Olive Oil, Cotenne and More: Being the 139th issue of Cosa Bolle in Pentola

Greetings! This has been a hectic week, and I regret to say I haven't added anything to the Italian Wine Review, and only a couple of recipes to Italian Cuisine, though I did update a few things.

Olio Italiano? There are Other Options
Thus we quickly find ourselves with Cosa Bolle, and this means (to start out) olive oil. A couple of years ago I was invited to a conference hosted by the Fattoria di Monte Morello, a major olive oil producer on Monte Morello, northwest of Florence (see http://www.fattoriadimorello.it/). The topic was "Are there terroir-related differences in quality oils?" and the result was a surprising no; the extraction technique commonly used has a leveling effect that leads top quality oils to resemble each other, unless a given producer uses very distinctive olives. I perhaps wouldn't have believed the panelists, had the conference not closed with a blind tasting of quality extra virgin olive oils from all over the world. I am not an olive oil taster, and therefore the fact that I was unable to guess the provenance of any of the oils is not surprising. However, a number of the other participants were (a couple worked on one of the major Italian olive oil guides), and none of them were able to place the oils either.

The reason for this anonymity, if one can call it that, is that the cold-pressing technique used to extract extra virgin oils oxidizes the membranes within the olives that trap much of the oil, and as a result the oil too is slightly oxidized, and this masks differences between terroirs and cultivars. There is another technique that doesn't oxidize the membranes, but yields, which are already low with the commercial technique (18% maximum, or a kilo of olives yields at the most 180 grams of oil), become economically unfeasible with the other technique.

Therefore, I concluded, if you go to the store to buy olive oil, you needn't feel you must buy something from the Mediterranean. A well made oil from California or South America can be just as good, and may cost significantly less depending upon where you live.

Among the new producers of olive oil, Chile is attracting a great deal of attention. Though the country has had olive trees since the arrival of the Spaniards, nobody really thought about cultivating them seriously until about 10 years ago, when farmers in the Province of Coquimbo, north of Santiago, started planting olive groves, with high planting densities, on the order of 800 trees per hectare, and employing drip irrigation. The land, says Marco Mugelli, an Italian expert who also spoke at the Morello conference I attended, is quite good, and the farmers, who enjoy the sponsorship of the Chilean Government, are using the best modern techniques to extract the oil.

What's it like? This summer I attended a comparison tasting in Florence: ten extra virgin oils, five Tuscan and five Chilean. It was quite interesting; I found the Tuscan and Chilean oils to be evenly matched, and I wasn't alone -- a number of Tuscan olive oil producers who had come to scope the competition were pulling at their chins by the time we had tasted the last oil.

Bottom line: I was impressed, and all the more so considering that Italians have been making olive oil for millennia, whereas the Chileans started quite recently. They do have, on their side, a lack of traditions that allows them to use the most modern techniques, but even so I would have expected somewhat greater differences considering that the Italian trees have had centuries to adapt to where they live.

It could be that one would find greater differences using the high-quality low-yield extraction technique I mentioned above, but without it the Chilean oils made a most impressive showing, and if you come across one it's well worth considering.

Cotenne: Treats of the Season And a Step Into The Past
Moving in a very different direction, a reader recently asked me for a recipe for cotenne. Cotenne, also known as cotiche, are raw pork rinds, or skins. Before you blanch, some context.

In the past, when most Italian farmers paid the landowners rent to work the land, said rent was in part in cash, but also included a share of the harvest, and as such some meat from the pigs when they were butchered in late fall or early winter (the traditional time for pork butchering in Italy). While the landowner probably didn't get a fresh ham (he might have gotten one after it was cured and became prosciutto), it's a safe bet that his share came from the more noble sections of the animal, say the loin. With famine a constant possibility the farmers couldn't afford to let even the tiniest part of their pigs go to waste, and therefore also came up with all sorts of ways to use the cotenne, or pork skin.

The most common use for pork skins today is in the fillings of cotechini, the classic large pork sausages one simmers for hours and enjoys with lentils on New Year's Day; the sausages derive their name from cotiche, pork rinds, and also their texture, which has a satiny gelatinous feel people either adore or can't stand. I have found there is no middle ground.

However, if you can find fresh pork skin -- I've never seen it in a supermarket in Tuscany; it's one of those things that you have to special order from your butcher -- there are a number of things you can do with it. The easiest is to enhance the texture of a stew; take a strip of cotenna, wash it well, blanch it and scrape it to remove bristles, and then add it to the stew pot. It will impart a rather libidinous feel to the texture; remove it before serving the stew. Here are a few more recipes in which cotenna plays a leading role, and as such offers a glimpse back to when people were of necessity much more frugal than they are now:

Cotechinata is a specialty from Basilicata; true peasant food of a sort that one doesn't encounter often any more. To serve 6 you'll need:

• 2 1/4 pounds (1 k) fresh pork skin
• 3 cloves garlic, minced
• 1/4 cup minced parsley
• 2 fresh hot red peppers, minced
• 2 tablespoons lard or olive oil
• 1 cup tomato sauce
• Toothpicks

Blanch the skins, scrape off any bristles you see, and cut them into squares between 4 and 6 inches (10-15 cm) per side.

Combine the garlic, parsley, and peppers, and mix well. Spread the mixture over the squares of pork skin and roll them up to make involtini, securing them with toothpicks.

Heat the oil or lard in a skillet large enough for the involtini to lie in a single layer. Brown them, turning them to color all sides, add the tomato sauce, and simmer them covered until the skins are quite soft, at least an hour and more likely two, adding water if need be to keep the pot from drying out. Serve hot with a zesty green, for example broccoli raab, and a bright red wine, for example an Aglianico.

Cotenne e Verdure, Cotenne with Greens, is instead a Sicilian recipe, and again a testament to frugality. To serve 6 you'll need:

• 2 pounds (900 g) fresh pork skins, flamed to remove bristles
• An onion, sliced
• 1/3 cup olive oil
• 1 cup (250 ml) tomato sauce
• 2/3 pound (300 g) potatoes
• 1/2 pound (225 g) cabbage leaves (whichever variety you prefer)
• A pear, cored and diced
• 1 tablespoon sugar
• Salt and pepper to taste

Boil the pork skins in salted water for two hours. When they are cooked, drain them and slice them into thin strips.

Peel and dice the potatoes. Coarsely shred the cabbage.

Sauté the onion in the olive oil in a large saucepan; when it becomes a translucent gold add the tomato sauce and the pork skins. Cover, reduce the heat, and simmer for an hour. Add the potatoes, cabbage, and pear, together with a ladle of hot water. Check seasoning and continue simmering until the potatoes and the cabbage are done. Serve at once with a brisk red wine.

Finally, pork and beans are an old standby, and as you might guess, you can also use pork skins. This recipe for Fagioli con le Cotiche is from Lombardia, and will be a very nice way of keeping winter at bay. To serve 6:

• 1 1/3 pounds (600 g) fresh pork skins
• 2/3 pound (300 g) dried borlotti (cranberry beans), soaked overnight
• An ounce (30 g) of cured lard or fatty pancetta, minced
• 2 tablespoons unsalted butter
• 1 tablespoon olive oil
• 2 medium onions
• 2 8-inch (20 cm) ribs celery
• 2 6-inch (15 cm) carrots
• 1 clove garlic, crushed
• A hint of ground spices (cinnamon, cloves, nutmeg)
• 3/4 cup (200 ml) tomato sauce
• Ground cayenne pepper to taste (go easy)
• Salt and freshly ground pepper

Drain the beans, put them in a pot with cold water to cover abundantly, and boil them until tender, salting them at the end.

In the meantime, flame the pork skins to remove bristles, rub them clean with a cloth, and cut them into thin strips. Put them in a pot with cold water to cover, add an onion, a stick of celery, and a carrot, all coarsely chopped, together with the garlic clove, and set the pot to heat; then it comes to a boil turn the heat down to a simmer.

Mince the remaining onion, celery and carrot and combine them. Heat the butter and oil in a large casserole and sauté the chopped lard until it begins to brown. Add the minced onion mixture and the spices and continue to sauté, stirring, for about 10 minutes.

Drain the beans and add them to the saucepot. Drain the pork skins and add them too, together with the tomato sauce and a ladle of the liquid the rinds cooked in. Mix carefully, cover, and simmer over a low flame for about 40 minutes. Check seasoning and serve at once, with polenta and a bright, fairly acidic red wine, perhaps a Valtellina DOC. Sfursat would be overkill, as would Sassella, but an Inferno or Grumello would be nice.

Winding Down, Naples
I was going to say something about the garbage crisis in the Province of Naples, but I am certain you have seen news reports, and I would simply be rehashing what has already been said. One thing you may not have heard, however, is that the situation isn't much better in much of the rest of Italy. Put simply, the dumps and landfills are filling up, and not enough has been done to transform recycling from a pipe dream into reality.

Planners say the future will revolve around what are called ecoballe, burnable bales made from what is left over after all the recyclables are taken out, but for now everything, including most of the termovalorizzatori where the bales will be burned (producing some energy, one hopes, and as little pollution as possible) is either under construction or in the planning stages. Among the other cities especially at risk are Florence, Torino, Genova, and Rome. It will be interesting to see what happens.

This time's proverb is from Molise: Chi è state muccecate da na serpe, tiè paura de le lucertole, One who has been bitten by a snake fears lizards.

Kyle Phillips
Editor, The Italian Wine Review
http://www.italianwinereview.com
Want to comment? Drop me a line at Kyle@cosabolle.com

PS -- Please forward this to anyone you think would enjoy it! If you would like to read past issues (nothing in them really gets stale), you'll find them on the IWR site, through http://www.cosabolle.com.