The Food Maven Diary
[Archives]

[Previous Entry] [Diary Home] [Next Entry]

03/27/2007 Archived Entry: "Report From Cook at Seliano"

I haven’t been able to write during the last 10 days because I had a group here at Azienda Seliano and it required my full attention. Then I plotzed from exhaustion for a couple of days. As usual we cooked a lot, we ate and drank too much, and we sometimes laughed until it hurt.

Our two excursion days were somewhat different than usual, however. Last Tuesday, we went to ancient Stabiae where there are two excavated villas from the Pompeian era. These were the homes of super-rich Romans, and, like the better known Pompeii and Herculaneum, they were also buried by the eruption of Vesuvius in 79 A.D. We visited Villa San Marco, the larger of the two villas, and we walked on the same black and white mosaic floors as those toga-clad patricians. I am always thrilled by this, and was thrilled to see that our group was just as thrilled. The rooms still sport frescos on their walls and ceilings, delicate images of women, men, birds, and landscapes seen through windows that are actually paintings. The wall colors are rich brown-red – Pompeian red we call it these days – golden yellow – the ochre that many of you may associate with Tuscany but that is really ancient Roman – and black. You really get the feeling of what it was like to live in such a house.

On Tuesday, we also went to see pasta being produced in the town of Gragnano, which is famous for high-quality pasta production and is adjacent to Stabiae. We visited a company called Afeltra, which makes artisanal-quality pasta. It is considered artisinal because it is a small production made with very high protein semolina (that’s the flour of hard wheat) and the pasta is dried very slowly at a low temperature. Afletra also happens to use bronze dies to extrude the pasta, but as we learned, and as I have heard many times from other pasta manufacturers, it is high-quality semolina and slow drying that make the difference. True, Afeltra exploits their bronze dies by mentioning them on the packaging of some of their labels and displaying them in their showroom. But even according to the Afeltra executive who gave us our tour, the public has been sold a bill of goods about bronze dies -- that they are superior to the Teflon-coated dies used by the high-production manufacturers. The truth is: The biggest commercial productions are considered lesser quality not because they use Teflon, but because they dry their pasta at high temperatures and quickly so they can produce huge quantities. Barilla, for instance, is the most popular brand of pasta in Italy. It uses very high quality semolina but it needs to do speedy drying to keep up its required production level. The fact that it uses Teflon dies for the same reason – they extrude faster than bronze -- has no bearing on the quality of the pasta. At least that is what I have been told over and over again by pasta manufacturers themselves.

The visit to the pasta factory was fascinating. We saw the whole process from semolina and water quality control. We watched macaroni being extruded and cut. We watched spaghetti moving through its paces to the drying racks. We saw fusilli being hand-rolled. But another reason we went to Afletra is that they have a good restaurant, Maccaroneria, attached to the plant. We had a wonderful antipasto plate with mozzarella di bufala, dried sausage, a piece of young and soft pecorino, sundried tomatoes, and roasted red peppers. Then we had two pastas. The first was paccheri (huge tubes), a very Neapolitan shape, sauced with ricotta and tomato. Truthfully, it was good, but not as good as the same dish made the day before by my class. The recipe is in “Naples at Table.” The second pasta was the famous Neapolitan spaghetti alla puttanesca – whore style -- with tomatoes, olives, capers, and anchovies. There are many different stories about why it is called in the style of the prostitute, and I tell several of them in “Naples at Table.” Terrific dish, terrific pasta! For dessert, we had a ricotta and pear cake. This is an invention of De Riso pastry shop in Minori, on the Amalfi Coast. But it is now the rage all over the area, and everyone is making a version of it. I have to say that the one we ate at lunch, baked by the restaurant’s young and very handsome chef, Enzo De Martino, was the best I have had to date. And I have eaten quite a few. Enzo gave us the recipe, but when Baronessa Cecilia tried reproducing it herself, it didn’t work out. Using chef’s recipes are always a problem. They either leave important things out intentionally, or don’t realize what they are actually doing to begin with. It sounds simple -- two discs of short pastry fortified with ground almonds sandwiching a filling of ricotta cream studded with caramelized pears. But it isn’t. His ricotta filling was white and light but firm enough to stand on its own. Ours was yellow (too many eggs?) and runny. It was rich and delicious, but not right. Eventually, I will work it out and put it in my work in progress, “The Big Book of Southern Italian Food & Wine.”

After lunch at Maccaroneria, we drove 30 minutes to Sorrento, where we toured – unfortunately, with umbrellas in the rain – the famous gardens of Villa Tritone. Our hostess, Rita Pane, is a cookbook author in her own right, and her book, “Sapori del Sud,” which I own in the Italian edition, has just been published in English as “Tastes of Southern Italy.” She published it herself so it won’t be in bookstores, but she told me it will soon be available on Amazon.

After the walk through her garden, with its views of the sea, of Sorrento, Capri, and Ischia, of Mt. Vesuvius and Naples, it’s Roman antiquities, and 150-year-old plantings, all to classical music piped into the garden through speakers hidden in the trees and bushes, we had tea in Rita’s living room. She served barquettes (little pastry boats) filled with pine nuts and lemon cream, with fruit jams, and, my favorite, with chocolate and sour cherries. She also made little sandwich cookies filled with lemon ricotta cream.

On the way home from Sorrento, we stopped in Meta at one of my favorite stores, where they sell both new and old copper cookware at incredibly low prices, as well as pottery and other household articles.

For our excursion on Thursday, we started at the Battipaglia weekly market. Battipaglia is near Paestum, where we are based on Cecilia’s farm, and where Cecilia’s family home is. The market is big, so in an hour we just grazed the surface. But everyone found something to buy – household items, a sweater, dish towels … like that. I bought food. I wanted everyone to taste these amazing rolls studded with pancetta and salami. And I bought some lupine beans to nosh – like I needed a nosh!

From Battipaglia we drove to Calitri, which is in the province of Avellino, on the border with Basilicata. We toured the Palazzo Zampaglione, a recently restored baronial mansionand then ate a long and languorous lunch under the palazzo, in what used to be the family’s cantina. Do I need to say we ate too much? After a visit to the local pottery, we went on our way to Salerno. Before stopping in the center, however, we stopped in a neighborhood called Cappelle di Fratte – Chapels of Fratte. The grandfather of Ron Napoli, one of our group, was born there. There’s nothing to see there really, but it is always moving to go to someone’s ancestral town.

Salerno is a wonderful small city – not a town. And just walking around is always a pleasure. As always, however, some of us found something to buy. Cecilia’s sister, Laura, has a very chic jewelry shop on the main ancient shopping street, and, sure enough, someone found a fabulous, long amber necklace that was a terrific buy, especially since everything Laura has is one of a kind and beautifully crafted.

Another thing that was “as usual” was we ended the day at Pizzeria Vicolo della Neve, a wonderfully colorful place built over what were once caves where ice was stored for the summer. Neve means snow.

For the rest of 2007, we’ll be repeating much of this excursion program. Naturally our recipes change with the seasons. We do still have a few places left in our summer session (July 22 to 29), our fall session (September 30 to October 6), and our winter session (December 30 to January 5), which will include a New Year’s Eve party. I have to say that everyone who attends Cook at Seliano says that it exceeds their expectations. As a result, we get quite a few repeat guests.

That’s all for now. I’ll write again soon. I think I will have to backtrack and give you some more details on Siracusa, in Sicily, which I somehow haven’t written about yet. As it is a major tourist destination, I feel obliged to give you some restaurant and café recommendations there. I have some great recommendations, and suggestions for off-beat places to stay, too.