Day: August 7, 2009

In Italian cooking, basil is used quite often in pesto sauce and many other recipes.  Pesto sauce was a mainstay at our house.  My mother insisted on the classic Italian version which she made from scratch in season. My father raised some of the most incredible basil I have ever tasted and the difference that this great herb makes in this sauce is indescribable; it’s scrumptious. My father’s basil was always dark green and thick and crisp, yet tender.  You could smell the basil patch on our farm from a distance.  For those who know only the limp, thin, yellowish green hydroponically raised basil you find now in most supermarkets I pity you.

By the early sixties my father, who farmed both in Sicily and in the U.S., was raising dozens of varieties of specialty vegetables and herbs that were sold to gourmet and ethnic markets, restaurants, and hotel kitchens. By the early seventies, basil had become one of the first fresh herbs to be sold regularly at supermarkets.  My father was always ahead of the curve so when the demand for this special herb expanded beyond the Italian and Middle Eastern specialty markets he supplied … in the late sixties he began seeding basil in his greenhouse in mid-February.  He raised several greenhouses full of this herb each year.

He would seed outdoor basil the third week in May and on June first of each year he would transplant seedlings started in the greenhouse to the one acre basil plot outdoors.  The year I turned fifteen he asked me to partner with him on 1 acre of basil.  My job was to insure the basil was watered, fertilized, cultivated and weeded.  The one acre turned into two acres and that year I succeeded as we had a bumper crop of tight, tall, firm green basil plants.

Once it was of marketable growth it was my job to harvest it.  Unlike the tiny handful of basil one buys for $2.99 a bunch today these were big, whopping, generous fistfuls of basil stalks and leaves.  Our customers were very serious about their basil and many of them made Pesto Sauce with it!

By summer’s end the basil patch was still yielding several dozen boxes of basil a day but I was released from my basil patch partnership to return to school.  I have yet to see basil of this quality in store shelves in the past twenty-five years since hybrid varieties raised in over wet, climate controlled greenhouses have taken over.  My end of the profits was enough to buy a cool pair of black English paddock boots that were all the rage.

Pesto sauce can have some interesting variations.  Classic Pesto sauce is a perfect blend of fresh young basil, toasted pine nuts, garlic, extra virgin olive oil, and plenty of grated Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese. One variation is to slice very ripe, fresh cherry tomatoes into pasta and add pesto sauce just before serving.  Another is to top a baking dish full of pesto sauce covered macaroni with a thick layer of Parmigiano-Reggiano and placing it under a broiler until the cheese is golden brown.  A third is to add grated Swiss or Emmental cheese into the pesto and pasta along with the grated Parmigiano-Reggiano.  The list of variations is endless.

Olives are important to Italian cooking.  In fact it’s difficult to explain just how important olives are to Italians and other Mediterraneans. Growing up I remember our kitchen being stocked with no fewer than four different types of olives at any one time.

From late August to November there were always fresh green olives from California soaking. My mother would crack and pit them with a large, smooth, white rock still in use in my kitchen. After the cracked and pitted olives sat in fresh water for a week or two they became part of a most incredible mixture. They were combined with chopped celery, thinly chopped slices of both sweet and hot red vinegar peppers, copious amounts of chopped garlic, oregano, wine vinegar, sea salt, and extra virgin olive oil.

The fresh olives and ingredients were allowed to marinate for a day and were then used to add to salads or eaten on their own with hot, crusty bread. At the end of the season this fresh mix would be put into mason jars and would last us through the winter and spring until fresh olives were in season again.

Always in stock were large Sicilian olives prepared in brine. Not too bitter and meaty, these were the workhorse of olives at our house. They were eaten on their own with bread and cheese, added to salads, pasta sauces, stuffing mixtures, or as components of various meat, rabbit, fish, or chicken dishes.

Black oil cured olives had their own special place in the olive pecking order at our house. It was not uncommon to see three different varieties served at the same meal.

Our olive craze didn’t end with just Italian or Sicilian olives. My mother considered the black Greek Kalamata and Syrian and Lebanese varieties superb.

Here’s a fantastic pasta dish to try that takes less than twenty minutes from start to finish. It is sublimely simple and probably something you’ve never tried before.

Olive Pasta – Serves 4

• 1/2 lb. Sicilian Olives cured in brine – pitted and chopped coarsely
• 4 Stalks Fresh Celery – chopped fine
• 4 medium to large cloves garlic – chopped fine
• 2 Fresh Roma Tomatoes – seeded and chopped into small cubes
• Olive Oil – four tablespoons
• Black Pepper – very coarse
• 1/2 lb. grated Provolone Cheese
• Sea Salt
• 1 lb. Thick Linguini – 100% semolina pasta

Bring two quarts of salted water to a brisk boil. Break the foot long Thick Linguini in half, add to the water and stir well. Cook until it folds easily but is still extra firm, or al dente inside. Save one cup of the cooking water.

Over a high heat, sauté the fresh celery and garlic in four tablespoons of oil until the garlic is light brown and the celery is softened.

Add the chopped olives and stir until the pan is sizzling again, about two minutes.

Add the chopped, seeded, tomato pieces and stir for two minutes and remove from the heat.

When the pasta is done drain it well and add it to the mixture. Stir or toss well over a medium heat until all the pasta is covered in the mixture.

Add the 1/2 lb. of grated Provolone cheese and stir and toss again. Grind coarse black pepper all over the pasta and stir again.

Serve with additional grated Provolone on top of each dish and a splash of fresh oil as well.