December 2019

Holiday Gift Ideas 2019
Leaning Toward Italy

 

By Edward Behr
Photographs by Kimberly Behr

Chestnut cutter To jump right into this year’s largely Italian theme, and to encourage the use of the chestnut roasting pan you may already have given a chestnut-loving recipient, you might follow up with a taglia castagne, a chestnut cutter, that cuts an X in the shell so much faster than a knife does. The cut crucially prevents the nuts from exploding when you cook them, and it makes peeling easier afterward. As a gift, the white plastic handles of the Tescomo cutter from Italy are reassuring to hold, while the blades inside are stainless. Tescoma sells the cutter directly for €7.40, and US Amazon has it for $15.95, in either case plus shipping. Less appealing because of its loose hinge, but slightly more effective and better for a pro cook, is the similarly shaped all-stainless, made-in-China cutter from Amazon at $12.55 plus shipping.

Vacuum-packed cooked chestnuts On the other hand, if you don’t want to add to the chaos of a cook’s miscellaneous tool drawer, you could give already cooked and peeled, ready-to-use chestnuts, vacuum-packed in soft plastic. They’re common in Europe, though not in North America. The vacuum technique, unlike canning or whatever is done to typical marrons glacés, captures real chestnut flavor, and in contrast to ostensibly fresh chestnuts, the vacuum-packed ones are never dried out or moldy at the end of the season. Just add them directly to a red-wine stew of fresh porcini, wild boar, goose, or duck, or purée them for your own Monte Bianco dessert. Matiz brand organic chestnuts, from a farmers’ co-op in Galicia, Spain, are sold in certain US stores and available online from The Spanish Table for $10.99 plus shipping.

M2B frying pan Also from Philadelphia, though not Italian, if your recipient is a cook who likes equipment with individuality, give a steel pan crafted by Matt Gilbert, whose one-person business is M2B Art Metals. Gilbert is a former cook and brewer who learned his forging at Samuel Yellin Metalworkers, a firm at the apex of American metal-working. Gilbert’s pans are curiously squarish, made of thick, black, non-stainless carbon steel, which functions similarly to cast iron. The pans come already seasoned, though not as deeply as will follow with careful use. When you pick up a pan, it feels good, which has a lot to do with the design of the stay-fairly-cool handle. The pans, which come in 8-, 10-, and 12-inch sizes, don’t have lids, but they accommodate one borrowed from another pan of the same size a cook likely already owns. Someone might argue that the novel squarish shape doesn’t relate to the function, but a mid-20s man I know decided that an M2B was the only pan he really wanted to own. The 10-inch skillet is $250 plus shipping, which may seem like a lot but is in the range of some high-end factory pans, and the M2B has character and is likely to last forever.

A book about the best terroirs for Italian grapes with names of the most typical wines from each Ian D’Agata’s Italy’s Native Wine Grape Terroirs, published this fall, is a complement to his earlier Native Wine Grapes of Italy. There’s some recycling of material, which is a benefit if you missed the earlier book. (Both are key references, and it wouldn’t be a mistake to give the pair to someone seriously committed to Italian wine who doesn’t have them.) The information is especially meaningful because D’Agata names the wines that he considers best reflect each terroir. If you speak to Italian wine growers, you quickly hear their concerns about the warming climate, but the book’s information will remain useful for some time to come. Available from your welcoming, cluttered local independent bookstore for $50 in the US, $62.95 in Canada, and £40 in the UK.

Amaro-inspired sodas We learned about Casmara Club bitter sodas from Julia Bainbridge, whose writing sometimes addresses the question, “What drinks do you serve without alcohol?” Casmara sodas, from Detroit, are non-alcoholic and at the same time adult — definitely not sweet. Despite being labeled “amaro soft drinks,” they’re not bitter; they present the herb and spice side of an Italian digestivo. They’re not for everyone. They are, however, complex and subtle, for sipping slowly, at the pace of your alcohol-drinking friends, and as you sip, they grow on you. Neither the names of the four flavors nor their separate lists of ingredients help me find useful flavor descriptions. I will say that our tasters tended to prefer the one called Capo, but it’s more fun to go for all four and compare; a mixed case of 12 bottles is $36 plus shipping.

Panforte di Siena The classic cake of Siena — flat, round, dense with almonds and candied fruit — descends from the Middle Ages and comes in two main versions. Panforte nero is topped with dark spices and often cocoa; with the almonds, there are sometimes hazelnuts and always candied orange and melon rind. A good nero balances those components, and its woody, deep flavors evoke a long ago past. I somewhat prefer it to the lighter-flavored, more modern (meaning 1879) panforte bianco, also called panforte Margherita, which is dusted white with sugar. In Siena, buy panforte at Pasticceria Bini. In the US, order a 250-gram Pasticceria Mariuccia panforte nero, made in Montalcino, for $26.95, or a 500-gram panforte bianco for $43.95, plus shipping, from Formaggio Kitchen in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Rugelach Leaving Italian tradition, you might give a pastry-lover a box of rugelach baked by Zingerman’s in Michigan. Of the several flavors, the traditional is very deliciously buttery, dried fruity, and walnutty and sold in combination with the also-delicious apricot. Whether or not you grew up eating rugelach, both kinds are homey and comforting winter food. A box of 16 pieces is $45 with free shipping.

Finnan haddie Still keeping clear of Italy, you could give some of the tiptop smoked fish from Stonington Seafood in Maine, whose specialty is finnan haddie. Richard Penfold, who learned to smoke fish in the Shetland Islands, aims to make the best possible smoked haddock (finnan haddie), which to him means relatively lightly salted and lightly smoked. One of his few other products, salt cold, isn’t smoked at all — now we’re back to Italy — and would be excellent for a cook who loves baccalà. Both the haddock and the cod are wild and line-caught from what Penfold believes are sustainable stocks. (That’s something that isn’t quite guaranteed by certifications or online guides, which are important but tend to simplify.) Maine’s own stocks of haddock remain discouragingly depleted, and these smoked haddock filets are Icelandic, skin-on, which is essential to prevent drying out. Five pounds of finnan haddie are $104.95 and two pounds are $49, plus shipping; throw in a pound or two of salt cod at $21.95 each.

A Kurouchi-style petty knife hand-forged by Shehan Prull After training in the United States and Japan, Shehan Prull returned to Santa Fe, New Mexico, where he makes, principally, Japanese-style knives for cooks. The craftsmanship of Shi.han, as the business is named, is impressive. The first knives he began to sell were petty knives, which are essentially paring knives with slightly longer blades, and they’re a good place for a customer to begin. Although Prull also works in stainless-steel, a more interesting choice is the original 52100 carbon steel. A petty knife with a 15-cm (about 6-inch) blade is $270 plus shipping.

Birch syrup Finally, to completely distract someone from dreams of Italy, go for an unexpected gift of birch syrup. To make one gallon of maple syrup takes around 40 gallons of maple sap, but to make one gallon of birch syrup takes 100 gallons or more of birch sap. Most birch syrup comes from Canada, some is made in Russia, some in Alaska, and a little in the Lower Forty-eight. Depending on the location, the possible species include paper, Alaska, and Kenai birch. (Birch beer, with its wintergreen flavor, is something else; as a rule it comes from black birch.) The taste of maple syrup is no point of comparison. The extra boiling required by the birch sap concentrates its non-sugar constituents, and there’s a risk of scorching, in which case caramel and bitterness take over. Good birch syrup has a tart edge and what I’ll risk calling an elegant molasses quality: a fascinating mineral taste together with some bitterness and a lingeringly fruity flavor. The syrup is too intense for pancakes or waffles, but it’s excellent on vanilla ice cream, and I suspect it would make a good complicating sweetener for cocktails. The producers recommend it adding it to a marinade for meat, but its sweetness requires a good dose of salt as well as acidity and a complicating element, such as browned onions. It was good with pork (but not beef), and I suspect duck or goose would work. An imaginative cook might come up with, for instance, ideas for vegetable bruschette. Of the four kinds of birch syrup we’ve tasted, the one from Abby and Trent Rouleau of The Gateway Farm in Bristol, Vermont, has the most body and complexity. A one-pint plastic jug is $30 plus shipping. ●

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