The period of Easter naturally is one if the most important festive days in a catholic country like Italy. Masses and processions are part of the menu in all villages, however small.

The Easter Dove or Colomba

The Easter dove or colomba The traditional dolce of Easter is the colomba or dove. It is a type of sweet cake, not unlike the panettone of Christmas, albeit in the form of a dove. Legend has it that it was invented or became known when the Longobards (we are talking deep Middle Ages here) took in the city of Pavia after a siege of months. To convince the Longobard king Albuin not to kill them, the inhabitants decided to prepare a delicious, irresistable sweet bread for him in the form of a dove, the symbol of peace. And it worked! Another variant has it that the colomba was the result of the visit of the Irish monk San Colombano to Pavia, who, refusing the rich meat dishes offered him by the Longobard queen Teodolinda, turned them into the sweet cake bread that from then on was named after him. There are still other legends about the origin of the colomba so who knows which one is true?

Whatever the true story is, in the 1930’s the Milanese entrepreneur Motta decided to produce the colomba on a large scale as a dessert for Easter. Nowadays you will find a large choice of different types of colomba in every supermarket. You can make one yourself, following the traditional receipe (see mytravelintuscany.com) but in Italy you can often get one for 1 euro if you spend a certain minimum amount of money in the supermarket, so why bother?

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Every day is a tiramisu day, most people seem to think, given the immense popularity of this Italian dolce

Origin of the tiramisu dolce

There are a few different stories about by whom and where the first tiramisu was made, but the name clearly originates from the city of Treviso. One of the several traditional receipes that inspired the inventor, apparently Loly Linguanotte (jolly name!) of the Alle Beccherie restaurant in Treviso, to create tiramisu was the Trevisian sbatudin: whipped egg yolk with sugar, used to help recover weak children, eldery and ill, to ’pull them up’ as it were. Other desserts that seem to have inspired Loly seem to be the zuppa inglese (from Emilia-Romagna and Tuscany), the French charlotte and a Bavarian dessert as well. The date of the invention can be traced back to 1970.

Tiramisu classical receipe

There are a lot of variants of tiramisu nowadays (everybody wants to invent his own classic apparently), but the classical one contains only the following ingredients (6-8 servings):

• 6 large eggs at room temperature
• 150 gram or 5 ounces of sugar
• 500 gram or 18 ounces of mascarpone cheese
• 4 spoonfulls Marsala, optional
• 300 grams or 11 ounces of ladyfingers
• 4 brewed espresso lungo at room temperature
• unsweetened cocoa powder, for garnish

Preparation of the Tiramisu

Put the sugar and the egg yolks in a large bowl. Beat well until the mixture is light and creamy. Add mascarpone and half of marsala, and beat well. Beat the egg whites until stiff and add them in the mascarpone cream. Mix gently.

Pour the espresso in a shallow dish along with the remaining marsala. Stir well. Quick dip each ladyfinger in the espresso mixture turning for a few secs until they are nicely soaked.

Line these in the bottom of a glass dish until you have used half of the biscuits. Spread over half of the cream. Cover with the remaining biscuits and spread over the remaining cream. Dust with the cocoa.

Chill in the fridge for 4-5 hours or better overnight.

Buon Appetito! Enjoy! And not only on the 21rst of March!

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Arborea turned out to be located close to our holiday house, a little further south, at the same bay of Oristano. We decided to have a look and found this small village to be situated in the center of a maze of, very un-Italian, rectangular roads, named Strada 22 Ovest (West 22nd St.), etc. Just like Manhattan, but with blocks of cornfields instead of skyscrapers. To our surprise the houses and offices of Arborea were all built in the same architectural style: a mixture of neo-Gothic and Liberty (essentially Victorian, but with an Italian twist).

As we learned, the city was built from scratch in the 1920’s, during Italy’s fascist era, to become the center of a new agricultural area. This Terrealba area used to be a malaria infested swamp before Mussolini ordered it to be reclaimed. Originally Arborea was in fact called Mussolinia and it is just one of several examples of “Mussolinian” cities. The most famous of these is Latina, close to Rome, in the Agro Pontino agricultural area, also originally a swamp that was drained by the Fascists. To relive the history of this particular project, read the great and Strega prize winning novel ‘Canale Mussolini’ by Antonio Pennacchi.

It was a strange experience to be walking in this open air museum of dubious origin. While perhaps feeling a bit guilty for liking this fascist creation, we nonetheless enjoyed Arborea’s harmonious and friendly atmosphere.

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In Milan there are thousands of restaurants which leads to an embarrasment of choices. 

The Italian menu

The first thing to keep in mind is that Italians dine later than in many other (northern) countries, so don’t try to get a decent meal before 7 pm, but preferably go at 8 pm or even later. In case you really need to fill up in before, you might try one of the italian style fastfood restaurants . But the aperitivo may be a better idea. The traditional Italian menu offers a range of courses, from the antipasti (starters), via the primi piatti (first courses, pasta and/or risotto), secondi (meat, fish) with contorni (vegetables) to the dolci , fruit and/or desserts. Italian coffee and maybe a digestivo to round up! An exception to this rule is the typically Milanese piatto unico of the ossobuco alla Milansese (meat with risotto) in which the first and second course are combined.

One usually doesn’t eat one’s way all through the menu, but restricts oneself to two or three courses ( antipasto+primo , primo+secondo , plus dessert if you like). This would generally already present a full meal. The exception to this are the meals on feast days and the traditional Sunday lunch (especially in the Oltrepò Pavese countryside).

In most traditional restaurants you do not tip, as this is already taken into account by the coperto you pay (usually a few euro per person). You also commonly pay at the cash-desk instead of at the table. If you are not sure, just look around and see what happens at other tables.

Recommended restaurants in Milan Center

• Acqua di Mare
  Formerly this was the Locale I Tre Fratelli , but the brothers went off and Beppe the new ristoratore turned it into a fish restaurant. Conveniently located on the Corso Magenta , on the route to the Last Supper , you could use this as a before or after lunch/dinner stop. You are advised to let your choice guided by the chef to experience the best the Acqua di Mare has to offer. The atmosphere is friendly and family-like. Some of the possible dishes that might appear on your plate: cavatelli al tonno fresco -pasta with fresh tuna linguine ai frutti di mare – thin spaghetti with seafood rombo al forno – ray from the oven orata al limone – sea bream with lemon.
• Al Cantinone
  One of the oldest restaurants of Milan, located in a historical building in plain city center, this is a sure winner, not just for tourists. Originally a wine cellar, then a wine bar and a real restaurant from the late ’60s, this place has a long tradition in hospitality. Typical dishes of Lombardy cuisine , such as the risotto with mushrooms and chestnuts, the risotto alla Milanese and the ossobuco are served here. Giving its history and name, it does not come as a surprise that there is also an excellent enoteca on the spot. A bite of Italian: cantinone means big wine cellar, as cantina is the common name for such a cellar and the Italian language uses the postfix -one to designate something big.
• Al Mercante
  At the very central Piazza Mercanti the restaurant with the corresponding name can be found. It is housed in the Palazzo Panigarola that faces one side of the square. This is a Milanese classic since the ’50s offering the traditional dishes of the city and of Italy, like the risotto alla Milanese, polenta and more. In summer you can eat outside and enjoy the beautiful square while tasting excellent food. Prices are quite reasonable given location and quality.
• ATMosfera
  ATMosfera is a restaurant tram , that offers you a mobile evening out. Two tastefully restored trams , ATMosfera1 and ATMosfera2 , have been transformed into true restaurants with a retro atmosphere. There’s a choice of three different menus (meat, fish and vegetarian). The round trip lasts about two and a half hours . Payment may be made directly on board the tram. Every Saturday from 7:30-8.30, you can enjoy a degustazione of typical dishes of traditional Italian regional cuisine, accompanied by selected Italian wines, presented by experts in the trade. These tastings cost € 45,00 per person.
• Boccondivino
  Not far from the beautiful Sant’Ambrogio you’ll find an earthly gourmet’s paradise at Boccondivino . justly carrying its name: boccondivino means a divine mouthful and a mouthful of wine at the same time. There’s a fixed menu that starts with a welcoming prosecco and (many plates later) ends with fresh and mature cheeses (more than 40 varieties to choose from). In between you have tasted pinzimonio (olive oil mixed with vinegar, salt and pepper in which raw vegetables are dipped), all kinds of hams and salami , pasta , risotto and gnocchi. Several of the best wines will be served, with advice from the restaurant’s sommeliers. A place to bring your best (and very hungry) friends!
• Buongusto
  This very small shop/restaurant is not to be confused with either the Japanese sushi bar Buon Gusto or the Dogana del BuonGusto restaurant that also exist in Milan. This Buongusto specializes in the production of fresh pasta in what they call their laboratory. You can taste the products as well at one of the 28 seats. There is an aperitivo at 10€ and brunch on Sunday.
• Cucina del Toro
  If you do not want to go far and eat well at a reasonable price the Cucina del Toro might well be the one for you. Located right in city center in between the Duomo and the Castello, this tranquil restaurant offers some of the best dishes to be found in Milan and is a bit of a hidden secret.
  Some choices of the menu: gnocchi with goat cheese tagliatelle with cheese and achovies cannelloni with ricotta and vegetable sauce vitello tonnato risotto with tomatoes and mozzarella chopped raw beef of phaesant More examples here . To make a reservation phone or send an email to info@cucinadeltoro.com
• Il Marchesino
  The ideal though somewhat uneconomical spot for a pre Scala dinner (well, in case you could afford the opera tickets …), practically located in the opera house itself, is also aptly named Ristorante alla Scala. High-end Milanese and traditional food is served here and also special Prima del Teatro and Dopo Scala menus . In case you’re really in for a spectacular evening: oysters and champagne! There is also a kind of sushi-bar and pasticceria.
• Il Salotto
  In general it is not the best of ideas to sit and have your lunch or dinner in one of the Galleria restaurants, as you will pay much for little in a very touristy environment. On the other hand the Galleria is nicknamed Il Salotto as this where the Milanese go to meet people, do informal business and hear the latest gossip. Seeing the Milanese DOC gathering and pass by definitely is worth spending a little time on. To combine the best of both worlds, you might try the restaurant so aptly called Il Salotto . This is one of the better localities in the Galleria and worth a try.
• La Dolce Vita
  As you stay closer to city center ( Piazza Duomo ) good restaurants are more difficult to find and you are likely to pay more if you find one. This is the case with this one with the obvious archetypically Italian name. Though only a short walk away from the busy Duomo , La Dolce Vita offers a quiet and romantic spot to relax. Each month there is an opera night with a fixed menu at 54 euro.
• Pane e Vino
  This is a modern style wine bar and restaurant in city center, south west of the Duom o . Apart from the wide range of wines on offer, there is a happy hour aperitivo and lunch restaurant (the closing time is 8pm). There are two menu’s with light, tasteful and varied dishes: a traditional one and one with more fantasy to it. As the venue is located on top of ancient Roman tower ruins , there is the possibility to visit the basement and see some of the remains.
• Trattoria Milanese
  Not to be confused with another establishment with the same name (quite possible in a city with over 6000 restaurants), this 80-year old one is quite close to the Piazza Duomo and a classic. Traditional Milanese/Lombardy dishes are served here, cooked to perfection alla casalinga like nervetti (veal shank), several risotti and ravioli, mondeghili (type of meatballs) , cotoletta alla milanese, foiolo (cow stomach) , cassoeula . A bite of Italian : alla casalinga is the expression used to indicate that something is prepared like the housewife/your Italian mother would have done it. Quality!
• Santa Monica Cafè
  If you are young (at heart) and in for a lot of fun (karaoke) right in city center, you may want to try this one out: Santa Monica , hamburger bar, aperitivo venue, soccer bar ecc. During lunch Santa Monica becomes a self-service bar Italian style. Burger and grilled meats prevail. The karaoke festivities take place on Friday and Saturday nights. Soccer matches on a maxi screen each weekend evening.

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In our region, the Oltrepò Pavese, exists a tradition from medieval times, called la cena delle sette cene, lâ sénâ di sèt sén in dialect, 

The symbolic meaning of 7

The number 7 of dishes has all kinds of symbolic meanings, as always with these type of traditions. God took seven days to create the world, there are seven deadly sins, the day has seven hours of daylight in winter. There is also a connection with the classical Saturnalia feast that lasted 7 days from the 17th of december.

The seven courses are:
1. Insâlàtâ âd bidràv, püvrón e inciùd – Salad of beet, anchovis and peppers
2. Turtâ d’sücâ – Pumpkin tart
3. Sigùl cul pen – Filled onions
4. Fas dâ Bâmbén cun l’âjà – Baby Jesus’ diapers with garlic (pasta)
5. Mârlüs cun l’üvâtâ – Cod with an egg
6. Furmâgiâtâ cun mustàrdâ – Cheese with mustard
7. Per giâsö cöt cun i câstégn – Cooked pears with chestnuts

Each of the ingredients has a symbolic meaning as well, the yellow-orange pumpkin represents the sun, onions and garlic are supposed to scare away evil spirits, the broad tagliatelle of the 4th course are called the diapers of the baby Jesus. The cod is in fact stockfish, brought from the Mediterranean dried and conserved in salt along the Salt Roads.

An Italian meal is always accompanied by bread and this holds true for the cena delle sette cene as well. The head of the family would put a large piece of bread, the miccone, on the table to hand out pieces of it at the end of the dinner as a protection against sicknesses.

A few years ago we were invited by Italian friends to share this meal with them. A very special occasion indeed!

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Parma, situated in the Po Valley of Northern Italy, is world famous for its food products: the Parmesan cheese and the prosciutto ham, both protected by European law. As it happens the production and preservation of these two mouth watering delicacies requires salt, lots of salt. 

Salt from the Mediterranean

In the latter case the salt had to be transported over land, over the hills and mountains of the Apennines by entire caravans of mules. In the 16th century the Farnese family is said to have employed over 5000 mules to satisfy their needs (source: Salt – A World History – Mark Kurlansky – Penguin Books 2003). There was no fixed route for the transport from Genoa to Piacenza, where the heavy load was put in barges and carried to Parma via the Po river. Instead, a whole range of so-called salt roads existed, carrying the precious load via different duchies and principalities, avoiding high taxes (smuggling) or enemy territory. And there were other salt roads going to Pavia and Milan and other cities as well.

Today, it is possible to (partly) follow some of these itineraries that will carry you through the beautiful Valle Staffora of the Oltrepò Pavese and the Valle Trebbia of Emiglia Romagna. Along the way you pass the historical cities of Varzi in Lombardia with its medieval center and Bobbio, resting place of San Colombano.

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Wine making is a labour intensive job, all year round, pruning, weeding, binding, spraying, harvesting, all done by hand in the more traditional wine area’s such as the Oltrepò Pavese, Lombardy

A snack in the vineyards

In summer they rise very early, when temperatures are still reasonable, and they take long lunch break at the hottest hours of the day, when 40 degrees Celsius or more make working the vineyard impossible. Their morning breakfast is simple and fast, but as work is energy consuming, they need something rich to eat later in the morning. It is then that the wives arrive in the vineyards, with a very traditional type of food, the schitta, easy to make and easy to transport to the fields, without need to keep warm.

The schitta is a kind of fried pancake, thin and tasty, made of flour, salt and water, with either onions or maize and sugar added to it. Just mix flour with cold sparkling water (the carbonic acid helps to make the pancake more airy), avoiding clumps to form, add some salt, and maize and sugar or sliced onion and cook in olive oil in a pan. Ready! Surprisingly tasty, given the simple recipe.

Many thanks to local expert chef Leda, at her Bagarellum restaurant in the region. Images courtesy of her cookery class… grazie Leda!

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The UNESCO not only recognizes World Heritage Monuments but also handicrafts and popular traditions, as I learnt from the Dutch news agencies. The very Dutch profession of the miller had joined one of the several hundreds of already existing heritage crafts! And as my name is Smulders which signifies ’son of a miller’, I was especially pleased. And now the Italian pizza makers are also happy.

Italian handicrafts

The miller profession is the only Dutch one recognized by UNESCO till now, but Italy already has several heritage crafts on the list. This week, the profession of the Neapoletan pizzaiuolo or pizza maker or baker was added to the list! If there would be a list of heritage words Italy would probably record holder and pizzaiuolo would definitely be on it. And what to think of fruttivendolo? In any case, the UNESCO has now explicitely determined that Napels is the real home of the pizza. It was already protected by law by the European Union in 2010.

The pizza of Naples

The first written testimonials about the existence of the pizza are of about 300 years ago. The pizza of Naples is peculiar as it has a cornicione, a thick edge of 1 or 2 cm, in contrast to the most pizza’s made elsewhere in Italy. In all cases the center part is very thin, 3 mm. In the most strict definition there are only two types of Neapolitan pizza, the marinara and the Margherita. The first one is called marinara not because it had a topping of seafood but ingredients that could well be conserved for fishers to prepare on long journeys. The story about the Margherita is well known. The pizzaiolo who invented it thought that a topping of the colours of the Italian flag, tomatoes-red, mozzarella-white, basilicum-green would be a nice surprise for queen Margherita.

Other Italian crafts and traditions on the UNESCO list are the Sicilian puppet theatre, the Sardinian pastoral songs, the Mediterrean diet, the violin making craftmanship of Cremona, falconry and some other things, to a total of eight.

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