Forking Tasty

You know what good salumi looks like and if you don’t you clearly don’t read Forking Tasty enough. I’ll proceed with my assumption being correct. That explains my choice to show the shop the salumi came from instead of the thinly slices, perfectly aged, fat and spiced filled pork that came from within. Florence is packed with these tiny shops that sell wine by the glass, panini or boards of salumi. around 3 or 4pm the florentine locals come out of the surrounding buildings and pop into one of the dozens of options available for snacking.

On this particular afternoon, as we sauntered away from the glorious Duomo, a chalkboard with different types of salumi plates caught our attention. We slipped into the tiny shop to procure one of the tasty specials. Cutting to order, the proprietor stood in a small square box surrounded by a cash register, meat slicer and fifty different salumi and proscuittos. Minutes later he handed us a board with our five different selections laid out like silk scarves across the rustic wood. The only spot to sit were two counters that ran along the outer walls providing only 8 seats. The idea is much like the bar (read coffee shop) culture you find all over Italy. A small space which provides a quick snack, a sip and a little conversation before you move on to your next errand or destination. The flow, premise and tradition of this behavior is one in which I cherish and believe should exist worldwide. With our board wiped clean of pig slices we we’re off for Gelato. See…When you’re not a local your next errand tends to be another snack.

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Macaroons are not Italian but maccarone is. Like many things French, macaroons inspiration came from the Italians. This post isn’t sparking a debate about the inception of modern cuisine although read “Food In History“, then let’s talk. My intro was simply a snarky preface to the surprise I received when checking into my hotel room in Florence. Before I go any further let’s be clear that when I discovered this treat I was standing in the Four Seasons Hotel as a guest on his honeymoon. Something of this nature is expected in a property of this caliber but the handmade attention to detail you see above was still surprising. The taste matched the presentation keeping my wife and I sugared up and ready to tour Firenza.

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On day two in Rome I visited Trastevere, a cool but still touristy neighborhood across the Tiber. To my surprise our visit coincided with the Chocolate Fair. Lines of tents filled the piazza with chocolate in all forms. From bars, bon bon and bites to crafted shapes like stiletto heels, wrenches and proscuitto there seemed to be every chocolate form you could imagine. Additionally there were chocolate cannolis, chocolate donuts and, what you see here, sipping chocolate. What we think of as hot chocolate seemed a bit more high test here in Italy. It is as thick as it looks. The Canadian and I had a tough time finishing this off with out major sugar shock. Three sips and you are done unless you get a fresh brioche or baguette and do the ‘ol chocolate dip. Smart right? Well, we unfortunately couldn’t find fresh bread but we did use our sugar high to propel us on foot all the way to the Trevi Fountain.

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Kind of a Roman thing I came to realize. What’s different than most you’ve seen in the states is they use the whole damn pig. That’s why they are so damn big. I think these are closest to a Shwarma joint in that they start the day with a giant piece of meat and slowly slice it back into a tiny nub of swine. A good show can go through 1 plus of these debones and re wrapped porkers a day. This one was spotted in Piazza Navona. Probably not the best Rome has to offer since Navona is one of the most touristed places in Rome. If you follow Bourdain, he’ll tell you to go to I Porchettoni far away from the tourists.

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I realized that the stories from Italy can take months to properly explain. In the crunch of the Holidays and my burning need to share all the Italian goodies before the Italian-American goodies hit the holiday table, I am going to post my highlights in short order this week allowing you all a quick Italian food vacation before the Holidays take over.

First up is this perfect pignoli cookie. The reigning champion of this cookie is my Aunt Joy but as far as an “in Italy” version this takes the cake, or cookie as it were. The key to the pignoli is to get that crunchy outside with a moist and soft inside. This succeed on both fronts. Washing it down with a quick Italian espresso made it that much better. Where did I get it? Just a tiny, non-pretentious, BAR(read coffee shop) on via you-name-it. My favorite type of food discoveries are always the unexpected and nondescript places. Truth be told, there was a name and you should remember it. Pasticceria Dagnino. Get there.

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Hence the seven days of silence, tight pants and cured meat withdrawals. There is plenty to discuss and review so expect tons of Italian posts in the next few weeks as we slide right into our Italian-American Christmas. For now be satiated by this bowl of spaghetti carbonara I had just a few steps off Campo di Fiori in Rome at Salumeria Roscioli. Thanks to Mario Batali’s real time tweeting he hooked us up with this recommendation of a little nondescript salumeria. Along with this tasty dish the table was filled up by a burata with sun dried tomatoes, a plate of meatballs, a huge samulmi plate, proscuitto carpaccio and of course a bottle of vino.

As they say, when in Rome. As I say, visit here.

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SOLD OUT – $80

GET ON THE WAIT LIST Click Here

One pan serves approximately 9 Anello size pieces. Available while supplies last.
Purchase and hand delivery available in Brooklyn, Queens and Manhattan only. Please note, We can not deliver outside of these boroughs of NY.

This year, for the first time, we are sharing some of our holiday feast with you. No longer will you have to look at beautiful pictures of amazing food and wonder if it tastes as good as it looks. We are making limited quantities of our signature meat lasagna and will deliver them right to your door. Remember, we are southern Italian’s so no bechemel here…just pure red sauce and triple meat, triple cheese. Now go start planning your feast!

What you get

Each order contains a 9×13 reusable steel pan full of our famous 5 layer lasagna. Delivery is included in your purchase. (Brooklyn, Queens and Manhattan only please). We will deliver your order chilled along with proper reheat instructions. Each pan will feed 12-15 adults or 9 Italians. Ingredients: Tomato sauce, Tomato paste, pork, beef, veal (ground), spices, mozzerella cheese, ricotta cheese, parmesan cheese, pasta noodles (egg, flour, water), olive oil

When you get it

Delivery will be on December 19th in the evening. After you complete your purchase we will contact you for specific timing and location information but please include delivery address at time of purchase in the shipping address field.

Questions? Drop us a note at info@forkingtasty.com

This year for Thanksgiving I headed down south with the southerner. We hopped into the car and made the normally 7 hour trip to Yorktown VA, in 9 hours. Can not believe how many accidents were on the road. We got caught in every one of them. Lucky us!

Most of you know my day job keeps me tied pretty tight to the latest digital wizbang. One trend that has fascinated me for some time is the digital magazine. With apps like Aol Editions and Flipboard making our internet consumption prettier and simpler I decided to try out a few digital ‘zine products for our first ever Forking Tasty Magazine Issue. Technically it’s a REEL TASTY recap issue but, if you like it, we’ll make the next issue more FT Universal.

Go ahead try it. Click the center of the image where it says “expand”.

What you’ll see is the Issuu version of the magazine. We also produced a MagCloud version. MagCloud is HP’s digital, but printable, magazine division. The advantage of MagCloud is a digital and printed version of each issue is available. If you’d like to touch the Forking Tasty Mag you can order one up and have it shipped right to your door.

I bet yesterday was a rough day back. I hope you all had as amazing and as restful a Thanksgiving weekend as I did. I clocked in with an average of 8.5 hours of sleep per night. That’s unheard of in this family. Well rested and well fed I share with you a few of the delicious, authentic, fresh and traditional goodie’s my amazing mother-in-law whipped up for our London, Ontario Thanksgiving weekend starting with the above channa masala.

To set the tone here’s a little video of…