The Academia Barilla Gastronomic Library, annexed to the Academia Barilla Culinary School, is unique in its kind, and definitely is the most complete collection in the world of knowledge, history and resources for everything gastronomy.

The Library, also nicknamed BIGAB (acronym of the Italian BIblioteca Gastronomica Academia Barilla), counts today more than 8,000 titles and some of them are unique items, such as handwritten cookbooks or historic menus, or some books that date back to the 15th century.

All the books are indexed and included in the Italian Public Library system, and are retrievable online. But to be able to examine BIGAB’s item one has to pay a visit to the Library in Parma, which is always a very pleasant thing to do, specially after the recent remodeling and rearrangement of the Library space, which is now more comfy then ever.

Many visitors every year book their visits or just drop in during Library hours, and some of them come from abroad to perform some very specific culinary research, specially when involving historic aspects of the food culture, or very specific “long tail” niches of culinary culture.

In order to properly index the huge amount of books, menus, objects and other gastronomic treasures, BIGAB’s Curator Dott. Giancarlo Gonizzi and his team created a very unique indexing method, which is based on the general Library index code that ranges 1-9 for topics from the more general (0) to the more specific (9).

As explained by Dott. Gonizzi, the BIGAB team developed a parallel indexing mode where library items are also indexed with a separate code still ranging 0-9, but on a scale of exclusively culinary and gastronomic topics.

Just to recap the excellent explanation from Dott. Gonizzi of how the indexing system works, under the 0 code are indexed more general culinary items`such as standard cookbooks, while code 1 will index all historic recipes and cuisine books, 2 is the code to retrieve all the culinary books about ingredients only, while 3 is all about Italian regional cuisine.

Code 4 is for the international cuisine, and 5 is the code to index all books dedicated to professional Chef techniques, from food conservation to cooking and preparation. Code 6 defines all books and library items dedicated to thematic cuisines such as, for example, cooking for communities, cooking for singles, the VIP cookbooks, or the cuisine of love, the session we have been browsing a lot for our Valentine’s Day recipes, or our series of aphrodisiac recipes for last year’s Valentine Day.

The code list goes of course to 9, and will talk more in the future about it - just for you to know, the indexing method is absolutely amazing; on a search for a book on “Asburgic Cuisine in Trentino” requested by a visitor, it took less then 1 minute to spot the exact location of the rare cookbook and handle the copy to the visitor for her consultation (I personally witnessed this at my latest visit to BIGAB).

Dott. Giancarlo Gonizzi is pictured here above during a video interview at the Gastronomic Library, that we’ll publish here soon. For those who are curious, the sculpture next to him is the Guggenheim Award, offered to Academia Barilla at the end of last year by the Italian Foreign Trade Board (ICE - Istituto per il Commercio Estero) for being the Italian industrial company who invested more in culture not only in terms of sponsorships, but mostly on developing cultural activities in support of the business activity (BIGAB, of course), and for promoting Italian culture abroad.

BIGAB is not just a Library - on my latest visit last week for an interview to Dott. Gonizzi (that we’ll publish here soon), I discovered the full schedule of cultural and educational events BIGAB is involved with. Last week, the day after my visit, a meeting with approx. 80 Nutrition Science students from the University of Parma was scheduled at Academia Barilla’s Gastronomic Library. The focus of the meeting was introducing BIGAB’s Library system, and all the tools the students will be able to access for their research, thanks to a convention between Academia Barilla and the University of Parma.

A few cultural events are in BIGAB’s program for the first half of this year, such as Gusti d’Autore (Tastes of Author), an event scheduled on April 7-9, 2008, that includes literature and poetry readings about cooking, as well as food-related cinema screenings, all in conjunction with other special cultural events organized by the City of Parma. We’ll talk soon in details about Gusti d’Autore.

On May 6, 2008, BIGAB will be again under the cultural spotlights for the Premio Academia Barilla (Academia Barilla Award), a prize awarded by Academia Barilla to the best short movies about food and cooking. The event is organized by Academia Barilla in parallel with the leading Italian food expo CIBUS - you can be sure we will be blogging a lot more in details about it.

Other plans? We can give here a little anticipation about a Museum of Tomato, and a Museum of pasta just outside Parma… but we prefer to give you full updates about it as soon as we get more details. As always, stay tuned with Italian Food Lovers.

HERBS TORTELLI
(serves 10)

INGREDIENTS

- 2.2 lb dough for making tortelli
- 2 1/2 cups fresh ricotta
- 1.55 lb of Swiss Chard
- 2 cups Academia Barilla Parmigiano Reggiano
- nutmeg to taste
- 2 cups unsalted butter
- 1 egg
- salt and pepper to taste

DOUGH INGREDIENTS

- 10 cups “00″ flour (double zero)
- 10 Eggs

DOUGH PREPARATION
Place the flour on a marble surface or over a cutting board in a mound and make a well in the center.

Break the eggs into the well, add a pinch of salt and mix with a fork and incorporate the flour into the egg mixture a little at a time.

Knead until the dough becomes smooth and uniform. Let the dough rest wrapped in a film for about 30 minutes before using it.

PREPARATION

Stem first, then clean, wash and cook the herbs in salty water.

Drain, squash and finely mince the herbs. Mix herbs with the ricotta, salt, pepper, nutmeg and egg to prepare the tortelli stuffing.

Pull pasta with a special pasta machine obtaining the squares that will be filled with the stuffing.

Distribute the ravioli stuffing on the pasta, cover with another layer, then cut with a ravioli (or cookie) stamp.

Cook tortelli in salted water and season with butter and Parmigiano Reggiano.

WINE PAIRING TIPS

Serve the Herb tortelli with a chilled Sauvignon Ariola for great pairing.

Stay with us for the rest of the Christmas Recipes Series. Next week we will propose a recipe for the main course, Cotechino in galera, before closing the Christmas Series with a delicious dessert, English soup with Vanilla ice cream.

This is why at Academia Barilla we decided to publish a full Christmas menu, from the appetizer to the entree, the main course and the dessert. We will publish the recipes one at the time this month, one per week until December 24.

I let you give a peek preview at the Academia Barilla Gourmet Christmas Menu, which of course is composed by dishes taken from the Christmas traditions of our region, Emilia-Romagna:

Appetizer - Chicken Galantine with pistachio nuts (Bologna recipe)

Entree - Herbs Tortelli (Parma recipe)

Main Course - Cotechino in jail with mashed potato (Modena recipe)

Dessert - English soup with Vanilla ice cream

Mmmm…. yummy! Let’s start immediately with the perfect appetizer for your Christmas dinners (and other occasions, too) - Chicken Galantine with pistachio nuts.

CHICKEN GALATINE WITH PISTACHIO NUTS

Recipe from the book “Il cucchiaio d’Argento” (The silver spoon)
Milan, Domus, 1951

INGREDIENTS

- 1 full chicken
- 1/2 cup marsala
- 100 grams lean ham in a single slice, cubed
- 100 grams corned tongue in one slice, diced
- 2 black truffles, peeled and cubed
- 1 pinch of pistachios (skinned in boiling water)
- 400 grams lean veal
- 400 grams lard, blanched and cubed
- 2 calves feet
- 1 onion
- 1 carrot
- 1/2 bunch parsley
- 1 stalk celery
- 1 clove
- salt and pepper to taste
- 1 nutmeg
- gelatine (aspic)

PREPARATION

Take a good chicken (or even a hen) blaze it (pass it quickly over a flame in order to flame the skin) and cut the neck off, leaving as much skin as possible around the neck; place it on a chopping board with the chest down.

Slice the chicken in the middle of the back with a sharp knife, a straight incision from the neck joint down to the tail. Then proceed discarding the skin without damaging it, continuing to tear off the flesh from the bones, cutting wings and thigh joints to facilitate the operation; keep the skeleton and the skin with the flesh separate.

Lay the chicken on the chopping board and remove the entire flesh without tearing the skin. Place the skin in a large bowl and season with salt, pepper, a pinch of nutmeg, sprinkle with a bit of marsala, twine and leave for later.

In a separate bowl, place all of the chicken breast (diced), add the ham cut into cubes, the diced corned tongue, a pinch of pistachios skinned in boiling water, washed blacked truffles, peeled and cut into cubes, with the blanched lard, cut into cubes, too.

To blanch the lard, divide it into slices and put them in a bowl with boiling water, letting to rest for about twenty minutes; place the lard in a bowl of fresh water and when cold, dry it, cut it into cubes and combine with the remaining ingredients.
Season all these diced ingredients at the same way you seasoned the chicken skin (season with salt, pepper, a pinch of nutmeg, sprinkle with a bit of marsala, twine and leave for later), mix well and keep apart.

Then chop the veal meat, the rest of the lard and the flesh of the chicken previously removed from the skin. Mix at length, and season with salt and pepper to form a compact mixture with no traces of calf or lard parts.

In order to prepare a pesto in a perfect way, you should also pound them in a mortar and then pass through a sieve. Put this pesto in a bowl, add nuts and mix again.

Stretch out the chicken’s skin, put the compact mixture inside, shaping in a rounded form, stitch it nicely, wrap it tightly in a napkin or in a white canvas, tie it well at the edges and make a fold at the center.

Place the galantine in a oval shaped casserole (pot), add bones and chicken’s waste (bones, wings, neck), veal legs, carrot, onion in which you stuck the clove, parsley, celery, a little salt and cover it all with water and boil very slowly for an hour and a half.
Pull out the galantine and place it on a plate. After half an hour, remove it from the canvas, rinse it in fresh water, squeeze it and tie it back around the galantine, exactly just like the first time.

Place it on a serving plate and after 7-8 hours cut it into slices and fill it with the gelatine as indicated below.

CHEF TIPS - HOW TO MIX CHICKEN WITH GELATINE

Remove the galantine from heat and add a bit of water in the pot to finish cooking the calves’ feet, which have to be almost discarded.

At this point, pass the jelly through a canvas, gathering in a bowl and then eliminate the fat lying on the surface. To clarify, the gelatine, which is usually never clear, is placed in a saucepan with the white part of the egg and a glass of marsala, add the cold defatted broth and mix well.

Put the casserole back on the fire and keep stirring until boil. Remove the pot and let the soup rest for 5 minutes.

Pass the jelly through a squeezed wet canvas and pour it into a mold that will be placed on ice to let the jelly set. At the time of use, lay the wet squeezed canvas on the table, and pour the gelatine over it, which will be cut in triangles or other shapes to garnish the galantine.

WINE PAIRING TIP

Try to serve it with the Italian sweet white wine Malvasia, or with the sparkling white Prosecco, king of Italian aperitivos!

Merry Gourmet Christmas from Academia Barilla!

The Festival has has been a triumph, not only because all the shows, including some of the most famous Italian Operas such as La Traviata, Aida, Rigoletto and Luise Miller, were sold out; the collateral events, in which Academia Barilla was fully involved, have been looked after and talked about as some of the most precious moments of the Festival.

The gourmet side of the Festival has been crafted to art, also in honor to Maestro Verdi, who was a notorious gourmet foodie - if he were among us now, sure he would be reading Italian Food Lovers!

Giuseppe Verdi, son of an osteria owner, knew several traditional recipes and is known for giving detailed instructions to her lifetime cook Ermelinda Berni, so that she could excel in both cooking and presentation.

Academia Barilla, who dedicates part of its commitment in the promotion of traditional Italian gastronomy, created in 2004 the first and more comprehensive Gastronomic Library in the world, with more than 8,000 titles (same of which very rare and dating back to the 17th century) dedicated to the Italian food culture, but actually embracing a worldwide knowledge on culinary, gastronomy, and food culture.

Giancarlo Gonizzi, the responsible and creator of Academia Barilla’s Gastronomic Library, honored Giuseppe Verdi at the Verdi Festival with a dedicated exhibition of traditional recipes from the Verdi times, that actually got prepared and presented to the Festival guests by amazing Chefs of the Academia Barilla Culinary School.

Academia Barilla Chef Roberto Ronzoni, here in the picture, guided a team of gourmet Chef from the Culinary school to prepare incredible historic menus for the Verdi Festival, including typical dishes known to be among the Maestro’s favorites.
Reporter Maria Celeste Crucilla’, from the popular Italian magazine Oggi, wrote a very nice article last week about the historic menu created by the Academia Barilla team for the Verdi Festival.

Among the several creations of the Academia Barilla team for the Verdi Festival, we would like to talk about three of them, Verdi’s favorite dishes: Mortified Wild Duck (Faraona Mortificata), Flan with Spalla Cotta (Flan with Cooked Ham), and Cacio Bavarese (Bavarian Cheese Dessert).

The Mortified Wild Duck (Faraona Mortificata) gets its name from the fact that the Faraona (Wild duck) would have been hung from his feet for a few days to macerate, before getting stuffed with Parmigiano-Reggiano, eggs, crumbled bread, Prosciutto di Parma, Italian parsley, basil, salt and pepper.

Flan with Spalla Cotta (Flan with Cooked Ham) definitly was the Maestro’s favorite dish. The flan is made with Parmigiano-Reggiano, and the ham, in the traditional recipe, is the typical “Spalla di San Secondo“, a special cut from the pork’s shoulder that is generally served in thin slices.

Giuseppe Verdi was so passionate about this dish that he would always bring it as a present to his close friends, and teaching them how to make it according to the traditional recipe. In a letter from April 27, 1872, to his friend Conte Oprandino Arrivabene, Giuseppe Verdi gives all the instructions on how to cook the ham at its best:

“Before cooking it on the fire, you must take most of the salt off, just leave the ham for two hours in water. Then boil it on fire, in a pot filled with water. Slow-flame cook it for 6 hours, then leave it resting in his soup until cold. When cold, take the ham from the pot, dry it, and eat it”.

Cacio Bavarese (Bavarian Cheese Dessert) is also known as The Bishop’s Flan, and traditionally made with finger biscuits (Savoiardi, try the Pavesini, also a classic main ingredient for Tiramisu’, at our online shop). Savoiardi get soaked in white wine from the Parma hills and Ron, then alternated with vanilla-chocolate cream and cherry marmalate. To be served with a zabaglione cream like your (Italian) mother used to make!

See you at the next Verdi Festival in Parma, October 2008! We will be surely talking a lot about it next year, as we did this year!

The event is a must for Italian opera and lirica lovers, as the Festival dedicates the entire month of October to Giuseppe Verdi, the Italian opera Maestro, with daily concerts performed in some of the most prestigious opera theaters of Italy, such as Teatro Regio and Teatro Farnese.

The Italian opera Festival, as our Italian Food Lovers readers know, is held in Parma, Italy, home to Giuseppe Verdi. Teatro Regio, one of the major venues for the month-long event, publishes the entire schedule of opera shows, for those interested to the full calendar.

The Festival opens today, October 1, 2007, with one of the most famous operas from the Maestro, Luisa Miller. Check the details of the three-acts opera on Wikipedia, who dedicates an entire page to the famous libretto.

This summer we dedicated several blog posts to the Ultimate Italian Travel Experience, the perfect travel package proposed by Academia Barilla that put together two of the most important traditions of Italy, opera and food, framing them in the beautiful context of Parma and the surrounding Italian Food Valley area - also known as Terre Verdiane in honor to one of its most famous natives, Giuseppe Verdi.

Academia Barilla proposes a 5-days trip that includes accommodation in a 5-star hotel in the center of Parma, gourmet meals, two opera shows from the Festival Verdi, an hands-on cooking class at the Academia Barilla Culinary School (with typical menus from the 19th century, the era of Giuseppe Verdi), guided tours of Parma and some of the most beautiful locations of the Italian Food Valley to visit the land of Giuseppe Verdi, a castle, and local artisan farmers and producers of traditional gourmet food, such as Parmigiano-Reggiano - all of the above tossed with the style and the friendly but professional guidance of the Academia Barilla team in Parma.

This is definitely the best way to enjoy the Festival Verdi and discover Italy in style, a true Ultimate Italian Travel Experience. You can have a taste of this trip through the virtual tour we published on the blog, but we strongly advice all Italian food and opera lovers to go for the real thing, and check out all the booking information provided at this page of the Academia Barilla website.

Hurry up, the Verdi Festival already opened today, and will last for this month only, until October 31 - but be aware that Academia Barilla’s tour dates are only scheduled on the following October 2007 schedule:

October 6-10, 2007
October 10-14, 2007
October 16-20, 2007
October 21-25, 2007