup that's
called a cup of friendship.
You put in, they generally
put in hot coffee,
but then they use these
wonderful alpine liquor
that there's sugar that's burned
onto every stout, and the idea is
that you take this hot drink at the
end of your meal, and you share it
with everyone at the table,
and you cover two holes,
and you drink from one, you
pass it to the next person,
they drink from a different hole.
There's liquor, so it's sanitary,
and so there's this wonderful
friendship, this sharing.
Something that, though similar kinds
of gestures were done
in ancient Roman times.
So I think that that's a very nice
place, this friendship coffee for me
to pause to take some
questions because I've tried
to give us a little taste of some
of the foods that I love and some
of the food customs from
pasta to dessert, cheeses,
but there's so much more.
And so many festivals and
so many cities that honor
and have interesting
traditions to visit.
So now I'll take a break so we can
think about some questions that.
Yes. [Inaudible Audience Question]
The question is how do I stay
so slim when I have all these
wonderful visits to Italy,
and actually it's in Italy that
I get slimmer because I find
that the portions are so proper
when you go to a restaurant
that the food is so flavorful that
with a little, you're satisfied.
It's amazing how many bad habits
I think that we've gotten to,
or at least where I live in New
York City, that I don't see as much
in Italy, and I think
that a couple of things
that I love to take home from Italy.
One is not, there is no coffee
holder in an Italian car.
They do not drink coffee
while they're driving.
There's no walking around the
street eating French fries
or chips from a bag.
You sit down to eat, or you
stand at the counter at a bar
when you're having your coffee or a
quick lunch, but you basically set
out your time, even if
it's just ten minutes,
you very rarely will
find an Italian doing,
eating and something
else besides talking.
It is just, makes you such more
conscious of food and enjoying it.
The other is the portions.
When I, I usually spend six
weeks in Italy with my children,
and especially when
they were little,
six weeks is like a whole
life to a four year old.
So my son would come back.
He would forget America.
We would get off the plane.
We'd go. The kitchen was empty
so we'd go to a restaurant near
where we lived, and I'll never
forget the first time the waiter put
down a dish in front of my son.
He ordered, coming back from Italy
from six weeks, what does he crave.
Pasta. So he ordered a pasta dish.
They put it in front of
him, he's four years old.
He picked it up and put
in the center of the table
because he thought the
portion was for all of us.
A buffet in Italy.
There's something called
a [inaudible].
Now, especially in the north, it's
kind of chic that in the evening,
instead of a sit-down
dinner, a tradition,
many bars will have a buffet, and
there'll be all sorts of foods
that will be put out, and you,
for the price of a glass of wine
or [inaudible], you can
help yourself to the buffet.
And it's amazing, they put
out very high quality food
because Italians take
a little small plate,
and put a little bit on the plate.
I've been to Florida.
I've been to the early dinners.
I've been to Las Vegas buffet,
and the mountain that we put
on our plates, I, it's amazing.
In Italy, they would rather give you
another plate to have a clean plate
so that you can enjoy your
experience and taste each thing,
and so that's why I
think that traveling
in Italy is like living in a spa.
Yes.
[ Inaudible Audience Question ]
The question is, as I
mentioned for panettone,
and the gentleman concurs, the
panettone doesn't go stale, but,
yet, when you look
at the ingredients,
there are no preservatives.
So since it's so simple,
why don't we all do that
and avoid the preservatives.
Because it's extremely
labor intensive,
and you really have to care.
To just name one company that's
a very big company, [inaudible],
I went to visit them, and they,
one worker explained to me
that there was a fire, and
the person ran in and out
to take her basket of her twenty
babies because you really have
to take care of these yeasts,
these babies that grow
in this little bassinet.
So it's labor intensive.
Unfortunately, to keep costs down,
or because they think the
American consumer won't notice it
on the palate, it's easier to
just put in a chemical leavening.
It's faster.
You don't have to wait.
It takes forty days to
do that mother leavening.
That means you have to
have a dedicated room.
It's seven-day-a-week
employees that take care of it.
So the simple things,
the things that,
there are people whose grandmother
passed down a mother leavening.
Has anybody had a mother
yeast passed down from an aunt
or a grandmother that you keep
adding flour, keep adding water,
and you can keep this thing going,
but you have to take it
with you on vacation.
So it's simple because
it's the natural real way
that we should be eating,
but it's complicated, too,
because it is labor intensive, you
know, and I wish more people did it,
and that's part of why
Italian bread is so good.
And you can tell good
bread when you slice it,
and you look at the holes,
and they're irregular.
Some of them are big, some little.
Bread should not look
like a sheet of paper.
Yes.
[ Inaudible Audience Question ]
That's an excellent point
she's mentioning, two dishes,
both [inaudible] with clams, and a
lot of people come back from Italy,
and they say this was so good.
I'm going to make it.
I talked to the chef, and I'm going
to make it here, and
it doesn't come out.
So you think that maybe the chef
didn't tell you all the ingredients
or how to make it, which even an
Italian grandmother won't tell you
always every secret, but this is
one of the reasons why I think
that to really understand Italian
cuisine, you must travel in Italy.
There are some foods that are so
local they don't even have enough,
even if you promise
you'll give them $1,000,
they don't have enough
to sell to you.
They only have it for
their very small area
because it's very small production.
If they tried to kick
up the production,
it would ruin the quality.
And so that's why I think
that you must visit Italy
to really taste some of
these dishes in the place
because canned tomatoes, they're
good, but the fresh there.
The, even the basil, even the
way that they'll grow some herbs,
I taste a huge difference.
Silly things, capers, which, by the
way, don't buy capers in vinegar.
It's, like, a preserved thing from a
high school biology class with salt.
So it preserves the flavor,
but it's the ingredients.
It's the water that they
use to even boil it,
and then it's the hand,
the cook's hand.
They know how to play with the fire.
They know how to raise
the heat, lower the heat.
Even the clams.
They have special from local waters.
Very, very difficult to
duplicate, but if you e-mail me,
I'll try to ask the chef
what his secrets are,
and see if we can't
get it a little closer.
Yes.
>> Can you just explain
the difference
between gelato and ice cream?
>> Francine Segan: The difference
between gelato and ice cream.
Gelato is not kept as cold.
So it, that's one thing,
big difference,
and the other is it's more,
difference between an egg custard,
adding egg, and the
amount of whipping it.
So Italian gelato is not as whipped.
It's not as airy.
So it's denser.
That's why it's so rich tasting.
It's not as air filled, and also
if you notice how soft it is
when they serve it to you.
You have to eat it kind of quickly.
The ice cream here, you
could get like a tall,
tall cone, and it doesn't melt.
There, it's softer,
and I like that idea
of lowering your freezer temperature
so that if you get good gelato,
or you make gelato, you lower the,
your own freezer temperature
so it's not as cold.
There are so many.
[ Inaudible Audience Question ]
A [inaudible] granita,
and then you could have it
with whipped cream
on top [inaudible].
That's, the coffee
granita is wonderful,
and so simple to make
good coffee in the freezer
and then you could
just fork, break it up.
Really lovely.
[ Inaudible Audience Question ]
So what, the question is what
about gluten free in Italy.
There are definitely celiac,
people who suffer from celiac,
who suffer when they eat gluten
products, and in Italy, I found,
my daughter is celiac, and
they're very, very attentive.
There are pizza places that
will have a certain area
because even the smallest
little bit of flour.
And so they have gluten-free flours.
In Italy, if you prove
that you're celiac,
and you can get a prescription
from your doctor, and in health,
and like a pharmacy, you buy, you
will get gluten-free products.
So Italy, because of this awareness
that it is a medical condition
that needs to be taken
seriously, it's not a diet fad
from a TV star or a movie star.
It is an illness.
They help to provide these really
wholesome gluten-free foods.
So you get crackers and
pasta that is subsidized.
So people can go, and this causes
the Italian companies to do research
because they know that they will
be able to sell this product
with the help, as if it's
a prescription of medicine,
and they produce some of the
best gluten-free products.
I think there's some
wonderful gluten-free pasta
where it's a combination
of several grains - quinoa,
rice, [inaudible], breads.
So I really like the
imported gluten free,
and it isn't so much a craze
just for dieting but an actual,
for people who have an illness,
and you don't see as many
of these diet crazes
like the Paleo diet.
Has everybody heard about
that here in America?
I don't hear that many of
those kind of crazes in Italy.
I think they know that they
really own the Mediterranean diet.
Yeah.
[ Inaudible Audience Question ]
The slow food movement
housed in [inaudible],
stared in Piedmont is the idea
of the opposite of fast food.
Started as just a very simple
concept that took off worldwide,
and there are restaurants that have
signed on as slow food restaurants,
that people that endorse
these restaurants go to visit
and are very, very careful about it.
There are chapters here
in the United States.
It's an international now,
become an international craze
because people value the idea
that slow food means it
will take you a little bit.
You need to sit in the restaurant,
have a little glass of wine,
and relax, and wait for your food
to be properly prepared and served.
Yes. A political aspect
to slow food?
I don't do politics.
[ Laughter ]
[ Inaudible Audience Question ]
My advice on olive oil, what
I do is I purchase very,
very high quality olive oil,
and I look for DOP on the label,
and you can go to a good
store, and you'll see that.
And then I never cook
that olive oil.
I do it, I see so many Italian chefs
and Italian homemakers
and bloggers do.
If I'm doing [inaudible], if I
steam my vegetables, and I put them
out on the platter warm,
and I put the olive oil,
and you put the fresh olive oil
on, you'll taste the olive oil.
When I do my pasta, I'll
put it on at the end.
So I use it more raw for
very, very good olive oil.
Not so much cooking with it
because I think you ruin some
of the wonderful flavor
of it, and I agree.
Some of the health benefits.
Is my time up?
Thank you so much.
It was such a delight sharing a
little taste of Italy with you all.
>> This has been a presentation
of the Library of Congress.
Visit us at loc dot gov.