Room With a View

Welcome to Mangia Tutto! In Italian that means "eat everything" and to illustrate that the day before yesterday I made risotto alle ortiche for lunch. 

Ortica (plural is ortiche) is basically a weed and it is otherwise known as"stinging nettle". I know this because in the summer when I walk to the garden in flip-flops my toes always hit the ortiche and there is an annoying little tingling sensation that lasts for a few minutes.

Piero, who otherwise will be known here as Peter, my Florentine sweetheart, has often mentioned ortica as something to cook with. And he has picked bags of it to take to his friend Eva in Florence. (Poor lady lives in the city and doesn't have the pleasure of weeds.) So this week I came across a recipe for this risotto with ortiche and I decided to try it. Not bad at all and really economical considering it's a weed.

Italians really do make the most of everything that nature gives them in the way of food. We're in the midst of chestnut season right now. During the war the country was so poor that chestnuts were a plentiful source of food for them. Drying them and making flour and then making the simple cake, castagnaccio, of the flour and water. Just this past weekend we had the Chestnut Festival here in our little town and I had a steaming piece of castagnaccio and washed it down the vin brule..red wine steeped with cloves, sugar and an orang peel. It really hits the spot. Peter had polenta made of the chestnut flour and a dollop of sheep's milk ricotta. And then you could have the polenta fried and dusted with sugar or the whole chestnuts with cognac...you get the idea. Everything chestnut. In the center of the piazza there was a huge chestnut roasting pan spewing smoke and the irresistible aroma of roasting chestnuts and people come from all over to walk around and look at the craft tables, eat chestnuts, drink the steaming wine and enjoy the music and a day in the country.

In Mangia Tutto! I hope to write about these little snippets of country life here in the Casentino. And also to keep you posted on what's for lunch this week. Right now, I have to get the cake out of the oven. It's an olive oil cake. Today's pasta is tagliatelle with chicken liver sauce.