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XXX New This Month
Sunday, April 28th, 2013
Originated from: Montreal, Quebec, Canada
Occasion: Any time & special times
Contributed by: Webmaster, Mary Melfi; image courtesy of the NYPL Digital Gallery

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Ingredients

Potpourri.



Directions

Easy does it.




Notes

What's new this month at www.italyrevisited.org? In the PHOTO ARCHIVE hundreds of beautiful and inspiring agricultural images have been added. Most of the images were taken from early 20th century British and American travel books (All the books are available for free at www.archive. org.). Even though the books were sitting in this wonderful on line library for years, I had no idea that by entering the words, "travels in Italy and Italian travels," I would end up with an invaluable list of texts. Here is a sample of what I found and from which I took photos from: 1) "Notes from the Journal of a Tourist" by George Buckham, Volume II (New York: Gavin Houston, 1890; 2) " Travelogues by Burton Holmes" (New York: McClure Company, 1908); 3) "The Destiny of Doris, a Travel-Story of Three Continents" by Julius Chambers (New York: Continental Publishing, 1901); 4) "Pappina, The Little Wanderer, a story of Southern Italy" by Katherine Wallace Davis (Chicago: A. Flanagan Company, 1908); 5) "Old Calabria" by Norman Douglas (London: Martin Secker, 1920); 6) "Peeps at Many lands Italy" by John Finnemore (London: Adam and Charles Black, 1908); 7) "Florence, Some Tuscan Cities Painted by Colonel R.C. Goff, described by Clarissa Goff (London: A.C. Black, 1905); 8) "Home Life in Italy, Letters from the Apennines" by Lina Duff Gordon (London: Methuen, 1908); 9) "Italy Old and New" by Elizabeth Hazelton Haight (New York: E.P. Dutton, 1922); 10) "Cities of Southern Italy and Sicily" by Augustus J.C. Hare (London: George Allen, 1891); 11) "Wayfarers in Italy" by Katharine Hooker (San Francisco: D.P. Elder and Morgan Shepard, 1902); 12) "Italy and The Italians" by Edward Hutton (New York: E.P. Dutton & Company, 1903); 13) "Naples and Southern Italy" by Edward Hutton (London: Methuen & Co., 1915); 14) "Italian Pictures" by Rev. Samuel Manning (Piccadilly: The Religious Tract Society, 1878); 15) "Naples in the Nineties" by E. Neville Rolfe (London: Adam and Charles Black, 1897); 16) "Naples Past and Present" by Arthur H. Normal (London: Methuen & Co., 1913); 17) "Irma in Italy, a Travel Story" by Helen Leah Reed (Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1908); 18) "A Roman Pilgrimage" by R. Ellis Roberts (London: Methuen & Co., 1911); 19) "The Book of Italy," edited by Viscount Bryce (London: T. Fisher Unwin Ltd., 1916); 20) "Old Florence and Modern Tuscany" by Janet Ross (London: J.M. Dent, 1904); 21) "A Trip through Italy, Sicily, Tunisia, Algeria and Southern France" by W.K. Vanderbilt, Jr. (New York: Privately Printed, 1918); 22) "Hill towns of Italy" by Egerton R. Williams, Jr. (Boston: Houghton, Mifflin and Company, 1904)......... In the RECIPE ARCHIVE more desserts from Italy's two most famous 19th century cooks, Pellegrino Artusi and Naple's Ippolito Cavalcanti, have been added. The recipes taken from Ippolito Cavalcanti's historic book, "Cucina Teorico-pratica" (1839) were interesting but very hard to do, as some of the ingredients used are not available in North America. The hard-to-find ingredients include: "cedro," "melarancio" and "gelsommini." Also, difficulties arose as some of Cavalcanti's biscotti recipes did not include detailed instructions, making it hard to figure out what the end result was actually supposed to look like (Nowadays, the word, biscotti, generally is used to describe twice-baked Tuscan-style nut slices, but in the 19th century, it seems the word described any type of cookie, twice-baked or not.). The names of the seven recipes from these two cookbooks that were included this month at www.italyrevisited.org are: 1.BISCOTTINI DI PISTACCHI/Pistachio biscuits (For the recipe see Italy Revisited/Cookies with Nuts); 2) BISCOTTI ALLA PROVENZALE/Country-style biscuits (For the recipe see Italy Revisited/Cookies without Nuts); 3) BISCOTTI DI GELSOMMINI/ Jasmine Jam (?) biscuits (For the recipe see Italy Revisited/Cookies without Nuts); 4) BISCOTTINI DI CONFETTURE/Biscuits with Jam (For the recipe see Italy Revisited/Cookies without nuts).... The recipes added on this website from Pellegrino Artusi's "Science in the Kitchen and the Art of Eating Well" (1891) include the following: )5. "DOLCE ROMA/Apple Cake (for the recipe see Italy Revisited/Cakes); 6) TORTA SVIZZERA/Swiss Apple Tart (for the recipe see Italy Revisited/Pies and Tarts); 7) TORTA DI MANDORLE E CIOCCOLATA/ Chocolate and Almond Cake made with potato starch (for the recipe see Italy Revisited/Cakes). From the list of recipes added this month my personal favorite was Pellegrino Artusi's "Torta Svizzera." This apple tart recipe was the easiest to do and the best tasting as well. This recipe (with some variations, of course) is popping up in a variety of places with many cooks claiming it as their own. Pellegrino Artusi hints that "Torta Svizzera/Swiss Apple Tart" is a "traditional" Swiss recipe, and so no one person can claim credit for it. Traditional recipes may be they, Italian, Swiss, Chinese or Martian, belong to one and all. By the people, for the people!

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