1,000 Foods To Eat Before You Die: A Food Lover's Life List (49 page)

Most important of all is the fact that
fritto misto di pesce
should be eaten no more than five minutes after it is fried and drained on paper towels so that it remains deliciously crisp and light. Some insist on a dipping sauce—a light marinara or a mayonnaise-based sauce akin to rémoulade—but for true cognoscenti, nothing more than a squirt of lemon juice is needed.

Where:
In Venice
, Corte Sconta, tel 39/041-522-7024,
cortescontavenezia.it
;
in New York
, Il Mulino, tel 212-673-3783,
ilmulino.com
.
Further information and recipe:
epicurious.com
(search fritto misto).

Order
fritto misto
in an Italian restaurant, and nine out of ten times you will receive a wonderfully crisp and golden mixed fry of various fish and shellfish. Nothing to be sneered at, of course; see the previous entry for proof. It is, however, quite apart from what the Tuscans will serve when you request the dish of the same name.

The more lavish and sophisticated Tuscan fritto misto consists of veal innards: calves’ sweetbreads, perhaps cuts of the heart and spinal cord, and always ribbons of tender, pink liver. With those meats comes a tempura-like array of fried vegetables: quartered hunks of young artichoke, pencil sticks of zucchini, friendly little mushroom caps, and slices of eggplant, yellow squash, and fresh, mild onion. The most impeccable frying is done in a combination of butter (for flavor) and vegetable oil (to prevent the fat from burning and becoming acrid), thus producing the desired
dorato e croccante
(golden and crisp) perfection Italian recipes prescribe. And no matter where it is served or what it includes, a fritto misto always cries out for generous wedges of lemon to be sprayed over all for a touch of sunshiny freshness.

Further information and recipes:
Italian Cuisine
by Tony May (2005);
Italian Regional Cooking
by Ada Boni (1994).

In 1932, the Italian artist and futurist Filippo Tommaso Marinetti (1876–1944) published a cheekily avant-garde cookbook addressing what he considered a pressing problem: an Italian diet too heavy for the coming modern age. The main
enemy, in the artist’s view, was pasta—primarily because he believed that, unlike other starches such as rice and bread, it did not have to be chewed. Marinetti felt that pasta was clumping up digestive systems across the land and contributing to a population that was lethargic, unproductive, and dumbed down. Such a population, he believed, would not be as light-footed as necessary in the coming age of aluminum vehicles, air travel, and imminent war.

In
La Cucina Futurista
(
The Futurist Cookbook
), the artist set forth his theories—which started with pasta avoidance but ranged to color-coding your food and sensory experiments like tasting olives and kumquats while alternately fondling swatches of velvet, silk, and sandpaper—including recipes and even diagrams on how to serve the strange dishes he envisioned. To prove the recipes were more than a high-concept ruse, the artist took his art and message on the road, putting on elaborate futurist dinners in various parts of Europe.

In the place of Italian hero sandwiches, Marinetti and his artist colleagues gave us the
Traidue
(“Between Two”): one slice of bread spread with anchovy paste, another topped with finely minced apple skins, and two thin slices of salami sandwiched in between.
La Truta Immortale
(Immortal Trout) becomes the fish course, in which a whole cleaned and gutted trout is stuffed with chopped nuts and fried in olive oil. Each fish is then wrapped in a paper-thin slice of calf’s liver—raw or cooked, who knows? Futurists curious about the taste of metal should fill a small chicken with steel ball bearings, truss the bird, and roast it in a slow oven “until the steel imparts its flavor to the chicken” (by which point the chicken is likely to have dried out to the texture of that sandpaper).

For dessert,
Mammalle de Fragola
(Strawberry Breasts): Two upright female breasts are formed out of drained, pressed ricotta cheese dyed pink with Campari. With strawberry nipples properly in place, it should be possible “to bite into an ideal multiplication of imaginary breasts.” Past, present, or future, that’s Italian!

Mail order:
The Futurist Cookbook
by F. P. Marinetti, English language edition translated by Suzanne Brill (1991), is available at barnesandnoble.com.

Display cases keep gelato barely frozen, for a silky texture.

Among the many treasures bequeathed to us by Sicily, few are more precious than gelato—the inspired Italian ice cream said to have originated on that Mediterranean island around 1650, with snow from Mount Etna providing abundant natural cooling. The unique Italian version of ice cream (the word comes from
gelare
, meaning “to freeze”) is notable for being denser in texture and far richer in flavor than any of its relations. Traditionally made with milk blended with egg yolks, it is also cooked, rather like a pudding or custard, before it is frozen—the eggs contribute richness and the cooking contributes density. Because it is made in a machine that churns relatively slowly, gelato also has less air whipped into it than standard American or French ice cream.

Key to the early popularity of gelato was a young Sicilian cook named Francesco Procopio
dei Coltelli, a fisherman’s son who moved to Paris and opened the Café Procope in 1686, across from the Comédie-Française. The café would go down in history as the place that introduced gelato to the masses; it also holds the honor of being the oldest restaurant in Paris still open today.

Popularizers aside, many gelato aficionados argue that Sicily is still home to the very best in the world. There’s only one way to find out.

Where:
In Palermo
, Al Gelato 2, tel 39/091-52-8299;
in Rome
, Gelateria Giolitti, tel 39/066-991243,
giolitti.it
;
in Florence
, Gelateria Vivoli, 39/055-292334,
vivoli.it
;
in Paris
, Café Procope, tel 33/1-40-46-79-00,
procope.com
;
in New York
, Il Laboratorio del Gelato, tel 212-343-9922,
laboratoriodelgelato.com
;
in New Orleans
, Angelo Brocato Ice Cream and Confectionery, tel 504-486-0078,
angelobrocatoicecream.com
.
Further information and recipes:
Making Artisan Gelato
by Torrance Kopfers (2009);
Pomp and Sustenance: Twenty-Five Centuries of Sicilian Food
by Mary Taylor Simeti (1989);
ciaobellagelato.com
;
whygelato.com
.
Special event:
Gelato Festival, Florence, Italy, May,
italiagelatotour.it
.

A perplexing sight to first-timers in Sicily is that of the locals walking around on hot summer mornings, taking bites out of what look like hamburgers—judging by the big, round, golden-brown buns. But retrace the burger-eaters’ steps and you will find yourself at a
pasticceria
, or pastry shop. The pasticceria will offer not only pastries but also the delicately creamy, eggy gelati for which Sicily is famous. What the wall signs advertise, and what the morning and mid-afternoon customers feast on, is this incomparable ice cream sandwiched inside a gently sweet and spongy brioche.
Ecco! Gelato en briocha.
For breakfast!

Although it has caught on as a between-meal snack or a dessert in a few places in the United States, given the American sweet tooth it’s a wonder the chic treat has not attained breakfast status. But there’s still hope.…

To make your own gelato en briocha, make sure you use real gelato-style ice cream; because it is based on egg-enriched cooked custards, it will melt less rapidly and have more body than American ice cream. For a delectable brioche with a gentle but firm texture and a mild hint of sweetness that will not obscure the ice cream’s flavor, seek out a quality Italian bakery. (If you have a choice, go Sicilian—Sicilians are Italy’s most accomplished and inspired bakers, with
a talent for sweets that reflects Arabic influences from North Africa.)

All it takes to complete this sublime start to the day is coffee strong and black enough to stain the cup. Summer or winter, in Sicily that coffee will be steaming hot. Hold the milk.

Where:
In Palermo
, Gelateria Ciccio Adelfio, tel 39/091-616-1537,
gelateriadaciccio.it
;
in New York and Chicago
, Eataly,
eataly.com
.
Further information and recipe:
epicurious.com
(search brioche gelato sandwiches);
cookingchanneltv.com
(search brioche gelato sandwich).

Festa di San Paolo at Palazzolo Acreide in Sicily.

A favorite at Saints’ Day fairs in Italy and in the U.S., this meaty street food poses an obvious challenge of the phonetic variety. Try “new,” as the treat may be to you; “murr,” to rhyme with a cat’s satisfied purr; and “yedi,” to signal your readiness to try new things. (To complicate matters,
gniummerieddi
is also known as
gnemeriedde
and
turciniedde.)

Now that you can pronounce the word, here’s what you’ll be asking for: tender, well-cleaned organ meats of lamb (and sometimes of pig or goat), cut into small pieces, seasoned with salt and pepper, and wrapped in lacy sheets of caul fat (
rete
, or net, in Italian). These meaty packets, threaded along with fresh bay leaves onto small metal skewers, are grilled over a wood charcoal fire. As the caul fat melts, it keeps the meat well basted and moist; reduced to nothing but crisp strands, it provides textural contrast to the sputtering hot, fragrant, juicy meat.

As the bay leaves char and the caul fat sizzles over tiny portable braziers, the succulent gniummerieddi lure customers with their nose-twitching aroma. They must be served immediately, garnished only with extra dashes of salt and black pepper. (If you choose them at a street fair, accept them only hot off the grill—they have no shelf life at all.)

Where:
Street fairs in the U.S. and in Italy, especially at the Feast of San Gennaro in September.
Further information and recipe:
Italian Regional Cooking
by Ada Boni (1994), see Fegatelli alla Petroniana.

Cheese and pears bring out the best in each other.