Italian veggie cooking the old-fashioned way

Italians seldom stray from their tradition of growing and consuming fresh vegetables seasonally.

So it is with great excitement among proponents of consuming locally grown produce that a cookbook which first surfaced in 1950 in Italy has been resurrected for a new generation of home cooks.

Vegetables From An Italian Garden was first published by that country’s famed Silver Spoon Kitchen.

“The original book was so popular that every bride was given a copy by her mother,” says Emilia Terragni, editorial director for the New York-based Phaidon Press, a subsidiary of Phaidon Press Ltd., London.

The native of northern Italy is now based in London and arranged for Phaidon to purchase the entire archives of the Silver Spoon in Italy.

The English version was published in 2005, and has since sold more than 1.5 million copies throughout the world.

“We are constantly updating from the original and keep adding new recipes from all over Italy,” said Terragni in a recent telephone interview from London.

She says that Italian meals traditionally use a variety of vegetables throughout the entire meal.

“So you can have an antipasta, a pasta, a main course and a side all containing vegetables,” Terragni explains.

“And the recipes in the book are very simple to prepare.” This is particularly important for today’s time-pressed cooks who prefer to cook delicious and locally seasonally grown produce.

Terragni boasts that she never eats out of season.

“Mainly because the vegetables taste so much better,” she says.

The book is organized with recipes containing vegetables from spring, summer, fall and winter. Within those chapters are tips on selecting, growing and buying each season’s vegetables.

As far as growing your own, Terragni says “it is very easy, even if you don’t have a large garden or any garden.

“You can grow a lot of things in pots on small terraces and we suggest the best time to start so you get the idea of the growing cycles of the various vegetables.”

Asparagus is now in season and whether you have grown your own or buy this wonderful vegetable at your local market, here is an Italian recipe from the book.

Asparagus Parmesan

Makes 4 servings

2 lb (900 g) asparagus, spears trimmed

1 cup (250 mL) grated Parmesan cheese

30 mL (2 tbsp) butter

Salt

Cook asparagus in salted boiling water for 15 minutes or until tender. Drain and gently pat dry. Arrange on a warm serving dish with the tips pointing inwards. Sprinkle with the Parmesan. Melt butter, season with a little salt and pour over asparagus. Serve immediately.

Approximate nutrition per serving: 240 calories, 16 g fat, 13 g protein, 9 g carbohydrates, 5 g fibre

The Canadian Press

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Dole Fresh Vegetables Announces Precautionary Recall of Limited Number of Italian Blend Salads

Press Release Source: Dole Fresh Vegetables On Wednesday June 22, 2011, 7:45 pm EDT

MONTEREY, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- Dole Fresh Vegetables is voluntarily recalling 2,880 cases of DOLER Italian Blend salad with Use-by Date of June 19, 2011, UPC code 7143000819 and Product Codes 0049A157201A, 0049A157201B, 0049A157202A, 0049A157202B, 0686A157202A, 0686A157202B and 442 cases of Kroger Fresh Selections Italian Style Blend salad with Use-by-Date of June 19, 2011, UPC code 1111091045 and Product Codes A157201A & A157201B, due to a possible health risk from Listeria monocytogenes. Dole Fresh Vegetables is coordinating closely with regulatory officials. No illnesses have been reported in association with the recall.

The Product Code and Use-by Date are in the upper right-hand corner of the package; the UPC code is on the back of the package, below the barcode. The salads were distributed in twelve U.S. states (Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Maine, Michigan, Mississippi, New Jersey, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Tennessee and Wisconsin) and three Canadian provinces (New Brunswick, Ontario and Quebec).

No illnesses have been reported in association with the recall. This precautionary recall notification is being issued due to an isolated instance in which one package of Dole Italian Blend salad yielded a positive result for Listeria monocytogenes in a random sample test collected and conducted by the Ohio Department of Agriculture.

No other Dole or Kroger salads are included in the recall. Only the specific Product Codes, UPC codes and June 19, 2011 Use-by-Date of Italian Blend salads identified above are included in the recall. Consumers who have any remaining product with these Product Codes should not consume it, but rather discard it. Retailers and consumers with questions may call the Dole Food Company Consumer Response Center at (800) 356-3111, which is open 8:00 am to 3:00 pm (PDT) Monday - Friday.

Retailers should check their inventories and store shelves to confirm that none of the product is mistakenly present or available for purchase by consumers or in warehouse inventories. Dole Fresh Vegetables customer service representatives are already contacting retailers and are in the process of confirming that the recalled product is not in the stream of commerce.

Listeria monocytogenes is a bacterium that can cause foodborne illness in a person who eats a food item contaminated with it. Symptoms of infection may include fever, muscle aches, gastrointestinal symptoms such as nausea or diarrhea. If it spreads to the nervous system symptoms may include headache, stiff neck or confusion. The illness primarily impacts pregnant women and adults with weakened immune systems. Most healthy adults and children rarely become seriously ill.

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Book offers garden-to-plate guide to Italian vegetables

"Vegetables From an Italian Garden"

By Phaidon editors

Phaidon; 432 pages; $40

If you've dreamed of eating what you grow, but your green thumbs have proved clumsy (or are simply unproven), may we direct you to fagiolini -- aka the humble green bean.

Green beans are one of the easiest vegetables for the novice gardener -- sow in the spring, and two months later they're ripe for the picking -- and to dress up into sophisticated summer cuisine by tossing with pesto, topping with smoked provolone or mixing with red currants in a frisee salad.

The new, gorgeously photographed "Vegetables From an Italian Garden" celebrates the garden-to-plate journey of green beans and 40 other vegetables traditionally used in Italian cooking, famous for simple preparations that allow fresh, seasonal ingredients to command center stage.

The cookbook, featuring more than 400 traditional Italian recipes, is organized by season, and dedicates a page to each vegetable with descriptions of how to choose it, use it and grow it.

So you might welcome spring with an artichoke lasagnette, celebrate summer with a cold cucumber cream soup, mark fall with pumpkin gnocchi with orange butter, and toast winter with a radicchio and pink grapefruit risotto.

A chart showing when to sow and harvest the vegetables can help guide ambitious gardeners. But it is not a gardening manual, so if you don't know what a tomato cage is this book won't enlighten you.

For those without the time or space to cultivate a vegetable garden, the book shines with unfussy, eminently doable recipes and tips on how to pick the best produce at the markets.

Buon appetito. Viva fagiolini!

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