The crostata

 

Neither a cake nor a pie nor a tart, but with elements of all three, the crostata is to Italians what apple pie is to Americans. Every Italian loves crostata, every Italian has a favourite topping and every Italian has an opinion on what makes a good one. Usually that will coincide with how Mamma or Nonna made it.

In short, crostata is a pie made with a rich short crust pastry which is covered either before or after baking with jam, a patisserie cream or fresh fruit. The two main types of crostata are those with a lattice pastry topping and those that are completely covered with a sheet of pastry.

Crostata is made in homes, restaurants and bakeries the length and breadth of the country and the variations are endless. The topping or filling is dictated both by season and location. Fresh fruit pies are more commonplace in the summer whereas jam pies are generally made over the winter months. Each region has its own variants on the theme. The crostata del diavolo (devil’s crostata) is a Calabrian version in which the pastry is coated with alternate layers of orange and chilli jams and finished with an almond topping. Pumpkin crostata is popular in Veneto as is a version made with ricotta in Lazio. The most popular by far, and made throughout the country, are the pies made with plum, apricot and cherry jams.

Every Italian will tell you they hold the secret to the perfect crostata. I’m no different. If cooking the crostata with the filling on top some say it’s good practice to sprinkle breadcrumbs, crushed biscuit or very thin slices of sponge cake over the base before adding the filling. This prevents the jam bleeding into the pastry and making it soggy. That said, many cooks (myself included) would advocate allowing the filling to bleed slightly into the crust thereby adding flavour. The key is in the pastry. If you get the consistency and thickness of the pastry right, you are on the road to crostata perfection. For a good rustic country crostata, the base should be about 1cm in thickness and it should be rich, buttery and slightly crumbly.        

Apricot jam crostata

Crostata con confettura di albicocche

Makes 1 24cm crostata

Preparation time: 15 minutes plus resting time

Cooking time: 35-40 minutes

400g plain flour

150g unsalted butter

1 large free range egg

125g sugar

200ml apricot jam

Allow the butter to come to room temperature. Sift the flour into a large bowl and add the butter, sugar and beaten egg. Use your fingers to quickly mix all the ingredients together and knead together to make a smooth dough. Don’t overwork the pastry but do make sure all the ingredients are well incorporated.

Divide the pastry into two parts – of ⅔ and ⅓ - and allow to rest in the fridge for 30 minutes. Dust a work surface with flour and roll out the larger piece of pastry with a rolling pin. The pastry needs to be about 1cm thick and it should rise up the side of the baking dish by about 2cms. (If you like you’re your pastry completely dry you can, at this point, sprinkle some biscuit crumb over the base.) Next, spoon the jam over the pastry. To finish the pie, rip off small walnut-sized pieces of dough and roll them out by hand into thin snakes about 1cm thick. Arrange them in a lattice formation over the top of the crostata. You don’t need to be too precise. It’s a rustic country cake.

Bake in a preheated oven at 175ºC for 35 to 40 minutes. Allow to cool before serving. You can, of course, use a different jam. Cherry, plum, blackberry or fruits of the forest jam all work well.

Thanksgiving, tractors and turkey

In Canada, thanksgiving is celebrated on the second Monday in October. In the United States, it’s the third Thursday in November. In Vigolo Marchese in the province of Piacenza in Emilia Romagna, it’s the second Sunday in October (this year).

Thanksgiving in the town of Vigolo is not quite Thanksgiving as we know it, although there is turkey and chestnuts! The main event focuses on the blessing of the tractors. The blessing has been bestowed by the local parish priest every year for as long as anyone can remember. One of the local farmers, a cheerful, burly hulk of a man who was waiting next to his John Deer along with his two equally solid-looking sons told me that he still remembers driving on the back of his grandfather’s tractor to Vigolo for the annual blessing. That was over 50 years ago!

The likelihood is that today’s mechanized blessing is an evolution of the longstanding tradition of a formal thanksgiving for the annual harvest. It therefore has parallels with Thanksgiving in the American sense which owes its origins to the time when Europeans first started arriving in the Americas, bringing with them their own harvest festival traditions.

Agricultural harvests have always been occasions of celebration in Italy and, like all celebrations in Italy, they always involve food. Just a couple of weeks back the vendemmia, or grape harvest, was celebrated with an uphill barrel-rolling competition followed by grape pudding (known locally as mosto cotto) and a delicious sweet bread, made with dried grapes from the previous year’s harvest, served with a selection of local cheeses. A week later the chestnut harvest was celebrated through a myriad of chestnut festivals in towns throughout the region. In Vigolo, local farmers are simply celebrating the end of the summer harvest, a time to give thanks, relax and enjoy the fruits of their labour.

The main event takes place in the small piazza facing the medieval church and baptistery in the centre of town. It begins without warning, mid afternoon, with a loud rumbling sound like distant thunder. There’s a dull trembling in the ground, faint at first, but gradually building. Then they appear, a solid line of tractors, hundreds of them, every make, every model, every colour, slowly descending like a line of liberating tanks. The air fills with the smell of diesel as the tractors circle the small piazza. The noise is deafening and exhilarating at the same time. Then, as suddenly as the noise started, it ends. Engines turn silent and, perfectly on cue, the priest emerges, a bible in one hand and a vial of holy water in the other. All heads lower as a short benediction is read, his right hand is raised to the sky and the blessing is bestowed. A sprinkling of holy water, each tractor in turn and then it’s time for turkey.

It arrives, of course, on the back of a tractor. Five birds in all, roasted to a golden, crisp brown perfection. The aroma is heavenly, mixed with the smell of chestnuts roasting on an open fire. Wine bottles are opened and glasses are filled. A local butcher arrives with an armful of homemade salami. Thick wedges are cut and served on top of chunks of rustic country bread. There may well be turkey and chestnuts but ultimately, it’s a very Italian thanksgiving.

The mushrooms are back!

Today was a good day. I found mushrooms today. Porcini mushrooms that is, Italy’s favourite foraged food. I became hooked six years ago. I’d gone out with my wife’s uncle, Giacomino. At the time, I saw it as a walk in the woods… but it became much more than that.

Porcini mushrooms, from the boletus group - ceps in English, simply funghi in Italian or, believe it or not, ‘Fonz’ (how cool is that?) in the local dialect - are Italy’s most loved wild mushroom. They can’t be cultivated and there is no other type of mushroom that comes close. The best of ‘the best’ are the cep mushrooms of Borgotaro, the only mushroom to have earned protected status under the EU’s Designated Food Protection Scheme. And here’s the thing – Borgotaro, in the neighbouring province of Parma, is less than an hour’s drive from my doorstep!

Today was a good day because these are the first mushrooms of the autumn season. It’s been a bad year generally for mushrooms. It was a frustrating summer season, blighted by high temperatures, high winds and very little rainfall. Hours spent trawling through the woods resulted in little reward. So that makes these particular mushrooms even more special. And what’s more, I didn’t find them in Parma. Nor did I find them in my home province. I found them on an impromptu trip in the mountains above Lake Como. I won’t say where exactly as that would be giving the game away. Suffice to say, mushrooms are growing and every indication is, there’s more to come. So keep tuned, I'll be back…