The Dog Who Ate the Truffle: A Memoir of Stories and Recipes from Umbria

By Suzanne Carreiro

An authentic culinary journey—part memoir, part cookbook—introducing readers to the people, places, and food of Umbria

Veteran food critic Suzanne Carriero spent a year and a half in Umbria, and this is her intimate look at its ancient recipes, traditions, and the people who pass them on. Each of the book's eight chapters features local cooks, as their personal stories are as much a part of the cuisine's essence as are the crops they grow and the family dishes they prepare.

Anecdotes, sidebars, and boxes are used throughout the book to further illustrate Umbrian life—from buying a rabbit in the country, to making torta di Pasqua for Easter, to reading the Italian wine label, and drinking cappuccino after lunch (a serious breach in tradition). With a food and wine glossary included as a reference for travelers, The Dog Who Ate the Truffle immerses the reader in the people, cuisine, and lifestyle that few are privileged to experience. Suzanne's colorful stories and authentic classic recipes make for an intimate and illustrious travel cookbook.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Macmillan Publishers
• Release date: Aug 17, 2010
• ISBN: 9781429972055

Suzanne Carreiro

Suzanne Carreiro has worked in the food industry for over twenty years, having written for The San Francisco Chronicle, Cooking Light and others. She is the author of The Dog Who Ate the Truffle. She was the PR director of Beringer Blass Wine Estates in Napa Valley where she now lives.

Book preview

1 Two Sisters—Le due sorelle

Si stava meglio quando si stava peggio

(You were better off when you were worse off)

The two Ramaccioni sisters, Paola and Silvia, became my closest friends during my year and a half in Umbertide. I rented my country apartment from Silvia, and Paola’s son Mario, my Italian tutor, lived next door.

Paola, the quintessential Italian mother, carries the family’s recipe book in her head. And when she isn’t in the kitchen preparing one of her mother’s recipes or concocting a new dish, she is taking care of her family. Her three-year-old granddaughter, Giulia, is her apprentice. Covered in flour, Giulia delights in playing with and eating bits of dough stolen from nonna’s cutting board. Near the end of my yearlong stay with the Ramaccionis, Paola’s second grandchild, Bruno, was delivered.

Silvia, a middle-aged tomboy, avoids the kitchen. Over time, I discovered that although she professes to know nothing about cooking, she knows all about good food and traditional dishes—where to buy the freshest ricotta, how to make fresh pasta. But she prefers to play outdoors with her grandson Simone or work on her country property. On our almost daily hike or bike ride in and around Umbertide, Silvia liked to tell me about the people and the history of the area.

I left my own family at home, but I found a new one in Umbertide. Silvia and Paola welcomed me into their lives and treated me like a sister.

THE WORKHORSE

Silvia is an attractive woman with thick salt-and-pepper hair, muscular arms, and shapely legs that show when she wears short skirts. She has large hands, man’s hands, that she uses to haul and stack firewood, prune the vineyards, bundle kindling, and fill potholes with gravel. While I lived at Silvia’s country house, I watched her working on the property under the summer’s sun and in winter’s icy wind—and often with an aching back.

She’s a workhorse, Paola said. She’s always worked like a man.

The other side of Silvia is the doting nonna to Simone, a three-year-old. Maialino, tesoro (little piggy, treasure), she squeals when she sees him. She covers him with kisses and pinches his chubby cheeks until, giggling uncontrollably, he begs her to stop.

Silvia seems to remember every event dating back to the Etruscans, and she has read most of literature’s great books. Her English, spoken with a charming British accent, is as good as mine. (But don’t expect her to speak English to you. After teaching English for more than twenty years, she considers it work.) On our frequent Sunday outings to restaurants, museums, and festivals, she has her wallet out and pays the entire bill before anyone else has a chance. When we offer to reciprocate, she says she will stay home if we do.

She refuses to eat off paper plates or to use paper napkins. Lizards and snakes petrify her, but she doesn’t flinch when she crushes a scorpion or centipede (which terrify me). She has a twinkle in her dark eyes and an upturned mouth that always seems to be laughing at a private joke. Her usually friendly face flashes in anger whenever anyone with a camera tries to get near.

Silvia, a widow, inhabits the second floor of the ancient three-story house she was born in. The town now surrounds the grand old house, which used to be in the country. Her sister, Paola, lives with her oldest son on the top floor, and a cousin owns the ground floor. Silvia’s son, his wife, and Simone live in the house next door, in what used to be the family’s cantina (winery). The several abandoned houses on the property are owned by cousins who live elsewhere. A tall stone building, once used to dry tobacco, is utilized for storage.

Silvia humbly denies it, but several townspeople have confirmed it—the Ramaccionis are descendants of an old aristocratic Umbrian family. At one time, they owned most of the land in and around Umbertide—block after block in the city and vast expanses of forest and fields outside town. As people died or someone needed money or when things got too complicated with too many owners, the family sold off bits and pieces of land.

Many afternoons, Silvia and I explored the maze of strade bianche (dirt roads) that crisscross the hills surrounding Umbertide. She can find the road to any tower, castle, or monastery hiding in the forests and hilltops. On our hikes, she rattled off the architectural styles of nearby castles and the year they were built. Each country house has a name and a history, all of which she remembers. She recalls the last family to move out, leaving a castle to crumble. One day, Silvia told me about the poor farm family who had lived in a house above me. Poor? I asked, looking at the large, beautifully restored stone house with magnificent views.

The house was like a barn for animals, not what you see today, she said. "It probably had a kitchen and one big room for sleeping, and I am sure it was immaculate—farmhouses always were. The farm women worked like beasts. They got up around four on summer mornings and worked hard all day. They were poor but happy. We say, Si stava meglio quando si stava peggio [You were better off when you were worse off]. They were happier in their poverty than they are today with their money." Silvia always wanted to talk history, but I kept bringing up recipes.

I never cook, Silvia told me when I asked her for recipes.

What do you eat? I asked.

Bread, cheese, fruit, a little prosciutto.

But I’ve heard you tell Paola how to make several recipes, I persisted.

One night I invited Silvia to dinner. Why didn’t you tell me you were making lasagne? she asked when I pulled the hot dish out of the oven.

What difference would it have made? I asked.

I would have made the pasta for you.

Another night, when I was cooking the gnocchi for dinner, I heard Silvia say to Mario, You roll the potato dough into snakes and cut them into short pieces. Next she told him how to push a finger into each gnocco to make an indentation. To hold the sauce, she explained.

One day, after eating polenta con sugo at her house, I realized that she didn’t just have an opinion about cooking—she really could cook. Here is her excellent recipe for Polenta with Ragù—plus a few more of her favorite recipes.

Polenta with Ragù

Polenta con sugo

My friend Sabrina, who spent a lot of time at her grandparents’ farm, talks about eating soft polenta from a communal board in the center of her nonna’s dining table—everyone dug in with their own silverware. She swears that polenta doesn’t taste the same on ceramic dishes, so today she serves it on individual wooden plates.

In Umbria, sugo di salsiccia (sausage ragù) and sugo di carne mista (mixed meat ragù) are two traditional sauces for polenta. For this recipe, a thick polenta is cooled until it can be cut and layered in a casserole with sauce and cheese—diced mozzarella can be added between the layers for a heartier dish. To make a vegetarian polenta, substitute Classic Tomato Sauce (see recipe) for the meat sauce. To serve soft polenta, rather than baking it, add extra water, milk, cream, or broth near the end of cooking to make it creamy—but not so much that the polenta loses its flavor. Spoon the polenta into individual bowls and top it with sugo and grated cheese. For a more flavorful polenta, substitute whole milk or cream for part of the water or use broth instead of water (but add the salt to taste at the end).

Yield: 4 servings

5 cups cold water

1 tablespoon kosher salt (important: see "About Salt")

1½ cups uncooked coarse, fine, or instant polenta

1 ounce plus 3 ounces grated Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese (see "Grated Cheese")

2 tablespoons butter plus more for pans

3 cups Umbrian Ragù (see recipe)

GETTING STARTED: Preheat the oven to 350°F. Butter a large jelly roll or sheet pan and a 7 × 11 × 2-inch baking dish. Fill a large glass with cold water to dip a wooden spoon in.

1. In a large, heavy pot, bring the 5 cups of water to a boil; add the kosher salt. Be ready with a wire whisk—let the polenta slowly fall like rain (that’s how the Italians describe it) into the boiling water while beating with the whisk (be sure to whisk as soon as the polenta hits the water and continue until all of the polenta has been added). Return to a boil over high heat while whisking, but stand back—polenta spits and can burn. Reduce the heat to low; cook 25 minutes (if using instant polenta, cook 10 minutes), stirring frequently with a wooden spoon. Add the 1 ounce of cheese and 2 tablespoons butter; stir until the butter melts.

2. Immediately pour the polenta into the buttered jelly roll pan. Dip a clean wooden spoon into the glass of cold water; use the back of the wet spoon to spread the polenta into an 11 × 14-inch rectangle (double the size of the baking dish). When the polenta is cool enough to touch, use wet hands to smooth and shape the rectangle. Let the polenta cool until it is firm, about half an hour; cut the polenta in half crosswise to get two 7 × 11-inch pieces. Cut each half into four pieces.

3. Use four of the polenta pieces to cover the bottom of the buttered 7 × 11-inch baking dish (overlap the polenta as needed to fit it into the dish). Cover with half of the sauce and half of the remaining 3 ounces of cheese. Make a second layer, using the rest of the polenta, sauce, and cheese. Bake uncovered until the polenta is hot and the top is well browned, 45 to 60 minutes. Let stand 10 minutes before serving.

NOTE: To reheat leftovers, preheat the oven to 400°F. Put the polenta on a buttered baking pan; bake until hot and bubbly. Or reheat in a microwave oven. Plain or baked polenta with sauce freezes well. To freeze, cut the polenta into individual portions and space them half an inch apart on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper; freeze until firm. Transfer to freezer bags and seal tightly; store in the freezer up to three months. Reheat frozen polenta in the microwave or a 350°F oven, covering with foil as needed to prevent overbrowning. Thawed plain polenta can be grilled or sautéed—it’s delicious as a side with stew or topped with ragù and cheese.

GRATED CHEESE

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The recipes in this book give weight rather than a cup measure for grated aged cheese because by-the-cup volume changes dramatically depending on the grater, and whether the cheese was grated by hand or machine. But generally one ounce of store-bought finely grated (not shredded) Parmigiano-Reggiano pretty consistently measures about cup. At home, one ounce of Parmigiano cubes yields about ¼ cup when processed until very fine in a food processor. But an ounce of cheese grated by hand might measure significantly more. To use hand-grated cheese, the most accurate method is to weigh the cheese, but measuring cubes of cheese with a ruler works too. For example, a 1½ × 1-inch piece of Parmigiano-Reggiano weighs about one

Reviews for The Dog Who Ate the Truffle

[mlanzotti_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

An excellent memoir of life in Italy, with recipes