Voluntary Ironing in Tuscany

I wrote this a few weeks ago but forgot to post ...

Tonight, I came home from a great day that started with Bob (Marley) and ended with Aretha (Franklin), and actually had the thought – stop the presses – to iron the sheets (!), something I have never done in my entire life … in America, land of the free and of the most technologically advanced home appliances, we have dryers which when used properly, with softeners and dryer sheets, leave linens virtually pressed, if removed from the machine when they are still hot.

In Europe, land of the old and beautiful, they are not so appliance-happy, and one makes do, and appreciates the finer things in life, including of course ironing and long lines at the post office to – heavens to Betsy – pay phone bills.

Yes, they have the internet, but some still things are still done ‘vecchio stampa’ (the traditional way). Hey, you can’t have the village festival and all that culture without a trade-off here and there. Conformity may be restricting, but it comes from the sheer fact of community, togetherness, customs, and ‘around here, this is how we do things’.

I of course am a bit fan of Europe, and specifically Italy, and hence have found myself for the better part of the past decade on this continent, across the pond as it were, on both Anglo shores (merry England) as well as the landmass better known politically as EU, sharing for the most part a currency, a parliament, and I would gather before long a foreign policy (let us hope, to battle the bossy, war-happy Americans). I can say that of course as a passport-carrying Yank. I will find it hard to bite my tongue if I hear a European spouting expletives against my home country, of which I am proud, of course.

Here I am, at Il Borro, the Ferragamo-owned, Tuscan countryside wine-making paradise, serving my month-long internship, and aside from the digression, I actually conjured up the idea to take all the shirts I haven’t worn so far, as they are wrinkled, down to the pillowcases, and straighten them out once and for all. For me. Because I’m worth it.

There’s something about being in a place this beautiful, and having the Libran respect for all beauty, wanting to keep it that way, and making more of an effort. I even bought mascara at the pharmacy, their own brand, which guarantees more than 100% lash growth if used every day for one month. I am on day two. Stay tuned. I’m not sure how I could actually tell, unless I take a before and after picture of my lashes, a close-up shot, that to arrange on a weekly basis with my digital camera would be a contortionists’ work at best … never mind, it’s the effort that counts. I’ve never suffered from having short lashes, but there would be no problem if they were longer.

I like the idea of making the effort, and here, I am going full-force. There’s something about the change in energy, the beautiful wood beamed ceilings in the apartment, being at a vineyard, in a place that has a thousand years of history, in Tuscany which has always been my dream, that is turning over a new leaf.

From health to exercise – mental note – after I write this, I will do my 120 abdominal exercises, not smoking or nearly not smoking at least, it is doing wonders for me, and it’s only been one week!

In Colorno, I seriously let myself go, not just nails and hair, the outside stuff, but also my routine, it was all in a bit of disarray. Part of it was that I was living with teenagers, three out of my four roommates were 19, and although I adore each and every one of them, they were a bit like children, leaving things everywhere, and as that is my natural tendency, the lazy kid in me felt right at home, on every level.

I didn’t study all that much, but to be fair I didn’t really have a quiet place, and I fell into the petty dramas of being in an isolated place with the same faces every day, a bit of a soap opera as such. And perhaps a throwback to younger days, when everything was a much bigger deal. Not that I didn’t enjoy every minute of it. Well, not every minute, but overall, a wonderful experience. I learned a great deal, got my passion for wine ignited to its fullest, and it brought me here to Il Borro.

Gioia and I went to Arezzo for an aperitif with her friend Pasquale, a Tuscan cardiologist who was looking for a gift for his boss along with thousands of other people on this second to last Sunday before Christmas. The historic center was literally flooded with people, families, couples, groups of teenagers, small dogs with chic little winter dog coats, and of course in Italian style, gorgeous shoes and bags. I picked up the most beautiful beige wool cloche, very 60s Jackie O, just big enough to make a statement but nothing too Twiggy or Swinging London.

This year the puffed coats with visibly stitched seam checks have self-tie belts, in either fabric or silver. For me, they are just another version of the walking comforters that Italians have been sporting for the past ten years. Nice for them, but I don’t want any part of my bedroom parading with me on the street. Even if the newer ones don’t at all resemble the sleeping bags that people used to wear in Rome. For me, it’s the same shtick.

I prefer my 99 Euro Benetton navy blue, minimalist three-quarter length wool coat, thank you very much. With a colorful scarf, and now my fabulous hat. Funny how a great accessory can change your llife for a few days. I am so happy to be a woman, and to have these sensations, frivolous as they may be, wonderful just the same.

Fashion aside, I did get some work done on my Cerasuolo di Vittoria DOCG thesis, three pages to be exact, in the spa lounge this morning. Three pages if one counts two that are maps of the area, but still, it counts, and the first page was single-spaced information about the geology of the wine’s terrain. In Italian, no less.

It’s taken me the better part of a decade to become confident in my Italian writing style, and save for a few subjunctive conjugation mistakes, ‘me la cavo abbastanza bene’ (I do alright). I am also working in a Word Document format, as opposed to a PowerPoint, and so every page that I write counts for at least three. Proud. Of. Myself. Mental strength is everything. How much we are able to harness our willpower, to better our lives, and be the best we can be, to be happy and content, is the measure of a good life. For me, at least.

In my ‘piccolo’ (small way), I am doing what I can, where I am, with what I have. I think Churchill said that, although I’m not sure. An Italian friend of mine in New York quoted that on his Facebook page. We are truly living in 2010, judging from that statement, I am quite aware. From globalization (an Italian in New York) to social networking … and thank God for that. I wouldn’t want to live in any other time. Because this is my time. This is your time, dear reader. So rock on. December 2010. Feel it. I’m feeling it in Tuscany, in a dreamscape.

Life is good. La vita e’ bella. Maybe that’s why I have chosen to think about voluntary ironing. Which by the way I didn’t actually get to accomplish, precisely because it is 2010. The apartment has an ironing board, and an iron, but the country has since changed outlets and the plug doesn’t fit into any of the sockets. Oh well. It’s the thought that counts. I’ll get a different iron from reception tomorrow. Buona notte a tutti.

Il Borro - Who, What, Where, When ...

Ferruccio Ferragamo, son of the late and undoubtedly great Salvatore Ferragamo, founder of the Italian fashion dynasty which bears his name, is a man who likes to hunt. And he knows a good piece of earth when he sees one.

Back in the Ferragamo family started renting a Tuscan holding owned by another famous Italian the Duke D’Aosta. There were vines here, Sangiovese of course as it is after all the region’s flagship grape. Initially though, it was the pheasant and other attractive game that appealed to Mr. Ferragamo, although the wine would eventually enter into the picture some years down the line.

We certainly have the thrill of the chase to thank for the quality of the terroir, untouched by chemicals and preserved by some of the most prestigious Italian families over the centuries, including household names such as Savoia and Medici, determining clans in the Italian Renaissance of Florence and Tuscany.

When the Ferragamos bought the property in the early 90s, along with the help of prominent oenologist Nicolo Battisi, they studied the soil and came to the conclusion it was in fact a terroir similar in composition to Bordeaux. There was room for so much more than Sangiovese. And as such, Il Borro wines were born.

Along with Niccolo Battisti, the vineyard now boasts the likes of Luca Martini, the winner of the prestigious national title Migliore Sommelier d’Italia 2009 (the best Italian sommelier, no less), as their wine consultant. At the young age of thirty, he is a Tuscan phenomenon and a force of nature to be reckoned with, and above all, despite his prestige and many, many awards, is nice and down to earth. Then there is Davide, the winemaker, also a local find, although he has cultivated wines for nearly five years in New Zealand, only to return to his roots, literally and figuratively.

Davide was open with me about wine production at Il Borro from day one, explaining the vineyard’s winemaking strategy and patient with all of my ‘beginner’s mind’ questions. I haven’t asked his age, but he is also quite young. It just goes to show that Il Borro believes in talent before age, and knows talent when it sees it.

One could imagine that a family as famous and wealthy as the Ferragamos would employ an array of personal assistants and caretakers to run their affairs, and simply cruise around the world at press conferences and cocktail functions. Not this down to earth, Florentine clan. The son of Ferruccio Ferragamo, Salvatore, who shares his grandfather’s name, is at the estate day in and day out, along with his three beautiful hunting dogs, and sometimes accompanied by one or more of his three children.

I was briefly introduced to Salvatore in my first week, and while he had a natural elegance about him, due in part to good looks and classic attire, there was also something quite grounded and soft-spoken in his tone, which gave me the impression that his upbringing placed family values ahead of money and class.

For some, the pairing of a posh fashion house with a farm-style retreat may seem incongruous, but the match is decidedly made in heaven. Tuscan heaven, to be precise. In their corner of paradise, the Ferragamo family has managed to create a bucolic and luxurious space that not only attracts guests from all over the world, but a staff that is genuine and sincere. As an intern, I was made to feel at home instantly, from shared lunches at the Osteria to social invitations on my very first weekend there. There is nothing I wouldn't recommend about the place, to be unabashed and slightly gushy. But hey, first impressions count more than a million second chances, and at Il Borro they had me at 'Ciao'.

Buongiorno Principessa

First Impressions of Il Borro - Week One

A friend from Alma, Katia, brought me to Il Borro, and thank God she happened to be coming home to Tuscany from school in the north that weekend … the location of the estate is so remote and not connected to any major train lines, that it would’ve been a massive struggle to arrive with two suitcases, a computer and a purse big enough to nearly carry that computer, in effect, a lot of stuff to carry if I had to get here on my own. As it so happens, Katia’s family lives in Levane, a small town just twenty minutes away. Che culo as they say in Italian (what luck, or strictly translated, what backside …).

I spent the weekend at their house, enjoying the fruits of their labors, as farmers they harvested, cultivated or raised most of the food that we ate, from prosciutto to crostini neri to pickled vegetables and sausage. Her mother made a point of showing me the eggs that one of their hens lays, with double and triple yolks. As an American, even our organic eggs are very uniform in size, and to see the uneven bumps and deformations of these extremely natural eggs was a sheer joy. Long live the truly organic farmers! It was a nice introduction into Tuscan living, as I sopped up bread cooked over their fireplace, which sits in the kitchen next to the dining room table, with their olive oil, which had just been picked and was still green, herbaceous and peppery, and was told that I needed to literally douse the bread with oil! Somehow, at the start of my supposed diet and detox from Alma’s cooking school lunch calorie overload, this kind of oil didn’t count. It was too good to pass up, and besides it would’ve been rude not to!

It was seven thirty in the evening when Katia and her father accompanied me to Il Borro to show me my living quarters for the month and drop off my bags before another hefty, gorgeous dinner and a night on the town in Florence. It was dark and there wasn’t much to see of the property, but as we had already been here on a day trip with the school, I thought there wouldn’t be many surprises.

Was I wrong … of course, I expected to find a small room behind the kitchen or reception, with a bathroom and the bare essentials necessary for an intern to sleep, wash and study. Instead, I was shown a deluxe, even luxury, in the Tuscan country style that is, two-bedroom apartment that could easily sleep five, next to the estate’s 11-room villa.

With wood beams, a sloping roof in the living room, a fireplace, an island in the kitchen for chopping and such, a bedroom I could easily do a cartwheel in, and tiled or wooden floors, I was literally gobsmacked. I even said to my internship tutor, as she showed me around, that I was not planning to leave any time soon. This was total heaven. With Ferragamo shampoos in the bathroom and to top it off, a heated towel rack, I was in sheer bliss. That night I went to sleep repeating the words ‘thank you’ about a dozen times, to God or whoever else was there to listen. I was truly, truly grateful. I would do whatever work they wanted me to do, and hopefully learn a thing or two about wine in the process, but like Bridget Jones in Jerry McGuire, they had me not at ‘hello’ but at ‘heated towel rack’.

My first day waking up in this countryside paradise did not physically start with Buongiorno Principessa, alla Roberto Benini in Life is Beautiful, but I kept hearing those words in my head as the bright, crisp day welcomed me to Tuscany. I took my digital camera out and got shots of the gorgeous horses in the pastures – there are twenty-five in all on the estate, some the property of the Ferragamo family, others locals who board here, and some are retired horses taken gentle care of here in their last years. Along the entrance to the estate past the wrought iron gate there is a dirt road lined with Lombardy poplars, very Roman/Renaissance in style, classical yet not at all imposing.

The winery is done in a slightly more modern style, yet still reflecting the typical, terra cotta, sun-drenched colors of stucco-covered exteriors. Much to my chagrin when I took my first run, the section of the road with romantic cobblestones flanking the vineyard is a serious bitch, not to mention the sloped part where I now huff and puff most mornings, making my way in and out of the estate to the fields and paths beyond.

The bucolic setting creates peace of mind and body, and in my small, personal experience, the change took place almost instantly. On day two, I started an exercise regime, nearly quit smoking, and while I’ve caught a bit of a throat and chest bug, it’s likely three months of nicotine intake coming out of my lungs once and for all, which is a very good thing.

The food is hearty and healthy here when consumed carefully, in small doses, with reason on the reins, as I am already learning. I work in the restaurant three evenings during the week, and have gathered after a first week that just because a big pan of pasta is brought out, doesn’t mean that is all one is getting for dinner. After the bread soup and steak and salad and chocolates, I got hip to saving room, and that less is more.

The region’s fertile climate produces a bounty expressed in great, culinary strokes on the Tuscan table. And nothing goes to waste. There are traditional dishes, such as bread soup and the panzanella salad, made from stale or day-old bread, that with the help of tomatoes and spices is turned into a delicacy that would otherwise end up at best in a pig’s troth.

While I’m not a huge red meat eater, whenever one of the local Chianina steaks is placed in front of me, or any local carnivorous dish, for that matter, I have not said no. The quality of these grass-fed, practically organic creatures is bar-none, and as I know I won’t be staying here forever, when in Rome … or when in Tuscany, I should say.

As for the work side of things, I have done soup to nuts in the first week, from observing the travaso, or moving of the wine in the French oak barrels, to being shown all of the winemaking machines and why and when they are used, and for which grape varietals, to doing the research, writing and translating for a holiday brochure with local Christmas and New Years activities, to advising clients of check-in times, and translating Italian website copy into English, and assisting in two winery tours and tastings, I have been thrown in full force into the estate’s activities from the get-go. Next week, fingers crossed, I will get my hands dirty in the vines, helping out in the winter pruning, essential to the vines’ growth cycle.

A curiosity, I should mention, was my stand-in as a spa model for a local Tuscan television station. In brief, I was asked to lie on a massage table and receive a neck and arm rub with local olive oil-based treatment oils while a presenter spoke to the therapist about the spa services on offer at Il Borro. I can report that the masseuse is highly skilled and the oils are heavenly, and as a small job for an intern, it was a fun and unexpected experience. The channel is doing a special on the various non-culinary uses of olive oil in the region, and I will be sure to ask for a copy of the program once it has been aired. It tickles me to think that flipping through the channels one night I could find myself in a medium close-up in olive-oil massage heaven. Let's hope the camera lights were gentle on my pores ...

Last but certainly not least, I was blessed with a few hours of research with Luca Martini, the Ferragamo star sommelier and worldwide phenomenon (okay, I admit it, I am a fan … he is just too brilliant and I would quite humbly aspire to be him one day when I grow up to become a metaphorical 'adult' in the world of wine). One of our four theses to prepare for the final sommelier exam includes the description and analysis of a typical gastronomic product from the region of our internship, and Luca helped me to choose the rare and curious Chestnuts of Caprese Michelangelo.

There are only 11 producers of these unique nuts, all in the province of Arezzo, producing between 400-500 quintals per year, organized in an agricultural collective. Most of the chestnuts are sold locally, which is a shame as they are gorgeous and have a long tradition. Tomorrow I plan to ask Riccardo, the sweet guy at the front desk, to take me to the supermarket to buy ingredients to make the ‘baldino’ or ‘castagnaccio’, a typical chestnut cake, to bring to work next week and get some top-tips from Luca on local wine pairings, beyond its typical Tuscan match with Vin Santo.

Capo Verde Alto Adige

If Mohammed Can’t Come to the Mountain … or how Capo Verde met Alto Adige (or how the karma of far-flung people and even further-flung places are tied with an invisible thread, with no beginning and end) …

Professor Pessina agreed to let us tag along on Saturday to his wine excursion to Alto Adige. Having little idea of what we were in for, and as we were on our way to the nearby Merano Wine Festival, in the general neck of the woods (or pre-Alpine region, as it were), there was no reason not to join the gang.

We met up at a petrol station about an hour north of Parma, with the Prof, his wife and various acquaintances equally keen to taste local boutique wines. The first town we stopped in had a well-stocked provisions shop, where we picked up assorted meats and cheeses for lunch, including a sort of gelatin pickled vegetable roll, which was a lot tastier and a lot less gelatinous than I would’ve imagined. Pretty darn tasty, I’d dare to say. In small quantities, of course. It makes sense then that I have never seen anyone wolfing down a gelatin pickled vegetable roll at any party lately …

We stopped off at a small, family winemaker’s cantina, and sat in the generous, autumn sunshine, among his vines, and up a street with a church that rings the bell every hour, with luscious Pink Lady apples dripping off the trees. We tasted a pas dose metodo classic sparkling wine, with no residual sugars and balanced yeasts, dry and fresh and perfect with the herbed goat cheese and dry, pita-like Alto Adesino bread we’d laid out for lunch.

The owner of this vineyard couldn’t have been a day over seventy, and he proceeded to explain to us in his thick Germanic twang (in this part of Italy, the locals of his generation speak Italian as a second language) that he was actually eighty-three. I was gob smacked, as my grandfather was always my example of delayed aging, or eternal youth, take your pick. But this man, he genuinely looked fifteen years younger than his birth certificate. Usually farmers are known to be weathered by the sun, but here in the north with all the wholesome goodness around, Austrian-style if I have to make a comparison although this is most definitely still Italy. I suppose the crisp, fresh air purifies the skin and the soul alike.

After the subsequent bottles were bought, we made our way through the mountains to our next destination, a very small cantina, just four hectares, on the road to Castle Juval, near the Forst Beer factory. Here we were greeted by terraced, winding vines cultivated at six-hundred meters, onwards up to seven-hundred, with Riesling and pinot grigio taking advantage of the mineral-rich terrain.

Now here is where Capo Verde comes in, at six-hundred meters and counting. Matthias started talking to the intern, and motioned me over, mentioning that the man spoke Portuguese. I bounced right up and started blabbering on in my Brazilian accent. He spoke in a mixture of Portuguese and Italian, and gave us a brief introduction to Cape Verdean winemaking. Who knew? Most wine aficionados, I am sure. But, hey, you can only be new once, and I am a bit of a green tannin in the wine world, so the learning is long and the excitement palpable.

Here, then, is my version, in brief, of Cape Verdean viticultural history.

The chain of ten islands, located off the west coast of Africa, include nine which are habitable, and all derive, geologically speaking, from volcanic origins. Hence, on the island Ilha Fogo to be exact (Fire Island in English) there are mountains that rise up to two-thousand meters. David, the kind-hearted and gregarious intern who invited us to stay and help out in the cantina, clued us into his terroir.

Wine was introduced by the Portuguese to Cape Verde in the seventeenth century. It didn’t take long for it to catch on, and by the nineteenth century, from Guinea to Brazil, they were filling glasses with mineral-rich, lip-smackingly fresh reds, whites and passito from Capo Verde. Principally, they cultivate the red varietal Preta Tradicional and the white Moscatel Branca on the island, equivalent to Tourigia nacional and Moscatel de Setubal, respectively, both from Portugal, original colonizers of the island chain.

The region called Cha-das-Caldeiras has been making wine for nearly a century, and in 1998 it got an injection of technical and financial assistance from an Italian agricultural cooperative, which kick-started a call to higher quality and quantity. When the project started in 1998, 120 hectares were utilized to grow the grapes. Today, the area has nearly doubled. Most of the vines can be found on the volcano’s ridges and in the higher areas of Achada Grande. The dry, hot climate, with big temperature shifts between day and night and between the warm and cool seasons affect the wine greatly, and for the greater good. With many hours of sun during the vegetative cycle of the plant, accompanied by a super fertile, volcanic soil; create ideal conditions for a quality crop with considerable sugar content.

I could go on, but there is certainly a goldmine of information about Cape Verdean wines online, and I just wanted to share this peculiar and beautiful encounter up in the mountains of northern Italy with someone from an equally high place down in Africa, on a volcanic island chain. There is something quite poetic and romantic about the contrast, and how wine brings the world together on a sunny hillside in November. It reminds me of finding seashells up in the mountains in Greece, and finding this incongruous, and being told that the slope I was standing on used to be filled with. Everything comes back round again. It’s like Matthias said, in life you always see people twice. I suppose the earth moves like its inhabitants, in this cycle of existence.

I have a friend that I made at school recently, and to be honest we didn’t have all that much time to talk, but the vibe was there on a purely platonic level, he is a kindred spirit, and I like the idea that like Cape Verde to Alto Adige, these curious connections and unlikely encounters are a signpost that I will also see him again, and continue the friendship that was created. In the meantime, I wear a t-shirt he brought me from his volcanic island, Ustica, population 2,000, located on the opposite side of Italy from where we were this weekend, off the coast of Sicily.

There’s got to be something about wine, volcanoes and karmic connections; it must be all the good energy coming up from the earth, out of the molten, into the roots, through the grapes and into the glass, reverberating through the laughter and good cheer of the company who share its libatious bounty.

Natural Instincts - Marzemino in Trentino

When we walked into the chateau, it felt - and looked - like a family's storage room, filled with boxes of wine and smattering of colorful elementary school drawings. Immediately, the worlds of work and private life blurred into a rustic suggestion that the two were not in this case mutually exclusive.

The woman who took us through, Tamara, was the winemaker's wife and certainly much more in the daily operation of this boutique winery in Trentino. With amber-colored hair tied back in a casual ponytail and no-nonsense work boots, she expressed a down-to-earth, laid-back demeanor with a touch of grown-up hippie for good measure. Tamara offered a broadstroke introduction to the Azienda Eugenio Rosi winemaking philosophy and essentially welcomed us into the home she shares with her husband, Eugenio.

For the first time in this sommelier school odyssey, I took in the experience of wine as a product of grapes, and as a product of the soil, grown by a farmer, the first human touch of the libation as it were. And here was a farmer, or farming family rather, and therefore united by love and commitment to each other and to the earth, who decided to take winemaking into their own hands, independently and courageously according to the principles of biodynamic farming. From planting to harvest, barrique to bottle, Eugenio, the winemaker, and Tamara, his wife, had chosen to follow nature, in lieu of technology.

Eugenio came out to join Tamara in telling the story of their vineyard with an equal dose of humility and groundedness. His feet were on the ground, this ground, in Trentino, all of his life. Like all Italians, he getured with his hands, and what hands! Rugged, worn and dirt-ridged, they spoke of the soil, of his years working for a 'cantina sociale' or wine-making collective. He explained that he had been making wine from grapes rown on a collection of land parcels from around Trentino, and was 'born under a Marzemino vine'.

Marzemino is an autoctonous red varietal from the pre-alpine region of Italy, and Eugenio grows his in the hills between Calliano, Volano and Rovereto. He gives the grapes all the time they need on the vine, within reason of course, and lets them mature further in a process called appassimento, or raisining, or drying of the grapes (think raisins). He uses large Slovenian wood barriques and small cherry wood barriques to age his wines, and doesn't cut corners.

Eugenio Rosi has been called the proletariat God of Marzemino and an artisan-winemaker. The down-home style in which he has chosen to make his wines includes just under ten hectares and 18,000 bottles produced, counting among them Marzemino, Chardonnay, Bianco IGT Vallagarina (Pinot Bianco 60%, Nosiola 20%, Chardonnay 20%), Cabernet Franc and the magnificent Doron 2005 Rosso Dolce VdT.

In his Marzemino Poiema 2006, Eugenio raisined 30% of the grapes, creating a succulent contrast between a crisp, acidic entrance in the mouth and a rich, mature fruitiness on the finish. A 'capolavoro', as the Italians say (a work of art).

The Doron 2005 Rosso Dolce VdT was a lovely finish to our tasting. It is an appassimento (dessert wine made from grapes that have been raisined). Eugenio has managed to capture the terroir of his corner of Trentino in the glass, with temperature shifts that create lively acidity and the super-maturation of the grapes adding their fruity sweetness, combining to form a wine that tells the story of its origins. Not unlike Eugenio himself, and the lovely Tamara, it is a wine that invites you into its home, amongst sweet children's drawings, and transmits a depth of passion found in small producers making rather big waves.

Rice and Gold

Risotto alla Milanese. Risotto allo zafferano. Risotto al Nero di Seppia. These succulent and savory rice dishes of northern Italy satiate the palate and define the region's cuisine. Their very ingredients define the region's agricultural and maritime history, and point to a rich commercial and cultural exchange with the Far East. So just how did a pasta-loving country become Europe's biggest producer of rice, a foodstuff from China?



There was a time when this nutrient-rich grain turned up on farmacy counters rather than dinner tables. Its medicinal properties have long been touted for many uses and cures, including cosmetic treatments for skin hydration and emmolience in Asia.



The Venetians, a folk known for embracing foreign cultures, adopted this grain in the kitchen, absorbing rice as their own. With an openness this maritime city exhibited in the face of new and foreign customs and foodstuffs, from spices to the concept of sweet and sour they did not discriminate in terms of good culinary taste, regardless of the ingredient's origin.


Lombardia, however, is where our Italian rice story starts. It all began in the fourteenth and fifteenth century in the provinces of Vercelli. Cavour created Europe's most modern irrigation systems, helping rice to really take off in the region, and by consequence, country. The canal which bears his name, Canale Cavour, winds from the Po in Chivasso into the Canton Ticino in Switzerland. The deviation of freshwater used to soak these northern Italian rice paddies gave birth to a rice cultivation that continues to supply the grain to the rest of the continent to this day.



Risotto allo Salto is a delectable example of this grain's preciousness in the annals of northern Italian cooking. It was a dish savored exclusively by nobility, who would dine on the saffron-scented creation at Milan's reknowned Scala. Between the first and second acts of the opera, on small ovens in backstage dressing rooms, their servants would cook this mid-performance snack, ready for their 'salto', or intermission. A bit of home for the weary aristocracy when out about in their best frocks, its warmth and intensity coated them in a comfortable carbohydrate-rish meal not unlike 1980s American TV dinners, taken to a whole new level.


The mixture of salty and sweet is exemplified in Risotto al Melone. This luscious dish combines the musty, soft sweetness of melon and the dense, creamy texture of risotto finished in butter and Grana Padano cheese (not unlike a good, aged Parmesan cheese), and creates a perfect marriage. Some melon is kept apart from the risotto and left to boil in a water that will be added to the risotto, bit by bit, along with vegetable broth, adding more melon depth to the dish.


According to ancient Chinese legend, a feudal lord moved by the sight of his starving serfs, asked his farmers to irrigate his fields with water from the nearby river. He then put his own teeth into the water. Millions of rice plants grew, feeding his people and putting and end to their hunger and suffering. The legend associates rice with abundance, with the lord's teeth serving as symbols of seeds of future happiness, peace and prosperity. This Asian superstition, as it were, was brought to Italy and is now incorporated in the throwing of rice at weddings. The gesture is a benediction and a communion, for the couple, that they never be in lack, neither literally nor figuratively.

Castelmagno - Royal Blue of Piedmont

Aromatic, sapid and persistent, the cow's milk cheese Castelmagno enriches many of Piedmont's 'primi piatti', or first courses. The complex and earthy cheese takes its name from the town of the same name, in the province of Cuneo, at the foothills of the Italian Alps. It is produced today in Castelmagno, Pradleves and Monterosso Grana.

Records from 1272 prove a long and mighty reign for Castelmagno. The Marchese of Saluzzo, feudal lord of Valgrana and Valmaira, accepted the cheese as a form of payment for rural taxes. The exchange of a food product for its equivalent monetary value speaks not only of evident proliferation of Castelmagno in the region, but also of its codifiability. We can assume that any cheese could have been chosen to appease the medeival taxman. A certain standardization and guarantee of quality must have been well established and accepted, and therefore Castelmagno's history likely stretches back further than we can trace.

There are four principal factors that render Castelmagno a rather unique and expressive cheese. The microclimate of the region, at 1100 meters above sea level, must first be considered. The southern cut of Piedmont is enriched by alpine air, humid days and cool nights. Of course, the gray-white cows grazing in the area's pastures, of the Piedmontese breed, may produce less milk than their northern Bruno-Alpina cousins, but make up this lack in spades of richness and texture. The cows' steady diet of fresh, local cheese and hay from surrounding fields helps to create a creamy and erbaceous materia prima, and ultimately a truly Piedmont foodstuff.

In Italy, quality food products are regulated by the government, and guarantee to cheese lovers not only the confirmation of their regional origins, but the very means of production. The DOP, or Denominazione di Origine Protetta, which means Protected Designation of Origin, was established for Castelmagno in 1996.

Castelmagno is produced with whole Piedmontese cow's milk, with the allowance for a small percentage of sheep's milk or goat's milk, which adds either a spicy or buttery texture, respectively. The raw milk is mixed with liquid rennet and made to coagulate at 35-37 degrees Celcius. The resulting curd is then cut and placed in a container for 24 hours, when a second beaking of the curd takes place, during which the cheese is seasoned with salt and placed in wood moulds.

Castelmagno's crust, initially thin and of a pinkish-yellow hue, darkens and thickens as it ages, and the pasta, pearl or ivory, becomes yellow, with thin, blue-green veins. The veins are the result of the fungus penicillum, added to the cheese during the aging process. Traditionally, Castelmagno belongs to the family of blue cheeses, although this is changing as a dangerous market trend dangers the very essence of this king of Piedmont.

The polemic of Castelmagno's shrinking veins is, some would say, a mirror of the cheese's own disappering act. Today, the consumer prefers a delicate, moderately sapid flavor, and without herbs. To this end, a shorter aging period is chosen, with the addition of sheep's milk or goat's milk, up to ten percent by law. It is still possible to find Castelmagno with blue veins and a good amount of aging balanced on aromatic shoulders, the same way it has been produced for centuries. The problem is that market-led changes to the cheese's production are the very characteristics that make Castelmagno such a unique whole milk cheese.

It is always a tenuous situation in the gastronomic world, taking into account the philosophy of Slow Fooders and back to the earth traditionalists who believe in purity first and foremost, when the consumer's whim can spark the demise of a food that has resisted certain death for over 700 years. What is a producer to do, risk short term loss in reduced sales in exchange for the preservation of his craft? I would argue that this cheese is worth saving. There are always two roads to take - educate the end-user about its history and essential properties, or crumble in the face of the dollar and create a pseudo-Castelmagno whose destiny is to become unrecognizable and anonymous, yet more consumer-friendly.