The Food Maven Diary
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I'm Back -- Plus Thanksgiving Recipes, Mozzarella di Bufala
I'm back. I'm still jet-lagged and I'm still on information overload (book and travel research), but I am home sweet home in Brooklyn. There's no place like it, but it was a pleasure to be away for so long. I missed my friends and family. I missed my Tempur-Pedic mattress. But that's it. I did not miss the political news, or the news of sexual scandals, fires, murders, and celebrities. In fact, I realized that one of the pleasures of being in a country where you don't speak the language all that well is that you don't know about their equally stupid political news, and news of sexual scandals, fires, murders, and celebrities. You can live in your own world.
I didn't even watch television for the first six weeks of my nine weeks away, except for the Miss Italia contest, which was so campy I couldn't take my eyes off of it. The pageant ran for four days, a painful, painstaking, hilariously silly elimination from 100 women to one, all done by the broadcast audience through something called Televoto. I got hooked on the show while eating in a wonderful little trattoria in Corigliano, a small town in Calabria. These days, I've found that Italian trattorias in small towns often have large screen TVs; the smaller the town, the larger the screen. It's true that Italian families eat together more often than American families, and almost always on Sunday afternoon, but from my observation they don't necessarily relate to each other any better than Americans. They watch TV together. Or, I should say, if there is a soccer match, the men watch TV at one end of the table while the women and smallest children eat and talk at the other end of the table. At any rate, in case you are interested, Miss Trentino-Alto Adige won Miss Italia, although some of my southern Italian friends swear, considering her dark, sultry looks, that she must be from a southern Italian family, not one that hails originally from that northernmost region that she represents. Perhaps this was the national buzz – as I said, I don't speak the language well enough to really know. But I can tell you that within a week she was making the rounds of the talk shows as a blond not as the brunette she was during the contest.
ON TO REAL BUSINESS
I thought this might be the right moment to point out that this website has many recipes that are useful for Thanksgiving. For instance, my favorite pumpkin pie, a rich custard with cognac, is there. Indeed, if you put the word "pie" in the search box you'll find many other great pie recipes, including my friend Dorie Greenspan's pumpkin pie with egg nog. There are also some favorite recipes for side dishes. For example, my dear, darling friend Rozanne Gold's miraculous three-ingredient pumpkin, orange, and ginger puree is on the same page as my pumpkin pie. And there are recipes for leftovers, such as something called Impossible Pie , a sort of retro recipe using Bisquick, and the Barbecued Turkey Hashthat has become a favorite of Joan Hamburg.
Speaking of Joanie, her family's Ritz Cracker Stuffing is on this website, too. I don't care for the stuffing much myself. It is so rich it is cloying after the first few forkfuls. You might want to try it once, however, just to know what all the fuss is about, and that you don't like it either (or do).
I have been perusing the site myself just now, to see what other recipes I could cite here, and I realized that there is so much here on the subject of Thanksgiving – so many recipes, so much Thanksgiving talk, even roundups of what is here that were written apropos of previous Thanksgivings -- that I should just say: go to the search box and plug in keywords for things you are looking for: "Thankgiving," "pie," "potatoes," "leftovers" … you get the idea. Many references in the archive will come up. Just click on what looks appropriate. There are now more than 300 recipes here. Now and then, I like to remind you of this. There is even an index to the recipes, although it is not completely up to date. In any case, take advantage! This website is a cookbook unto itself, and ever growing.
MOZZARELLA DI BUFALA
I was very disappointed yesterday when a friend who is an Italian food importer told me that his shipment of buffalo mozzarella from Italy was held up at the airport for more than two weeks by the U.S. authorities. Worse yet, he accepted the shipment and put it in his freezer, expecting to sell it this coming holiday season.
Why was I so disappointed? I thought my friend was an honorable importer and selling frozen mozzarella, or even mozzarella that has been sitting in refrigeration for two weeks at the airport, is, by me, unconscionable. This cheese is supposed to be eaten the day it is made, never having been refrigerated, much less frozen. If one has leftovers, the thing to do is to use it for cooking the next day, or the day after, or the day after that. Freezing totally destroys the cheese.
I have actually never, ever, ever, ever eaten a cheese in New York that was in prime condition, even when the restaurateur or retailer guarantees me that it was picked up at the airport that day. As you can see, you can pick up cheese at the airport that is already a couple of weeks old.
In some very rare cases, with restaurateurs who know about this delicate cheese, the cheese may indeed be no more than a couple or three days old. It takes at least that much time to go from a dairy north of Naples, in the province of Caserta, where all the exported mozzarella di bufala comes from, to JFK. Even then, I don't want to eat it. Just to start, the U.S. government requires it be refrigerated on its way here, which already takes the edge off the cheese.
There is this unfortunate, grand misconception that mozzarella from water buffalo milk is a creamy and tangy cheese. I have actually heard Mario Batali use these very words on TV to acclaim the qualities of this very rarefied product. I hate to tell Mario, but a "creamy," "tangy" mozzarella is a spoiled mozzarella. The tanginess is a sour taste. The creaminess is decomposed cheese. The cheese, when fresh, is firm and springy at the center, and quite sweet, the way fresh whole milk and cream are sweet. It is a very high-fat, high moisture cheese, so I suppose you could say it has creamy qualities, but it is not soft.
I could go on and on about mozzarella di bufala. (You can read my essay on the subject in "Naples at Table: Cooking in Campania.") I consider myself an expert, as my cooking school is on a water buffalo farm. Baronessa Cecilia and her sons Ettore and Massimino Bellelli are the largest breeders in the province of Salerno. For years now, I have given tours of the mozzarella dairy where the the Bellelli milk is turned into mozzarella and ricotta, explaining the process. And I eat the cheese nearly every day when I am there. Calling myself an expert is perhaps immodest, but I have learned about the cheese from the Bellelli family, and they certainly are experts. Ettore is, I can very safely say, one of the acknowledged world experts on the animals that produce the milk, as well as the cheese that is made from it. He is consulted by other buffalo breeders – in Italy and around the world – and he sells his prized stock to other farmers, etc., etc., etc.
I think that a well-made domestic, American cow's milk cheese, what we call mozzarella but is technically called fiore di latte (flower of milk) is superior to any imported buffalo cheese you can buy. Those of us who live in metropolitan New York are lucky to have local producers in our backyards. Italian markets often sell their own handmade cheese, made on the premises with curd that they buy from large dairies, such as Polly-0 and Friendship. It is usually excellent cheese. I say usually because although mozzarella is a simple cheese and easy to make, it is actually a difficult cheese to make well. The process may seem basic but it requires skill and experience.
By the way, the rubber balls wrapped in plastic that are sold in American supermarkets have no relation to real mozzarella or fior di latte. Polly-O does, however, sell a product packed in water in plastic tubs. They're pretty good – in a pinch.
ARTHUR IN PRINT
This month's Saveur magazine, on newsstands now, features a story by me on New York cheesecake, and includes the recipe from Lindy's that made cheesecake famous. You can also find the recipe in my book, "Arthur Schwartz's New York City Food: An opinionated history with legendary recipes." (It can be ordered through Amazon by clicking on the photo of it on my website, or on the Amazon logo on my website. Amazon offers the deepest discount available.)
In case you missed it, I was delightfully quoted in the New York Times this week. Times food writer Kim Severson called me to comment about Domino's new product, Brooklyn Style Pizza, a thinner crusted, crispier, larger pizza than their usual. (I haven't tried it yet.) I said I had no idea what Brooklyn pizza might be. I was not aware that we in Brooklyn had different pizza than New York pizza in general. I did mention, however, that Domino's consulted with me last year about pizza. Here's the last paragraph of Kim's story:
"Arthur Schwartz, the Italian food authority and author of 'Arthur Schwartz's New York City Food: An opinionated history with legendary recipes', said he might be to blame for this turn of events. He was a consultant to Domino's last year, suggesting – among other things – that they use cornmeal in the crust.
"He said the phrase Brooklyn Style Pizza never came up, and he doesn't believe there is such a thing.
"He didn't know what Domino's was planning.
" 'If I caused this,' he said, 'I apologize.' "
