Cooking with Nonna: A Bit of Puglia via Bensonhurst
Posted by Susan on May 25, 2011 in Adventures, Boston, Featured, Photos
Tags: Cambridge School of Culinary Arts, Cooking with Nonna, Italy, Nonna Romano, orechiette, pastella, polpi, Primavera in Puglia, Puglia, Puglian Pinwheels, Rosella Rago, Slow Food Boston, Tormaresca Vineyards
This post is by Eat With Me contributor Susan.
Slow Food Boston and Cambridge School of Culinary Arts present: Cooking with Nonna: A Bit of Puglia via Bensonhurst
First, I’d like to congratulate the head cooks and bottle washers at Eat With Me on the recent redesign and relaunch! And I’d like to congratulate myself on finally pulling together a post, even though it does not fall into either of my self-selected specialties, beer or bread. But it is about Italian cooking, which is impossible to imagine without bread.
A couple of weeks ago a friend and I attended a demonstration and informal discussion on seasonal foods from the Puglia region of Italy, “Primavera in Puglia,” hosted by Rosella Rago of the web cooking show Cooking With Nonna, and her real-life Nonna Romano, a true kitchen warrior.
Nonna and Rosella
Cooking With Nonna is the home of a series of web-based cooking shows, hosted by Rosella, in which she features traditional Italian food with a series of guest nonne. The demonstration took place at the Cambridge School of Culinary Arts, which has been training chefs in Cambridge, Mass., for 35 years. The demonstration was co-sponsored by Slow Food Boston, one of the 225 chapters of Slow Food USA, a not-for-profit organization supporting sustainable agriculture and advocating the availability of seasonal and local foods.
The program featured four courses typical of Puglia: deep-fried cauliflower, zucchini, and artichoke in pastella; orecchiete (“little ears”), a hand-shaped pasta characteristic of the region, with cauliflower sauce; polpi (octopus) grilled two ways: marinated in its own juices and breaded; and cartellate di primavera with a scoop of EVOO gelato and a drizzle of fig reduction. Wines from the Tormaresca Vineyards in Puglia were liberally dispensed. The idea was to use foods that are in season now in this region of Italy, and to showcase traditional ways of preparing them.
The demonstration itself was interesting if difficult to see and hear. The antipasto, spring vegetables coated in pastella and deep-fried in (what else?) olive oil was very good. Actually, Rosella used a combination of olive oil and vegetable oil, to give the oil a higher smoke point. The veggies—cauliflower, zucchini, and artichoke–were crunchy, yet not too obviously greasy. Cauliflower is far from a favorite of mine, but breaded and fried, I’m in!
Pastella
Next up was the pasta course, on this evening hand-shaped orechiette with a tomato cauliflower sauce. The pasta itself had a wonderful texture and pleasing shape, but the sauce was a bit bland—something I could make at home. Nonna used semolina flour, from a hard wheat, which made for a stiffer dough.
Cooked orechiette
For me, the truly impressive thing about the orechiette was that Nonna Romano had hand-cut and shaped 8 pounds (!) of it for the demo. And she made it look easy.
Sea of orechiette
Parting the sea
The making of orechiette
The most dramatic event of the evening was the Grilling of the Octopus. There was no disguising these babies, and I sensed a thrill of revulsion mixed with curiosity ripple through the crowd. Apparently, Puglia is home to a 3-day octopus festival each spring, making the grilling necessary to maintain the theme. I’m not a squeamish eater—I love calamari, for example, and I’m the one who prefers the tentacles to the rings. But the octopus was a bit of rough going. Tasty enough, but that rubbery texture is just too, er, rubbery.
Polpi on the grill
Grilled polpi
Wrapping up the evening was a very nice dessert—pretty much gelato sandwiches. The cookies were fried pasta cut into squares. This type of cookie is a Christmastime Puglian treat, usually made in a pinwheel shape, but for the sandwiches the squares worked better. Between the cookies was a generous dollop of extra virgin olive oil gelato, and the sandwich was finished with a light drizzle of fig reduction, both of which were excellent.
Dessert
Puglian Pinwheels
Overall, this was a fun event and a great way to sample a range of foods from a specific region of Italy. It is somehow delicious that this event was co-sponsored by Slow Food Boston, because the whole thing, enjoyable as it was, took forever. The pacing could have been more brisk, and more attention given to making sure the audience could hear the hosts. I definitely missed a lot of what Rosella was saying. On the other hand, the wine was plentiful, the people friendly, and the chaotic atmosphere made the event feel like a family reunion.
