Soup

For Panata
Grated bread, 5 ounces
Eggs, 4
Grated Parmesan cheese, less than 2 ounces
Nutmeg
A pinch of salt

Place the ingredients in a large pan and mix them into a rather hard compound. If too soft, add as much grated bread as necessary to give solidity. Pour as much warm soup as is needed to moisten the mixture into the pan, place the pan on a slow fire and keep stirring, for a while.

While on the fire, waiting to bring it to the boiling point, loosen the pudding from around the wall of the pan and make a heap of it in the center, without removing the pan from the fire.

As soon as the panata has solidified in the pan, remove it into the soup bowl and serve it.

A well made panata will form into little bunches, like grapes, in the clear soup in which it is served. Some people prefer to mix it with vegetables or peas. In that case cook these separately and mix them with the panata just before loosening it in the soup.

This recipe (#9) was taken from "The Italian Cook Book" adapted from the Italian of Pellegrino Artusi by Olga Ragusa. It was published by S.F. Vanni in New York in 1945. For the complete copyright cook book see www.archive.org.... Pellegrino Artusi notes at the beginning of this recipe: "This is a dish which takes the lead on the easter Sunday dinner table in Romagna. There they call it tridura. The Florentines also used to call it by that name, but this is no longer heard in the Florence of our days. However, we know that in the XIV Century tridura was used as a symbol of submission by the people of Caffaggiolo, near Florence. They used to place a considerable quantity of tridura in a brand new shining pail, place a few sticks crosswise on the edge of the pail, top it all with ten pounds of pork meat and decorate the vase with laurel leaves. Such as the gift sent to the monks of Lettino as a token of submission. Now the custom is no longer known and the name of the dish is different, but the ingredients that make the pudding are still the same." Photo: Mary Melfi.

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