Among many other things, I am a foodie. This characteristic is perhaps one of my most defining features. I have a food blog, I love to cook and bake, I aspire to become a food journalist, and so on. Naturally, when I was researching study abroad programs and found CEA’s class “The Culture of Food and Wine in Italy,” I applied immediately. Despite my immense passion for the subject, it interfered with a literature course I needed to take to graduate from Emerson College. This decision to forgo “Food and Wine” was eating away at me while my roommates recalled their first session in the class. I was at a standstill. Follow my passion or do what’s logical? I had just made up my mind to take summer school at Emerson when I stumbled upon another available lit class that fulfilled my requirement! I rejoiced and enrolled in both classes immediately.
Yesterday, I went to Food & Wine for the first time and am dead set that I couldn’tve made a better decision to switch into the class. The professor, an articulate man with small round glasses scribbled all over the board about the origins of pasta. We learned about the different kinds of wheat, where they’re grown, and how they’re preserved. While others texted on their Italian phones, I wrote down every word the professor said.
Did you know that al dente pasta has a an anima, or “soul?” If you cook it perfectly, a piece of spaghetti should be opaque on the outside, with a white center. In the north, Italians don’t eat pasta. If you were to order it there, your dish would appear mushy, while in the south the pasta looks like it’s jumping up at you! While Marco Polo announced that spaghetti was invented in China, it was actually an Arabic invention first created in Sicily!
We also learned about varietal wines and blends. I swear this guy is a sommelier. He taught us all about how to critique a wine, what terms to use in doing so, and what parts of the tongue to taste differing flavors. We learned about body, astringency, pseudo heat, and a million other pretentious words that I soaked right up.
After two hours of the most interesting lecture I’ve ever experienced, a short Italian woman of about 70 years appeared at the door. She wore glasses attached to her neck and had blue highlights in her salt and pepper hair. Meet Claudia. She is a prominent chef in Italy who speaks no English. During almost all of our class sessions, she will come in and cook for us. Each time, she teaches us about the dish’s origin and significance along with providing a recipe. As she sat at a desk, she babbled to the professor in Italian and he translated for us.
Yesterday, Claudia prepared two dishes native to Lazio. The first was called “Casarecce alla Carrettiera.” It is a medieval dish that used to be wildly popular, but is no longer served in any restaurants. For what reason, I have absolutely no idea. Homemade pasta, combined with sautéed mushrooms and peas, fresh sausage cooked in white wine, cream, butter and oil…it was too delicious. Her execution was flawless and she happily served each and every one of us a heaping plate of her creation. In our journals, we recorded the visual appeal, the aroma, taste, and overall balance and complexity.
But that wasn’t all! While Claudia left to prepare pasta numero due, we tried our newfound sommelier lingo on two delicious white wines. A couple sips of Frascati Superiore from Villa Simone in Lazio were enough to conjure two pages of notes. It was a clear wine in a Bordeaux bottle with faint legs and a straw yellow color. The flavors were fruity with a hint of banana and floral notes. This was followed by another Malvasia from Fontana Candida, a renowned vineyard in Italy. The flavor was also fruity, but this time tasted like apple. It was a luminous wine that attacked the palate, disappeared, and then returned with a long nutty finish. See? I told you I’d get pretentious.
Our class time had officially finished, but no one was packing their bags when Claudia came back with a bowl piled high with Rigatona alla’amatriciana. Though it looked like a traditional red sauce, the flavors were much more complex. She used a slightly smoked, sweet pancetta with tomatoes and chilies. The smoky flavors were strong, and we all stuck around after class to write down our notes.
I’ll probably never take another class where drinking wine is encouraged and I’m served a gourmet lunch by a famous chef. I’m so happy with my decision to take a chance on this class and I sincerely look forward to what next week brings. Get ready Pantry Raid, shit’s about to get real.
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