Profile
Blog
Photos
Videos
Today was my first culinary experience in Italy, and it surpassed my every expectation. We took a bus out to the countryside where we met Colette, a Frenchwoman running an agriturismo and our cooking instructor.
We were originally supposed to milk cows (or coos, as Colette pronounces it), but unfortunately we arrived too late in the morning. However, we did get to help make ricotta cheese in the old way, stirring it in a BIG pot with a wooden stick, making sure it didn't burn. Apparently this man (in his 70s) is one of two people in Italy who still make it the old way, so this was an amazing experience.
We got to see the different cheeses that come out of the process (tuma, provola, mozarella, ricotta), and if you massage salt into tuma daily for a month, it becomes a hard cheese known as prima sale. We got to taste all of these cheeses fresh, and then taste them from a factory. I hadn't expected it, but there is a huge taste difference between the two methods, with handmade as the victor.
We finally arrived at Colette's, and the sun was shining, the weather warm, and we were in the middle of this beautiful countryside. I don't think i've seen anywhere as beautiful in my life. Because the weather was so beautiful we moved a few tables outside and proceeded to cook, first making our own pizza dough. It took about 20-30 minutes to knead this dough until it was ready to use, and mine was 3rd best in the class! not bad for a girl who doesn't know how to cook...
Next came the pizza sauce, which was more of a salsa than a sauce, with diced tomatoes, garlic, oregano, basil, and olive oil. Other toppings were fresh ricotta, sausages, sauteed eggplant or fresh mozarella. We then spread the dough into pans, put on the salsa and toppings, and waited for them to cook.
We went back outside, cleaned our tables, put on a tablecloth and set the tabel formally, as ordered by Colette. We drank a syrah from the slopes of Etna (it was cosi-cosi), ate the 9 pizzas, and had Modican chocolate, made in the Aztec way with granules of cacao and sugar, no cocoa butter. It was a DIVINE experience.
- comments