On the road again … with Academia Barilla. Join us as we travel to Venice, Parma, Rome and Sicily. 

It’s that time of year again. What time you ask? Time to start planning your next trip to Italy, of course.We all know that the Italian peninsula is home to an infinite number of things to see and do and taste. But why make it hard on yourself, when you can let Academia Barilla and their team of Italian food, wine and culture experts plan your trip for you. Join us for a behind the scenes tour of your favorite region in Italy, or allow us to introduce you to someplace new.

Speaking of new, we have designed two new tours for 2009: Venice, Parma, Rome: A Trio of Italian History and Sicily for Food Lovers. 

If you have never been Italy or just breezed through on your last whirlwind tour of Europe, we invite you to get to know three of Italy’s most spectacular cities – Venice, Rome, and Parma. You will begin your adventure in Venice, where a local guide will show you around the local markets and introduce you to some of the city’s incredible craftsmen. In Parma, you will have the chance to visit the prosciutto di Parma and Parmigiano-Reggiano producers. You will also be treated to a hands-on cooking class with at the Academia Barillia culinary center. Then you will head off to the eternal city for a tour of the city’s monuments and hidden treasures. And to top it all off, we will arrange for you to stay in luxury hotels and eat in unforgettable restaurants and trattorias.

If, however, you have been waiting for your chance to explore Sicily, now is the time to do it.  We have organized a special insider’s tour that will take you around the island in seven days. You will have the chance to visit Palermo, Trapani, Erice, Marzano del Vallo, Agrigento, Ragusa, Marzamemi and Siracusa. And in these fascinating cities and towns, you will have the opportunity to taste and learn more about Sicilian specialties like marzipan, olive oil, sea salt, Marsala wine, cous-cous, cheese and swordfish. In addition, we will take you to visit some of the island’s breathtaking archeological sites.

We believe that food and culture go hand in hand. There is often no better way of getting to know a new place than by exploring its local culinary traditions and historical monuments. Let us do the navigating and you will be sure to leave satisfied.

For more information about our new tours, please visit the Academia Barilla website or you can call us from the US by dialing 0039 0521 264060.

As a matter of fact, the Valrhona meeting, entitled Il Gelato sotto i riflettori or “Gelato Highlight,” was held at the Academia Barilla headquarters in Parma, Italy. Here, Valrhona shared with their clients their new selection of summer recipes: from gelato cakes to desserts served in a glass. Obviously, all of the recipes were based on chocolate!

Alain Chartier, Master Pastry Chef honored with the titles of best pâtissier in France and World Gelato Champion, demonstrated how to prepare the Valrhona treats in front of a full house.

But start at the beginning. The day began at 1 pm, when guests were welcomed into the Academia Barilla Training Room where, for the special occasion, Master Pastry Chef Gianluca Fusto arranged an appetizing buffet of macaroons, small soft coconut tarts filled with chocolate and fabulous little chocolates.

Selections of macaroons, coconut tarts and chocolates

Academia Barilla training room

After this sweet prelude, the meeting moved to the fantastic Academia Barilla Auditorium, where Alain took over the show, in front of numerous guests and Academia Barilla’s video cameras.
The demonstration lasted 3 hours, during which Alain made various chocolate preparations – all of which were truly fantastic.

A moment during the demonstration

For his first recipe, Alain presented a dessert called Mojito. Based on an original recipe, the treat is combination of lime sorbet and vanilla with a light white rum mousse with a chocolate gelato. The recipe took 40 minutes to prepare, but we can assure you that it was worth it! Alain demonstrated, with expertise and professionalism, all of the steps necessary for making a perfect Mojito. And here is the final result.

A hard shell of shiny chocolate containing lime and vanilla sorbet that surrounds a white rum mousse with a heart of soft and creamy chocolate. Beautiful presentation and sublime flavor!

Another recipe that Alain presented was Sante, a glass of sorbet composed of an orange-carrot mousse, carefully placed on a soft layer of Coeur di Guanaja, a delicious chocolate produced by Valrhona.

The dessert was presented in a glass glazed with Coeur di Guanaja with a small transparent strip so that you could see the contents. The finishing touches were very fine strips of dried carrot. Excellent work Alain!

To prepare the desserts for all of the guests, Alain was joined by Chef Marco Canevari and Chef Fabrizio Pantani, who also assisted him during the demonstration.

From the left: Master Pastry Chef Gianluca Fusto, Chef Marco Canevari, Chef Fabrizio Pantani and Master Pastry Chef Alain Chartier.

The meeting ended with a tasting session of all of Alain’s fantastic preparations and a toast to a job well done! Congratulations to everyone! Academia Barilla is very happy to have had you as our guests!

Did you know that library houses over 4,700 historic menus from the 19th and 20th centuries? And did you know that they are all available for public view should you make the very worthwhile trip to visit us in Parma, Italy?

And in perhaps even more exciting news for our friends on the other side of the Atlantic, many of these menus are available online.

Hidden within the Gastronomic Library section of the Academia Barilla website, you will find a wide array beautifully decorated menus that mark milestones of Italian gastronomic history. There is so much to explore… so let’s get started.

Here is a fun historical fact.
Menus – or printed lists of dishes to be served at a specific occasion – did not appear until around 1810 when formal dining in Europe witnessed a major change. Prior to this date, most formal dinners were presented with traditional French service, which meant that all the dishes were placed down on the banquet table at once.
However, in Russian service dinner guests were served one dish at a time, over the course of the evening. Printed menu cards were presented to the guests, like playbills, giving them a preview of what was to come. These elegant menus of yesteryear are not unlike the prix-fixe menus you might fine in a contemporary fine-dining restaurant or at a gala dinner.

As was custom during the 19th and some of the 20th century, many of the menus are printed in French – the language of European diplomacy. However, with the unification of Italy, the menus printed in Italian began to appear.

The Academia Barilla virtual menu gallery is subdivided into sections, making it easy to navigate. The “A Menu a Month” section contains 12 menus – one for each calendar month – and is a fun introduction to the collection.

A brief description of the event for which the menu was printed is presented next to the digital image of the menu itself. You can click on the image to enlarge the menu, allowing you to read, for example, exactly what Umberto I of Savoy at for lunch on February 27, 1897.

In the “Menus of the Italian Nobility” section, you will find the menus from meals served to many of Italy’s great noble families. Take a trip back in time by scrolling through the menus from the Borromeo, Meli Lupi di Soragna, Negroni, Spinola, Visconti and Litta family lunch and dinner parties. One of the Spinola family documents even contains a seating chart for a 1920 lunch held at the Villa Spinola in Genoa.

And there are even more hidden treasures to be discovered in the “Historic Menus from the House of Savoy” and “Menus of the Italian Government” sections of the gallery. Here you can explore what the Vittorio Emanuele III used to eat for dinner or what the Italian Ministry served visiting diplomats.

You may even be surprised to find a menu including pizza alla Napoletana, served with sparkling wine no less.

Come and join us on a gallery tour!

Make sure to stop by as we will be featuring some of the products in an effortless dish: Pinzimonio.
See below for a sneak peek at tonight’s dish.
Serves 4
INGREDIENTS:
- Your favorite fresh vegetables
- 3 ounces of Academia Barilla 100% Italiano Extra Virgin Olive Oil
- 1 ounce of Academia Barilla Balsamic Vinegar of Modena, aged 3 years
- 1 large pinch of Academia Barilla Black Olive e OR Blood Orange Sicilian Sea Salt

Wash, dry, peel and cut vegetables into uniform strips approximately 3 inches long. Display the vegetables (standing up) in a glass bowl with crushed ice at the bottom. For the dip, mix the oil, vinegar, and salt together. Portion the dip into 4 small cups, one for each person.
Enjoy the Pinzimonio by dipping the vegetables into the oil and eating.

Spring has sprung here in Italy, and it is no more evident than at the market. The stalls of radicchio and other bitter, winter greens are slowly disappearing, making way for next season’s fashions. What joy can be found in the arrival of tiny, tender fava beans, crisp radishes, spring onions and strong fragrance of fresh garlic.

The change of season has inspired all of us here at Academia Barilla to do a little spring-cleaning. As you may have noticed, we have shed the wintery design of our Italian Food Lover’s Blog and have selected bright, cheerful colors and images to carry us through the next couple of months.

We have also spent sometime dusting off the bookshelves of the Academia Barilla Gastronomic Library. We are all happy to have rediscovered a number of seasonal cookbooks and spring time recipes that are certain to bring new life to our tables.

One book that really caught our attention was the The Four Seasons Cookbook written by Charlotte Adams. The book contains a beautiful collection of recipes from New York City’s legendary The Four Seasons restaurant. The restaurant opened its doors with much acclaim exactly 50 years ago. Since then Julian Niccolini and Alex Von Bidder, the restaurant’s owners, have continuously served fashionable Manhattanites some of the city’s best seasonal cuisine – often inspired by Italian dishes.

As Charlotte points out in her book, “for the city dweller, the first glimpse of spring may well be the arrival of tightly pointed, perfectly matched bunches of green or white asparagus in the markets.” We couldn’t agree more.

To celebrate the new season, we present Charlotte’s directions for preparing the perfect asparagus – all taken from the chefs at The Four Seasons.

Asparagus
4 POUNDS ASPARAGUS
BOILING, SALTED WATER TO COVER
Serves 6.

Cut the woody ends off the asparagus and, with a vegetable peeler, peel off the skin from the bottom of the stalks up to the tender heads. Wash. Tie into bundles with white kitchen string. Cook bundles in a large pot full of boiling, salted water for 10-15 minutes, or until done to your taste. The spears should be tender, but still crisp. Run cold water over the asparagus. (This is called “refreshing” and is done to stop the cooking and set the color.) Drain well.

Serve with the sauce you prefer: clarified butter, lemon butter, Sauce Mornay, Parmesan or Polonaise

Asparagus Mornay
4 POUNDS ASPARAGUS,
COOKED AS ABOVE/
1 CUP SAUCE MORNAY (SEE SAUCES)
6 TABLESPOONS GRATED SWISS CHEESE
Arrange the asparagus on a buttered flame-proof dish. Pour the sauce Mornay over the tips. Sprinkle with the grated cheese and run under the broiler to brown lightly.

Asparagus Parmesan
4 POUNDS ASPARAGUS,
COOKED AS ABOVE/
14 CUP GRATED PARMESAN CHEESE
2 CUP CLARIFIED BUTTER (SEE SAUCES)
Arrange asparagus on a buttered, flame-proof dish. Sprinkle the cheese over the tips. Pour butter over. Run under the broiler to brown.

Asparagus Polonaise
4 POUNDS ASPARAGUS,
COOKED AS ABOVE/
1/2 CUP CLARIFIED BUTTER
(SEE SAUCES)/
3 TABLESPOONS FRESHLY GRATED
BREAD CRUMBS/
3 TABLESPOONS GRATED
HARD-COOKED EGG YOLK/
3 TABLESPOONS GRATED
HARD-COOKED EGG WHITE/ 3 TABLESPOONS MINCED PARSLEY
Arrange asparagus on a buttered flame-proof dish. Heat butter in a skillet. Mix remaining ingredients and add to butter. Saute for a few minutes. Sprinkle over the tips of the asparagus. Run under the broiler for a few minutes, being careful not to burn.

(Source: Adams, Charlotte. The Four Seasons Cookbook. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1971.)