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Food Stories: Coltello-katana. E Coquilles St. Jacques.

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Food Story – Food Science: CTRA expression – sharing meals runs deep (joy is always shared – gioia e sempre condiviso)

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Frictilia – Fried Sweet Dough for Mardi Gras

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Food Stories: Coltello-katana. E Coquilles St. Jacques.

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Food Story – Food Science: CTRA expression – sharing meals runs deep (joy is always shared – gioia e sempre condiviso)

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Frictilia – Fried Sweet Dough for Mardi Gras

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Welcome to The Weary Ham Hock (Lo Stinco Stanco)

In this blog, we share budget-friendly recipes, traditional Italian plates, stories and humor. We hope you enjoy.

Latest Recipes

Literary Recipe (The Pasta Papers): Stephen Hawking’s Carbonara

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Contain an incredibly large, dense mass in your kitchen. Hide it behind a door that says ‘loo’ or ‘bathroom’. Invite a dumb undergrad over, (any faculty will do though economics would be preferable,) telling him or her you want them to take part in a revolutionary experiment. When he gets to your house, have him sit down and then slowly explain to him about black holes. (Don’t worry if you make a mistake or two. He’s dumb, so he’ll never know the difference.) Pour him plenty of beer as you do. When he asks to use the loo, show him to the door behind which you’ve hidden the black hole – but remember to give him the pasta dough before he steps inside.

Wednesday Will – Sole Fish Saltinbocca (for BIG Ben Jonson)

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Though a simple enough dish to make, timing, as nearly always when preparing fish, is essential. The first thing is to take sole filets and lay them flat. On top of each filet place a thin slice of prosciutto. Role the layer whole into loose tubes, fish on the outside, and secure them using wooded skewers or toothpicks. Next, peel and seed the tomatoes and hand puree them into a lovely, fragrant pulp.

Small Price, Big Flavors: Penne with Ricotta and Bacon

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t’s late. It’s been a fairly busy day, your girl friend will be getting back about 20 minutes or so after you will, tired and a little stressed at the ongoings of the day. It’s your turn to cook and you really, really don’t feel like prepping a meal. What’s worse: you’re hungry, even ravenous. You want massive, mouth-filling, gut-fulfilling fair in a hurry. Pizza? Burgers? The deli on the corner?

Wednesday Will (at Halloween) – 6 Witches’ Polenta with Ragu…

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t’s unclear just where Shakespeare’s popular ‘Weird Sisters’ soup chefs came from, or if they were sisters at all, given their physical disparity. Some commentators say they were British natives, others that they emigrated from Sweden or Norway while a few even mention the Mediterranean. In any case, what is clear is that at some point they started working in the kitchen at Holinshed’s Soup, Steak and Salads in Brodie, Scotland.

Brazilian Fish Stew (Moqueca)

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In particular there was Brazilian chef, Hindrigo Lorran (Kiko), who would create multi course extravagant meals featuring Mediterranean palette cuisine. He also made this lovely fish stew from Brazil. I needed to try it and, after some experimenting to make it easier for a home cook, came up with my humble version of the dish.

My family and I enjoy it as a warm, cozy, filling meal. It provides some intense flavors with the cumin and paprika accompanying the aromatic flavors of garlic, lime and coconut milk. A rich flavor similar to curries.

Stories and Poems

Food Science – Professional palates are terrible at judging wine

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Anyone can learn and appreciate but without those conditions…consistency, already nearly impossible in the typical context of wine tasting competitions with a bizzilion wines out of context, is unlikely. I suppose flavor perception might be comparable metaphorically to perfect pitch. Money can’t buy it. But as it seems to be increasingly evident, the notion of removal from context of sensory inputs, of sort of absolute qualia, probably isn’t usually descriptively useful. Maybe ever. Perception, integration and response seem to occur on many levels, use parallel pathways, and therefor per force are contextually influenced. Plus, well, this anglo-saxon notion of absolute point scores and our increasing use of uncouth symbolic representations of wealth…don’t change the fact that a cheap, disdained bottle of acidic, cherry-ish fast-fermented novello is the perfect fermented drinking sauce to accompany a paper roll full of steaming hot roasted chestnuts – and together they make a complex, culinary whiz. You need neither expertise nor wealth to enjoy that. (It might be, of late, better to have neither.)

Roman Flavors – Sushi at Hamasei

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Why on earth would you want to have to sushi in Rome? With all the traditional alternatives, trattorie, restaurants, enoteche, osterie, pizzerie, regional take-away joints, delis for fresh sandwiches, etc., is your urge for a sushi fix that uncontainable that you just gotta’ have some hunks of raw fish with vinegared rice, a little ugly mound of green wasabi and another little ugly pinkish mound of sliced ginger root? Well, yes.  

Travel Food

Fresh Fish in Rome

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On balance, the Swiss are, well, easier to live with. (Except, perhaps, when they drive. What do you get when 4 Swiss drivers pause at the same stop sign? A traffic jam.) But after 6 months of Swiss food, and a coming home meal of wild sea bass flavored with capers, a little sage and rosemary, potatoes and Roman broccoli on the side and topped off by a good cassata for dessert, God bless Italy.

Roman Flavors – Sushi at Hamasei

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Why on earth would you want to have to sushi in Rome? With all the traditional alternatives, trattorie, restaurants, enoteche, osterie, pizzerie, regional take-away joints, delis for fresh sandwiches, etc., is your urge for a sushi fix that uncontainable that you just gotta’ have some hunks of raw fish with vinegared rice, a little ugly mound of green wasabi and another little ugly pinkish mound of sliced ginger root? Well, yes.  

Travel Food – Delis in Rome (Fontana di Trevi) : Kiss My Mozzarella

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“Kiss mine,” or a dialogue something like that happened in the 18th century between Nick Salvi – the guy mostly responsible for the above Trevi Fountian – and a barber who didn’t much care for Nicola’s handiwork, and wasn’t shy about saying so. You can still see where said barber’s shop was in the above photo. It’s the shop behind that irregular outcropping in back. That’s of course because Salvi obliged the barber’s reticence with a special deviation – a cup sculpted into a rock large enough to block the loose-tongued Figaro’s view.  

Peach Iced Tea in Rome

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Over the past few years the tradition of Italian bars to make their own iced teas has slipped, giving way to the usual cans of Nestea or, if you’re lucky, Twinnings. (New EU regulations have seen to that.) But at the almost legendary ‘Caffeteria’, now called ‘Caffe Napolitano’, that tradition is going strong. They make their own peach granita and lightly sweetened tea and mix the two together. The result is outstanding, maybe number 79 on the list of 101 things to do while you’re alive.

Travel Food – Sion, Switzerland: Angelucci – the best cold cuts. (video)

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One day I was wandering about the Friday farmer’s market in a different city not so far away (Sion) a bit hopelessly – in most of Switzerland they have great cheese and great, ah, cheese and then they also have really good, uh, cheese. But God help you if you’re looking for anything else. It’s almost better to head for the nearest kebab joint – when my eyes at first, then nose, spotted this odd oasis in the distance. I sauntered up close presuming that as I did I’d find the usual leather-ish lunch meats and local salami which usually have the color, consistency and flavor of, say, slightly burned marshmallows with little pieces of breakfast cereal in it.

Roman Flavors – Gelato

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It’s mentioned in the bible, and even Sicilian ‘sorbetto’ derives from the Arabic ‘scherbet’ (sweet snow) because one of Muhammad’s entourage figured out a way to freeze fruit juice and mix it into containers filled with ice. Which was a very good thing, because after the fall of the Roman empire flavored ices disappeared in the west and were only re-introduced later. Just don’t tell any Sicilian that his or her fantastic ices and ice creams were first invented by a Muslim Arab. Unless you want some melting gelato staining your shirt.

Colazione da Ciampini – quartiere del tridente (Roma)

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Anche se ho detto ‘Ciao’ abbastanza ad alta voce il cavallo più vicino a quanto pare non mi ha sentito fino a quando ero a pochi metri da lui. Sorpreso, il cavallo e saltato un po ‘indietro, nitrì, e poi ha fatto qualcosa che non sapevo che i cavalli potessero fare: mi ringhiò. Inoltre mentre mi allontanavo ci siamo guardati negli occhi a vicenda e sono abbastanza sicuro che il suo sguardo verso di me significava ‘stronzo’. Comunque.

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