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If there is one thing that gets my knickers in a twist, it’s those things that still have me stymied after 50 years in Italy.  So let’s like to try to solve the broccoli/broccoletti dilemma once and for all, shall we?

First up are broccoletti aka cime di rapa, rapini and broccoli di rape (broccoli raab or rabe in english).  This vegetable is actually the top tender leaves and buds of a wild yellow flower that is picked before it blossoms.  I am told they are a member of the Chicory Family.  In Naples they are called friarielli - not to be confused with friggiarelli, which are those scrumptious little green peppers that are stir-fried in garlic and oil.

Then an American couple told me that broccoletti in America (aka broccolini) are a different plant altogether; a cross between broccoli and Gai Lan or Asian Broccoli.  Oh Lord!

Chaos sets in when it comes to the broccoli enigma because as a little girl in America, I remember broccoli as a vegetable that looked like a tiny green tree.

But when I came to Rome and was sent to the market to buy some, the vendor handed me a fascinating, alien-green cauliflower (cavolfiore) with fractal spires that looked like something that had been revisited by Max Escher.  He called it broccolo.

Now broccolo, or cavolo, is actually a cabbage, which is part of the Brassicaceae Family.  Other members include: cavolo cappuccio (used to make sauerkraut), cavolo nero, cavolo cinese, broccolo cinese, cavolo portoghese, cavolo rosso, cavoletti di Bruxelles (Bruxelles sprouts) and even CAVOLO BROCCOLO!

MA CHE CAVOLO! (in english, what the…!) or as the Romans say, “SONO CAVOLI VOSTRI” or ‘it’s your problem’.

And so be it!

Welcome to a delicious culinary and cultural event hosted by Marilì Mustilli.  Together with her husband Leonardo and their two daughters, Anna Chiara and Paola, her family runs the prestigious Mustilli Winery, set in the medieval town of S. Agata dei Goti and perched on a spectacular tufa outcrop. Under Marilì’s expert supervision you will learn traditional dishes of Campania, including hand-made pasta and vegetable pasta sauce, a meat or cheese dish and a dessert. All the ingredients and herbs used are seasonal and are grown locally.

Program
10:30am - Arrival at S. Agata dei Goti
Cooking Menu:
Home-made pasta (cavatielli) and a pasta sauce using seasonal and locally-grown vegetables.
Involtino (stuffed escalope) or Cotoletta di Provola (Provola Cheese Cutlet if you prefer vegetarian)
Torta di Nocciola (Hazelnut Cake)

Lunch will include all the food you have cooked in addition to the renowned Falanghina and Aglianico wines produced by the Mustilli family.

After lunch you will visit the ancient underground wine cellars that were hewn into tufa rock in the 16th century and your guide will take you on a walking tour of the ancient town.

Price: 100,00 euro per person (4 people or more)
150,00 euro per person (2-3 people)

includes: cooking course, wine tasting, visit to the wine cellars, tour of the town and your own personal guide and interpreter.

versione italiana

Saturday, October 9th at 19:30 - Polo Culturale Gastronomico in Piazza Umberto I, Montesarchio

Faith Stewart-Gordon, ex-patron of the iconic Russian Tea Room in New York City and one of America’s great restaurateurs, came to the Sannio earlier this year.  For many months, in the course of the preparation of her itinerary, we corresponded and I had somewhat overcome my initial awe (my memories of the RTR included the time, as a teenager, when my flamboyant dance teacher took me there to have a hushed tea seated in the famous red leather booths that had been graced by the derrieres of  Zero Mostel, Rudolph Nureyev, Grace Kelly, Paul McCartney, Isaac Stern, Jackie Onassis, Woody Allen and the Aga Khan…to name a few), but as the time for her arrival drew near my anxiety began to resurface.  What would she really be like?

To make a long story short, Faith turned out to be a terrific person.  A great dog-lover, sensitive, engaging and easy-going, Faith was wonderful to get along with and like all modern-day tourists, snapped pictures of the sites, the scenery and the people.

After she left we continued to keep in touch and about three months later Faith sent me a photo of a picture she’d just finished.  It was a view of a corner of St Agata dei Goti as seen from the town’s tiny pharmacy.  I was immediately impressed because she had perfectly grasped the light, the colors and feeling of the little square after having spent only a few hours there! Oh, how I wanted to see - and secretly possess- that painting…

Over the following weeks Faith sent me a series of photos of paintings, each one better than the last.  There were renditions of the frescos at Oplontis, Pompeii, the views of Mt Vesuvius and the Bay of Naples.  But there were also images of the Sannio, in the ramparts of S. Agata dei Goti, Trajan’s Arch in Benevento, Roman ruins of Sepino and Samnite remains at Pietrabbondante.

Around the same time I had met Stella Ricci, one the Sannio’s great pastry chefs, who was in the process of opening a cultural and culinary center in an 18th century palace in Montesarchio.  In no time at all, after seeing Faith’s paintings, she agreed to hold an exhibit of her work which we called Fra Tavole e Tavolozze (the equivalent in english being ‘Of Plates and Palettes’) in honor of both her entrepreneurial and artistic talents.

Faith will be present at the opening and will give a presentation, including anecdotes about the many VIP’s that were her habitual clients at the Russian Tea Room as well as her experience in art as both a painter and collector.  There will be a buffet of caviar and russian delicacies, vodka cocktails and tea served in the russian style with cherry preserves instead of sugar.

It has been a pleasure and an honor to work with Faith and Stella on this exhibit. To have someone come from so far and appreciate the beauty of the Sannio and to be inspired enough to want to paint it is a wonderful tribute to this little-know region.  That she would come all this way to share them is utterly fantastic!

All readers of this blog are welcome to come.

For more information tel. 0823.953663 or email:barbaragoldfield@savourthesannio.com

The area around present-day Vairano has been inhabited since prehistoric times: first by the Oscans, the Etruscans and then the Samnites.  In 290 B.C. the territory was conquered by the Romans.

After the fall of the Empire the region was overrun by a series of barbarian tribes. The Longobards lived here in the 6th century and were themselves conquered by the Normans in the 11th.  These in turn built a fortress designed to defend them from Saracens invaders. In 1191 the fortress was given as a gift to the Abbot of Montecassino by Henry VI of Hohenstaufen.

In 1590 Vairano was purchased by Baron Mormile who turned the military fortress into a residential castle where generations of his family lived for over two hundred years until the year 1806.
In nearby Teano the treaty of the Unification of Italy between Garibaldi and Victor Emmanuel II was ratified in 1860.

Housed in what was originally the manor built into the battlements of the ancient fortress, the restaurant overlooks the medieval town of Vairano Patenora and its fertile green fields.

Restaurant owner and chef Antonio Ruggiero is a well-known expert on wines and oils and offers creative renderings of traditional dishes.

Program
10:30am - Arrival at Vairano Patenora
Sample Menu (recipes will vary depending on the vegetables that are in season)
Ravioli made with borage and stuffed with meat, mozzarella and tomato concassé
Black Casertan Pig with pappacelle (pickled peppers)
Baked Sheep Ricotta
Diced oranges with citrus-flavoured bavarian cream and extra-virgin olive-oil sauce

After lunch you will visit the Franciscan Monastery at Roccamonfina.

Price: 120,00 euro per person (4 people or more)
200,00 euro per person (2-3 people)

price includes: cooking course, ‘Oil Apèritif’, meal, wine, personal guide and interpreter

It is possible to visit a mozzarella cheese producer early in the morning.