{"id":4604,"date":"2015-07-19T18:25:52","date_gmt":"2015-07-19T18:25:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/food.hoggardwagner.org\/?p=4604"},"modified":"2015-07-19T18:25:52","modified_gmt":"2015-07-19T18:25:52","slug":"calabrese-salami-lombard-scarpinocc-iowa-cheese","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/food.hoggardwagner.org\/?p=4604","title":{"rendered":"Calabrese salami; Lombard scarpinocc; Iowa cheese"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"salame_radicchio\"<\/a><\/p>\n

About ten days ago I happened to be passing the fresh handmade pasta bar at Eataly on the day our\u00a0neighborhood store<\/a>, one of my\u00a0favorite food sources, was announcing that the next day it would be selling – for one day only – a filled\u00a0pasta special of\u00a0Scarpinocc. \u00a0They had examples on display that day, but not for sale. \u00a0These traditional forms would be filled with grana padano, taleggio, bread crumbs, and spices, then hand pinched into something\u00a0which I thought looked like\u00a0a bicorne<\/a>\u00a0(although legend would have it that the shape mimics that of the village’s characteristic\u00a0local felt, or leather, shoe). \u00a0Of course I returned\u00a0on the next day and brought home\u00a0a small box –\u00a0enough for two.<\/p>\n

The next step was to investigate how it was usually served, and also what to serve as an antipasto.<\/p>\n

The origins of Scarpinocc\u00a0were in\u00a0the humble northern Italian town of Parre, in the Lombardy province of Bergamo, “Qui non c’\u00e8 mai stata la possibilit\u00e0 di grandi coltivazioni<\/a><\/em>” [Here there was never the possibility of large crops]. The unique\u00a0pasta form\u00a0returns to the town every year for la\u00a0Festa degli Scarpinocc di Parre<\/em>, during the third weekend of August, which of course makes Eataly’s homage in early July a bit premature.<\/p>\n

But delicious. \u00a0It seems the traditional\u00a0sauce would be\u00a0butter, sage (I used\u00a0Rogowski Farm’s), and ‘cheese’. \u00a0The use of both taleggio and parmesan showed up in my online searches, but I wasn’t sure how I would introduce the softer alternative to the dish, so I went with the grating cheese, here Red Cow parmesan, also from Eatlay, slivered on the top).<\/p>\n

For the\u00a0starter\/antipasto, I served something traditional from the opposite end of the Italian peninsula, sliced Calabrese salame from\u00a0Colameco’s, drizzled with olive oil, with a lightly-dressed (good olive oil, lemon, salt, pepper) salad of a delicious local radicchio, from\u00a0Tamarack Hollow Farm.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"scarpinocc\"<\/a><\/p>\n

There was a cheese course, if only barely, since we had already satisfied ourselves. \u00a0It was pretty American; \u00a0there hadn’t been a line that day at the Eatlay cheese counter, so I asked one of the people I usually see there what he felt especially good about at the moment. \u00a0He immediately replied, “have you tried this cheddar?” \u00a0I had almost forgotten about cheddar, because I have come to think of it as more suitable to the kind of food I usually don’t prepare, and more recently because, well, it was now summer. \u00a0I tasted it; \u00a0it was ‘Flory\u2019s ‘Truckle<\/a>\u2019, an artisanal cheddar-style cow cheese from Iowa. It was fantastic.<\/p>\n

Accompanying\u00a0the “barely”\u00a0cheese was toast from a\u00a0sourdough b\u00e2tard by\u00a0She Wolf Bakery at the Greenmarket<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"toast_and_cheese\"<\/a><\/p>\n