photo - Daniel Lee on UnSplash
It’s that oven thing, with flames from a wood fire even better, the heat moving in from all sides releasing moisture, concentrating flavor, molecular mixing in ways so complex no calculation can model - now or ever. It’s probably much more than just Maillard reactions (when proteinic amino acids and sugars break down and react, molding and melding flavor compounds - and letting you know about it. Through texture and smell and place and temperatures and sounds and more. So you can open your own palette in anticipation of the discovery and re-discovery of all those flavors branching off yet reinforcing the usually something familiar.) A new piece recurring into the ‘thing’. Fractilian, so to speak, on steroids. The flavors evolve and nourish a bit like a symphonic theme or like… humus. Humans have been baking for a million years, after all.
In this episode we look at the origins and variety of Italian baked pasta dishes and pizza. Al Forno means "to the oven". Very popular in southern Italy but well used all over the peninsula, there are many variations of baked pasta.
Lasagna is probably the most well known outside of Italy but there are plenty of other surprising baked pasta dishes that are fascinating and delicious. The practice of boiling flour in water and incorporating cheese dates back to the middle ages but the term lagana is derived from Roman times of layering sheets of pasta and the fire cooking. Lasagna as we know it today in English speaking countries is Lasagna alla Bolognese, which elevates the dish to an art using sheets of spinach based pasta, a meat ragu and Bechamel sauce. The "glue sauce" was brought to France by Catherine De Medici of Florence during the Renaissance
We take a look at Timpano, a domed shape masterpiece pasta pie originated in Sicily which gained attention from the great movie featuring Stanley Tucci and Tony Shalhoub called Big Night.
We compare that Timpano/Timballo/Pasticcio with the king, the… Rolls Royce of baked pasta: Pasticcio Ferrarese. And on the other end of the social class: the northern Abruzzo: Timballo di Crepes o Crespelle.
Enjoy?
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