A very Renaissance Dessert

Today I am baking a "Lucca Ring Cake". The recipe dates back to 1483, and is a simple yeast cake with raisins and aniseed.

As a prior student of Renaissance History and daily life, it filled me with excitement to think I am cooking something that Lucrezia Tournabuoni may have eaten (I assume she didn't cook it herself, what with the slaves back then...).

It reminded me of the study tour I did in Tuscany six years ago where we ate at a restaurant in Siena with medieval recipes... The original gnocchi recipe involved cheese rather than potato.

But Lucca especially is a fascinating city. With one of the still standing full city walls that wrap around the city in a ring, and the Piazza Anfiteatro -  an oval shaped public square, this city can seem a quaint and like a near medieval disney land for tourists seeking the sights, smells and general experience of an Italian town. However, Lucca rivalled Florence for power, and wars were fought from the walls with Siena and Florence. However, after the 1300s it was passed around between the Genoese, Florentines, Pisans and Veronese like a venereal disease.

I once met twins at a school who were in Kindergarten - their names were Siena (female) and Lucca (male), I wonder if the parents knew how much fighting occured between them.

But back to the Lucca Ring Cake, it is currently happily doughy and resting under a tea towel.

Daisy

Size does matter...when it comes to Sweet Potatoes

When I saw the recipe for a sweet potato cake for our Venice lunch I thought "awesome - vegetables and sugar together". The recipe looked so simple - some flour, sugar, eggs, bit of butter, apples and raisins... and four large sweet potatoes.

I didn't think about having a  conversation with myself full of double entendre about "what is large?" I just went down to woolies, bought the four largest sweet potatoes I could (totalling to 2.2kg) and went through with the recipe. The result was mashed sweet potato that had been cooked for an hour and was a bit brown around the edges.

When I unclipped the spring cake tin, the cake sunk by about an inch and spread on the plate.

So it made me think - what is large?

Well it turns out a very similar recipe suggests 2 cups of cooked peeled sweet potato. Once again, the book needs to be verified.

April - Lombardia

Lombardia's capital is Milan. It's cuisine has more rice (Arborio is the type used in Risotto) than other regions, and butter is used more so than olive oil, due to it's border with France.

Our Meal

Saffron Risotto

Roast Beef cooked in Milk

Apple Charlotte - before being cooked.

Throughout the preparation of the meal, we continued playing Blokus, which is in no way related to Lombardia, but is great fun none the less.

March - Liguria

Here are some things we know about Liguria*:

1. It is Christopher Columbus' birthplace 

2. Traces of the Neanderthal Man were found here

3. The city was awarded a gold medal for military valour in WWII for its struggle against German occupation 

More importantly, it's the land where foccacia, meringues, pesto, panettone and other such yummy things originate.  After all, Genova is the capital and Liguria is best known for the Cinque Terre aka the Italian Riveria and as such, knows how to have a good time.

And so do we. Or at least, we know how to eat. 

So, the menu for Liguria was: 

1. Triofie al Pesto (both nut and nut-free versions for yours truly)

2. Veal roll-ups and stuffed zucchini 

3. Olive oil raspberry cake with meringue topping (not from our Cucina Italian cookbook but thanks to Martha Stewart)

Yum yum in my tum... 

*Souce: Wikipedia (ie read: disclaimer for not-my-fault-if-this-is-not-strictly-factually-true). 

February - Piedmont

Boun appetito!

The first of our twenty regional dinners came as Sydney was enjoying the last throes of summer. Daisy was about to renew her teaching studies, Melissa had returned to Australia after amazing adventures abroad and Stephen was in his first few weeks of his doctoral studies in pure mathematics. As for me, I was just about to bid adieu to the College of Law - finally.

We selected as our first region Piedmont, home to the Shroud of Turin, Garibaldi and, as we found to our delight, some delicious cuisine.

We dipped our toe in the food of Piedmontese with Melissa's wonderful entree of capsicum served plump, succulent and lightly grilled in an enticing bruschetta style. Our main was a superbly cooked hunters chicken prepared by Daisy, which was a sensation of hearty tomatoey, oniony, chickeny goodness. Stephen and I offered a chocolate pear cake - a dense creation of slowly cooked pears and Italian cocoa, which emerged from its baking dish with a satisfying plop.

And thus began our adventure into the regional cooking of Italy.