Friggione recipe

Scarpetta, literally means "little shoe," God knows why. Scarpetta is the word for the act upon which a small piece of hand held bread mops up any delicious food residue in a plate and is devoured. 

Essential. Frowned upon in etiquette manuals. Not the thing to perform at a formal seated dinner. I don't usually care for that sort of table manners, so I do it all the time, regardless of dress code. That is if whatever is left in my plate is worth it and the bread is soft enough.

I'm a huge fan of scarpetta, so my dishes are usually a bit overdressed, in order to enjoy a conclusive good sweep. Be they pasta dishes, fish or meat. I usually clean the plate with the bread so carefully that I have been often called names. Or fed more food thinking my plate had been empty to begin with.

Preeminent scarpetta applies to those dishes that require large amounts of sauce, like for example a slippery plate of Bucatini all'Amatriciana, or homemade tagliatelle al ragù or a very juicy roast. Once you've eaten the food, whatever's left in the plate, is scarpetta material. Otherwise, scarpetta can be performed with those dishes whose sole purpose is being sopped by a spongy chunk of warm bread. Friggione falls into this second category.

Friggione is a tomato and onion sauce typical of Bologna, the epicurean city also known as la dotta (the learned) and la grassa (the fat).

This sauce is exclusively intended for dipping bread as a fully authorised scarpetta antipasto. Rich and absurdly tasty, friggione takes forever to make, and employs politically incorrect amounts of onion.

The time-consuming recipe to exquisite friggione, dating back to 1886, is made with the following ingredients:

1 kg (2.2 lbs) white onions, thinly sliced
500 g (1.1 lb) ripe tomatoes, peeled, seeded and finely chopped (or a 28-oz can of preserved tomatoes)
1 tbsp tomato paste
1 tbsp sugar
1 tbsp kosher salt
4 tbsp extra virgin olive oil

Thinly slice the onion (for best results, use a mandoline) and leave it to macerate with the salt and sugar in a large bowl.

Pour the onion – and the resulting maceration juice – in preferably a terracotta stewpot (not iron, non-stick, copper or enamelled) with the oil, and over a gentle heat, cook it slowly stirring with a wooden spoon.

Keep cooking at a very low simmer until the onions wilt, making sure they don’t stick to the bottom of the pot. Add a little broth or hot water should the onions dry. This could take a while.

At this point, add the chopped tomatoes over very low heat, stirring for 2 hours. Yes, maybe even 2 and a half.

No, I'm not kidding.

Adjust seasoning and keep moist with water (or a little vegetable broth) if necessary.

When your patience has completely run out and the onion and tomatoes will have become a lovely geranium-colored purée, the friggione will be ready. And it will have been worth the wait, believe me.

Buon appetito!

Filming The Life Aquatic with Steve ZIssou in Anzio

Daybreak at Anzio, 2003

This photo was taken on a chilly December morning on the Anzio coastline during a day filming. Part of the reduced crew I was working with and I were waiting for the Belafonte ship to sail by for a second unit shot. We sat there in awe of this beautiful sky, hoping the moment could be extended.

During the filming of Wes Anderson's The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou, this sunrise on the calm Anzio waters is among the fondest memories of those busy days.

Pomodori al Riso recipe

Today I'm posting an Italian summer standard: rice-stuffed tomatoes. This is a refreshing and portable summer dish, perfect for a tasty picnic on the beach.

For it you'll need: 

8 medium heirloom tomatoes
150 g (7/8 cup) Carnaroli or Arborio rice
1 bunch of fresh basil
1 pinch of dried oregano
1 clove of garlic, minced
2 large potatos, peeled and cut into small wedges
Extra virgin olive oil
Salt and pepper to taste

Preheat oven at 200° C (390° F).

Cut off the stalks at the top end of the tomatoes without discarding, you'll need them later. Spoon out the pulp and seeds and save. Place the empty tomatoes in a greased pan, cavity up, seasoning each with a pinch of salt.

In a mixing bowl, add a fistful of rice per each tomato, minced garlic, oregano and coarsley torn basil leaves. Dress with oil, season with a dash of freshly ground black pepper, and mix.

Put the tomato pulp through a food mill and fold in half of it in the rice mix. Fill the scooped out tomato shells to the brim with the dressed rice and top with the saved stalks, and pour over them the remaining tomato sauce and a little more oil. Scatter the potato wedges among the tomatoes, and season them with a pinch of salt and pepper.

Cover with aluminum foil and bake in a preheated oven for 40 minutes or until the rice is no longer al dente, but soft.

Done. Go pack the cooler with the chilled wine and the fruit salad.

Tiny Heroes

The Florence American Cemetery and Memorial site covers 70 acres, chiefly on the west side of the Greve stream. The wooded hills that frame its west limit rise several hundred feet. Between the two entrance buildings, a bridge leads to the burial area where the headstones of 4,402 military dead resting here are arrayed in symmetrical curved rows upon the hillside. They represent 39% of the U.S. Fifth Army burials originally made between Rome and the Alps. Most died in the fighting that occurred after the capture of Rome in June 1944. Included among them are casualties of the heavy fighting in the Tuscan Apennines shortly before the war's end.
In the fall of 2007 I worked on a film that narrated those very events. Miracle at St. Anna follows four African-American soldiers of the 92nd Infantry Division – known as the Buffalo Soldiers – who find themselves caught behind enemy lines and surrounded by German soldiers after one of them risks his life to save an Italian boy. They take refuge in a small Italian village on the Gothic Line, that has been temporarily vacated by the Germans during the Italian Campaign of WWII. In their company is Angelo, the small boy, shell-shocked and feverish, who seems only to speak to his invisible friend Arturo.

The story is inspired by the August 1944 Sant'Anna di Stazzema massacre perpetrated by the Waffen-SS. On May 2, 1945, the enemy troops in northern Italy surrendered. Shortly before withdrawing, the Nazi left a wake of horror, atrocity and devastation behind them. The manic rush of violence and mad killing that followed as the enemy fled these lands, accounted for the vast majority of casualties and mass-murders on the Italian peninsula.

On August 12, 1944, retreating SS men of the II Battalion of the 16th SS-Panzergrenadier Division, commanded by Hauptsturmführer Anton Galler, rounded up 560 civilans between villagers and refugees – mostly women, children and older men – brutally shot them in cold blood and then burned their bodies on the holy ground in front of the town's small church.

When we arrived in Sant'Anna on the day we were to film the massacre scene, the dawn sun was shining, much like on that dreadful mid-August morning. Young extras in period costume were shivering by the craft service table, blowing into their steaming cups of early morning coffee, and trying to get a glimpse of Hollywood. Children played football by the trailer base camp, in their 1944 attire, oblivious and giggly.

We respectfully brought about our daily chores and duties, and commenced our filming day as usual, busily organizing the first shot. It involved two simultaneous tracking dollies and a wide angle crane shot. As the grips and gaffers built the tracks and the camera department assembled their gear, I took a little stroll. I met a few silent glances from my colleagues and continued on, respectful of the place's history and aware of the stagnant negative energy surrounding me. It felt so strange to be walking on the very spot where 62 years before, such horror had occurred by the hands of other men.

I entered the church at my own risk. I had been warned by the sound engineer, my friend Maurizio. He had gone in minutes prior and exited sniffling. He's usually a big smile person, so a sad face on him stood out. I wanted to go in nonetheless, to say a little prayer for those 560 people that died on a morning not unlike that one.

The entire east-facing wall of the tiny chapel was covered floor to ceiling with small plaques, faded photos, scribbled inscriptions and epitaphs. The age of the oldest victim honored on that wall was 16. The youngest was a 2-week old infant. That wall was the children's memorial section, and the images of those 110 innocent faces staring back at me gripped my throat like a tight Nazi fist. The majority of the victims of the massacre that took place in Sant'Anna di Stazzema were children and young women. The men were either fighting, dead or hiding in the mountains surrounding the town. The few invalid elders in Sant'Anna died by the same two MG34 machine-guns that swept the church ground that day.

A sign by the exit read that the church organ was riddled with machine-gun bullets and the christening font completely destroyed by a grenade. The pews were then used for a bonfire to burn bodies. Many of the corpses were doused with petrol and then set alight. When the SS unit ran out of petrol, they used phosphorous.

As the day progressed, we reenacted the horrible events that took place on that day. I couldn't get the image of those children out of my eyes and had a very hard time trying to stay focused and do my job correctly that day. I was never that close to a war as on that sunny autumn day. I had never really understood what it must have felt like to be living it. I never quite caught the true meaning of a day to celebrate the memory of the military. Until then.

...

Italian war veterans are celebrated on June 2, on the Day of the Republic. On the Last Monday in May, I salute all the American soldiers that gave their life with valour during battle here in Italy. Besides Florence, the city of Nettuno also is home to another monumental American war cemetery. I've been there recently and it is a peaceful, incredibly quiet place by the sea, where a carpet of white stone crosses blankets the closely mowed lawn.

But today it is for those 110 children and 450 innocent victims of Sant'Anna that my Memorial Day thoughts go to. They too are heroes, and I wish to remember them because they too fought a battle on their last day. They faced fear and death with honour. They are not buried in a cemetery. They do not rest with their beloved or in holy soil. They nonetheless deserve to be mentioned and celebrated on this day. Those 560 represent the many faceless civilian victims of our wars that in each combat, give their life for no cause. For no apparent reason.

The youngest victims of the August 12, 1944 massacre

Explain the Ecstasy of St Theresa to a 3 year-old

"I saw in his hand a great golden spear, and at the iron tip there seemed to be a point of fire. He appeared to me to be thrusting it repeatedly into my heart, penetrating all the way down to my very entrails; when he drew it out, he seemed to draw them out also, and to leave me all on fire with a great love of God. The pain was so great, that it made me moan; and yet so surpassing was the sweetness of this excessive pain, that I could not wish to be rid of it."

Chapter XXIX; Part 13, Theresa's Autobiography

That's ecstasy. Here it is described with surgical precision by the saint who chronicled her own experience. The saint's name is Theresa, and the scene she describes happens every day in the church of Santa Maria della Vittoria on via XX Settembre, in Rome. It takes place in a secluded chapel owned by a noble Roman family, the last one to the left before reaching the altar.

The statues of the marble complex known as the Ecstasy of St. Theresa depict the moment described by Saint Teresa of Avila during her vivid vision of an angel piercing her heart with a golden shaft, causing her both immense joy and pain. The flowing robes and contorted posture abandon all classical restraint and repose to depict a more passionate, almost sensuous trance.

Mr E. and I walked into the chapel this morning after the last pews had been cleared following Mass. We stood there, muted by the monumental Baroque sculpture complex. The natural light coming down from a skylight above, made it all more powerful. The pain described in Theresa's bio was there displayed before us, condensed in the hardness of the snow white marble sculpted by Gianlorenzo Bernini in 1646: the solar plexus heaving, the angel's pike menacing down, the saint's face glowing with divine light. There's been copious literature written on that face. The Marquis de Sade (expert on the subject) said: "One doubts she was a saint."


There I stood, bashful and flushed, holding the sweaty, chubby hand of my astounded 3 year-old, before a stone figure having a transverberation orgasm. Bernini, a devoted church-goer, firm believer and artist of immense stature, would never have intended to depict here an episode of lust fulfilled. Instead, Bernini I'm sure, aimed to simply express the facial and body equivalents of a state of divine joy. But Theresa's face speaks volumes, nonetheless.

Next time you're ever in Rome, do take the time to visit the Conero chapel in the above mentioned Roman church, and see for yourself. Was Bernini trying to test his good fortune with a slew of wealthy benefactors by immortalizing a Saint in unsaintly attitude, or was the sensual voluptuousness of the times he lived in, take his hand too far while chiseling away?