Delicious Italy

Delicious Everything 2

We noted a little while back the plethora of websites utilizing the word Delicious. All good fun.

We even noticed the more than casual use of the word 'delicious' on packaging throughout London, from take-away sandwiches to Sainsbury's food products etc.

This latter trend can be explained, in our humble opinion, by the rise of general Brit interest in eating well and the presence of such glossy mags as 'Delicious'. And television cooks.

Now we are the first to say that imitation is the best form of flattery and too much of a good thing spoils the broth, to mix your metaphors.

So 'Italianicious - Essence of Italy Magazine' from Sydney in Australia is an interesting discovery.

Grappa Question

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Knowing that I am a lover of Grappa my son has given me for my 70th birthday a bottle of Grappa di Venacce di Sassicaia. It is truly superb ! Can you tell me something about it please? T.H. Whitstable, UK.

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White Truffle Auction

The 1st December 2007 sees the annual International Truffle Auction in Florence in Palazzo Medici Riccardi.

The event is linked by satellite to bidders, restaurants, celebrities and the curious from around the world.   

Truffles have become status symbols and this year it seems the truffle find of the century will be up for grabs.    

Those in the know have declared that a white truffle between 800 gr and 1.5 kilos has been dug up near San Miniato, province of Pisa, Tuscany.

Although even this is dwarfed by the biggest truffle ever found, in the same zone in 1954.

If it enters the bidding the prevision is for a price 100k-200k euros even if the going rate is 6000 per kilo for much smaller versions.

The biggest truffle ever found.

Terravision v Sit Bus

The heavyweight bus battle to transfer low cost airline passengers between Ciampino Airport and central Rome is currently being won by Terravision.

But the company may be in for a harder fight in the later rounds as rival Sit Bus Shuttle gains some extra pounds.

We're not referring to the ticket price (Sit undercuts Terravision by 2 euros) but the now marked difference in offer.

Sit now runs a service much like Terravision used to - no frills, cheap ticket, get there on the half hour and off you go.

Terravision now has its own brightly illuminated coffee bar, proposes a non stop hop on hop off service and promotes online booking.

Such additional services are more than welcome, but they may raise expectations.

We understood that Terravision always gave priority seating to customers who booked online.

Now its seems everyone has to make a visit to the dedicated coffee shop to receive their e-voucher before getting on board.

At least that is how it was explained to us when we turned up last week to take our seats.   

Meanwhile, the half empty Sit Bus Shuttle pulled silently away as we waited for the next ride, although we arrived at Ciampino in more than enough time.

By the way, for the ultimate in hassle free city to airport travel, try the Liverpool Street - Stanstead Airport Express. Every 15 mins, lots of seats, no waiting in the rain. The difference in price can be made up by one less coffee or scratch card inflight.   

Cheese news

A source we recommend for finding out more about cheese and cheese issues is the very excellent and unpasteurized 'Cheese Time - News and cultural updates from the world of Italian cheeses'.

www.cheesetime.com

There's milk and there's milk

Now milk is a bit of a pet subject of ours.

Not only do incredible pecorino cheeses need milk, so do many fine Sicilian sweets, to state the obvious.

Milk was also the first processed food and without it we wouldn't have domesticated animals, farmed, stopped being nomads etc etc.

It is our humble opinion that the battle to save unpasteurized milk from being legalized out of our daily bread and cheese is worth fighting for more than banning OGM foods.

It seems now French camembert is now on the slippery slope to becoming Kraft Philadelphia. 

The largest cheese group in Europe 'Lactalis' has decided to make its camembert with pasteurized milk.

However, the essence of camembert is that it is made with fresh untouched 'crude' milk. 

In fact, it seems genuine camembert will be called 'Cambert di Normandia' (at least for the Italian marketplace') and will be protected with a DOP mark.

Only about 12% of today's camembert is the real deal.

According to Lactalis the mass production and distribution of camembert must use pasteurized milk to guarantee consumer health, which could be true.

But does that make it camembert? 

www.camembert-aoc.org

More wine, less alcohol

A recent convention took place in the Vatican in Rome entitled 'Vino e Salute dell’Uomo' or 'Wine and Man's Health'.

Organized by the 'Accademia Italiana della Vite e del Vino' the overall theme was the difference between wine and alcohol and the need to drink in moderation at all times.

From Antonio Calò, President of the Accademia: “I benefici effetti del vino non sono riconducibili ad altri alcolici e sono condizionati anche da tempi e modalità del consumo”.

The medical evidence suggests wine as a complex product has beneficial effects, it is the alcohol in itself which does not. Moderation first, then the time and manner of consumption is of importance for reaping these benefits, especially those cardivascular.

Interesting to note the rapport the north European countries have with their drink, as the focal point of an habitual end of week 'let your hair down' routine.

Weak warm beer, you can get away with it; wines and spirits, be very careful.

Small daily amounts of wine at mealtimes is advised.

L’Accademia Italiana della Vite e del Vino was founded in 1949 and today has 555 members.

Cut and paste

We received an email from the UK asking for more information about the Chiaretto wine festival in Bardolino. 

Our page on the Bardolino Wine Route in Veneto contains a link to the wine consortium which organises and promotes such events.

A quick search of the web also revealed a couple of sites with a full and identical page description of the event. One was a site dedicated to events and one a cooking blog from a lady in Bardolino.

The former declare their source of their information as www.bresciaatavola.it, which is not even in Veneto.

Brescia Tavola say that their reference is www.sottocoperta.net who clearly and rightly say that it is forbidden to reproduce any content from their site.

This is a bit rich, however, as www.sottocoperta.net is simply a compilation of notices from other websites to mask an affiliate loaded interface of earn per click.

If our logic is correct www.sottocoperta.net must have lifted the content word for word from someone else, no doubt with permission of the originator. 

It seems the original source of the information was still the Consorzio Tutela Vino Bardolino.

As the website first in Google's search results is that of the Consorzio, we rest our case.

Time for Novello 2007

Whether novello is actually wine is another question, but 15 million bottles of the stuff will be released onto the home and international market from Italy's producers very shortly. 

Apparently this is 10% down on last year, but will still bring in a tidy 80 million euros of business.

In other words, don't pay more than 5,50 euri for your bottle and drink it immediately.