Italy Advisor

Of all the Easter pies, one of the Italian favourite dessert is  rice pie (torta di riso). Many regional variations for it as usual in Italy for this delicious recipe, but most sweet rice pies are made from eggs, rice (Arborio), ricotta cheese, and citrus (orange or lemon).
The Italian rice pie is like having two pies in one! When it bakes, a bottom layer of dense rice forms while the top is a separate layer of  lemon-laced custard.
Rice pie is served at room temperature at Easter Sunday, but it’s an irresistible pudding for every season. It’s not overly sweet, and it is also considered a lovely “brunch” dish. Here is a long list of the ingredients, divided into the part that is important to make: let’s start from the crust:

1. 2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
2. 1 tablespoon baking powder
3. 1/4 cup butter
4. 1/2 cup white sugar
5. 3 eggs
6. 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

And now you are ready for the filling and its own ingredients to mix:

1. 1 cup water
2. 1/2 cup uncooked white rice
3. 1 quart milk
4. 1 (15 ounce) container ricotta cheese
5. 1 1/2 cups white sugar
6. 1 tablespoon lemon juice
7. 1 tablespoon grated lemon zest
8. 6 eggs

The directions? Here it is, simple as ever: stir the flour and baking powder together in a bowl and set aside.

In a second large bowl, cream the butter and half a cup of sugar. Afterwards, beat in 3 eggs, one at a time, and stir in the vanilla.

Then beat in the flour mixture to make the dough and divide it in half  to have the final two balls.

Flour a surface, roll out each ball to fit two 10 inch pie plates.

Line the pie plates with the crust, and refrigerate until needed. Bring the water to a boil in a saucepan, and stir in the rice. Stir in the milk and stir until the mixture thickens.

When it is cooled down, preheat oven to 325 degrees F  or 165 degrees C. eat Use the ricotta cheese, and add 1 1/2 cups of sugar, lemon juice and lemon zest.Finally add 6 eggs together in a mixing bowl. Stir in the cooled rice mixture and pour into the pie shells.

Put all in the preheated oven until the filling is set and tops are golden brown. it will take more or less 90 minutes. Remember to serve it at at room temperature!!!

If you couldn’t make it for San Antonio Abate, a festivity which has been celebrated in villages in the Abruzzo region and Sardinia, on January 16 to 17, with the lighting of huge bonfires that burn all night and there’s often also music, dancing, and drink, do not worry. Dozen of festivities will wait for you this Winter in Italy!

In the Abruzzo region, the city of Ortona celebrates St. Sebastian by lighting in front of the Cathedral the Vaporetto, that is a brightly coloured papier maché model of a boat!

Feast Day of San Sebastiano is also celebrated many places in Sicily on January 20. The myth and the ritual spread in Mistretta, where a huge statue of the saint is paraded through the town on a litter brought by 60 men. In Acireale the parade will have a silver carriage and the singing of hymns, instead.

Aosta at the end of January focus on the Fair of Sant’Orso, a woodcarvers fair that sprung up 1000 years. Here over 700 woodworkers have stalls!!!

“La processione di Saint Agata”, the patron saint of Catania, Sicily, is a 2-day procession, and apparently it is the second largest religious procession in the world! it starts on February 4, with a mass at dawn, which will be followed by the statue of St. Agatha! The relics are in a “fercolo”, a 40,000 pound silver carriage, that will be pulled up Monte Sangiuliano by 5,000 men.

Saint Biago, the saint of the throat has his own day and the parade will be held on the February 3. You will eat leftover panettone from Christmas time drinking a gorgeous glass of wine in order to “bless” your throat.

More than 34 millions people went to see this adventure inside the human body and finally it is arrived in Rome.

Body Worlds is the original anatomical exhibition series displaying authentic human bodies, willed by donors through the Institute for Plastination’s Body Donor Program!  They are preserved using a process called plastination invented by Dr. von Hagens.

Real human parts are preserved through the science of plastination and show the human body in real-life poses, like never seen before.

Body Worlds – Il vero mondo del corpo umano is in Rome from 14 settembre 2011 up to 15 february 2012 for the first time in Italy at Officine Farneto, close to Stadio Olimpico.

is a man shaped by extraordinary events: as we read in the main siteGunther von Hagens of the Body Worlds: “two year imprisonment by East German authorities for political reasons, his release after a $20,000 payment by the West German government, his pioneering invention of plastination that halts decomposition of the body after death and preserves it for didactic purpose, his collaboration with donors including his best friend, who willed and entrusted their bodies to him for dissection and public display, and his role as a teacher carrying on the tradition of Renaissance anatomists”.

Von Hagens says himself: “I was looking at a collection of specimens embedded in plastic. It was the most advanced preservation technique then, where the specimens rested deep inside a transparent plastic block. I wondered why the plastic was poured and then cured around the specimens rather than pushed into the cells, which would stabilize the specimens from within and literally allow you to grasp it.”

Gunther von Hagens’ Body Worlds exhibitions are showing in  America, Europe and Asia and finally in Italy. If you are visiting this beautiful city, you should go and check it!

Passatelli in brodo: it is a treasure coming from the traditional recipes! This dish shows perfectly how Italian people can invent new recipes, changing the method you work the same ingredients.

In the Romagna region of Italy, this wonderful dish called “passatelli” (“to pass them through”). In fact the act of making them involves a kind of potato press designed for passatelli. You will eat them “in brodo” (with stock), but  also  dry with a “ragù di carne” (meaning meat sauce) or “ragu’ di pesce” (meaning a sauce made with fish).

The ingredients are: 200 g (7 oz) Breadcrumbs , 200 g (7 oz) Grated Parmesan cheese, 4 Eggs, 1 tsp Nutmeg, Lemon zest from a ¼ of the lemon, Salt and pepper to season, 3-4 litres of chicken stock.

Breadcrumbs has to come from stale bread that has become hard enough to be grated. Use bread made without olive oil! Chefs in restaurants add some flour to keep the passatelli mixture together. First, smash the bread in fine breadcrumbs and grate on it the Parmesan cheese. Break the eggs into a large bowl and season with salt and with pepper. Whisk the eggs for few seconds and set the bowl apart. Add the breadcrumbs into a second bowl. Add the nutmeg and stir to distribute better the nutmeg. Then it comes Parmesan cheese and lemon zest. Stir and add the dry mix to the whisked eggs.

Once all the eggs have been absorbed into it, start working the mixture with your hands. Work the dough for few minutes in a bal. Wrap the ball with cling film but don’t put the ball in the fridge; just leave it in a cool place. Use a kind of potato press with wider holes (4 mm diameter) to press all the ball and cut the passatelli when they are about 4 cm. Let them dry and then throw them into the boiling stock! Or press the pressed dough directly into the boiling stock. Try both methods and decide what you like most!

Chocolate salami  (Salame di cioccolato, salame turco or salame vichingo) is a dessert very popular in Italy.  It is a lovely pudding you can also find in trattorias: you wil find it in those rural “trattorias” you can find along the Po river at the border between Lombardy and Emilia Romagna regions of Italy. It’s a really a rustic dessert, and it is a part of the “cucina Povera” made of “poor” ingredients but really yummy and very good and tasty! Here the ingredients:

300 g (11 oz) Rich tea biscuits or Digestive kind of biscuits
150 g (5 oz) Butter (unsalted)
100 g (4 oz) Dark chocolate
100 g (4 oz) Sugar
2 Eggs
30 ml (1 fl oz) Dark rum

How to make it? Cut the butter into pieces and let it warm to room temperature, while breaking the chocolate bar into pieces. Put them into a small bowl and melt the chocolate very slowly. When the chocolate is completely melted, set the bowl aside and let the chocolate cool a little. Put the biscuits into a large bowl and break the biscuits using the back of a spoon, making them into crumbs.

As the butter is soft, work it with a whisk and then start adding the ingredients: first the sugar, then the eggs, the melted chocolate, the rum and  the biscuit crumbs.

The result? A lovely chocolate dough that will turn in the shape of a salami. Put the chocolate salami onto a layer of cling film and then wrap it with the film.

Put the chocolate salami in the fridge for a couple of hours, after the cooling time slice the chocolate salami and serve it with coffee or tea.

Epiphany, is going to be celebrated January 6th and it is  a national holiday in Italy. Epiphany commemorates the 12th day of Christmas when the three Wise Men arrived at the manger bearing gifts for Baby Jesus. The tradition of La Befana is a big part of Italian Christmas celebrations. The traditional Christmas holiday season in Italy lasts through Epiphany.

La Befana is a witch-like figure who arrives on her broomstick during the night of January 5 and fills the stockings with toys and sweets for the good children and lumps of coal for the bad ones.

The night before the Wise Men arrived, they stopped at the shack of an old woman to ask directions. Later that night, she saw a great light in the sky. She decided to join the Wise Men bearing gifts that had belonged to her child who had died, but she got lost and never found the manger.

La Befana today is on her broomstick, bringing gifts to children, and eventually ending up finding the Baby Jesus. Children in Italy hang their stockings on the evening of January 5.

The origins of La Befana are pagan: the Roman’s festival of Saturnalia is behind: it was a one or two weeks festival which started just before the winter solstice. At the end of Saturnalia, people went to the Temple of Juno on the Capitoline Hill to have their augers read by an old woman. The word auguri originated from this!

The town of Urbania, in Le Marche region, has a 4-day festival for La Befana (from January 2nd up to 6th) and a Regatta delle Bafane are held in Venice on January 6.

Milan has an Epiphany Parade of the Three Kings on January 6, going from the Duomo to the church of Sant’Eustorgio .

In the South of Italy it is very famous Rivisondoli, in the Abruzzo region, a little town which has a reenactment of the arrival of the 3 kings on January 5 with hundreds of  participants.

Living nativity scenes are pretty famous in Italy and they are called presepi viventi: they are made of costumed people acting out the parts of the nativity. For example, Chia, near Soriano, shows a large living nativity on December 26 with more than 500 participants!

Often living nativity scenes stay on for several days, usually Christmas Day and December 26, and sometimes around January 6, when the three Wise Men gave Jesus their gifts. Let’s go around Italy and discover a bunch of towns that reenact the Nativity scene!

Milan has an Epiphany Parade of the Three Kings from the Duomo to the church of Sant’Eustorgio on January 6.

Barga is a beautiful medieval town in northern Tuscany with a living nativity and Christmas pagaent on December 23.Equi Terme, in the Lunigiana region of Tuscany, has a reenactment of the nativity that takes place throughout the village.

In Liguria the living nativity scenes can be seen in the towns of Calizzano, Roccavignale, and Diano Arentino during the period of December.

Vetralla, in the northern Lazio region, has the oldest living nativity in the region.

In the South of Italy? Custonaci, a small town near Trapani, in Sicily, has a beautiful nativity scene re-enacted inside a cave.  Rivisondoli, in the Abruzzo region has a reenactment for the arrival of the 3 Kings on January 5 with hundreds of participants. Rivisondoli also presents a living nativity December 24 and 25. L’Aquila and Scanno also in the Abruzzo region have living nativities on Christmas Day.

Rome is one of the top Italian city to visit during the Christmas holiday season.  The first Christmas mass was at the Church of Santa Maria Maggiore and the earliest known permanent nativity was carved for the Rome Jubilee in 1300.

From early December through Epiphany on January 6, Piazza Navona, Rome’s famous Baroque square, is a huge Christmas market! All kinds of Christmas sweets, toys, nativity figures, decorations, and gifts: you can find those here.  A large nativity scene is in the square later in December, too.
Each year a huge Christmas tree is in Saint Peter’s Square. A life-size nativity is not unveiled until Christmas Eve. Thousands of visitors gather in Saint Peter’s Square when the Pope says midnight mass on Christmas Eve inside Saint Peter’s Basilica and delivers his Christmas message at noon on Christmas Day.

The Church of Saints Cosma and Damiano displays one of the largest nativity scenes (open Friday – Sunday except in August, 9:00-1:00 and 3:00-6:00). Charles II of Naples wanted it: you can find not just religious figures but people from everyday life. Six master woodcarvers worked on the scene from 1780 through 1820, adding new figures each year. The city of Rome bought it and restored it in the 1930′s.

In the 16th century, a statue was carved from a piece of olive wood from the Garden of Gethsemane. Returning to Rome, the ship sank but the famous statue washed up on shore. It was blessed by the Pope and kept in the Church of Santa Maria Aracoeli on the Colle Capitolinol. In the early 1990′s, the original was unfortunetely robbed and  a new piece of olive wood was requested to carve a reproduction. In Rome children use to write their Christmas letters to Santo Bambino. On Christmas Eve the statue is put in the church’s presepe and on January 6. Thousands of people gather for the procession.

But is the nativity in Santa Maria Maggiore maybe the oldest presepe or permanent nativity scene, carved in marble by Arnolfo di Cambio in the late 13th century. Below the altar is a reliquary said to containwith apparently some pieces coming from the original manger.

Rome has also a large Jewish population and Hanukkah is another important celebration in December. A large Menorrah is set up in Piazza Barberini: only one candle lit up each night during the Hanukkah season.

Never made a panettone? Work the dough, if possible, with a dough mixer also because beating times with a mixer are about 20 minutes, where hand-beating will require about 50.
The room? It must be warm, about 72 degrees F (22 C).

The flour? It should be about 68 F (20 C) and a very fine all-purpose flour, extremely dry.

The water? Again it should be warm, about 76 F (24 C).
Add also a pinch of salt, because this trick stimulates the rising.
Bakeries use a sour dough starter (like the wild yeast). Home recipes generally uses baker’s yeast, too.

The baking time? It will depend on the size of our panettone. An oven temperature of 400 F (200 C) will be fine for  half an hour of baking. This is ok for a small to medium-sized panettone: larger ones will require more time. Better to try a small-medium sized one, then, at home.
A little trick: slip a bowl of water into the oven when the panettone is half-baked to raise the humidity so the surface of the cake will be shining!
For a tall panettone, put a ring of heavily buttered thick paper around the dough then put it in the oven.  We have also a double rising to wait for!

For the first rising you will need5 ounces (140 g) fresh yeast cake, 3 1/3 cups (400 g) flour, 3/8 cup (90 g) unsalted butter, 5/8 cup (110 g) sugar, 6 yolks, 1/2 teaspoon salt, 4/5 cup (200 ml) tepid water
For the second rising, you will add 2 1/3 cups (280 g) flour, 5/8 cup (110 g) unsalted butter, 7/8 pound (400 g) sultana raisins,  1/2 cup (100 g) sugar, 1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract, 1 teaspoon honey, 1/2 teaspoon salt and 6 yolks.

You have to start the afternoon before you actually bake the panettone. Cut the butter and melt it over a very low flame or a double boiler. Put the sugar in about 2/5 cup of warm water. Put the melted butter, salt, and yeast cake in a mixing bowl  and mix well.

Add the yolks and sugar and put in the flour. Mix for 25 minutes and put the dough in a lightly floured bowl. Cover it with a heavy cloth, and keep it warm.

After the raising, take the dough and work with the flour, vanilla, yolks and honey. Mix for about a half hour, put 2 tablespoons of the butter, melted as before, and a little water. Add the fruit, mix and round the balls of dough.

Let them rise in a warm place for a half hour. Put the panettone in panettone molds and put them in a warm spot to rise for 6 hours.

Put the panettone in the oven and Merry Christmas!

We already talked about Christmas markets in North of Italy, but now it is the right time to check also the ones located in the central and southern Italy! Lot of  fairs are waiting for you with their wooden booths full of arts and crafts, regional specialties and Christmas decorations. The items are as diverse as beautiful but nit is the atmosphere that you are probably looking for! Lights and shouting, Father Christmas and sheperds, living nativity scene and presepi are all close to the markets, usually.

Let’s start with our Christmas markets second episode to give you a full and round picture of what is the offer in Italy for Christmas time!

Umbria is, for example, a yummy place for buying some goodies and presents. Many towns in Umbria are known for a particular craft or product: Deruta and its famous majolica, Montefalco’s jacquard, the foodie mecca of Norcia. And you can find the work of artisans in the Mercatini di Natale, which stands for Christmas markets, and they are ful of Italian and regional specialities and artisan workshops. Perugia’s Rocca Paolina is the location for this kind of Christmas event and Spoleto hosts them in Palazzo Leti Sansi.

In Rome Piazza Navona hosts a very big Christmas market. There is a life-size nativity scene set up in the piazza. Going South, you have to visit Naples and its  December Christmas market near Via San Gregorio Armeno, which is pretty famous for its many nativity workshops. Some vendors are all dressed up in a traditional shepherd costume!!! You can also visit Sorrento located on the beautiful Amalfi peninsula in the Bay of Naples: in the main square the Christmas market through January 6. Siracusa in Sicily holds a two-week Christmas Fair.

Also in Cagliari located in lovely Sardinia you can find a Christmas Fair that stays on for two weeks in December: you can buy a lot of traditional crafts, food, and wine over there.