The Cabinet of Curiosities | Issue 01
Welcome to your new favorite Italian food culture newsletter!
Cabinets of curiosities, or wunderkammers, were small collections of extraordinary objects created during the Renaissance. This is our very own Cabinet of Curiosities, dedicated to all the wonders and peculiarities of Italian food culture.
In this monthly newsletter, you can expect to find 3 pieces by alternating La Panza Piena contributors. Voices and people that you’ll meet gradually, through their narrations, stories on forgotten recipes, hidden gems, deep-dives into unique products and distinctive global perspectives on Italian food culture.
I’m so pleased to take on an editor’s role in The Cabinet of Curiosities and leave the creative writing in the capable hands of all the wonderful contributors La Panza Piena now has. This month’s pieces cover three disparate subjects and products, each more fascinating than the next. I hope you enjoy the read and are as enthusiastic as we are for this new chapter of La Panza Piena.
- Carlotta Panza, founder of La Panza Piena
The Sustainability of Lampredotto
by Francesco Pellegrini: wine lover, obsessed with NY cheesecake and nature photography fan.
In an increasingly populated world, where economic and food resources are scanter every day, trying to reduce waste has become a priority. Although the consumption of meat has decreased in recent years, we are still far from its complete elimination from people's diets (fortunately..! ndr).
These consumption habits arise the issue of wasting the less noble - but edible - cuts, which are usually discarded during the process of slaughter. One, albeit partial, solution comes from an ancient Tuscan culinary tradition, renowned for the valorization of offal, known as the quinto quarto. The king of these unique dishes is unquestionably Lampredotto.
Let’s find out what Lampredotto is: it is one of the four stomachs of bovines, the abomaso, composed of a lean and dark part , the gala, and a fatter and lighter one , the spannocchia. It is a poor and popular dish that originates in ancient Florence, to a time when peasants wished to emulate one of the dishes most loved by the Florentine nobles, the Lampreda fish. They began to cook this part of beef, aesthetically similar to the prized river fish, calling it “Lampredotto”.
There are many versions of the Tuscan comfort food, yet the most known is certainly the “street” variant. Once boiled in a vegetable broth, the Lampredotto is cut into thin slices, seasoned with salt, pepper, an anchovy, garlic and parsley sauce , and a spicy peperoncino sauce and tucked inside a panino which has previously been dipped in broth.
Lampredotto can easily be sourced in the kiosks scattered around Florence (the Lampredottai) and, considered a filling dish, it is perfect for a rich lunch break between a museum visit and a stroll through Florence’s streets.
Can Lampredotto be considered a “sustainable” food? Let’s see: it treasures less noble cuts, has a generous amount of calories, great price to quality ratio, preserves historic traditions and requires very few utensils to be consumed: literally just your hands… and a few napkins! I believe that indeed, Lampredotto is a sustainable food and am officially opening the debate for discussion.
Bunker Caciocavallo
by Laís Zimmermann: cheese nerd and food history lover.
Caciocavallo is one of the most emblematic cheeses of southern Italy. Just like mozzarella, it is a pasta filata cheese, yet, unlike its famous cousin, it thrives when aged. A young caciocavallo has a milky, yogurt-y taste and a springy, gummy texture and develops into a hard and crumbly paste, slightly pungent with strong savoury notes.
How different would caciocavallo’s final result be if its ageing environment were to drastically change? For example, from a warm and dry cave in Puglia to a cold and humid bunker in Trentino-Alto Adige.
Angelantonio Tafuno, 4th generation cheesemaker from Caseificio Stella Dicecca, in Altamura, has been making caciocavallo all his life using raw, high-quality milk from Podolica cows: a small indigenous breed known for its protein-rich milk. The cows roam freely around the Parco Nazionale dell’Alta Murgia, which translates into the cheese having a bright yellowish tone and the formation of complex flavours that evolve with the cheese’s ageing.
Angelo sent in the beginning of 2022 a fresh caciocavallo to Hubert Stockner, affineur at Genussbunker - the “bunker of pleasure” - who specializes in ageing artisanal, raw milk cheeses in his natural stone caves at the foot of the Dolomites. Carved almost like a labyrinth, the caves acted as bunkers during WWII and were later abandoned for years before Hubert transformed them into his cheese ageing cellar. Constant low temperatures of 10°C and around 100% humidity- combined with the caves' natural microflora- create a unique ageing environment that allows cheese to retain a lot of its moisture.
Alchermes, the forgotten Elixir
by Marianna Pitonzo, pasta girl, professional eater and Italian food opinionist.
When thinking of Tuscan gastronomical traditions, the first things that might come to mind are juicy Florentine steaks, hearty peasant dishes and tart Chianti wine. You would probably never imagine that Tuscany is also home to one of Italy’s most ancient and peculiar liqueurs: alchermes. Bright red, highly saccharine and filled with spices, the beverage is not so popular in modern Italian society, but it has a long and interesting history.
If its name doesn’t sound typically Italian, it’s because the original recipe for alchermes can be traced back to the Arabs, who called it al-qirmiz, referring to the crimson tint of the food colouring used in producing the liqueur. The colouring was a red powder called cocciniglia, extracted from a tiny insect by the same name, which was dried and ground into a powder (now, artificial colourings are used). In addition to the powder, the drink is made with sugar, rose water, orange peels and various spices such as cinnamon, cardamom and cloves - recognizably Arab ingredients.
It’s unclear exactly how alchermes reached Italy. We know it first appeared in Tuscany around the 14th century, most likely brought over by the Spaniards, who had been deeply influenced by the Arabs. It is almost certain that the first Florentine alchermes recipe was created by nuns as a medicine and elixir for long life. Later, its production was adopted by Dominican friars in the pharmacy of Santa Maria Novella, one of the few places it is still produced today. Around the 15th century, the liqueur grew in popularity among Florentines who appreciated it for its strong flavours and beautiful pigment. Red was considered the color of nobility, which made alchermes the drink of choice for artists and poets in Lorenzo de’ Medici’s gardens.
Today, alchermes is mainly used in baking traditional Tuscan desserts such as zuppa inglese and pesche di Prato. The majority of bottles present on the market are industrially produced, resulting in an artificial-tasting liqueur that people aren’t interested in consuming. Luckily, Italian mixologists like Oscar Quagliarini, want to revive the artisanal production of alchermes and use it to create unique cocktails and desserts. We hope this can be the beginning of a new era for this forgotten elixir.