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food & poetry, but mostly the poetry of food

Food • Writing • Poetry

I was confused when I first moved to England about use of the term “corn” – which to North Americans means the yellow kernels that brighten every summer picnic. In England it’s used in its traditional and more wide-ranging sense, meaning any grain, and generally the kind that feeds livestock. According to Michael Pollan, it used to mean literally any grain at all – including grains of salt, hence the expression “corned beef”. And hence the qualifier “sweet” which is added to the kind of corn that people eat, as in sweetcorn.

While passing through London in November, on my way to Italy, I happened on a copy of his recently published and much-praised book, The Omnivore’s Dilemma, right there in the Bloomsbury Oxfam Bookshop. Delighted I was, but long in the opening of this fascinating story. I have started reading it this week, after coming upon an interview with him recorded a few months before the book hit the shelves. The interview is more about Pollan and his research and writing methods than the content of the book, but he does preface the interview with a reading from it and answers some interesting questions about it at the end.

(Corn Maiden, in the sculpture garden of The Museum of Indian Arts & Culture, Santa Fe)

And so I’ve been reading the first section, which is a depressing story about the appropriation of corn – one of the traditional foods of American Indians – by agribusiness, and about the enslavement of American farmers to corn subsidies which in turn has created such a surplus of corn that its products form a shocking part of the fabric of American life, from sweeteners to manufacturing materials.

And if we thought it was cruel to feed cow by-products to cows, it turns out it’s actually not much better to feed them corn, which they aren’t designed to digest either (they are grass not grain-eaters). Luckily Pollan is a talented, humane and funny writer, so it’s possible to survive the facts he’s presenting to his fellow humans. I thought I’d take a break and look at some of his other writings today.

His 2003 article about Slow Food (from Mother Jones magazine) is interesting reading, particularly following turkey season. I hadn’t realised, when I wrote my poem, Lamenting the Turkey, that I was writing about Broad Breasted Whites, but seeing them described in Pollan’s article as “mindless eating and shitting machines” that are so deformed by breeding they cannot reproduce without artificial insemination, I’d say that’s exactly what they were; lumpy and awkward like the poem. Here it is, (from Cartography) – let’s dedicate this iteration to Pollan and to omnivores everywhere (oh, and by the way I do -really!- like eating turkey but will of course be more diligent about buying traditional breeds in future..).

Lamenting the Turkey

Stub-winged idiot, a food whose life
is a brief hymn to gluttony: crescendo of feathers
and flesh fills our tables, bloodlessly knifed
as the red leaves of Christmas bloom in the background,
remorselessly bright.

In a time we’re kneeling to stars and shepherds
this is our chosen meal: a feathered blunder
so dumb it drowns in rain, gaping at skies
as they seal its throat with liquid wonder.

We adopt all the symbols of peace
but consume the corpse of a baleful thing:
it riots at the scent of blood, will slay
wounded brothers with its bladed chin.

We fill the season with music, and stop
this wobbling voice with a plug of bread;
it ends its time as it always lived:
stuffed with food, yet never fed.

So this is our festive platter:
a death of stupidity and fatted fear,
naked and shining beneath the candles,
a meal we gobble in the gullet of the year.

Saturday night in the duomo: Gospel in Cattedrale by Cheryl Porter – singing in English and preaching in fluent Italian.

With her International Gospel Messengers.

In Parma, New Year’s is all about the fireworks. Garbage cans were not the only things feeling a little nervous on Sunday night…

Just before…

…and after.

Dance of the broken bottles, Piazza Garibaldi.

The tree on Piazza Garibaldi.

We spent yesterday in Colorno, trying to eat our way through Asia. Amy, representing Hong Kong, gathered her pan-Asian army of chefs – Andy from Taiwan, Donghyun from Korea, Louisa from Australia – and together they fed us well, very very well. We are ready for the new year.

Amy’s Asian menu

Only the beginning… Thai carrot salad, sushi, beef with eggplant, rice…

A Korean favourite: Bi Bim Bap!

Spending the day digesting it all. Thought I’d try some feasts for the eyes for a change. A friend of a friend is a sublime photographer of the Tuscan landscape and many other things beside. Check him out: Fabio Muzzi. Phew. Photos so beautiful you want to eat them for breakfast.

I was nosing around to see what other photos were posted of this neck of the woods. A site called TrekEarth has a gorgeous selection of photos from all over the world, including this region, Emilia Romagna – a few beauties of Parma itself.

You can take a virtual tour of Parma in a number of 360 degree photos on the Comune di Parma website.

Travelling on Ryanair is … an experience. One of its peculiarities is that passengers are charged many hidden fees: for use of a credit card to make the booking, and for checking a bag, for example, and they give not so much as a cup of coffee away for free in-flight. So it’s not as cheap as you might first assume when you see 99 cent fares. But okay, so it’s the only game going direct from Parma airport to London, with your (count ’em) 15 whole kilos checked baggage allowance (which you’ve paid for the privilege of bringing). And then you get the thrill of rubbing up against your fellow passengers in the scrum at the boarding gate and you can try to out-run them on the tarmac for better seating. I won’t attempt to describe the experience of dragging (heavier than it sounds) 15 kg of suitcase without wheels (never again) through the seething inferno of holiday travellers at Stansted Airport on Christmas Eve. Brrr, may I remember enough to never do that again, and may I forget the rest.

For my return to Parma, I chose to alot a hefty corner of my 15 kg to a lovely smelly bag of cheese from the well-regarded and cunningly-named Cheeses, which has been doing a queued-out-the-door trade in Muswell Hill for some years. Not least because the shop is tiny – holds three thin customers at a time, with floor to ceiling shelves of this and that to look at while you wait. It has one modest display case which manages to hold a prime selection of farmhouse cheeses from Britain and beyond. I saw a piece of Parmigiano-Reggiano lovingly displayed and simply described (“exquisite” I think was all the sign said, or needed to say) and a bevvy of French beauties perched around it in various postures of diminishment, and beyond them a hearty selection of British cheeses.

The cheesemonger looked very weary – it was getting on to the evening of December 23 and his sign advertising baby wheels of stilton had probably lured a few dozen extra souls ithrough his doors – but he cut me some fine wedges of Cornish Yarg, Berkswell and aged Caerphilly. The women behind the counter were cheery and helpful and pointed me towards some Millers Damsel digestive biscuits to go with my selection. Luckily for my baggage allowance I managed not to come away with a slate cheeseboard or jars of chutney or tins of quince cheese to go with, nor even a fragile package of inky Charcoal Wafers, though I was sorely tempted, but they were recommended for brie, camembert or goats cheese.

After a few days’ rest for the cheese, yesterday afternoon we gathered in my Parma kitchen to test our palates and practice our tasting terminology, yeah verily once more for England.

Yarg, I’d learned, was not an obscure Cornish word after all, it was the name of its early makers (Gray) turned around. A little disappointing to be disillusioned, but the cheese is made from a 13th century – and it seems a tried and true – recipe. Wrapped in nettle leaves, it looked very handsome, its ivory paste contrasting nicely with the dark green wrappings frosted by a pale mould. Lots of butter, rendered butter, and a bit of tangy sweetness – and perhaps a little pineapple? It had been described elsewhere as young with a fresh, faintly lemony taste; creamy under the crust, yet firm and slightly crumbly at the centre. And it was too. Many thumbs up for this one.

Next we examined the Berkswell, a ewe’s milk cheese made in the Midlands, and named for the village which took its name from the Saxon chief, Bercul, who was baptised in the ancient well at its centre. I read somewhere that it had been originally developed from a Caerphilly cheese recipe, although it bore little resemblance to the one we tasted after this. We admired its rind which has a tan, cobbled appearance – must be moulded in a net? We found its ivory paste smooth and firm, the tang and texture reminding us of cheddars of our pasts; a hint of animal aroma reminded us it was a sheep cheese, but the flavour was subtle and sweet. It struck us as being quite different in flavour from its Italian cousin pecorino, and people liked it for being a happy contrast to the Italian wonders all around us.

The last to fall under the knife was the aged Caerphilly; unusual, they told me at the shop, to find an aged version, as it’s usually eaten quite young. We noticed the moulds on the rind and the thick, even nail (undercrust) which when tasted was soft and silky in contrast to the dry, fine sponge of the centre. Its colour ranged from ivory in the centre to straw yellow in the nail. I’d read that it was eaten by Welsh miners to replace the salt they lost in their labours, but it wasn’t an overwhelmingly salty cheese. It had, when I unwrapped it, a whiff of ammonia but that didn’t linger after resting and cutting. It evoked aromas of yogurt most strongly, and for its texture Louisa dredged from her olfactory memory a comparison with a Greek cheese, like (but not) Halloumi. I suppose the salt content makes it a dryer cheese than most? Caerphilly is a sweet, crumbly cheese that’s nice in cooking; I remembered some Glamorgan Sausages I’d eaten at a New British restaurant once and they were a beautiful melding of salt, cheese and leek. Not nearly enough left over to cook with this time even if I wanted to…

White (Tuber magnatum) and black (Tuber melanosporum) truffles.

Truffles. Tartufi. What are they? Chocolates? Tubers, like their names? Mushrooms? An acquired taste? Why so expensive? A million questions, many appetites, much interest. And so it transpired two Saturdays ago that 22 of us jumped out of bed at some breathtaking hour of the morning and piled onto a bus, on the trail of the truffles.

An hour or two later, we disembarked in Savigno, scene of the annual truffle festival in November which I’d taken in soon after arrival in Italy, and where they take their truffles very seriously, as you might expect of a town whose population is 2000, about 200 of whom are truffle hunters.

We loitered in town for a while before heading to the forest, and had the good fortune to get a tour of the basement of La Bottega del Macellaio, a 110-year-old family business. We dodged the hams curing in the rafters to see some cured lardo which we’d heard about in our cured meats lectures; it was among the first cured meats to find protection under the Arca del Gusto, (Ark of Taste), a project of Slow Food which seeks to protect traditional food products. After at least six months of seasoning and curing it’s served in thin slices like any other meat product, eaten on hot toast.

Lots of lardo

On we went. This has been a bad year for truffles, apparently: not enough rain, and ongoing and growing problem with too many hunters, too many inexperienced dogs, and poor forest management.

Forests in Italy mean hunters of many kinds, but we were, hopefully, not going to meet the kind with guns in this one.

We were looking for Tuber magnatum, the white truffle, found mostly in northern and central Italy and also known as the Alba truffle, because the enterprising citizens of Alba thought to nab the trademark while they could, though it’s not found only there. There are other varieties in these woods as well, like Tuber melanosporum – the black truffle. Although their Latin name is Tuber, they are not tubers, vegetables like potatoes for example. They are uncultivable fungi, a symbiotic variety: they exchange mineral salts with tree sugars, which is why they are always found in the roots, or near them, of trees.

We met two kinds of truffle dogs too. The first, the Lagotto Romagnolo, resembles a poodle and is the star among truffle dogs.

Pupa the dog and Adriano the truffle hunter.

The second, Hungarian Vizla, is a short-haired hunting dog, and we had the chance to witness some truffle training of a very high spirited four-month old.

Rosita and Stella.

Both our hunters used only female dogs, and this is apparently quite common. I’d heard that pigs were sometimes used for truffle hunting, but they apparently make a terrible mess – truffle hunting is a game of stealth and concealment, and any truffle-beds must be returned to a pristine state so that the truffles may re-grow there and other hunters not see the location.

One of the tools used to dig truffles. The hunters carry long-handled short-bladed truffle spades, which double as walking sticks, and carry the sapin, a hand tool used to pry the truffle out of hiding.

Black winter truffle.

After the truffle hunt we stopped for lunch and a tour of an old flour mill, Il Mulino del Dottore, where we watched water-powered stone grinding of grain. They grind corn, wheat and chestnuts there, and the shop seemed to get a steady stream of local business. Our venue for supper, Da Amerigo, gets the flours for its pasta from this mill, which has been in operation since 1680.

The cross on the roof of the mill, surmounting the crow which was the family emblem, advised pilgrims crossing the Appenines that they could find food and lodging here.

We had a talk about truffles by longtime truffle merchant Luigi Dattilo at Appennino Funghi e Tartufi. He talked about the products – truffle oil, rice, pasta, polenta and pasta sauces flavoured with truffles – and then we watched a truffle dealer handle the merchandise – staggering to consider the monetary value of what we were observing.

He chooses them by smell, feel, weight and appearance. Because his customers may shave them at the table they need to look nice. He says that a partially-nibbled truffle is not necessarily a reject, since it says something found this one good enough to eat!

It was getting late but we found the time to taste some local wine at Vigneto San Vito and pick up a few bottles for our supper.

We then braced ourselves for a five course meal of truffles and seasonal goodies at Da Amerigo. Much loved by the Slow Food people, it’s described in the famed Osterie & Locande D’Italia guide as “a perfect combination of innovation and tradition.” Which I think we agreed with the moment the first course landed on our table.

It was a soft, warm polenta served in parfait glasses, its surface layered with shaved white truffles which we stirred into the mixture to eat — after first enjoying the perfume. Beautiful.

Swiftly followed by Parmesan gelato: parmigiano-reggiano cooked with cream, formed into gelato-sized balls, drizzled with some fine balsamico and served on a wee local flatbread. To die for.

Third starter – chicken and veal lasagne with black truffle shavings.

Mmmm… so happy…

Main course – lots of lovely chili-tossed vegetables and nuggets of fresh local pork, girded in pancetta and crowned with frizzled cabbage.

Dessert was a mercifully dainty, delicate and delicious gelato trio: pumpkin (zucca) topped with some orange marmelata, pomegranate (melograno) and persimmon (cachi).

Praise to the chefs.