Faella, Pasta of my childhood

When I was young and we went to visit my paternal grandparents in Brooklyn, I would go with my Grandma to make her shopping rounds in the neighborhood. She stopped at the bakery to get the Italian braided bread topped with sesame seeds and at the butcher to get the right cut of meat for the braciole; then we’d go to the deli to pick up locally made Italian salami and mozzarella as well as dry goods brought over from Italy. I remember the package of pasta that she always chose: white paper encasing long spaghetti, simple blue and red letters and a clear plastic window so you could see what kind of pasta you were getting. It wasn’t a brand my mother bought and I’ve never seen it in a store since that time.

Until two years ago when I was walking through Naples, and in the window of a little alimentari, a small shop serving the needs of a typical Napolitano neighborhood, I saw a big display that looked so familiar I stopped dead in my tracks. FAELLA, the white packaging with blue and red letters said, and I recognized it immediately as my grandmother’s favorite pasta. Someone, somewhere, was still making the pasta I ate when I was a kid. I had to find them.

I talked to my friend Sabato Abagnale, the head of Sorrento’s Slow Food chapter. It turns out he knew Faella well, it being one of the original artisan pastas from the nearby town of Gragnano (see a previous blog for more on this pasta town). So Sabato and I made an appointment to visit Faella’s production facility, where they still had in use some of the original machines from the early 1900’s.

We met Mario Faella, the 95 year old son of the original owner, who still came down to the factory every day to oversee operations—not because they needed him, he said, but because he enjoyed being there among the action. He’s a legend, charming and polite.

Mario kindly took me on a tour, showing me how they made and dried spaghetti, and it felt like coming home.

I wanted to tell him what drew me to his factory, why Faella pasta meant something to me and how happy I was to come to Naples and still see the same brand my grandmother used 50 years ago in New York. So I said, “My grandmother was originally from Montella (a town in the mountains an hour away) but she moved to America, and when I was growing up I remember she always used Faella pasta. I didn’t know it was still around, I only just saw it in a store last week in Naples.”

Mario looked me clearly in the eye, his finger pointing to the heavens, and he started his story: “There was a young man, Domenico Letterese was his name, who was the son of our manager, but he didn’t like working in the factory, he didn’t want to study. And my father said to him ‘Domenico, if you don’t want to study I'll give you a different job. You have to take our pasta to America!’ This was before the war. So Domenico took our pasta on the boat in big trunks and sold it to a man who had a store in Brooklyn, and for years we sold our pasta to that one store in Brooklyn!”

“That’s where my grandmother bought it!” I said excitedly. “She lived in Brooklyn! My grandmother bought your pasta from that store!”

All those years, four degrees of separation between me and this charming old man whom I’d never met before, making delicious pasta at his family’s factory in a small town on the coast of Sorrento for my family to enjoy a taste of the old country in Brooklyn.

And now you can once again get Faella pasta on the shores on America, through www.gustiamo.com. Tell them Gina’s grandma sent you!

Buon Appetito! Gina

Artisan pasta from Gragnano

When I teach people how to make fresh pasta, using eggs and soft flour, I often get the comment “fresh pasta is so wonderful, I’ll never eat that hard boxed pasta again!” But fresh pasta is only one note in the symphony of Italian cuisine. Pastasciutta, that dried, boxed, semolina-and-water pasta from southern Italy, plays an important part at the Italian table and is in no way second fiddle to egg-based pasta from the north.

The main starch of the regions in southern Italy has for centuries been pastasciutta, and only in the last 50 years has it become a mainstay of the diet on throughout the Italian peninsula, eaten everywhere on a daily basis. However, all dried pasta is not created equal.

There are many different kinds of pasta in Italy and it has become an industrial product over the last 60 years, like everything else. The industrially made pasta can be of good quality or poor quality and encompasses everything from Ronzoni and Muellers to Barilla and DeCecco; and then there is artisan pasta made on a small scale using traditional methods. This artisan pasta differs from industrially produced pasta in two main ways: the dies that are used to cut the pasta (bronze instead of Teflon-coated) and the drying times (very slow, sometimes over days). The result is pasta that holds onto the sauce and is chewy and flavorful, unlike anything you get from a packet of Barilla or DeCecco. No longer just a bland vehicle for sauce, it stands on its own.

One of the most fascinating things I had the opportunity to do last year in Italy was to visit some artisan pasta makers in Gragnano, a town in the province of Naples. I’ve long been interested in making pasta and studying its history, so when Slow Food friends on the Sorrento coast offered to take me on a tour of some of the artisan pasta factories in the area, I jumped at the chance.

Gragnano, along with neighboring town Torre Annuziata, has been a pasta-making center since the 1800’s. It was designed with this in mind, on the banks of a river lined with mills for grinding durum wheat into semolina flour. The main street lies perpendicular to the Sorrento coast so as to take advantage of the constant sea breezes that were used to dry the strands of pasta. There are many old photos from the early 20^th century showing racks and racks of long spaghetti lining the streets and balconies, drying in the open air.

It’s a more hygienic operation these days with the pasta being made and dried indoors.

As I mentioned, there are two important ways that of making pasta in Gragnano that sets it apart from industrially produced pasta. Historically, the dies to extrude pasta were always made with bronze, which has a rough surface, catching the pasta dough as it’s squeezed through the shapes and roughing up the surface of the pasta. This allows the pasta to adhere to the sauce better, which is important to an Italian. Industrial dies are coated with Teflon, which gives a slick and smooth surface to the pasta, allowing the sauce to slip right off.

The second important difference lies in the drying time. In the artisan method the pasta is dried in slow ovens for days and in the case of very large shapes like candele or shells for stuffing, up to a week or more. This lends a consistency to the pasta that makes it more toothsome and gives it a lovely chew. The industrial method dries the pasta faster, in hotter ovens in a matter of hours.

But the most fascinating thing I saw was the pasta made by hand, like this woman making fusilli rolled by hand on a long metal spoke. Truly beautiful to watch, I wish I'd had a video camera!

I urge you to seek these pastas out; they’re worth getting to know. Look for them, especially the Faella brand (more on that next post!) at www.gustiamo.com. The good folks there have lots of wonderful things from Italy! Buon Appetito!

Gina

Who's got Panettone left over from Christmas?? Who bought too many and is wondering what to do with them now?

Me.
I love panettone, but there is always some left over in January when I've inevitably gone on a cleanse that doesn't include eating sweet breads with scrumptious raisins and dried orange peel, especially not when it's toasted and slathered in butter!

Slather it instead with some citrus semifreddo, put it in the freezer for a few hours and what you have is a delightfully light and wintery dessert. We're serving it as a finish at an Italian dinner at the University of Denver Knoebel School of Hospitality on February 2nd.

Semifreddo means "semi cold" and is a light dessert made with whipped egg whites and heavy cream, folded with a fruit syrup and put into the freezer until it's set. It doesn't actually freeze hard like ice cream because of all the air that's whipped into the cream and eggs, but it's creamy and cold in your mouth.

I love a citrus semifreddo in the winter when the oranges and grapefruits are in season. It's lovely frozen in individual cups, but also goes beautifully with panettone, flavored with candied orange peel.

Garnish the dessert with a mint leaf and some julienned orange or grapefruit.

Buon Appetito! Gina

Citrus Semifreddo with Panettone

1/2 cup sugar

1 cup fresh orange, lemon and/or grapefruit juice

2 tbsp zest of orange & lemon or grapefruit

3 egg whites

1/2 cup sugar

1 pint cream

panettone slices

Combine the first cup of sugar together with the orange and lemon juice and bring to a boil. Add the citrus zest and allow it to boil until thickened, about 10 minutes, then take it off the heat and cool completely, stirring it over an ice bath to release the heat.

Whip the egg whites with 1/4 cup sugar until stiff, then whip the cream with the remaining 1/4 cup sugar. Fold together with the cool syrup.

Slice a panettone into 1/2 inch slices and lay on a sheet pan or in a pan to completely cover the bottom. Spread the semifreddo over the top, about 2 inches thick, and freeze until set. To serve, slice the semifreddo into squares or triangles and decorate it with additional zest and a mint leaf.