If you’ve been to Spilamberto, then there’s a good chance you’ve been to the Museo del Balsamico Tradizionale di Spilamberto. Such a pilgrimage will give you a good feel for the excruciatingly long process involved in making real balsamic vinegar. It takes at least 12 years; and that’s for a young-un.
The reason I mention this is that there was a heated discussion on the web recently about how many of us hated it when fake balsamic was presented to us to use to dress a simple salad. It was just another “oh, what has the stupid world come to now” whining session until my hero Marcella Hazan weighed in. She called vinegar “nobile”. Not balsamic, the regular stuff. She hates fake balsamic, too.
And that got me to thinking. I use vinegar quite a lot. One of the best uses is in Marchella Hazan’s own recipe, “Lamb stew with vinegar and green beans.” Yes, you throw some lamb, some green beans and some onion in a pot and stew them in vinegar. Ordinary vinegar. And it’s good. Besides, it’s real Italian.
You know, when you rent a house for a week in Italy, sometimes you get a house whose owner is stingy with the accouterments, especially with the pots and pans. Maybe there’s a two burner stove and a single pot that’s so darned beaten up it seems to have been used to transfer huge rocks out of the driveway. You think, “how in the world am I gonna cook dinner in that?
Then Marcella’s recipe flutters into your mind. A one-pot meal. Four basic ingredients easily procured in Italy. And, believe me, the smells this combo produces will amaze and astound you.
I use vinegar in other ways in Italy, too. I’ve heard that some Americans crave the barbecue sauce they can’t buy in Italian stores. Heck, that’s easy. I just get one of those squeeze tubes of ultra-reduced tomato paste and some vinegar. That’s the basis of the sauce. You need something, of course, to balance out the sour, so it’s gotta be sweet. My neighbor’s honey will do. Some pepper flakes and black pepper to give it some kick, and there you go. You saute some garlic and the pepper flakes in oil with a big ‘ol squeeze of the tomato paste so it browns together, then add a bit of the honey and some salt—always tasting like you do in cooking school—and you thin it with some ‘o the wine you’re drinking until it gets to the right consistency, then salt to taste. Basta, five minutes and you’re done. I mean with the barbecue sauce. It might take longer to drain the bottle of wine.
In ancient times women considered vinegar a healing liquid. There’s some evidence that it has an antiglycemic effect. Heck, you can clean windows with it, too.
Noble. Yup, that’s for sure.
*You might consider looking in your used bookstore for Marcella Hazan’s “More Classic Italian Cooking” in paperback. It’s better than the 1995 re-issue, which caves to American tastes. Mine is tore right in two, at our most used recipe for Chicken Fricassee with Red Cabbage. Mmmm, I gotta do that one again.
**I didn’t write about Marcella Hazan just because she friended me on facebook either. The fact she wrote “Welcome. Thank you for the kind words. You have a keen palate. My best, Marcella” is just icing on a big fat ego cake for me. Really. Buy her book and see for yourself. You’ll discover that she’s my hero for good reason; she cooks real Italian, and tells you how to structure the meal besides.