briciole

capellino

Capellino (singular) is a diminutive of capello, hair, which in Italian is countable. Capellini is the plural.

My mother does not like to cook very thin pasta, so it was only when I stayed with my aunt Lucia that I ate capellini and capelli d'angelo (angel hair). My recollection is that she would make capellini with a light sauce, while she cooked nests of capelli d'angelo in broth. She probably used De Cecco, which distinguishes the two kinds of pasta, capellini and capelli d'angelo. Barilla, on the other hand, appears to use the two names as synonyms and makes capellini, also known as capelli d'angelo, in Italy, while in the US it makes angel hair, also known as capellini.

In any case, capellini are thinner than spaghetti and they cook faster. It is easy to overcook them and, if that happens, they become scotti.

Though they have nothing to do with food, there are a number of fun Italian expressions that use capello , two of which are:

1. avere un diavolo per capello (literally, to have a devil for each hair, meaning to be furious)
2. salvarsi per un capello (to have a narrow escape).

Angelo is angel and the one somewhat food-related thing I will say here is that lunedì dell'Angelo is Easter Monday. It is a holiday and the tradition for that day, at least in central Italy, is to go on a day trip in the country (fare una scampagnata) and have a picnic, weather permitting. The holiday is also called Pasquetta (diminutive of Pasqua, Easter).

[This post was inspired by Lori Lynn of Taste With The Eyes]

Hear me pronounce the words on the capellino audio file [mp3] or go to the capellino audio page for more listening options.

gelato

My favorite gelateria in my home town of Perugia was not open year-round, so its first day of operation in the spring was an important event. Given the rich selection offered by gelaterie, eating gelato is an exploration not only of single flavors, but also of combinations of them. My favorite combination of flavors changed often and I alternated between asking for a dollop of panna montata (whipped cream) on top of my gelato and forgoing it. I also alternated between asking for a cono (cono)  and preferring a coppetta (small cup). When I visited Palermo in 1980, I was introduced to brioche col gelato, an option that requires a bit of dexterity to be eaten without side effects (a.k.a., gelato stains on your clothes).

On a summer afternoon or evening, it is pleasant to stroll (fare una passeggiata) along the main thoroughfare of your city or town, meet friends, chiacchierare (chat) and mangiare un gelato (eat a gelato). This pleasant activity is made possible in many Italian urban centers, Perugia included, by the fact that the downtown area is completely or partially closed to traffic. In Perugia, the place for the leisurely stroll is Corso Vannucci. As teenagers, we called our walking up and down the street fare le vasche, which literally means to swim laps.

My husband is getting ready to eat as much gelato as he can, when we visit Italy later this year. I will look for gelaterie that participate in an interesting initiative called gelato a chilometro zero: master gelatai prepare delicacies using only local ingredients that do not need to be transported from far away. Those include not only locally produced milk and eggs, but also local fruit like quinces (mele cotogne), currant (ribes) and figs (fichi). 

Some gelaterie only offer gelato to go (gelato da passeggio), while others have tables and you can sit down and order creations like gelato affogato al caffè (drowned in coffee), gelato affogato al liquore (drowned in a liqueur to be specified), and various compositions of different gelato flavors, sorbetti (sorbets), fruit, and other ingredients.

[This post was inspired by Maryann of Finding La Dolce Vita]

Hear me pronounce the words and expressions on the gelato audio file [mp3] or go to the gelato audio page for more listening options.

noce

walnut

The fruit of a deciduous tree (also called noce), consisting of an external hull (mallo) surrounding a hard shell (guscio), which contains the edible seed (gheriglio).

My aunt Lucia used chopped walnuts (noci) and egg whites (chiare d'uovo) to make croccanti for Christmas, then delivered small packages of them to family members. My father remembers cracking the walnuts his sister would use. At my parents' house, a tray of walnuts and hazelnuts (nocciole) was always on the kitchen counter and as a child I loved using the schiaccianoci (nutcracker) to extract the gherigli from their shell.

A bottle of home-made nocino could always be found in the glass cabinet in my aunt's kitchen. Nocino is a dark brown liqueur, whose recipe includes whole walnuts still with their green hull, cinnamon, cloves and lemon peel infused in alcohol. My aunt prescribed a small quantity of it to aid digestion and to cure a number of ailments. 

The cutest Italian expression involving walnuts is un guscio di noce (a walnut shell), used to describe a tiny boat.

We also use noce in the name of fruits that are shaped like a whole walnuts, e.g., noce moscata (nutmeg) and noce di cocco (coconut). When a recipe calls for a small piece of butter it may say una noce di burro.

Hear me pronounce the words and expressions on the noce audio file [mp3] or go to the noce audio page for more listening options.

fico

fig

Fresh figs from the farmers' market brought back sweet memories of fig picking. Different kinds of figs (fichi) ripen at different times during the summer, so when I was in Italy, summer was a season of continuous fig eating. I remember neighbors arriving at the house in my dad's village with baskets lined with fig leaves, full of sweet-smelling fruit: they never lasted long. My mother would spread peeled figs over slices of bread for a nutritious snack for me and my brother and I have been doing the same for my husband.

The summer bounty gets stashed away in the form of marmellata di fichi (fig jam) and above all fichi secchi (dried figs), which are then eaten as is, or used to make desserts like pan pepato, panciallo, the famous Sicilian buccellato and countless others.

In my home region of Umbria, the town of Amelia is famous for Fichi Girotti, dried figs stuffed with candied fruit (canditi), toasted almonds (mandorle), walnuts (noci) and cocoa (cacao). The figs are pressed into small round bricks (called rotelle), which are then broken apart to eat the heavenly morsels. The only problem with figs is that it is difficult to stop eating them once you start.

In Calabria (southern Italy), ripe figs are baked and then made into balls called palloni di fichi. Each pallone comprises 20-25 figs (there is a nice photo on this page). Dried figs are assembled in other ways as well, like crosses (crocette) and braids (trecce). In Sicily they are strung together using twine or reeds.

Two common expressions make use of figs and have correspondents in English:

• if something is not worth a fig, then non vale un fico secco
• if you don't give (or care) a fig about something, you say: non me ne importa un fico secco.

Hear me pronounce the words and expressions on the fico audio file [mp3] or go to the fico audio page for more listening options.

pâté di fegatini di pollo

chicken liver pâté

The version of this dish I am referring to here is typical of central Italy and is eaten spread over small slices of lightly toasted bread, called crostini. Crostini con pâté di fegatini di pollo are traditionally served as an appetizer and they are featured in the menu of many restaurants. I recommend you try them if you find yourself in the area, and maybe compare the different local versions. It is also possible to purchase fresh pâté in stores.

I grew up eating the variation common in Umbria, the region where I was born. My mother would make pâté di fegatini for special occasions, using her hand-powered tritacarne (meat mincer) to mince the cooked fegatini. She has not made them in a long time, though, because she prefers the recipe a friend of hers uses, which apparently is rather complicated, and includes, among other ingredients, anchovies, capers and a salsiccia (pork sausage). All the added ingredients are detectable when you taste pâté di fegatini, so the liver flavor is not pronounced.

In Italian liver is fegato. Fegatino is a diminutive form of the word. And since we are talking about internal organs, let me also mention the word rigaglie, meaning giblets. Another dish my mother would sometimes make is sugo con le rigaglie di pollo (tomato sauce with chicken giblets) and use it to season her handmade tagliatelle.

[This post was inspired by Lori Lynn's recent post about chicken liver pâté]

Hear me pronounce the words on the pâté di fegatini di pollo audio file [mp3] or go to the pâté di fegatini di pollo audio page for more listening options.

botte

barrel, cask

The first botti I came to know as a child had lived their file as wine containers and were located in the cave my father and her sister had in their native village. I know this sounds strange, but that is how it was: not far from the house in Poggio Catino, inside the village, a massive door opened to reveal a high-ceilinged, dark and cool corridor carved into the rock. For many years that was our refrigerator and also our long-term storage area for staples like fruit, wine and olive oil, and also for the wood my aunt used during the winter to fuel her stove and fireplace. I was afraid of going there by myself, but loved visiting it with one of the adults, because of the earthy smell and the cool temperature.

Botti smell good: of wood, wine and work. One of my uncles was a bottaio, a maker of botti.

I have always been small, short if you wish: I am 5'1" and usually have no problems with it. Have you ever seen a Fiat 500 car? One of the advantages of being small is that I could fit in that car. From third through fifth grade I had a teacher who was a tall man. He was the first one to tell me that nelle botti piccole sta il vino buono (literally, good wine is found in small barrels, meaning: good things come in small packages).

There are other sayings involving botti. The first one of this selection is quite funny:

• volere la botte piena e la moglie ubriaca (to want to have your cake and eat it too; I know, the English saying is slightly different: I adjusted it to the Italian construction, which literally means to want to have the barrel full and the wife drunk¹);
• dare un colpo al cerchio e uno alla botte (to run with the hare and hunt with the hounds, which is a British expression and means to try to be on good terms with both sides in a conflict or a dispute; in Italian is also used to describe trying to answer conflicting needs);
• essere in una botte di ferro (to be on sure ground, literally, to be in an iron barrel).

¹I realized I had omitted the literal translation of the Italian expression: apologies to the early readers.

Hear me pronounce the words and expressions on the botte audio file [mp3] or go to the botte audio page for more listening options.

pollo arrosto alla Julia Child

roast chicken à la Julia Child

The time is a few years ago and the place is my mother-in-law's apartment in the Chicago area. My mother-in-law is watching TV when we arrive: she is enjoying the program, so we start watching it too. On the screen there is Julia Child preparing a chicken for roasting. That was my first and only encounter with her. Julia's manners and her interaction with her partner, Jacques Pepin, made me overcome my natural aversion to watching television. That was also my first and only encounter with a food program. I don't watch TV of any kind, so this has nothing to do with food programs in particular.

The episode occurred at a time when I was not yet interested in cooking, so it was only later on that I realized the importance of the person and of the program I had watched. As a result of that encounter, for me Julia Child is inescapably linked to roast chicken. The image that is most vividly etched in my memory is that of a hand slid underneath the skin: I had never seen anybody preparing chicken that way. What I cannot get from my memory is whose hand that was. Has anybody seen the episode I am describing?

I don't remember anything else, most probably because we decided to start a conversation and turned off the TV. As a result, I don't know what a pollo arrosto alla Julia Child looks like. Later on I heard the story of Julia dropping a chicken on the floor and nonchalantly picking it up, then I read that the story is a myth and that nothing of the sort ever happened. I guess it is part of the price you pay for being famous, having an action attributed to you that people believe is in tune with your public persona. I am sure the chicken protagonist of the episode I am referring to did not end up on the floor at any time while I was watching.

I have recently written about pollo arrosto and the place the delicious dish had in my childhood (visit the earlier post to listen to a recording featuring the Italian words). The current post is my entry for the Julia Child Birthday Event, a loving tribute with a lovely logo organized by Lisa from Champaign Taste. I have found many references on the web to Julia Child's recipe for pollo arrosto, though none of the ones I read instructs to slide your hands under the chicken's skin to spread the seasoning. I chose a recipe from the Food Network, which sounds delicious and which I may one day soon try, since I have signed up for email alerts from Wild Chick Farm a local provider of organic, pasture-raised chickens, from whom I have been buying incredible eggs for some time.

Here is the roundup of the event.

fagiolino

snap bean (Phaseolus vulgaris)

Fagiolino is a diminutive of fagiolo (bean) and it is most often used in the plural, fagiolini. I have always called fagiolini green beans here, but a recent post by Lisa of Champaign Taste featuring the purple and yellow varieties, besides the green one, made me decide to consult the dictionary. As a result, from now on I will try and call them snap beans, a term previously unknown to me.

I have always loved fagiolini, even as a vegetable-averse child and teenager. The day of the first written test at the end of high school, after six hours spent writing an essay, I went home exhausted and found a bowl of freshly-boiled green beans. I cut them into bite-size pieces, added a splash of vinegar and a thread of olive oil, and ate the whole bowl. After I finished, my somewhat dismayed mother commented: "Erano un chilo di fagiolini" (that was more than two pounds of snap beans).

I like my fagiolini boiled until they are on the soft side, but I am aware that most people like them on the crunchy side. Also, I sometimes use fresh lemon juice rather than vinegar as seasoning for my fagiolini.

As a child, the task of snapping off the top and tail of fagiolini before my mother boiled them fell upon me. In the process, the string along the seams can be pulled away, in case it is tough. The string nowadays is rarely a problem, because growers have selected beans without the undesirable trait that gave them one of their names (string beans). 

In Veneto (the region around Venice), fagiolini are called tegoline, a sweet-sounding word I just love. In Milan, on the other hand, fagiolini are called cornetti, which was utterly confusing to me the first time I heard it, since in my home town cornetti are croissants.

I have planted a few seeds of bush beans in my garden. Unlike pole beans, bush beans do not need to climb over a support. I am hoping some of the baby fagiolini of the photo will grow enough to be harvested and cooked to taste.

This is my entry for Weekend Herb Blogging, a food blogging event started by Kalyn of Kalyn's Kitchen, hosted this week by Melissa from Cooking Diva. WHB is rapidly approaching its second birthday: congratulations Kalyn! Here's the roundup of WHB #95.

Hear me pronounce the words on the fagiolino audio file [mp3] or go to the fagiolino audio page for more listening options.

panino con la frittata

Costantino Caponangeli, plumber by profession, private detective by chance, is about to go from Pescara to Venice on a very delicate assignment: he must find his employer's wife, who has decided to take some time off from her family (husband and two sons) and is now reportedly living in the city on the lagoon. Costantino is dressed for the part and is trying to maintain his composure in the face of his mamma's behavior.

The scene is from the 1999 Italian movie Pane e Tulipani (Bread and Tulips). Mrs. Caponangeli has prepared some panini for her son's trip, wrapped them well and marked them on the outside, so he will know which package has what kind of filling: frittata, scamorza and mortadella (salame Milano is available for an additional panino, but he turns it down). Costantino is visibly annoyed at the public exposure (they are outside their apartment building), but ends up putting the voluminous package in his bag to make his mamma happy. Later on, we see him eating one of the panini.

Pane e Tulipani is not a movie about food, though the male protagonist (Fernando) works as a waiter and the fateful meeting with the movie heroine (Rosalba) occurs in the restaurant where he works. Still, the story is about nourishing relationships and how important those are. It is a movie with very Italian characters and, to top it all, it is set in the most beautiful city in the world, of which a more private, less touristy, side is shown, which (believe me) is not too far from the crowded famous places.

If I were Costantino I would go for panino con la scamorza, because it has one of my favorite kinds of cheese, especially when lightly smoked. In restaurant it is served grilled accompanied by roasted vegetables and it is divine (you may want to jot this down in preparation of your next trip to Italy). A panino con la frittata is something I make often for my husband, when we go on longish car trips. Differently from American sandwiches, Italian homemade panini are usually a simple combination of bread and one or two things to go with it (called companatico, something that is eaten with bread). So a panino con la frittata is just that: a roll with a small frittata inside. No sauce, no spread, nothing else. If you buy un panino at a paninoteca or a bar they usually have multiple ingredients, but I am pretty sure that Mrs. Caponangeli's panino con la frittata did not have any extra.

A small ciabatta roll is what I used in the rendition photographed here. I made the frittata using one whole egg and one egg white (for a lighter version). I beat them, then added a splash of milk and cooked the golden mixture in a cast-iron frying pan. Because the frittata is thin, I did not need to flip it. Cheese is often added to Italian  frittata, especially if no other ingredient is used: this time I distributed small pieces of gruyère on the surface, which imparted zest to the end result.

This is my entry for the Food in Film event, brilliant brainchild of Susan, the Well-Seasoned Cook. Here is the roundup of the event.

Hear me pronounce the words on the panino con la frittata audio file [mp3] or go to the panino con la frittata audio page for more listening options.

You may also want to read my post on fare una frittata.

far venire l'acquolina in bocca

to make someone's mouth water

If the sight, smell of thought of a certain food mi fa venire l'acquolina in bocca then, as a result ho l'acquolina in bocca (my mouth is watering). Both expressions are of widespread use in Italy. I have always found the word acquolina (which literally is is a diminutive of acqua, water) particularly charming: it dances in my mouth like a tasty morsel.

Avere l'acquolina in bocca should not be confused with acqua in bocca!, which is an injunction to keep something a secret. The idea is that if your mouth is full of water, you cannot talk. I taught my American husband to both say and act acqua in bocca! In fact, as a kid, after saying to someone acqua in bocca!, I would inflate my cheeks and purse my lips slightly, simulating a mouth full of water. I am no longer a kid, but I still get to do it with my husband and then we both burst into laughter (scoppiamo a ridere).

[This post was inspired by Valli, who used the adjective droolworthy in a comment on a post and got me thinking of Italian acquolina.]

Hear me pronounce the expressions on the acquolina in bocca audio file [mp3] or go to the acquolina in bocca audio page for more listening options.