The Italian Radio Hour – ITALY by INGREDIENT with Viola Buitoni

This week on The Italian Radio Hour – Being the 6th generation of Buitoni, Viola grew up in a food loving family who believed that growing your own food was a better way of eating.
She was weaned on extra virgin olive oil and parmigiano. She first spooned ricotta in her mouth straight out of the warm whey in which the local shepherd had just cooked it. She played hide-and-seek in the room where pancetta and prosciutto were hung to cure.
Seasonal foraging expeditions were the norm, from digging mushrooms to shaking chestnuts, from collecting snails to blackberries.
In her debut book, “Italy by Ingredient Artisanal Foods/Modern Recipes”, Viola shares the history and geography of Italy’s most iconic ingredients, and gives tips on how we can incorporate their vibrant flavors and techniques into our kitchens. (Think balsamic vinegar, flakes of parmigiano reggiano, fresh ricotta and creamy grains of risotto.)

Viola is currently based in San Francisco-based where she is a cooking instructor and food writer. In 2020, the President of the Italian Republic honored her with the title Cavaliere dell’Ordine della Stella d’Italia for her work furthering the culture and business of Italian food.
Viola also leads foraging tours in Italy.
For more information, visit her website at:
https://www.violasitaly.com/culinary-tours

Good evening and welcome to the Italian Radio Hour Viana and I would like to welcome back our regular listeners and also welcome any new listeners also be sure to like us on Instagram and Facebook at Italian radio hour and subscribe to our YouTube channel to catch up on any past video

Interviews so what a better way to travel through Italy than doing by ingredients and uh today’s guest is the author Viola Buon uh who is not only a cookbook author but she is really someone that is going to give you so much information on the history of someon the ingredients that might be

Commonly seen her pantry she will tell us also how she got to this journey into the Italian cuisine by ingredient but first Italiano do you want to learn improve of Master your Italian Institute M Italiano can help located in the heart of region square m Italiano offer small group classes and one-onone private

Tutoring in person or online to help you learn Italian in no time visit us online at Instituto m.org applying for Italian citizenship need documents translation Institute Italiano provides certified translations and assistant Services be sure to visit us at institut it.org and schedule your free consultation while the wait is over

And today we’re going to have a delightful and Rich conversation with someone that I had been following and admiring for quite some time and I’m so happy fellow Roman as well that um Viola has taken time from her busy schedule to join us to tell us

About not only her book but her love for food benut via welcome to the program gra vivana I am thrilled to be here thank you and thank you for supporting my work uh so via um I always like to uh start from the beginning uh the beginning a lot of people might

Associate the last name with a tradition household uh uh name that has uh you indicated right off the book um I believe you are the sixth generation of uh um buoni and and um but you’re not just a Buon and that’s what I want to well it’s it’s good wonderful Legacy

Yes yes um it’s good I’m not just a won because as as you know the the uh company has been sold for quite some time now so um I’m I’m happy that I had more tricks up my sleeve than just being just my last name so so that was good

But yes I am the you know car that big Legacy but uh maybe maybe it was in your DNA the the appreciation for uh for food food traditions and this is where I would like to start uh take me back to your childhood in uh and you were between

Rome and Umbria I think Umbria had a very I yeah I was born in Rome uh my mother family is from Rome so I was born in Rome all myself and all of my four siblings were born in Rome but we actually grew up outside of peruja going

Towards the Lago trasimeno which is kind of I would say um slightly Northeast of peruja um and so that’s um that’s where I grew up in a in a in what used to be a very small town and is now essentially become almost like a a suburb of the

City um and I I spent all of my childhood there until I came to the states so my parents in addition to of course the family business my parents really uh loved food deeply not just not just what came um out of our out of our

Um out of the factory but they also really love food and they believe that the best food that you could have was the one that you raised yourself so we had um we had a large house I mean we were five kids so that was a given so we

Had a large house it was in the country and there was a chicken Coupe and there were um there was an Olive Grove uh vegetable garden vegetable and flow as I should say because my mother was just in love with flowers um and uh there were constant experiments so for example

There would be like oh let’s see how we can race bunnies or uh we also had a pig pen and for several years growing up there was um there was H there were pigs being fed and raised for for the winter Slaughter um so we um so that’s I grew

Up eating all that that was kind of always part of my background and I don’t really have any conscious memory without many of the ingredients that I describe in the book um so there was also because we were still really kind of out in the countryside there was also a Shepherd

Down the street that made rotta and sheep’s milk and there was a uh there was a dairy and there was the the uh I guess you call it the dairy made a milk made which came by every evening and would say how many liters would you like

And you went with your like your little B L and you say yeah one liter two liters and so on and so forth so um that magic which I realize now was magic was part of my life as I said and I never questioned it until I moved to the

States yes and I would assume that also your your your your life your peace went also with nature in that way that there were reasons for certain things and so holidays you might have had exactly so there was always is the the beat kind of like the beat of the food clock of

The Season clock so there were there were of course certain things that we expected say like cherries in the spring and pons before um before uh winter before Christmas and in fact if I think about it I can still visualize the Pimon tree changing and US kind of following

It to see to get to the point where all the leaves will come down and all you had was like these beautiful glowing orbs that were right for the picking um and so that you know of course the string beans at a certain time of the

Year and the peas and the pears and and everything would tell us what was happening next right so the it was really linked to life to give you a great example end of summer we would go Blackberry pickings because my mother loved to make jams so we’ all go she

Brought us all in a big car us and friends and cousins and you had like all these little feet running around picking blackberries for the jam and I knew what that what that meant to me is that the school year was just around the corner the summer was coming to a closing my

Pan was like as deep as it was not going to be until the next summer um and I would be going back to school very soon so uh now is his school at this point University that brought you to the states or was he a family move to the UN

No it was you know my my parents uh split parted ways in the very early 80s like 7s early ‘ 880s and my father um who had um kind of stepped back from from family business duties for a few years uh re-engaged with the um American um the the American section of perugina

Which was also part of the family conglomerate so the family said hey we need to really get this going would you like to spend some time in the US um and kind of just fix things because it had been there for a long time but it had it

Had been a little bit um neglected let’s say so my father came to the states and he took the Reigns of perugina first and then for a brief time also buoni and he ended up spending all of the 80s here which were um a pivotal year for Me

Decade for me because that’s when I finished high school so 85 came high school was done and my father said he would you be interested in coming out and see if you like it here so I said all right well let’s see and I started reading you know I have been actually

Passionate about American literature for a long time I am a huge fan of Philip Roth for example and and John Updike and me many of the more contemporary women writers um but then I also started reading things like University cataloges right College catalogues and I said hm

This actually is kind of interesting and so I said all right well I’ll try so I did and um I went to I enrolled in NYU and I studied there and um in the meantime my my father’s American American time was coming to an end because there was one more passage of

Ownership to Nestle from the person who had bought it from us um so he stayed one more year with Nestle and then he was coming back and in the meantime I had uh I started working what was supposed to be a um I would say a summer

Job while I was trying to figure out what to do after college and um it turned out that U the job was in a restaurant I should say it was restaurant kitchen a friend of a friend who was open this opening this beautiful restaurant um in Chelsea and um and I

Think within a month I knew that this is this is where I was being called I was like this is amazing I actually love this I love the activity I love the people I love the Rhythm I had a I had a chef who was very much into the way that

I was that I was raised so you would not see a tomato in the winter for example it was very much about uh both seasonal and Regional Italian cooking so um but also some reinterpretation so that the the tenets the fundamentals of Italian cooking but also brought um

Brought in in a situation that was not the Italian Countryside it was New York City in the 80s so he was able to Source beautiful things we work with the with the uh New York Union Square Garden um so my idea of food started opening up

Even more and um and I started seeing so many things and so many ingredients and I started a journey that then became my professional Journey um so uh when the impact when you first came uh was it indeed that uh everything was available to you or that

Search is kind of Little Treasure Hunt right exactly so it became a treasure hunt right so I came here and I you know I stepped off the plane I like to say that I stepped off the plane and I felt like all right no one’s going to take me

Away from this city because you know 19 New York York right do I need to say more it was like plus New York in the 80s was I don’t if any of your listeners know about it and remember it but it was just absolutely just a ferment of of fun

And delight and so you know here’s little me coming from peruja which is a beautiful but not you know compared to New York is really kind of a super sleepy Town um and so I loved it right away and then um initially I was all excited by like you know the super

Fluffy pancake stacks and and whatnot but then I realized yes that’s fun but it’s not where where I want to be to me the food part was intrinsic it was not something I could do without so I started looking right I started looking for things I was like all right well I

Need some good olive oil and I need some first the basics you know and then more and more so it it come of be it kind of became like a blood sport right where my friends would go to the Hampton for the weekends or to ski or I would be like no

I’m going up to little italyan Arthur Avenue I have to go up uh uh to the Bronx or I have to go to um you know I have to go to um to the Italian sections in Brooklyn and I I would go like all over town all over Manhattan also

Hunting for like the tiny deles because there were the big places you know there was Little Italy of course it was balduchi on Sixth Avenue um but then there were lots of little hidden gems all over town and that’s what I would do I would just like start Scouting For

Those plus of course the Farmers Market because the Union Square Farmers Market was amazing and uh what was the reaction of your friends uh did I think that you were going a little bit out of or over time you were able to get them on your side and then the difference it’s like

This is what something tastes here uh if you spend a little more or if you Source it uh from The Producers the experience elevates to the N power so I was wondering if there was anyone around you that uh uh fell into this little convincing this quality convincing um so especially for

The eating part it was not that difficult right because first of all I had a lot of Italian friends because and New York University even then was very much an international uh community so there were many Italians uh but also my non- Italian friends be them from American North American or from other

Parts of the world really did not need a lot of convincing when it came to eating a good meal plus I lived with my dad on the upper side we had like a really nice apartment so they were more than happy to leave their cram dormitories and come

Up and have a nice dinner so there was that um but also yes there were definitely a few friends who engaged in this search um and then there were also um the friends who may not engage all the time but they wanted to know when

The time came so I kind of became the the go-to person so if you needed something that had to do with food you called Viola and she would tell you oh that’s where you can find it and uh I think you were also able to Source uh

Certain types of food and I think this is going to come out also when we talk about a book and not necessarily in Italian Only stores because there are some other cultures like some other Mediterranean cultures that might have similar ingredients so that you might have uh found um satisfying your uh your

Needs but uh well we’ll keep also some of those uh places that you do mention in the book as we touch some uh of these ingredients so then uh where and you had also a a caring business when you were still in in in New York and then now

You’re connecting from San Francisco some some life events we’re like so fast forward in so um to get you out of New York and get you all the way to San Francisco um so yes I had a I had a catering business say I had about six

Years of uh kind of honing my chops in both back and front of the house I should say um in which included by by the way which is not mentioned in the book but it is a uh most people look at me and when I say that they say what

Included a year and a half in Hawaii working at a five-star hotel um as a a front of the house room service manager um so that was great School in terms of learning how to interact with people how to um interact with guests because ultimately when you cook professionally

You think of your of your customers as guests right um and uh so there was that and then at some point this um Milanese woman who was a friend of a friend um and I cross paths and we were both looking for the next step she because

Her kids began going to school she she was a little older than I am and me because I was like I am done if I have to work this much I need to be working for myself and not for others um so we started catering and initially was a

Homebased business um eventually the homebased business became big enough that we locked to a place outside and we opened the store on Madison in 78 so we had a store for about a couple of years um and already at the end of the first year we looked at each other and we said

This is not a lifestyle that we can possibly sustain we were you know it was seven days a week it was 12 13 14 hours a day um and then you got home and you still had things to do and we thought maybe um

We had in Italian we say we had taken a step that was longer than our leg so um So within a year we kind of decided okay we need to scale this back and in the meantime what had happened is that I had started dating a man who’s now my

Husband and he was lovely and delightful and it was really kind of a beautiful amazing connection except that he lived in San Francisco and I was still in New York um so we kept uh the way I like to say it is we kept breaking up but um

That didn’t work so I moved to s Francisco we got married and had a baby instead so I don’t know if it is it was along the way or um also by being in San Francisco that your career also native hating people contining to FL and flourish uh cooking demonstrations you

Have and you deal a lot with Italian Cultural Center San Francisco I do yeah so I took I have to say when I got to San Francisco um I mean initially was supposed to be okay let’s see how this goes because you know it was like after

A breakup period we were like okay we this this is crazy right because we we keep like circling back to each other so I had a super quiet summer because we are closed the stop the shop and I was you know we I was doing some freelance

But I was doing pretty high end catering so everybody um to whom I was catering in New York in the summer goes away they leave to Europe they leave to The Hamptons there’s hardly any one of the people who wear my core business so my husband John said um why don’t you come

And spend a couple of months here with me in San Francisco and let’s see how it goes and it went so well I was pregnant within like a couple of weeks so you know but I got I got there I think in uh mid July maybe and by um or maybe early

July and then by my birthday August five I had a positive pregnancy test so I was like well this went pretty well and so I stayed um and John and I got married and uh you know the first few years I kind of took a step back because at this

Point I was already well into my 30s and I felt that I was going to have this child and I might have others but it wasn’t a given because of my age so I said all right let me you know let me spend some time let me focus on this let

Me enjoy this maternity Journey that I have been that I’ve been craving for such a long time um so I spent probably the first three four years very engaged with my with my kid also I was having some uh family but my parents at that point had were unfortunately dealing

With long illnesses that led to their death so I was going quite a lot back and forth between Italy and and San Francisco in fact my kid My Kid’s first language is Italian he learned Italian before he learned English so um and then at some point I realized that you know

We needed to to say okay we’re either here or there we can’t be in both places and he Ernesto my child started going to um preschool first and and at this point I had a lot more free time and I said okay what am I going to do next and I

Tried re-engaging in in uh catering and restaurant but honestly vivana pretty soon I realized this is not for me you know I don’t want to be um I don’t want to be out every evening I don’t there’s not enough money lifestyle that requires a major sacrifices yeah you know Miss

Missing a Christmas of your like four fiveyear old kid is is worth no money is is good enough for that so um so I had this idea that maybe teaching was was up my um was next mostly also because I had informally done it for such a long time

Right that I cooked alongside friends I have been telling everybody where to get this and where to get that and how to choose it so I um turned to our Italian culture Institute here in San Francisco and to the consulate and I said look you know they were saying okay we need a

Bigger audience they felt that that the audience was not big enough to sustain the activities they were doing I said why don’t we talk about food a little more because every time that we talk about food uh we get a lot of people so they said oh yeah that’s a good idea why

Don’t you propose something so I proposed a I proposed a the what do you call it a series a series of events that was based on education and I wanted it to be both a theoretical and practical education so in addition to talks you know we presented books we talked about

Ingredients we talked about traditions and I also flanked it with some very small uh lessons like cooking classes and which at the time I was doing in the consulate Kitchen in San Francisco um they were very tiny because this is not a big kitchen it was essentially like a

Nice home kitchen so just six people at a time around a square table and we would uh meet around somewhere around 10: in the morning and then go on cooking until lunchtime and have uh and have lunch around you know kind of a lunch dinner like a late lunch early dinner so we

Spend the better part of the day cooking essentially um and it was it was delightful I mean it was just great and this uh started Gathering me a very very um a very faithful following and also it caught uh it caught the uh the imagination of a reporter in our local

Newspaper the San Francisco Chronicle mostly because of the idea of the consulate right uh because you know it’s the access part you don’t get to go to the consulate the the backside of the consulate unless I take you there so um he wrote a beautiful article about my

Work which was like a whole page in the style section we’re talking 2010 I think yeah which came out and that kind of propelled me to um Citywide attention and from there then I also started teaching at um another school in San Francisco called 18 reasons which is a

Beautiful nonprofit uh Community School cooking school and then um eventually there was another school that opened about six seven years ago and I’m also teaching Italian food there and uh I’ve also taught in at Italy in various CI cities I have taught in other schools I’ve done collaborations with other

Chefs and um and then I also was doing um some collaborations with the Italian trade agency which would come to me and say hey we have a we have a Trade Fair and we need someone talking about pruto Dima or parano and so I would go and be

There kind of like the spokesperson present and taste taste to their to their potential buyers and also all this work uh earned in 2020 the title by the president of the Italian republic for indeed to for your work furing the culture and business of Italian

Food that’s it was right in the midst of Co Viana so now I’m uh leing through your your book and I really really love the the the approach because again we talked about uh the flavors that people associate with Italian cuisine uh but not necessarily a regional book or

Anything it just kind of um um you know divided into uh different sections that I would like to uh for you to address so the five sections in the book the first one is about condiments we’ll be talking about balsamic vinegar and uh Capers uh then we have the cereals and the rice

And we had also Valentina the rice work um we’ll talk about the dairy uh some meat and uh fish and I think we should get into this because um um it’s going to really open up the Horizon of a lot of our listeners and viewers and I have

To share the the first you look so a piece like you are such a new element in this picture that I just love you know it gives that element of authenticity said this is my world this is my Italy so uh let’s uh let’s start with the first

Section uh tell us what we should all know about uh and not bsic vinegar but also the um the uh other ingredients that you talk about in this section thank you so first of all I want to say one thing about the book that I love the

Fact that you caught its spirit and its nature because I want your listeners to know that this is really a book written for home Cooks so this is not what I I like to call Project cooking right where you’re like okay it’s going to take me

Three days or a whole day I uh very you know very um knowingly left out fresh pasta noi anything that require leaving uh because especially with the pandemic because this book was part of this book came from the time where I was we were all locked in I realized I mean I knew

It before but I realized that people really need this skill of cooking at home not not everyone needs to be a master chef but we all need to be able to put a nice meal together that is flavorful that is good that is also based on what is

Readily available and that’s this book right so my philosophy behind it is you build a pantry of really impactful flavors and then you have your local food shed whatever that might be and you cross a local food shed with these super impactful flavors and that’s how you have easy cooking with great ingredients

Um so the book as you said is divided in five sections the first one is what I call the condiments condimenti I struggle with these words because it’s not you know it I was like okay what do we call this and then I came up with condiments because of its Latin root it

Is what you season with what like you make sauces with and U the three elements that I brought in here are um balsamic vinegar and the second chapter is is dedicated to conserve Tomatoes not fresh tomatoes but tomatoes that go in a can a jar in a paste in a bottle um and

Then the third one are olives and capers and the next section is cereals and then we have cheeses and then uh salumi and last but not least fish so let’s start with the condiment I love to talk about balsamic vinegar first when your listeners are still like you know with

Their ears pricked and really listening I like to say before you fall asleep I’m going to tell you balsamic vinegar because I would say that balsamic vinegar is the ingredient that needs the most is ambiguation in the Italian Pantry um most people say oh it’s like absolutely a must of of the

Italian pantry and you know the truth is that the vast majority of Italian pantries until maybe like 10 15 20 years ago didn’t have any balsamic vinegar most people didn’t even know what balsamic vinegar is and I would argue that most people still don’t know right

So let’s start with what how how was he born very brief history so we’re looking at the the region of uh the the eastern part of Emilia Roman so the regions the provinces of bologa sorry mod re Emilia uh which were independent dutches at the time and uh ruled by some very wealthy

Families and we um we hear talk of an exceptional vinegar coming out of this area of the world uh already back in the in the year 1000 and some so there’s been talk of this exceptional vinegar making area for quite a few centuries uh and in 17 in the mid 1700s it’s the

First time that we actually can document the word balsamic related to vinegar and it was it was used to kind of uh set aside and set apart a production of the vinegar that was especially Exquisite in the palas of Sam duuk um so at this point we have the two words that are

Associated we’re looking at 1746 if I’m not mistaken and um and then they start going together but for quite some time they still remain first of all very relegated to the area right because of course Italy was all fraction in small states and countries and duchies and and

Whatnot and also they really kind of remained in the in the attics of the noble and Rich families yeah so they were still for the for the consumption production and use of the wealthy um but little by little we have a middle class that is grown and becomes richer so they

They also start having the money for to make these products and also what is happening is that these are becoming um really kind of a sign of wealth and they start becoming passed down from family to family so for example there’s a a woman gets married a rich woman gets

Married part of her dowy is a battery of balsamic vinegar um a child is born especially a a woman a girl is born and and she gets the her own balsamic vinegar battery that is still the case today by the way right so the kids when they’re born they get their own balsamic

Vinegar thing but it’s both for girls and boys nowadays okay wow that’s um so then you know move forward to the 20th century mid 20th century we have um World War II and then after World War II towards in sometime in the 50s Italy experiences a big economic boom right

It’s the it’s the postwar economic boom and so a lot of um these things that are that are status symbols so to say right if you could get this is because you had money uh start becoming coveted by everyone and so what happens there is someone who says oh look everybody wants

Balsamic vinegar but no one really knows what it is so let’s just make something that approximates it because you know whatever it’s everybody nobody really knows what the real thing is supposed to taste like and here starts the slow spread of balsamic vinegar throughout Italy first um and you know you’re

Looking the first time I tried balsamic vinegar was with my parents in uh we were in bologna and we you know they left us alone at a restaurant and there was this this waiter who like dropped this thing that looked like Silk I’m like what is that on our tortellini and

I was like oh my God this is amazing I think it was my sister and I um we were six and eight one of my sisters and this was back at the time where where leaving your kids alone in the care of waiters at restaurants was absolutely normal

Understand me it’s not anymore but back then it was fine you would like you know you would get like a stranger on a train and put your kids in and said oh can you make sure it gets off at this station like this does not happen anymore but um but

Yeah they used to be that way and you know many of us survived so um so I um so yeah that was that was how I first met balsamic vinegar and then my parents of course loved it because my parents loved both the food that we made but

Also they loved all all kind of different foods and um and uh so then you know by I would say probably by the 70s he started really getting outside of its area of production and then by the 80s early 90s he that start coming to America um at some point during this

During this journey the people would be making balsamic vinegar right for a long time said hold on a second you know there are like we my family my family’s well-being depends on this and I put years and years into this and then here comes some guy who who like in 10 days

Produces something and they sell it as balsamic vinegar and completely undercut what I’m doing so what is it that they do this is the question right why why can you pay as much as like three $400 for for like 125 ml bottles um versus like you know the five bucks you play

Pay a Trader Joe for something that’s called balsamic vinegar so what they do the people who do it right and I’ve been doing it for centuries they um take grapes they crush them and they have what you call the the must right which is the very first way the very first

Stage of even the wine fermentation so you take the mas and you cook it down up to a point where it’s really reduced I would say by about 30 40% but it’s still alive so it can still change and then through a series of um kind of changes mostly they start an aesthetic

Fermentation that reduces it even further and then start what they call this uh what they call a battery which is a series of at least five um barrels that are decreased decreasing in size and first goal they fill them all and then they leave them open with there

Just a little piece of cloth that opens it so that no extraneous body gets into it and um they kind of let it do its thing in an attic where it benefits from weather patterns from light from winds you know there are usually windows on

Both sides sides um so that they get a certain kind of wind going from one side to the next and then once a year they go back and then they do what they call pouring and topping travaso and Calo so they start from the smallest one and

They refill it with the one after that and so on and so forth and then the biggest B the biggest Cask in the battery is filled from the new batch of the cook grape Mast um so and this you may have noticed that I mentioned

Nothing but cook R Mas that is the one ingredient that goes into vinegar that is transformed through years and nothing else can go into it and so these years need to be at least 12 so you cannot call a balsamic vinegar traditional unless it’s 12 years old at least so

This word that I just mentioned traditional is key so the two words balsamic and vinegar you can apply them to many different things right there’s lots of things that are vinegar you can make vinegar from fruit you can make vinega from from apples from grains from lots of different things um balsamic

Same thing I mean you can call a cough syrup balsamic in Italy as you know Balsam is the word for conditioner my my kids hair shampoo is a balsamic shampoo so so what does that mean really nothing the two words separately uh together they start having a a better you know

Better more deeper meaning but the European Union a few years ago ruled that no one could these two words separately or together but what they did say is that you can take these two words and you can connect other things to it and then you can have something that can

Be protected what are the other terms that we can connect to them are origin so where does it come from and process so how it’s made so the word traditional is the process word right so it tells you that this is made in a traditional way which is regulated by a Consortium

By the European Union um and then the other one is the origin it can only come from Moda or from reia so it has to have the it has to have these words traditional balsamic vinegar from Moda or traditional balsamic vinegar from Ria um the other thing that it needs and

I’m going to show you is a seal of quality from the European Union uh which designated as a PDO product so product uh production of design Origins and it looks like this I’m sure you’ve seen it I know so it’s kind of like a gold and

Red star that gives you um a certain peace of mind to know that that’s done by someone who knows what they’re doing so once this thing is ready 12 years has gone have gone by now there’s an outside body that needs to say this actually can be called traditional balsamic vinegar

And the outside body does not know who the producer is this is to avoid any kind of favorite is so they tried and they said yes this cut the master you can borrow it but they’re not it’s not the producer who borrows it it’s also again an outside organization that Bots

It has to make sure that are no interference right because the producer might say okay great you’ve done it now I’m going to put in a bottle and add other stuff that make this cheaper um once they’re all bottled and sealed at this point then the producer can fix

Their own stamps uh the bottles all look the same which I will show you what they are probably the on with little belly yeah the little pffas bellies they’re even on the they’re even on the cover but this is the one that I have now and

This is the pffas belly is for the Moda one the reia one looks like a like a tulip skirt like an an upside down tulip yes um and the also the the um the kegs so to speak leotti um they have to be a specific uh you can’t just use any wood

You can no you can’t you can not use any wood and also you cannot use any grape you can only use about five six types of grapes that are from the area but also have to be grown in the area because if you take uh you know Lambrusco grape you

Can grow Lambrusco anywhere you know you can grow it in France you can grow it in Sicily in Umbria whatever but they are not allowed to use uh grapes that are not grown within a very certain very specific area um so many the the better

Ones that I have tried I mean it’s it’s always a a really good product but I find that the ones that really are amazing and completely worth the money are the ones of producers who go Vine to borrow right which means they have their own Vineyards because that way they can

Really control the production um they can decide when it’s time to to uh pick the grapes which is usually after the wine Harvest because they need more sugar so they leave they leave the grape on the on the vine more longer because they want that sugar to develop um so

They they can decide okay now it’s time instead of just going to someone and you know letting someone else make that decision for them um so they really can can control as much as possible all the stages of production and so this one that I showed you is from an naaya that

I love called kadal non which is in vinola in the province of mod it’s a brother and sister team and they are just such production they have their own Vineyards and then they bring it all the way to the traditional balsamic vinegar and they actually just certify their

Vineyards as organic it was a very long process but they are just getting the the certification for the last Vineyard so that is indeed visiting in achaya is definitely an experience worth and uh abut going through also the different U kind of vinegar tasting so to speak

Because even you know we’ll talk about a couple of your recipes here uh where we um might think about uh balsamic vinegar more as a dressing but not for you cocktail you make a dessert with it so and also there is the reduction that makes it really something

Delicious so let’s talk about reducing vinegar right because this this balsamic vinegar so this has been around for this is the dop so this is like a 12 year old Bor right probably more by now but you know when I it’s it’s designated as a 12y old so the 12y old is one

Designation and then the next one is what we call the extrao which needs to be at least 25 years old and that’s for the mo for the Moda the reia actually has one in between they go by color they do uh silver Lobster and gold and so the

Silver is 12 the lobster is at least 18 and then the gold is 25 um so if I take this I’m going to show you something I’m opening this and look at how long it takes for it to comes down yep it’s very mhm there you go so and it’s usually

Just one drop worth uh to feel your entire mouth I mean yesterday all the way back here yeah yesterday when I was just making a basic reduction from one of your recipes first of all you know you can see how liquid the vinegar is and then once you reduce it uh you can

See also how it stays on to the um so I could not just stop like once I got to the point that I needed and then I went back to it I was before watching a little bit on TV I was like I can just

Eat it as if it were Nutella you know what I mean complete different flavor but it is so powerful so and you can you can put you know you can put it in a like I do cocktails but sometimes I just put it in water you

Know you just put it like in sparkling water it’s delicious so my what I what I was saying is that this is you know this one is not something you don’t want to reduce this any further right because it’s going to get burnt essentially but there is another type of vinegar which

Is called balsamic um aeto balsamic deoda so balsamic Vin from Mona so we’re bringing in not the process but the provence which is kind of a product which is more modern and has position itself between the offer and the demand so to say right there’s a lot of demand

For balsamic vinegar not a lot of traditional balsamic vinegar and also traditional balsamic vinegar is expensive and it’s not for every pocket so so um a um a group of um a group of producers kind of put their heads together and said okay how do we how do

We meet this demand you know this is kind of it feels like a like an untapped opportunity so they developed a product which is positioned itself somewhere between a super sharp red wine vinegar and the kind of rotund and beautiful sweet roundness of the of the traditional balsamic and it’s made with

A part of very age balsamic and a part of red wine vinegar and then you can add in other things including some caramel to um hasten the formation of both color and viscosity so the the latitude is a little wider here in terms of where you

Can get your products and um and where you can um and how you can the percentages of the different components which means you get a much less expensive product and this is what we call the aeto balsamico deoda right it’s no traditional here but you still need

To have the Providence and what you have is the Blue Seal which looks just like the Red Seal but it is blue instead of red so here are like the two the two seals um yeah so that is the vinegar this one the traditional balsamic uh sorry the a from no traditional take

That off um that you can use more for like a salad dressing or for a reduction that is not just a dressing but it’s also a cooking ingredient this one the traditional is something that you put in a cocktail that you put over cheese that you put on vegetables um but you don’t

Really put heat to it because you take away this incredible nature that has been developed over like years and years and years um so I suggest to people always like have both in your pantry because they have different functions um and uh also not only have both in

Different in your pantry but also in terms of how do you buy uh a non-traditional balsamic vinegar just a balsamic vinegar from Mod well you know this is a situation where price really is going to tell you what you’re getting right because obviously the higher the percentage of non-age vinegar um

Elements the least expensive the less expensive is going to be so you can get a balsamic vinegar with a gold seal that’s like seven eight $9 but you can also get one all the way up of something that can be like $40 $50 obviously the

One that’s $40 $50 is going to give you a much better product I usually tell people just stay somewhere in the middle right just go around you know maybe 15 something like that that’s going to give you a a product that is that is good

That is um that is reliable so to say in the way that it’s made um it it is controlled as an organism that says yes this is a reliable producer that uses um good practices and what we mean by good practices is also you know don’t forget

It’s also the human factor right uh they don’t use um underpaid labor they they adhere to all the practices of production which include the way that you treat the people who work for you which is important right um because ultimately love and and just being a

Good person ends up going in what you do right what you make especially when it comes to food so that that’s the important part so that’s the story of balsamic vinegar and uh and it’s very fascinating to me how it’s How just misunderstood this product has been um I

Have a question regarding the um recipe that you have which is crota yes uh so is this uh a childhood favorite or is it a something that you develop over time uh because anything that like a reminds me of crem MOT flan creme caramel it brings me back to my

Childhood so I was curious to to see if there was some memories associated with so definitely definitely a childhood flavor meaning that that you know that that kind of uh the creme caramel you know crem caramel was the thing that you had when you went to when you went to a

Um to a restaurant right you know your mother wasn’t going to make crem caramel like my mother never bothered with things that needed too much technique so K was really a restaurant thing but I had a nanny who made something we call lat puges which is like a cooked milk

Type of thing that I loved um so this thing is a super quick reconstruction of that that um so how did it come about I think it came actually I think it was born during the pandemic because it was kind of like a cheat on pastry cream um

And during the pandemic I was making this like kind of I called it um stay home and cook Italian and my husband and I a few times a week would do like these silly videos of me making like super quick things um and this was one of them

Because this takes no time right so you put it together in like what five minutes five minutes and the and then the oven does the job and so I initially it was just the cream there was nothing on it it was just a cream and then I

Started playing like I put Jam under it and then I started putting like little pieces of chocolate and then nuts and then eventually one day I was like oh let me try with balsamic vinegar and it kind of worked so I just put the balsamic vinegar I love that uh I love

That um that uh contrast between just this like roundness of the vinegar with with its sharpness why because it has acidity but it’s not like a super sharp acidity it’s like a very lovely and round acidity with the sweetness of the cream because this is just cream sugar

And egg right that’s it you don’t have anything else in fact I have some of my friends and followers who make it with milk to keep it a little lighter yeah you can also make it with milk obviously with cream it’s got a much nicer mouth

Feel but you can also substitute the the cream for milk okay so that’s you made it this is my attempt you know what was the most difficult part of it not to eat them all before we had to we got to this St so uh basically if you would allow me

This I think it’s a recipe that many people would appreciate um if you allow me to share usually on Fridays I do my little cooking videos and uh uh it will be it will be I think a nice experiment so absolutely would be my honor I’m definitely not in my kitchen right now

But the one thing is that you go around and you you loosen up the um the edges and uh uh let’s see and then the flip that’s where uh Viola will tell you don’t be shy don’t be afraid because the cream is going to feel it yeah food is

Like dogs you know they know when you’re you’re afraid let’s see what we’re going to get here and so here we are voila um even though you say it’s not a pretty dessert because you know obviously it’s cream so it will move around it is the most delicious thing that I have tasted

In so long thank you and as and as I said good and my husband is traveling this week he’s not gonna he’s not gonna get for me usually I’m the one always offering the last one now the first one the second one the third one and the fourth one will be all for

Me they’re very easy to make on the plus side so you could surprise your husband when he comes back yes absolutely so so while I’m uh probably muting myself for a second um still in the same section um maybe we can spend a couple of minutes

Uh I think Capers are here because you also talk about the um uh yes Capers you talk also about the flavors of the Capers different type of Capers can you educate us about Capers so uh Capers are a bush that is born you need a lot of

Sun of direct sun for Capers um and they are a beautiful Bush that that sprouts either out of walls in Italy you see all these like cascaded they look like hair wigs almost they coming out of walls of cracks in the walls and also you find

Them on the ground and they kind of go up you know they’re like they’re like um a firework they go up and then they come down and they kind of climb their way all around um so a caper starts with a little bud which is a tiny tiny Bud that

Starts the process and that is the um that is the Caper itself obviously it has different St stages right you can get it when it’s a tiny bud and all the way up until it’s much bigger and it’s almost beginning to open into a flower

Um so the those those are all Capers but they have different denomination according to how big they are they can start at like 2 millimeters and go all the way up to like 10 millimeters um the price also changes so being the most expensive are the tiny ones all the way

To the ones that are bigger that are the least expensive so um when I cook like if I take the Capers and I chop them and put them in a sauce for example I’m going to go for the less expensive ones but if they’re just on top or if I’m not

Chopping them then I will get the ones that are a little smaller so I usually have like you know three different kinds of Capers like three different calibers in my kitchen I don’t suggest everyone do does that I mean you have you have to understand that I do this for a living

So I have you know I have 10 types of flowers and five types of Capers um but the thing that is interesting about capers in in more recent time is that uh we have understood that you know we you can eat most parts of a plant so this

Whole plant cooking and and eating is just as expensive as sorry as important as whole animal eating so when you take a plant experiment with everything which is what has been happening so for example Caper leaves right um in small Islands Caper leaves have been part of

The diet for a long time people make salads with them generally they need to get cooked down otherwise they’re quite l in a little bit but they can also be conserved so fapo conserved in oil is now um fairly easy to find ingredient in Italy and with some scouting in the

States too I love them on salad uh but they are also sometimes can stand in for capers in a recipe um you can have them whole if you want but you can also just cut them in very small threads um also the the uh what we call the geroli so

The sprouts uh when there are like the tiny leaves and they start and it’s like the Caper tips let’s think of them as Caper tips and also chefs in Italy use the flowers which are beautiful when they become like these flowers they’re kind they’re mostly white but with some

Um some fuchsia layering and they have like this things like this Feathering that comes in on top you don’t find those here just because obviously they don’t travel very very well but the chefs are using them um and last but not least is what we call the Caper berries

So after every everything else is done you are left with this like huge very sey thing um that is reminding in flavor of a a cornishon like one of those little girkins that you eat with the with the cold cuts um so yeah so that those are the different stages and those

Are all the things that you can that you can eat of a in a caper and if you look for them as I said you can find the leaves you can find the buds you can find the different types of Capers and even the Caper berries

Wonderful so we before we move on on to the next section just one little message from our sponsor my first cup of coffee sets the tone for my entire day and I get my coffee at La Prim espresso La Prima has been brewing Pittsburgh Express coffee

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Get La Prima espresso coffee at your door okay so uh in the second section you talk about cereals here it’s a variety of different um products that will Encompass rice uh farro Peta uh we did have a conversation about rice we had a podcast all about rice um which is

Uh fascinating but I also would like make maybe to focus with you on Faro uh because there are many different varieties and not everyone might be familiar with all the uh different types and so forth yeah I should you know it’s interesting because the serial sections

Are the ones that took me the longest to write the opening to them because you know when it comes to kernels and Grains uh there is a science behind it right there are people tell you know this is it this is that and this is you know

This has got two things and this has got one whatever so um farro was especially difficult because here in the states people say farro is emmer farro is perro is Pelt farro is inor farro is this and far is that and then people say oh no but scientifically they’re not related

Or um so I did a lot of different um of research right and so finally I landed since I am talking to the consumer I landed on the the decision that what I wanted to tell consumer is not what science was saying or not saying but

What they were buying so if we looking if we’re looking at the commercialization of farro uh there are three types of farro there’s a farro medo farro which is the medium farro most common one we’re talking size then there’s a farro Picolo little farro and then a farro Grande which is which is

Bigger the biggest so um there’s also farom mono and which is the monok cokum is got only one kernel inside and theum has more um and then there are different ways in which is it it is processed so it can be whole kernel it can be partially hauled we

Call it pearled because it’s not literally hold but it’s kind of like bust and shine like a pearl and then there is semi Pearl which is somewhere in between um so in terms of size in commercially Faro Piccolo is inor r I is emmer and farro Grande is

Pelt right now some people will say that’s not right they will go all up in arms and those scientifically that may be you know not entirely 150,000% correct I can tell you that commercially that is what you get right so um how do we use the different

Ones first of all we should talk about the one that’s more common and that’s the the medium size so the farom which is emmer um that is kind of to me that the Workhorse so when you’re getting something that says farro 99% of the time you are getting the emmer the farro

Medo um again it can be whole kernel it can be um it can be per completely pearled it can be semi- pearled semi PE is the one that I like the most it has um kind of like a reasonable amount of cooking time but it is also keeps the keeps the bite very

Nicely um the farro the farro perlat cooks very quickly I mean you can cook it in like 10 minutes but you have to be super careful because it gets mushy if you don’t if you don’t keep your eyes on it um so the farro semi Perl the one

That kind of keeps it bite it’s night it’s bite nicely without having to cook 45 minutes is what I use the most and I use it it’s kind of like you know it goes into soups it goes into salads um um it goes you can do something that we

Call farotto which is a derivation of rotto so treat it like a rotto um so that’s my my kind of go-to but I also have all the other ones right and the the fop picol only has one thing one kernel inside and then the big one what

Is what is spelled and is commercialized as farro Grande can have like three up to three or four different different grains inside um you also recognize them because of the number of spikelets that they have going you know one is like all like this very orderly the other one

Goes on all sides and the third one is like super just much WI Wilder um and um the Faro Piccolo which is the in corn is is I think if you if I were to use it for me the best way to use it is a soup

Because it’s tiny and it’s really kind of mixes well with everything that goes inside and it definitely has a more intense flavor so among the three I would say that in terms of flavor in corn is the one where you get where you get the really great flavor in fact if I

Can suggest one brand and I’m going to go out of Italy here but there is a grain maker in the States called bluebirds whose work I absolutely love and they make a farro Picolo inor which is Sensational out of this world yeah it’s really so so good um so and then so

Then you know what can you do with it you can also make flour so if you have a flour it’s going to be a Faro um you can make soups you can make salads you can also buy cracked farro I have a soup with crab and crack farro in the in the

Book which I think it’s great and that is uh one of my I like to look at it as a bow to bow my Origins and my place of read of living because as you know dungeon crab is huge in San Francisco but I grew up with farro which is a

Super ancient grain by the way I mean it predates wheat we find it as far as like a truscan times and uh so far does have a little bit of gluten as well so yes so it’s not gluten yes yes and then also there is a a family story that put far

On too oh my God yes yes it was a family story so my brother my brother was the oldest of the five of us was the first one to get married and it was a huge wedding you know it was the boy it was the first one

So I think there were like 400 and some people um and my you know because of like my we decided not to assign tables because we it was so we knew we would have created some strip so we said let’s just not assign table and let’s like get

Everyone doing their own thing that was not that was not probably a good thing because then everybody wanted to sit with everyone and there was no space and it was kind of a messy Affair and then and it was super hot it was like so hot

And we were like under distant and and you know it was acting like a steam chamber almost so the person who catered it this was done in my father’s um in my father’s house um out by theot trasimeno the person the person who catered it um had this kind of like lukewarm

Um almost almost not chilled but you know very kind of thirst quenching farro soup that was made with Arch chokes and the moment they sat it down and people started eating it was like a quiet and just a sense of unity that all of a sudden we all like each other it doesn’t

Matter where we were sitting so um I it’s always been like a big thing in my mind and I always had far my own life it was always you know I don’t remember time before farro but that was the time where I was like that where it just kind

Of got fixed in my in my ingredients that I always had because I associate I associate farro to this kind of like this oh we can do this you know so yeah so I love Faro uh can we uh pick your brain about the cheeses that you mentioned the parm Pino mozzarella deot

Bata just a little bit about the differences processes um you know maybe also the difference of some of the products for instance theota you might get here it’s a little grainy versus R off the uh the shepherd but um you know probably you get this question quite a bit about

Parmesan and picino they interchangeable what to do with one what not to do the aging process so um illuminate us so let’s so let’s start with parmesano right because that’s like who doesn’t know parano so first of all parano is parano right we call it parmo reano we don’t call it

Parmesan uh we don’t call it you know whatever rean we just reano everything it’s if you want the real thing it’s parmo reano in fact his name is protected the same way where you cannot protect the balsamic vinegar think you can really protect the parmesan um and so parano is what we

Call a type of Grana cheese and that is a name that’s refer refers to the um to the size of the the grains when we cut it right when when it when the curve gets cut into small pieces you get this size that are like a grain Grana right

And that’s what gives parmo that like nice crystallization the crumb in the mouth yeah so parano is made with cow’s milk and it’s made with milk uh that is fully fat so there’s no there’s no real thing yes thing fat milk um and uh it is

Made with um Ren it’s not vegetable Ren so it’s it’s a rened that comes from a Cal’s a Cal’s stomach and it is made with just these two elements so the salt is brought in um is brought in from the outside meaning it sits in a salt

Solution you don’t rub it with salt but you do sit it in a salt solution um and it is uh it ages again your looking at around uh 12 to 16 months before it can be even be called parmesano it goes through the same thing as the aeto balsamico there’s a outside outside

Entity that comes in and they test the wheels buy about one by one they test it I mean they used to test it with hammers like little mallets and also there is like a a long thing like a a horse bone when I saw Theo production actually have one um that’s

Called yeah that goes in and tells them where it is nowadays honestly they actually they have amazing um amazing uh equipment they have like these things that essentially give you an MRI of the parmesano and they can tell you if there are things like irregularity inside because sometimes you can see like if

There’s like a bubble something that’s going wrong inside you’ll see like a big hump but not always sometimes it looks perfectly fine and then you go and you look at the inside and it’s not so Pine um so as I said they do like the scanning of the parm which is

Fascinating I’ve seen it um when I was in Italy a few years back and it was it was just great and so um the parano that’s not going well is taken out of the you know out of the production um unless it’s gone really bad it doesn’t necessarily get thrown out it’s just

Gets you know it gets um just ground and then uh just sold at a lower price right because what what it means is sometimes sometimes as I said there’s something that is bad and dangerous and then that goes away and it gets destroyed but sometimes it just gets little defects

That are not going to make imperfections um and so that’s that’s what happens to it but um a good parmo will have age for at least 12 months generally um I would say if it’s if it’s less than 12 to 16 months is you know not parmo first of

All but also I think you want to stay over 16 months what do you do with it so the younger the parmo the creamier it’s going to be so you’re doing you’re making something where you want the parmo to really melt inside your dish then stay with a younger parano how do

You know you take it between your fingers I mean first of all you look at it right it’s clearer like it’s a little lighter there’s not going to be as much crystallization and crumbliness you take it between your fingers you go like this and it kind of just becomes um like a

Flat thing right so then the further up you go and you will take the this little piece of parmesano you will go like this and it will crumble rather than flattening and it’s going to go look much more yellow and it’s going to have the crystalization and the and the

Crumbling sensation in your mouth um usually you know stay between 24 and 36 if you’re using one parmesano for everything uh when it gets to above 48 months this is what we call a meditation cheese which is not something you want to grate not something you want to mix

With other cheeses you just have it with just the right you know the right pairing of wine whichever you prefer can be red can be white it’s like up to what you like and you just sit there and you have it and you enjoy it and maybe you

Listen to you know NPR on the background you know that drone that can pull you to sleep and you just meditate over it maybe one little drop of that balsamic maybe one little drop yes one little drop so those those flavors that your in your mouth they elevate you too I have

Tasted par J that was 120 months um I have to tell you it’s like caramel um it’s it gets really quite dark um and it’s you know a not brown but in a very yellow kind of way right kind of like the caramelly yellow and and then it’s

It really kind of really crumbles in your mouth but if you keep it um without without chewing L by literally melts it’s just it’s really incredible yeah so Pine on the other hand the name of the chees Pino comes from pekora right pekora is is a sheep so anytime you see Pino it

Means that it’s a sheep that’s made from from ship’s milk so it’s a cheese has made from sheep milk and of course there are five million different types of picino right there yes yes so there’s also Pino they are Regional um but they are also the the making process is different and then

You have some that are like some that are young and creamy some that are more aged or something we call primosale which means for salt um and we are talking about Pino Romano which is the one that we find the most um interesting thing to know is that actually the

Majority of Pino Romano is produced not in in the Rome area but in Sardinia which has the highest production of Pino anywhere in fact most of the um most of the the ship producers that you find in central Italy so Umbria Toscana Mar abuto actually came from Sardinia they were relocated from

Sardinia and they moved and they found Fortune elsewhere so the Pino Romano is quite salty um there are two aging the first one is um is I think the first one is I think three one month if I’m not mistaken and then it can be up to six

Months um and then past that um mostly of what we get here is considered for for grating right mostly for grating so we get a one that is like more on the H side saltier you great on top of pasta you I use it for fillings quite a bit um

In Italy you find some Pino Romano which is like so sweet and creamy is actually great for eating but it doesn’t make it to the states honestly because there’s no there are so many other picino um that that you know it doesn’t it hasn’t really found the market um so I I keep

Them both because parmo is really a big cooking thing it’s not just what you put on pasta but it’s as you know a pretty a pretty um Cornerstone U ingredient of Italian cuisine and Pino I keep because to me it’s also an ingredient because I’m from

Umbria and so we have a lot of picino going on there um and because sometimes if I want that extra kick on my pasta that’s what I use um I find peino goes well for example with pastas on with just vegetables I love pasta with like zucchini very simple like I put the

Pasta and the vegetables in the same pot I cook them and then I saute them with a little olive oil and then I put picino and it’s you know much more of a of a of just a spurt of flavor than I would otherwise get with parano um parano I

Usually keep a one that’s a little creamier so like a 16 to 24 and then I have also my 36 and up so that I can have that for eating um and also I have you know I have a my kid is now almost 20 years old and he parmo is like its

Own food group for him and is in col now so my parano my parano budget has like plummeted since because he was like he would come home and then he would just like open yeah because it’s it’s also an energetic it’s snacks it’s hand we give it it’s first food I

Mean it’s one of the first foods that you give for winning is parano for kids right yeah yeah so yes so just going back to the naming convention the Pino Romano is not necessarily from the real it was actually going back to probably the Roman Empire but then a lot of these

Casar they moved to the Sardinian region so I think I was in Sardinia where there was say it’s called it’s almost like a picino Roma style but it’s not necessarily from uh from from ROM no no but so again it’s you know it’s regulated you know the Consortium that

We were talking about so it has it does have a Consortium that that controls the production and the Consortium is the one that tells you where the Pino can come from right so actually it can come from of course Lazio but also Sardinia Umbria Toscana abuto and Marque so those are

The those are the areas that can make the Pino Romano so we’re gonna add also a factory tour you know um I’ve not you know I was in Sardinia so I’ve seen the production some cheeses but also if you go into the regions of the uh parmo regano production it’s very interesting

Because again um also learning about the way that the animals are raised uh in in a conscientious way up to how to read uh all those dots and dates and everything on on on the wheel and probably the biggest crave of a lot of restaurants is actually to cook pasta in

A in a cheese wheel so oh it’s a big thing right yeah it’s the biger uh so now uh we are still going to talk about cheese and we can talk about something is not really cheese but it’s taken for cheese which is ricotta ricotta so um so

Ricotta um why is cannot really be uh defined um as a cheese um so ricotta so ricotta in its in it stage the way that it’s made in Italy uh ricotta is literally means cook twice right because ricotta is a way that um it’s it’s a way

That people it’s a way with way that that CH no way the cheese maker used to to waste to keep waste at a minimum so once you’ve made your cheese you’ve got all this whe left back which still has all these flakes um kind of like going through it

Right that are left behind by the curd and by the cheese making so what do cheese makers do um they bring the they Heat this up to just enough that this PL start congregating together and that’s ricotta so ricotta can be done with any type of milk after you’ve done your your

Cheese making um so you have you know you have ricotta Deora you have goat ricota chep ricotta sheep ricotta cow Buffalo ricotta so any type of milk that is used in cheese transformation can be can have ricotta made with with it um sometimes you also have the mixed milk

Which means you know you take like way from more than from more than one production uh because there are dairy that will make mix you know mixed cheeses that have some sheep and some cow or some goat and some cow um and uh then these flakes these things is is

Picked up and it’s put in these baskets um of various size you know you can have like a five pound basket like you get for ricotta Romana or you can have like the tiny basket um um and then it’s let left to dry and sorry not to dry to

Drain a little bit and that’s ricotta right so um it doesn’t have any cream added it doesn’t have any extra cheese or extra Ren or anything it’s just comes from that um so iotta um is you know I have the story that you

Know is in my book is that I had this I had this uh boyfriend years and years ago and I was like always like chasing for ricotta chasing rotta chasing rotta and having rotta and at that time we’re talking I was like in my 20s so I

Couldn’t find the Italian ma rotta which now you can find especially on the East Coast um so I couldn’t find it so I always had like you know the approximation of uh that I found in the states and I it wasn’t really the flavor that I was looking for especially if I

Just ate it by itself but it was an approximation that kind of just told me that just gave me a little shiver nonetheless um and he just never got it it’s like he got why I would cook with Roto ricotta but he wouldn’t get why I

Would just like it so much and then I brought him to Italy and I gave him Ricotta and he never said a bad word about ricotta again so he didn’t he didn’t last you know the boyfriend didn’t last but he’s Rec converted um so but yes so the ricotta

In Italy as you know it’s it’s funny because it’s super it’s it is grainy you know and when you cut it you cut into Ricotta and you get almost like the thing that looks like the side of a mountain that’s been fracked have you ever seen that where it just goes like

That um and uh but it is also very creamy when you put it in your mouth right and there’s nothing like like warm ricotta like ricotta that’s just out of the the way is insanely delicious um especially if you put like a little bit of just made oil in it is incredible so

Ricotta when they take it out it’s literally like you see the smoke coming out and I mean it’s it’s really it’s amazing um and it is not technically this defined as a cheese but it’s it’s designed as a cheese it’s called a prodotto casario which means a dairy

Product but not a formo right very nice and also for any anyone making a ricotta or cheese uh keep that whe because whe is great for your vegetable garden and also great for panic so if you’re making bread or also some other sweets way is uh something else um worth keeping so

Then let’s uh let’s move to uh mozzarella and Bata um are all the mozzarella equal and uh what was um the um what was that thing that I believe two brothers did that brought to the creation of bata bata yeah so first of all one thing about wey which is it’s

Also really good to cook pasta in if you ever cook pasta It’s amazing And if anyone wants to know how to make really good ricot at home uh my friend and col Rosetta costantino oh yes so we have had she fantastic she makes really nice rotta um so she makes homemade ricotta

Which is very delicious so um mozzarella Bata and uh what was the other one orot orotta we spoke about so mozarella Bata so mozzarella is a mozzarella is one of like kind of those um it’s it’s what we call a pulled cheese like a a pulled Mass cheese uh so mozzarella goes

Through like several stages right first you get the curd then you pull the curd and you cook it again because you want to make it soft um and then you start doing the cutting in Italian uh another word for tare cutting to cut is mozar right hence

Mozarella because you just kind of cut it right yeah you choke with yes you cut it and you choke it so um artisy was made by hand so you see people who are like you know with their hand in the hot water and they’re making the snakes first and then they’re softening snakes

And then they just kind of like literally cinch it with their hands and you get the little um kind of Scar almost that’s on top of the mozzarella ball um and um and it’s you know I I just love mozzarella so two main families of mozzarella are the Buffalo

And the fil latte so people will say oh it cannot be mozzarella unless it’s Buffalo or it cannot be mozzarella unless it’s Cosmic that’s that’s you know a Croc of rubbish um it’s mozzarella the cheese is mozzarella and then you have mozzarella deala or you have mozzarella M lat Vino and the

Because they are now so very common equally common um you we like to use fatte for for the um to define the the scow milk mozzarella and we call the other one bufala right because it’s just because it’s just easier to distinguish them but they’re both mozzarella when I was growing up

It was all your mozzarella deala was a rare delicacy that you bought from like the beautiful tiny little Deli that was you know every every town in Italy had kind of like what we call a gastronomia that had the specialty things that a larger market could not afford to keep

Because they couldn’t sell them fast enough um and that’s where you got mozarella de buala or you have friends who went down south or friend who were coming up from the south who would bring them to you you but you didn’t find Mozzarella de buala at the supermarket

Nowadays you go to the supermarket and you actually find probably more mozzarella deala in some places than regular mozzarella um the pricing is different generally the Buffalo is more is a little more um more expensive but you can have incredible mozzarella F latte and I will confess that to me

Fatte is the go-to that’s what I like better not to say I don’t like Buffalo mozzarella of course I do no but you can and I have wonderful mozzarella stata also M just a different it’s a different mouth feel it’s a milkiness and also if

You have the one of the beauty of the Mozzarella de buala is the crunch that you have right you have a skin and an inside that have very um very different texture so you bite into the skin and there’s almost like a bit of resistance and then you have like the beautiful

Little squirt of milkiness inside your mouth um it has definitely it’s it’s a little Tangier than than fatte F latte is definitely towards the sweet Spectrum whereas filat is just um all very even and you know it’s got the beautiful soft silky skin but to me like a good fil

Latte is unbeatable but that’s what I grew up with so there there probably also very much of that right it’s always thinking that your mother’s cooking is the best yes EXA let’s let’s see if you have the same challenge so I you know when I go home there is indeed the the

Call to this little shop that brings the moella the buala on a daily basis so my dad wants to put in the fridge and we have put signs everywhere it’s like do not put mozzarella debal on the fridge first of all it’s not going to last that

Long to begin with so let’s talk a little bit about the different uh um uh the two different ways of preserving the f at and those type of mozzarella and the mozzarella De Bu because they do get a different treatment yes so first of all first of all mozzarella it’s not a

Long lasting cheese so don’t you know don’t stock up a mozzarella right mozzarella it’s a fresh cheese um even the ones that are you know the most industrial Productions might have maybe like two weeks worth of shelf life but that’s really pushing it and once you

Open it that changes so the the two weeks that you may have really refers to the whole confection right so you have it and it’s in water and it’s sealed and if you keep it that way for two weeks and you eat it at the end of two weeks it’s still edible but

If you open it you’re giving it maybe like three four five days at the most and during those three four five days it is going to change so let’s talk about the mozzarella deala first of all if you tell anyone who makes mozzarella deala that your father puts it in the

Refrigerator they’re going to stop selling it to him they’re not they’re not going to sell it to us they’re gonna M they’re gonna yes so you may have noticed you know your listener may have noticed that when you buy mozzarella DEA you’re always buying in a lot of water

Right in in vat of water and that is how you keep it you keep it in that in that way like in the vat of water do not get rid of the the water unless of course you’re eating the mozzarella right away um and just keep it on your counter

Freshest size freshest spot in your kitchen on the counter if you have marble counters that great I have marble counters and that’s great because it gives it even more um more uh coolness um and you just uh and you just keep it there um I would say up to maybe about

Four five days it will change uh because it’s still alive that’s the thing there are still live things in mozzarella so at the beginning it’s going to be is has the milkiness um and the sweetness is more pronounced at the tang and then as it ages you have the the the in side

Start separating from the skin even more but the skin becomes a little softer not as T and as as uh um as B it was at the beginning and the tongue takes over so to the point where it becomes almost a little acid which is fine I mean I like

It the point where it’s no good anymore is the point where you eat it and you feel like a little fiz on your tongue you know what I’m talking about when you get that then you’re done you should not be eating it anymore in between where

It’s not um bad yet worst case scenario if you see a little bit of changes just kind of trying to use it for other purposes so that you know maybe it might not be uh it’s still it’s still considered fresh but uh you know when you know there is a difference between

Day one and day three so once you are at day three it’s still good it’s still fresh but um then maybe pizza or something yes pizza or a tart or you can do a you can do a fill um you know you can uh you can also um I

Like to make little pockets you know you can just you can just buy pre-made like nice nice little pre-made dough you know um here in San Francisco you can buy I’m sure in Pittsburgh as well like nice premade pizza dough um puff pastry whatever it is I love like mozzarella

And peppers so sometimes I just take um actually it’s in my book but um you just take some puff pastry that somebody else makes not that you make because it takes a really long time and you put a little bit of mozzarella a little bit of Parmesan and then roasted pepper on top

If you have a lot of time you can roast your own Peppers but honestly you can get really good pre- roasted pepper that I conserved in water and just put them on put it in the oven with some with some uh oregano and you’re done right

It’s a five minute like 10 minute active time and about 35 in the oven and you’ve got dinner and your house smells amazing there’s also that yeah yeah yeah so yeah uh yes one of the recipes also that brought me back to Childhood is mozzarella and

Cara yeah mozzarella in a Cher right yes which is a um as you uh yeah rightfully translated crispy mozzarella sandwich and that is something that both uh um kids and grown-ups alike uh will will like I don’t know about your time because I can be with you forever we

Have the meats and the fish um do you have time or do you want to choose sure so I want to talk we can the B sorry sorry is interesting um I think Bata let’s think of Bata is like a new um the new kid on the Block right so Bata has

Only been around for um for since the beginning of the 20th century somewhere in the first uh couple of decades there were these two brothers um in Andrea outside of uh Bari um that you know they were delivering the milk to the cities and so it happened that there was a huge

Snowstorm that hindered the uh that hindered the the deliverance and um hinder the deliveries and so they said okay we have all this milk that it’s going to go bad what do we do with it so um they transformed the milk they made cream and then they made this all these

Mozzarella things all the kind of like they made mozzarella and then they had all this um all this byproduct from the mozzarella making so they took the byproduct they they shadded it they packed it in milk and then in order to keep it even longer they packed it in a

Bowl of mozzarella and they were inspired to do this by a a cheese called um I think it’s called butico um but I I have to look into to that which is made in mol which conserves butter inside a kind of like an aged scamorza like a

Okay yeah yeah yeah because uh uh we used to get that from uh my family is originally from and a clearly remember seeing almost like a looking like and inside exactly yes so that was their inspiration said okay you know that’s a good way to conserve but let’s try this

And so um you know I don’t know how successful they were meaning that Bata is not something that will hold for a long long time it’s you know again it’s something that will hold um in its in its unopen confection for maybe you can you can even last for you know a couple

Of weeks but once you open it you have to eat it within a couple of days um but anyway they were successful for sure commercially because this thing like took off while by like wildfire and became very very popular it also remains to be said that all these fresh cheeses

Like mozzarella Bata especially and strella which is in even a further development of Bata which is where you just have the inside and no mozzarella skin inside um around it only made it to the big scene fairly recently because you know they were really super local Productions

Because they are so fresh and their um their conser there wasn’t enough conservation uh technology to be able to deliver them further away than just the few kilometers around the various uh the various places of production so again Bata just like Mozzarella de buala was something that you got from someone who

Traveled down there or from your local super specialized um super IED Market that would let you know like you would know that this day or they would call you and say oh we got the Bata and so you went and you got it um nowadays you know you find Bata like your local

Supermarket Safeway carries Bata here in in San Francisco um and so it really has enjoyed a crazy you know crazy U notoriety um even excessive in a way because then what happens is that you sp you spawn tons of imitations that are not that great um but but you can find

Really good Bata that’s imported directly from from Paula the more um the more serious importers will have it flown in once a week and they will only work on pre-order so they will say you you will tell them okay I want five and they will just sum up what they have and

Order just maybe like a couple extra just so that they have them in in stock but generally that’s what you get so they know that they get it fresh and they already sold it and it’s not going to sit in their inventory so uh where are we going

Salumi let’s talk I I just want to say one thing about salumi which is uh um I want people to think of salumi not just about you know like a cold cut that you slice and eat and of course you know they’re great like that uh but salumi

Also needs to be unfortunately consumed in moderation because it’s very high in salt high in fat and um so it’s not you cannot have a salumi diet and be healthy let’s put it that way uh but what what most people don’t realize about salumi is that salumi is a fantastic ingredient

Because you need very little to bring an incredible pop of flavor I mean let’s take Panetta you know Panetta is the more common one you make a sauce a tomato sauce is delicious you make a sauce where you have a tablespoon of Panetta you bring it to the next level

So I use salumi as ingredients in very many different ways not just Panetta but also Guan chal which is the pork JW conserved in the same way prut is a great cooking ingredient moradel is a great cooking ingredient spec which is a smoked andure prya which is the calabrian uh the

Calabrian super spicy spreadable sausage so I want people to reframe this idea of of salumi and just kind of use think of them as as a great kind of um the one of like your hidden weapon in the cooking Arsenal and then let’s talk about fish

Yes well uh I think this was would have been your chosen picture for the book cover right that was my cover yes and my editor my editor said Viola we love it but yeah my publisher said it’s not you know first of all you know they’re right

It really kind of um takes away the kind of how how much the book spans because the book span so much and it’s not only about anchois uh and secondly apparently if you fish put on your cover you vastly reduce your audience in the state okay

So we have lots of Aug to talk about we have also Linda Linda soil Linda soil about tell us a little bit about the atug where to find um you know good atug um also in some other stores it might not just be once so um I’ll give

You the floor back so Aug H first of all there are two types of auga that you find right and chovis can be packed in oil and can be packed in salt um the ones in salt need some needs some work meaning they’re packed in salt they’re

Like the whole unchi except for the head and the ENT and the entrails so you need to actually you need to um you need to rinse them very well need to rinse the salt off you need to take the bone out and then you can move on to the next

Step um there are several next steps that can be done one of them is the one that you were just showing which I love the just they’re just marinated little lemon olive oil some red onion uh little min you can make it spicy or not spicy

Um or you can have the ones in oil the ones in oil um I like that I prefer them packed in olive oil sometimes they’re in sunflower oil uh the reason why producers like sunflower oil is because it holds for for a long time it just holds its um it holds its properties

Better um so when if you’re making a dressing if you are making you know if you’re cooking with them making a sauce I would say you know go with the ones in oil instead of having to go with all the thing of of changing the ones in salt um

But if you are putting them on a salad for example or if you are marinating them then definitely go with the ones in salt uh where do you buy them several places are they all the same no noral anchois are both the same um in Italy there are two places that are considered

To make the best anchois which are the lioran coast and the uh Amalfi Coast so the ones from Amalfi are called from chetara and in Lia the area is monteroso that has the most priced at chuga um chetara is a bigger production they just have more there in Lura it’s a tiny

Production but if it’s definitely worth every penny if you find them and it’s a lot of pennies but they are worth it um and the chetara ones you can find in the states in different places my favorite place to buy them is a website called

Gust they are based in the Bronx um so gust.com they’re online and you just go there and they they have anchovies in salt and they are incredibly delicious um why are the ones in salt better well first of all because they are they choose for this they choose the prime

And chovis right they are whole and just barely clean and they look beautiful so they’re not going to take the skinny little and chovis they’re going to take the ones that are beautiful and plump um and also they maintain their properties better under salt than they do under

Than they do under um oil um so and then the other product that we should talk about is Katura which I love so Katura is kind of like the anchoi drippings that are coming as the anching are being put under salt and fermenting to be then

Packed in in uh jars and shipped off to the lucky people um so this colatura is from you know one huge barrel of anchois you get like 100 Miller of colatura it’s about a six month period um but just like balsamic it’s something that you

Just need a little dash off um and also it’s um it brings so much to any dish you know you can use it in a dressing you can sprinkle it over some vegetables but you can also use it in a reduction those chicken breast cutlets that are in

The anovi chapter those are one of the sleeper hit like people look at them and they’re like oh chicken breasts because you know that’s I don’t really do chicken breasts all that much um I kind of consider it hospital food but in that in that Incarnation it really is worth your time

Um yeah so so much with anchois right I mean you can cook you can you can put them on a salad you can make you can put them on on the bottom of a pasta in a Sofrito um you can make a roast with it

Um you know if you I there’s there’s a bunch of ingredients that I use to make things better so let’s say I have something that’s been cooking a long time you know as low roast something and I go and I try the sauce and I’m like this is nice but there’s something

Missing I’ll just mash up on Chi and throw it in there and I know it’s going to fix it so another little thing that I’ll let you go is B that is when I was in Sardinia was the B Galore um a lot of people might not be too familiar with it

Um what it is and uh it looks like a little heart when you cut it um and uh and then after the after the botara I’m gonna let you go so botara is so this this book mostly has ingredients that you can find fairly easily and also at

Different price points right because you can find conserved tomato at different price points and chovis at different price points even the cheeses but uh but Tara is probably one of the ingredients I I will admit in this in this book that’s a little bit more rarified and it

Does need a little bit of uh of um Scouting For You can find a lot of them online I mean even Amazon has a botara store so you can find it pretty easily online but chances are you’re not going to find it at your local market um what

Is it so it is the um Rose sack of a fish specifically mullet for the most part other fish to but mostly mullet that is uh put in salt and then it’s either a solution or dry salt and then it’s pressed so it gets flat and then

It’s hung to air dry it comes to us probably from the Arab world uh by now it’s produced all over the uh the Mediterranean Basin um with in different ways um but but I would say that Italy is probably the country that’s known the most for the production of botara it

Happens mostly in Sardinia but there’s also a place to um a very um small production in orbetello in the southern to Tuscan Coast which is where I first came to know it um and uh it’s you recognize it because it’s shaped like a like a heart

You know you hang it and it’s like an upside down heart um and uh it is you know what does it taste like um if you take the time to read my book which I think you should because it’s I think it’s lovely it’s fascinating the stories and

Everything uh in the book that compliment the information that you have share with us to me I always say that having botara is like having tea with a little mermaid in our cave you know it’s really kind of like the quintessence of everything that you think about the sea

So it’s both the salinity but it’s also the Deep flavor of fish that’s a hint of citrus to it so it’s really wonderful and I should say also the mullet botara is my favorite book because that’s what I grew up with but you can also make botara from other fish and especially in

Sicily there is a big production of tuna botara um and tuna is tuna botara it’s in it’s a sack it’s not a tuna doesn’t have a two loob sack it only has like one sack so um it’s kind of rectangular um so and it is Briner and saltier

Because it stays under salt longer than mullet um so but it’s also quite good and you know great to shave on eggs great to shave on pasta on on beer greens it’s great with broccoli it’s great with Arch chokes with potatoes um great with the white Meats so pork tenderloin chicken

So you can really kind of span with botara very very far away okay well this conversation has been incredible and unfortunately our time together is up in Big B atto stop and it’s time for us to say we want to thank you for tuning into the program if you have any questions or

Comments or if you have any topics you would like us to address please contact us at the Italian Radio Hour gmail.com we would love to hear from you and remember if you or any of your family and friends have missed a prior episode or would like to listen to this episode

Again subscribe to the Italian Radio Hour on YouTube where you catch your favorite uh podcast and again I would like to to thank my friend Viola buoni again this is a different way of exploring Italy Italy by ingredient artisanal foods and modern recipes is definitely a must have book and must

Cook recipes and uh um this uh this episode coincides with women’s day so um in honor of um all the women that and uh that will be also listening to the program uh we are going to go back to we started was the B balsamic vinegar uh so you have a cocktail that

Is very simple to make uh that includes uh that traditional um balsamic we were talking about exactly so maybe just a couple of drops then your um then I add proo so a couple of drops at the bottom of a of a flute then you put in a little

Bit of prco kind of mix it gently so it doesn’t bubble over and then you f fill it with prco again um and uh this one I talk about it with a little squeeze strawberries in it because the strawberry juice brings in a nice uh

Kick of sugar but you can also use other fruit you can use any type of berry um I like to make it with pomegranates during the holiday season it looks beautiful exactly and I’m I know that you’re having the cocktail I’m actually toasting you with coffee because it’s

Too early for cocktails when I where I am in San Francisco somewhere uh you know new I’ll will be making I I brought the um the crot and I forgot the the the alto B Trad I have my little reduction but it won’t do the same thing soce but

Fant thank you very much let’s keep next time you come back in Pittsburgh let me know may I make uh may I make a a toast also to all the women who read me and to all the women from whom I’m I’ve learned uh you’ll find stories of them

Throughout the book book uh but also to the two wonderful women who were kind enough to endorse my book in the back of my on the back of my cover who are Ruth Raichel and Lydia Bastianich who are two Giants on who whose shoulders I humbly

Stand on and thank you so much if they listen for doing this for me because it really um was an amazing recognition of the work I’ve been doing for so long so thank you and thanks to you vivana proxim I can’t wait I feel that we’re friends I hope that our class will

Will put us in the same uh in the same place at some point uh in the near um uh in the near future okay