Round trip of the tomato - from America to Italy and back

In my previous article about tomatoes (http://blog.madeinitalymall.com/post/18259071363/are-tomatoes-italian), we learned that the tomato is indigenous to South America and that it spread throughout the Americas before being taken to Europe by the explorers.  In an interesting twist, years later the tomato then returned to America in the form of tomato paste that was shipped from Italy to the United States.

I want to thank David Gentilcore for his help in preparing this article and for graciously allowing me to leverage the wonderful material in his book about the history of the tomato in Italy.

The tomato first appeared on the scene in Italy in the 1500’s. 

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Slow Food Day in Italy - May 26th

Riccardo Astolfi ‘s recent article provides us an excellent introduction to what to expect on the occasion of the second annual Slow Food Day in Italy. This celebration in Italy is part of a series of events that occur all year around the world as part of the Slow Food Movement , which we are featuring here on our blog. For example, we recently collaborated with the Slow Food International press team to re-publish their wonderful announcement about Carlo Petrini, the Slow Food President, speaking at a meeting of the United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues (UNPFII) in New York on May 14th.

http://blog.madeinitalymall.com/post/22845178790/slow-food-president-carlo-petrini-to-speak-on-may-14-at

Here is the link to the article about Slow Food Day in Italy on Riccardo’s site, for those that read Italian:

http://pastamadre.blogspot.mx/2012/05/festeggiamo-lo-slow-food-day.html?utm_source=BP_recent

Here is the translation:

On May 26th there will be a celebration of Slow Food Day in more than more than 300 squares in Italy. Here is a link with more information:

http://www.slowfood.it/slowfoodday/ 

(click on Tutte Le Piazze to find out where the events will be held throughout Italy)

It will be an excellent opportunity to meet, celebrate, and talk about local food, clean and fair food practices, and localized agriculture but also about global climate change and the green economy

Our Comunità del Cibo (food communities), as you know, form part of the Terra Madre network, and therefore we are more than just volunteers, but have been invited to participate in various local initiatives. (both here in Bologna as well as in other regions; we will keep you updated!)

In Bologna we will celebrate Slow Food Day in the historical center of the city, palazzo del Comune (City Hall), between Piazza Maggiore and the inner courtyard and the characteristic Cortile del Pozzo (Courtyard of the Well).

We are currently defining what we will present, and further details will naturally be published soon on this site.

Important: If you want to participate in this initiative and lend a hand, it would be great if you could donate a bit of dough or bring your own food for tasting. Please leave your contact email in the comments below, and we will certainly contact you soon and we can all come together on this great day of celebration!

Ci sentiamo presto,

Lina

All reviews about Italy are wrong

I look at the product reviews every time I shop either in the shops or on the internet. Unfortunately they are really not very reliable, although I select the “real” ones (at least I hope so). I like to hear what people have to say (some of them are very entertaining). We know that there are plenty of firms specialized in producing this kind of “fabricated stories” on the internet. This fact was also confirmed by

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Slow Food President Carlo Petrini to speak on May 14 at UN Headquarters, NY

On the Made in Italy Mall blog, we are subscribed to a number of newsletters that provide updates on all events around the world surrounding the Slow Food Movement.  We recently received two announcements related to this topic.  We will publish an article soon about Slow Food Day in Italy on May 26th.  We thought it was worth re-publishing this article which we received from the Slow Food International newsletter in its entirety here on the blog. 

Here is the announcement:

Slow Food President Carlo Petrini will speak at the United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues (UNPFII) on May 14 on the right to food and food sovereignty. His invitation to join the New York meeting at UN headquarters, as a valued “friend and supporter of Indigenous Peoples”, marks the first time in the ten year history of the Forum, that an external guest has been invited to take the floor.

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Simple Insalata Caprese - vegetarian appetizer

We have been presenting some pasta dishes, side dishes and desserts that fit a vegetarian diet.  I thought it would be nice to add a really tasty and easy to prepare antipasto (appetizer) to the list.   I had often ordered this salad at restaurants because it is not only naturally vegetarian, but also fairly low-calorie.   So, I decided to try making it at home and discovered it is pretty simple to produce.

 The key to this simple appetizer is to use very fresh ingredients.    A simple presentation is also quite elegant.  

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Italian recipe as lifestyle

Many people raise the question as to why I publish Italian recipes, since my knowledge about Italy is quite a bit broader and I could write about any number of other interesting topics. Moreover, as CEO of a shopping mall, they expect me to care more about business or “other stuff” considered to be much more valuable.

From their perspective, they’re very right. It seems they may have thought that it’s easy talking about food, especially if

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Kefir bread with chestnut honey

I was perusing the latest set of recipes on Riccardo Astolfi’s site and found this unusual and intriguing bread.  I love kefir, but I had never really given much thought to the idea that both bread and kefir involve leavening. This bread, that is born of experimentation, illustrates the full range of possibilities that exist to make bread.

(Photo courtesy Riccardo Astolfi)

For those of you that read Italian, here is the link

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Italian Wines? Seriously! (Chapter 1)

I started truly appreciating wine thanks to a good friend of mine who introduced me to it some time ago. That was when I learned that only a friend can really introduce you to wine.

(Photo courtesy of Azienda Agricola Fontanavecchia)

While I am passionate about Italian wines and wine making, I have a conflict about expressing myself here on the blog on these topics

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Parmigiana di Zucchine: delicious vegetarian dish

After reading Lynn’s recent article http://blog.madeinitalymall.com/post/19237458535/adopting-an-italian-eating-style-in-america about adopting Italian vegetarian cooking techniques, I realized that quite often I prepare vegetarian dishes. Since I’m not vegetarian, that article reminded me that the majority of my favorite Italian dishes are “mostly vegetarian”. The Parmigiana di Melanzane (eggplant ), a quite popular, delicious dish prepared in the south of Italy, is an example of one of my top favorite dishes that just happens to be vegetarian, too. You will find the same dish prepared in many variations, including

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Is the Caesar salad Italian?

Growing up in Southern California, I had heard that the Caesar salad was named after the famous Roman emperor and that the recipe originated in Italy

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Delicious spaghetti sciue`-sciue` in 5 minutes

In Italy, pasta is quite often a kind of “ritual” used to share a great time with friends. It’s surely the case with spaghetti sciue`-sciue`(pronounced shoowae-shoowae) from the Naples-Caserta area, which is where I grew-up.

Let’s pretend that suddenly you show up at my home unannounced, I’ll surely

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Italian Orecchiette e Broccoli in 10 minutes

Increasingly I have discovered that simplest things are more impressive than I would have expected. For example, this happens whenever I prepare simple Italian dishes for my friends.

(Photo by Anthony Le - attending this meal)

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Spaghetti and clams in 10 minutes

Spaghetti and clams is surely the easiest dish to prepare, but for some reason it seems people just shake their head when I suggest that they can prepare it themselves. Perhaps that could be because there are some pretty terrible recipes out there from what I have seen so far!

Besides some small tricks that I’ll add here, the most important thing is the selection of the spaghetti and the clams.

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The Music of Bread - Excerpt from an article Communita del Cibo Pasta Madre

There were some interesting follow up articles after the Terra Madre events last year. One very intriguing article by Riccardo Astolfi, reflecting on the musicality of bread, caught our attention.

For those that understand Italian, here is link to the article. Contained within the link is a sound byte of the sound of bread.

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Chestnut flour in Italian breads

How many of you have heard of chestnut flour?

I certainly hadn’t heard much about it until I read an article by Riccardo Astolfi on

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