Articles by: Natasha Lardera

Italy is covered with olive trees, from the northern regions all the way down to Puglia and Sicily. The pressing of tree-ripened olives extracts a tasty, mono saturated oil that is good for cooking and for salads. The flavor, color and fragrance of olive oils can vary greatly depending on distinctions such as growing regions (oils from southern Italy tend to be more fruity) and the crop's condition. 

 Olive oils are graded according to the degree of acidity they contain. The best oils are cold-pressed, a chemical-free process that involves only pressure, which produces a natural level of acidity.

The Italian olive harvest occurs between the end of October and the beginning of November. At this time the olive mills reopen their doors and a celebration begins. The community gathers around the mill to rejoice and savor the aroma from the new pressing. Novello – which means “new” – is the name given to this first oil of the season. Just-pressed oil is at the height of its freshness and fragrance. Differently from what people may believe, as it is the case with Vino Novello which should be consumed immediately as it becomes undrinkable if not drunk in a short time, Novello oil doesn’t need to be enjoyed right away. What you taste when you first open a bottle will be slightly different from when you taste the same bottle a few days later. You can savor the oil's development, fully enjoy the slight softening of the aromas as it evolves, which is offset by the increasingly rounded flavor on the palate.

The early harvest, the instant pressing of the olives picked within a few hours, the time to decant the product, and to bottle it, make of Olio Novello a real special treat. Colavita, America's best-selling Italian Extra Virgin Olive Oil, produces many delicious oils, and Novello from Molise Region is among them. 

Colavita Novello Extra Virgin Olive Oil presents a unique brilliance in flavor, appearance and aroma. The olives crushed for Colavita Novello Extra Virgin Olive Oil have not reached their full maturity and carry with them all the fragrance and strength of the fruit. Its yellow/green color accompanies an intense aroma of freshly pressed olives. The taste, mildly spicy and slightly bitter, leaves a robust and lingering flavor in the mouth. The novello oil is unfiltered and is just as it appears when it is freshly pressed at the olive mill.

Use as a finishing oil to preserve the full flavor, aroma and immense personality of this oil. It is ideal as a dressing oil for fish, richly flavored salads, vegetable soups and bruschettas. The ritual of enjoying Novello oil drizzled over bruschetta (slices of bread lightly toasted over coals) is a moment not to be missed, and has been repeated annually at every Italian olive mill since the year 600!

Recipe provided by Colavita

Escarole and Bean Soup

Ingredients:



2 tablespoons COLAVITA Extra Virgin Olive Oil
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 1/2 teaspoons capers, rinsed and chopped
2 cups water
2 (15 - ounce) cans cannellini beans, drained and rinsed
1/2 teaspoon salt, or to taste
2 head escarole, washed, trimmed, chopped into large pieces
2 tablespoons COLAVITA Novello Extra Virgin Olive Oil, or as needed.

Preparation:



Heat olive oil in a saucepan set over medium heat. Add garlic and capers; saute 1 minute.  Add water, cannellini beans and salt. Bring to a boil; boil 3 minutes. Add escarole. Reduce heat to low; simmer 15 minutes or until escarole is tender. Drizzle with Novello olive oil and serve.  Makes 4 to 6 servings
Per Serving: 193 Calories (44.4% from fat); 10g Fat (1g Sat, 7g Mono, 1g Poly); 6g Protein; 22g Carbohydrate; 6g Dietary Fiber; 0mg Cholesterol; 485mg Sodium.  Food Exchanges: 1 1/2 Grain (Starch); 1 Fat.

 If you walk into an American bookstore and looked for a book by an Italian writer, chances are the author with the most copies there is Italo Calvino, Italy's most important postwar novelist. At the time of his death, in 1985, he was the most-translated contemporary Italian writer and a noted contender for the Nobel Prize for Literature. "His best known works include the "Our Ancestors trilogy" (1952–1959), "the Cosmicomics collection of short stories" (1965), and "the novels Invisible      Cities" (1972) and "If on a winter's night a traveler" (1979).


 

Italo Calvino: Letters, 1941-1985” translated by Martin McLaughlin   Italo Calvino   RAI interview with Italo Calvino

Josh Hamilton at NYU

Calvino was also an influential literary critic, an important literary editor, and a masterful letter writer whose correspondents included Umberto Eco, Primo Levi, Gore Vidal, Leonardo Sciascia, Natalia Ginzburg, Michelangelo Antonioni, Pier Paolo Pasolini, and Luciano Berio.


In Understanding Italo Calvino by Beno Weiss, the journalist and writer was described as “a timid, solitary person, partly because he stuttered and spoke haltingly; even though eh was quite open and congenial with his family and intimate friends, he felt ill at ease and awkward in society. Furthermore he also refrained from revealing his intimate feelings, and often spoke ambiguously about his writings.


He rightly expected his readers to know him through his works and nothing else!” There is now the possibility to look into the writer's life thanks to the publication of a new book, Italo Calvino: Letters, 1941-1985 (Princeton University Press, 2013), that was presented at NYU's Casa Italiana Zerilli Marimo in a special program developed by Calvino's daughter, Giovanna Calvino.


With her Michael Wood, the scholar responsible for selecting the letters and for writing the introduction of the book, Martin McLaughlin, the letters' translator, and actor Josh Hamilton, who read some letters for the audience.


This book includes a generous selection of about 650 letters, written between World War II and the end of Calvino's life. “The letters are filled with insights about Calvino's writing and that of others; about Italian, American, English, and French literature; about literary criticism and literature in general; and about culture and politics.


The book also provides a kind of autobiography, documenting Calvino's Communism and his resignation from the party in 1957, his eye-opening trip to the United States in 1959-60, his move to Paris (where he lived from 1967 to 1980), and his trip to his birthplace in Cuba (where he met Che Guevara).


Some lengthy letters amount almost to critical essays, while one is an appropriately brief defense of brevity, and there is an even shorter, reassuring note to his parents written on a scrap of paper while he and his brother were in hiding during the antifascist Resistance.” “Reading other people's letters is a revelation,” Michael Wood told us, “Nowadays we are used to snooping on other people's lives... there is almost no privacy anymore. I must confess though that while reading these letters my dream of finding something scandalous or whatnot remained unfulfilled. Yes, the letters are very personal but they are not confessional or too revealing. What transpires though, is that Calvino was not the person you thought you knew when you read his fiction.”


“These letters do offer some insight into the every day of a great artist,” Martin McLaughlin, added, “We learn about his tenacity for reading and writing, and how he was always trying different voices. Indeed his first letters were a bit difficult to translate as he was always shifting voices... sometimes he is sarcastic, other he is more concerned, serious. There is a mixture of seriousness and gentle humor Still they are written with great maturity.”


The letters are divided into three groups: personal, that make no reference at all to writing (Josh Hamilton read a letter from 1959 when Calvino visited New York City and was amazed by a city that swallows you and where solitude is impossible), those on literature and the art of writing (in one of the letters read at Casa Italiana, Calvino jokes about the tribulations of writing his first novel, and in an era before the internet, about the long period of times necessary to do fact checking). The last group of letters are the ones with political meaning, and here the author addressed serious issues like abortion.


True, maybe the readers will not discover anything crazy about Calvino, but these letters are indeed a necessary tool to complete the portrait of this writer, a writer who “hated all forms of waste, including wasting words.” 

She knows more about Italian food than the most notable Italian authorities in New York City: Eugenio Magnani, director of Enit, and Lucia Pasqualini, Deputy Consul, both agree... when they want to find out something about a specific regional dish or they need a recipe to impress, Francince Segan is the authority to go to.

 She is a noted public speaker and food historian, the author of seven books, including Opera Lover’s Cookbook, nominated for both James Beard and IACP awards, and she has just released a new one by the title Pasta Modern, New & Inspired Recipes from Italy.
 

Introducing the book, Francine states “Here in the States, we imagine an Italy populated by black-clad grandmas, patiently stirring enormous pots of tomato sauce for Sunday's family dinner. But today's Italy is a different scene: vibrant, ever-changing, and moving forward.” indeed the book features the hottest, newest, and most unusual pasta dishes, 100 recipes in total, provided by “Italy's food bloggers, home cooks, artisan pasta makers, and vanguard chefs.” The recipes range from simple and elegant Papparedelle with Escaroleto to cutting-edge dishes like Pasta sushi. The latter was invented by two Michelin star chef Davide Scabin, who substituted pasta shells for rice. He wanted to show how versatile Italian pasta is and how easily it crosses over into other cuisines. So conchiglione (large pasta shells) can be filled with raw tuna, sea urchin, caviar... whatever pleases your palate.
 

Francine is more than happy to share with i-Italy a bit of her knowledge and also a great recipe!
 

Please tell me what is so special about pasta and what brought you to put together Pasta Modern.

After the success of my book, DOLCI: Italy's Sweets, my editor at Stewart, Tabori & Chang wanted another book on Italian food. It was easy to suggest pasta as a topic, since it is my #1 favorite food! I wanted to share with Americans the many many Italian pasta recipes that are unknown here in the USA. I wanted to share both classic, traditional recipes and also the recipes that have been created in Italy in the past 10 years.
 

You mentioned the recipes are from bloggers, chefs, housemaids and even nonnas. How did you select what ended up in the book and do you have any cute/fun story to share with us behind a specific recipe.

For a recipe to make it into my book it has to pass several tests: #1, it must be so delicious that I want to make it again right way, #2, it must be a recipe that is not very known here in the USA and #3 it must be fairly common in the province or city in Italy where it originates. I did NOT want recipes that just one Italian chef "invented." I have many friends in Italy, in each region, so I would also test the recipe on Italians to be sure that what I was bringing back to the USA was authentic & true to the philosophy in Italian cuisine.
 

Fun story: So many! Italians are one of the most hospitable, gracious and lovely people in the world,especially when you ask about their hometown dishes!! They opened their homes, kitchens, and hearts to me. So generous. One example. I made an appointment with Garofalo, a fairly large pasta company in Gragnano (an area famous for centuries for its dried pasta). I asked if I could have a tour of their factory to learn how dried pasta is made. I also asked if they might tell me about a recipe that is very Neapolitan. When I arrived they had organized a wonderful surprise. In their office kitchen (very small) were 3 friends of employees of the company who were ready to show me how to make an interesting dish that dated to the 1800s.

I watched them make the recipe, Cupola di Bucatini (Bucatini Dome) then took the tour of the factory, and afterwards we all sat down to lunch! We started chatting, hours passed, and then they invited me to dinner! In Rome! To see the newly opened Eataly. Luca deLuca and Flavia Garzia of Garofalo drove me to Rome & back to my hotel in Naples. A wonderful, wonderful, unforgettable day. For me it highlights the essence of Italy. If you express to an Italian a little interest in Italian culture & a desire to learn more you will be rewarded with appreciation and warmth. In truth, I have made a new friend with each recipe!
 

Is there anything about pasta that people do not know? Or some myth about pasta that is actually incorrect?

Marco Polo did NOT bring back pasta from China. He went there in the late 13th century. Pasta factories were already well documented in Italy in the 9th century & there is archeological evidence of its existence in Italy since Etruscan times.
 

Do you have a nice pasta dish to recommend for the upcoming holidays?

My absolute FAVORITE recipe is Pasta al Risparmio (Cheapskate Pasta), a dish from Naples that was eaten on Christmas Eve. It was for poor families who couldn't afford fish for Christmas Eve dinner, so to make it special they added dried fruit and nuts to the sauce. Please read the recipe below and make it at home! It's a real treat.
 

You have written several books, what is your favorite step in the production?

I adore doing the research, either in gathering the recipes by meeting nonnas, chefs, bloggers or looking up information in old manuscripts, journals, newspapers, and books in Italy.
 

What is going to be next?

More Italian food, more Italian wine, more Italian travel. There is so much in Italy yet to be discovered.

To find out where Francine Segan is going to be next check out: 
>>>

Cheapskate Pasta

Pasta al risparmio

From: PASTA MODERN: New & Inspired Recipes from Italy (Stewart, Tabori & Chang, 2013) by Francine Segan
 

Serves 4

I love this recipe because there’s hardly any chopping or fussing. A handful of chopped nuts, some dried fruit for sweetness, capers and black olives for tang with a hint of garlic and tomatoes--- a feast in 5 minutes. I’ve suggested measurments, but you can really ignore them. The idea of this recipe is to empty your cupboards into the pot, so feel free to use any sort of nuts, dried fruit and pantry favorites in any quantities you like!

Poor families in Naples who couldn’t afford fish for Christmas Eve dinner would instead made this dish, using up their pantry leftovers. In the area around Naples this dish has quite a few names, none of them very appetizing---Fruit & Nuts from the Trash, O Sicchie da Munnezza or Cheapskate Pasta, la Pasta al Risparmio.

Even though the hard times are over, you can still get this dish in Naples during the winter. The name’s been change though. It’s now called the cheerier Spaghetti di Natale, Christmas Spaghetti.

1 pound fussili or other short pasta, preferrably Garofalo brand

Salt

5 tablespoons olive oil

1 garlic clove, sliced

½ cup chopped assorted nuts, like hazelnuts, walnuts, pine nuts

2 tablespoons raisins or any dried fruit

2 tablespoons salted capers, rinsed

1 28-ounce can diced tomoatoes

10 pitted oil cured black olive, cut in half

1 teaspoon dried oregano

1/4 cup chopped fresh parsley, plus more

Cook the spaghettoni in salted boiling water until al dente.

Meanwhile, heat the oil and garlic in a pan until golden, then add the nuts, raisins, and capers and cook for a few minutes. Stir in the tomatoes and cook for 4 or 5 minutes, then add the olives, oregano and parsley and cook for a minute. Drain the pasta and toss in the sauce along with some of the cooking liquid to amalgamate the flavors. Serve topped with more parsley.

He's ironic, vivacious, clever and surprisingly contemporary... this is Giacomo Leopardi according to Mario Martone.The former was an Italian poet, essayist, philosopher, and philologist from the 19th century, the latter is a Neapolitan film director and writer who is also the director, since 2007, of the Teatro Stabile Torino, Turin's most interesting theater.

Between the years 1823 and 1828, Leopardi composed his prose magnum opus, Operette morali ("Small Moral Works"), which consists (in its final form) of a series of 24 unique and innovative dialogues and fictional essays focusing on a variety of themes that had already become familiar to his work by then. 7 of these moral essays were presented by the Teatro Stabile Torino at the La Scuola d'Italia Guglielmo Marconi as part of a series of celebrations of the city of Turin that have been taking place throughout the city of New York.
 

Starring Renato Carpentieri, Iaia Forte, Giovanni Ludeno and Franca Penone, the 7 moral works were: Dialogue Between Fashion and Death, Dialogue Between Torquato Tasso and His familiar Spirit, Dialogue Between the Earth and the Moon, Dialogue Between Hercules and Atlas, In Praise of Birds, Dialogue Between an Almanac Peddler and a Passer-By and Dialogue Between Christopher Columbus and Pedro Gutierrez.
 

“The production is Mario Martone's noteworthy response to the challenge of transforming a masterpiece of Italian literature into one of the major successes of recent years: Operette Morali is a visionary journey into the depths of the author's soul and into the fundamentals of his oeuvre... The issues he examines are fundamental and primal (and very contemporary): the quest for happiness, the burden of unhappiness, the unkindness of Nature, life that is pain and boredom.”
 

In Dialogue Between Fashion and Death, Fashion tells Death they are sisters (because they are both born from Decay) but the latter wants an explanation.

Here it is: “I say then that our common nature and custom is to incessantly renew the world. You attack the life of man, and overthrow all people and nations from beginning to end; whereas I content myself for the most part with influencing beards, head-dresses, costumes, furniture, houses, and the like. It is true, I do some things comparable to your supreme action. I pierce ears, lips, and noses, and cause them to be torn by the ornaments I suspend from them. I impress men's skin with hot iron stamps, under the pretence of adornment. I compress the heads of children with tight bandages and other contrivances; and make it customary for all men of a country to have heads of the same shape, as in parts of America and Asia. I torture and cripple people with small shoes. I stifle women with stays so tight, that their eyes start from their heads; and I play a thousand similar pranks. I also frequently persuade and force men of refinement to bear daily numberless fatigues and discomforts, and often real sufferings; and some even die gloriously for love of me. I will say nothing of the headaches, colds, inflammations of all kinds, fevers -- daily, tertian, and quartan -- which men gain by their obedience to me. They are content to shiver with cold, or melt with heat, simply because it is my will that they cover their shoulders with wool, and their breasts with cotton. In fact, they do everything in my way, regardless of their own injury.” All this talk about pierced noses and crippling small shoes sound contemporary?
 

The dialogue form of Leopardi's text allows him a fragmentation of his point of view. His multiple talents, the contradictions that breathe life into his thoughts and his unique irony are present in each and every character that is speaking. This is not a classic theatrical text but Martone was able to make it such by preserving the overall structure of each piece although applying some necessary cuts and adaptations. Deep and thought provoking text, skilful directing and impeccable acting result in a must see show that hopefully will return to New York soon.