![]() ![]() So when we moved to Umbria (only an hour from where we lived before in Rome), Marco and I adapted once again and learned how to cook like the Umbrians. However, today, in contradiction to “the poor cuisine” of the old days, Umbrian cuisine includes some of the most expensive food items in the world like black and white truffles, extra virgin olive oil, wild fennel, saffron and porcini mushrooms. Tomatoes were also a staple, grown and harvested in the summer and canned for the long winter ahead. Cured pork was another staple of this cuisine which when cured lasted throughout the cold winter months, as was game (boar, dove, hare, and venison) that was hunted and then roasted. The fundamental food in Umbria was and still is, without a doubt, bread and, it is presented in many shapes and sizes usually unsalted (due to a tax on salt imposed by the Pontificate back in 1540!). For centuries, the difficult conditions of life demanded the use of poor, inexpensive food by the lower classes and the peasants-and this is the reason why oil is preferred instead of lard, and soups are preferred instead of pasta and why days’ old bread is utilized in recipes. The simplicity of the dishes is rooted in a cultural history of poverty and agriculture, “cucina povera” (or poor cuisine). Umbrian regional cooking is sober and presents simple tastes prepared with expertise and mastery much like the Tuscan way. What you eat in the southern regions you do not find in the north and vice versa. Twenty regions to be exact and within those regions the culinary nuances of each town co-exist as well. It is important to understand that “Italian cooking” in the general sense does not truly exist – it is regional. So Marco became an expert in cooking fish and to this day some of his best dishes are these marine based recipes. Clams, mussels and other shellfish were also a delicacy. Small sized fish like seabass, giltheads and groupers were also caught and grilled. Marco’s mother had to invent hundreds of way of cooking octopus and squid as that was what was most abundant in those days. The men (his father, uncles and the sons) would go out in the early morning and fish all day with a mask, lance, and net. Marco’s family lived in Rome and on the nearby seaside so their cuisine and diet was based on fish. It is simply that threesome of food, wine, and desserts that defines the most vivid and happy memories for me. Most memories are photographic they say but as I write these words I realize that my memories are linked more to smells and tastes rather than to visual ones. ![]() And the oh sweet smell of sugary cookies and spongy soft chocolate cakes lingers in my culinary memory as well. To this day when it snows, I still say “time for polenta.” My mother would make strudels and spiced cookies whose perfume permeated the entire house. The smell of my father’s lush tomato sauce stewed with fennel spiced sausages and pork ribs to be eventually poured on that golden colored corn mush is forever imprinted in my taste buds’ memory bank. On cold snowy days in Chicago my father would come home and say “Polenta is in the air!” (and that happened often in the Windy City). My mother, who hails from the Trieste area of Italy (near the Austro-Hungarian and Croatian borders), and my father, who comes from Rome, had two completely different culinary upbringings but both had solutions for any time of the year based on what was available seasonally. My parents also loved to cook using regional recipes coming from both northern and central Italy, which were quite diverse regions in terms of culinary traditions. ![]() I would very seriously tell her the whole list but when she asked to try one, I would just giggle and tell her they had all been devoured and not one was left! Today baking brings back so many memories and scents much like Marcel Proust’s “A Remembrance of Things Past” and his deliciously smelling madeleines, which for me translates to “tozzetti” or the classic biscotto. So much so that when my mother came to pick me up from grandma’s house, she would ask me what I had baked with Nonna. And I mean immediately out of the oven steaming hot. As a little girl, I used to spending my weekends with my Nonna (grandmother) who loved to bake and eat her sweet creations immediately. I have always had a deep passion for cooking especially baking. For me, cooking and baking evoke sweet memories of warm comfy homes, steaming ovens, big pots boiling over, daily family meals and extraordinary holiday feasts spent together with the entire family – all 30 of them (along with lots of arguing in the kitchen!). ![]()
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