I daresay there is a traditional dish from somewhere on the Italian peninsula that resembles this dish in some way, but in a radical, free-form departure from our blogging norms, we didn’t follow any kind of recipe here nor do the slightest bit of research in preparation. By way of an excuse, we didn’t really have time.

We’d been out for almost the entire day on yet another soul-destroying search for a new place to live, and, feeling rather bilious and irritable, were in need of emotional restoration. Returning to our soon-to-be former residence, we passed the Japanese-run fishmongers and noticed a small pot of monkfish liver just aching to be ours. Then, passing Russo’s our neighboring Italian specialty store, we bagged ourselves a box of their freshly-made spaghetti alla chitarra. Some light cream that needed finishing off, some chopped garlic, a splash of white wine, a sprinkle of chopped parsley, and fifteen minutes later, we were enjoying a the slightly bitter, oily maritime flavor of monkfish liver with a glass of chewy, slightly leathery Basilicatan aglianico. And if we weren’t completely emotionally restored afterward, we were hopeful enough to risk making another series of appointments to see terminally-dismal overpriced Brooklyn apartments the next day.

In the single beat of a butterfly’s wing causing a hurricane sense, I am convinced this dinner had a key influence on our house-hunting travails, as by sundown the following day we were the mightily relieved soon-to-be tenants of an actual house. In fact, it’s a pity monkfish liver is such poor material for an amulet, otherwise I feel certain I would be henceforth sporting an oily brown luck charm around my neck.

He’s certainly not the first to make such a remark, but when in a recent episode of his PBS show Mexico: One Plate at a Time, chef Rick Bayless commented that Mexican food may be the first “fusion cuisine” in the Americas, the concept resonated with me. The collision of cultures and culinary traditions that resulted from the European conquest of the Americas had as profound and delicious consequences for its Spanish, French and English protagonists as it had on the diets of its unwilling Native American and African antagonists. Indeed, and here I understand that I’m on sensitive ground, in cultural terms one might venture that one of the few short term benefits, that became a long term legacy, of this brutal period was the fabulous variety of new dishes that resulted from this coming together of New World, European and African ingredients and techniques.

Anthropologists and historians generally agree that apart from Brazil, the islands of the Caribbean are the most “Africanized” countries of the Americas because the extraordinarily harsh conditions, and consequential high slave mortality rate, in these places required that the plantation’s human capital be almost constantly replaced, continually refreshing African traditions. This sad history has allowed for the persistence of several West African cultural traditions, in syncretic religions like Haitian voodoo and Brazilian candomblé, as well as a variety of typical dishes, in the New World. Chief among the latter of these is the filling cassava mush known throughout much of Central and Western sub-Saharan Africa as fufu.

Most commonly served with a tomato or peanut based soup – which is sometimes garnished with seafood – fufu (fufuo, foufou, fougou) is believed to have originated in Twi-speaking regions of modern-day Ghana where the word foufouep (p is silent) means white and refers to the color of the cassava flour used in its preparation. When cooked with hot water and stirred to a similarly thick consistency as polenta or grits, and served on the side of a bowl of soup (or on a central platter), the diner takes a pinch of fufu, rolls it into an olive sized ball, makes an indentation with their thumb and uses it as an edible spoon for the soup.

The traditional shrimp and grits of the American South is, among many other variants, a direct descendant of fufu, where the American staple cornmeal has replaced cassava. In modern-day Cuba, one of the most traditional Afro-Cuban dishes, fufu de platano, has an even more direct bloodline to its African forebear in its use of that other West African starch, the green plantain.

Very similar to Cuban fufu is the joyously monikered mofongo of Puerto Rico – a dish that is so unbelievably delicious that it is even more fun to eat than it is to pronounce. Whereas fufu is often just mashed boiled plantains, mofongo (sometimes mofongu) is fried plantains that are then doused in a heavily-garlicked olive oil sauce while being pounded in a mortar. The mofongo is often then mixed with chopped up chicharrones (deep-fried pork belly cracklins), and shaped into a mound, before being dressed in an intensely savory tomato and shrimp-stock based gravy and garnished with sauted or fried shrimp.

More or less understood to be one of, if not the, national dishes of Puerto Rico, mofongo represents the creole (criolla) culture of that island in a truly unique way. The exotic tropical plantains native to Africa blending seamlessly with Caribbean-influenced sofrito used in the sauce and the typically Iberic flavors of olive oil and garlic into a colorful feast for the senses.

And a feast dish mofongo truly is. A Puerto Rican festival is said to be incomplete without mofongo, and this on an island where the perennial feast-time favorite, the long slow roasted pork dish called pernil is accompanied by both rice and beans and tostones. The competition in terms of delicious flavors being nothing short of extreme on that blessed island. Of course, we tend to wax lyrical about all the food we make here on WANF, but I want to stress that you have no idea just how amazing mofongo is, you just have to trust us and try it. It’s so rich, so intensely flavored, so texturally intriguing, and so quite unlike anything you’re likely to have eaten before. It’s a stunning combination that is as easy on the soul as it is invigorating for the intellect.

We first ate mofongo at one of a pair of fascinating restaurants in our Brooklyn neighborhood that have been serving the flavors of home to the area’s Caribbean population for more than 40 years. El Viejo Yayo (and El Viejo Yayo II) (meaning, roughly, the old man, or the grandfather), are the kinds of places – bright, harsh lighting, giant portions, patronized mostly by Latinos – that are a dying breed in our gentrified nabe, but can be relied upon for traditional island cuisine for these exact reasons. El Viejo Yayo serves a variety of mofongos, some as mains, others (almost unimaginably given their size) as side dishes, some with seafood, others with pork, and no matter how hard we try, it’s nearly impossible not to get one, in spite of the other wonderful offerings on their menu, including an outstanding soupy rice with seafood. [A propos of nothing, it's always interested me that they also make a mean brandy alexander, just one of many retro cocktails that they, unlike trendier places, never stopped making.] Under the bright strip lights, perspiring gently as pork and carbohydrates flood our system, we’ll often look around at our fellow diners – elbows on tables, giant plates or bowls in front of them, talking loudly and energetically gesticulating – and remark how lucky we are to have all this delicious diversity on our doorstep.

It sounds rather trite to conclude any piece about food in this way, but out of the myriad sadnesses of a shameful past shrouded in human misery, suffering and squalor, has risen, in mofongo (amongst the New World’s many great dishes), a gastronomic legacy that is truly a cultural phenomenon to celebrate and be proud of. And, perhaps, therein lies one of enduring maxims of great national dishes, that they speak simultaneously of what is ugly and painful as well as beautiful and serene about a country’s character, while reflecting the shared joy and peace to be found in the simple pleasures of the table.

We’re certainly not the first bloggers to find ourselves stretched thin between the demands of our regular working lives and the rather strange, post-modern existence we eke out on the interwebs, and, as happens to us every now and then, we’re kind of in the middle of one of those periods right now. Combine that with the fact that it’s been crazy hot here lately — making the prospect of getting creative in the kitchen of our sweat-lodge-like four-story walk-up apartment distinctly unattractive — and our resulting culinary output has been truly meager.

On the few occasions we have been behind the burners, it’s only been for short periods, and, in this case, just long enough to cook marinaded baby octopus a la plancha in a cast-iron skillet. This is the result. It was delicious, and, yes, our apartment was a few hundred degrees for the rest of the evening. Seeking to avoid these sauna conditions, we have recently resorted to the dangerously illegal practice of grilling things over a tiny fold-up barbecue on the roof of our apartment building. With a bit of luck, the steamy conditions will break before repeated exposure to grilling temperatures melts a sink-hole into the ceiling above us.

There is so little information available about Burma (or Myanmar, depending on how you rock it) that after the inevitable Wikipedia entry, the CIA World Factbook is the second item that appears in Google’s search results. This anonymity is largely due to the military dictatorship that has kept the country under lock and key for much of the last 50 years. Even typhoon Nargis, which smacked into the Burmese coast in the spring of 2008 killing 130,000+ Burmese, shamefully failed to change the government’s secretive operations in spite of a large international relief effort.

Burma has not always been so mysterious. During the latter half of the 19th century and first half of the 20th, the country was annexed to the British Raj of India (mostly to arrest the expansion of the French across Indochina from Laos and Vietnam), and quickly became an integral part of the British Empire supplying a rich abundance of jewels, hardwoods and spices to global markets. Indeed, the British, favoring the temperate north of “Upper Burma” over the fetid, malarial Rangoon (now Yangon) in the south, made the previously small, provincial town of Mandalay their capital, opening up that previously undeveloped area in so doing. It was during these heady days of fortune-making, steamy nights and opium dens that the sense of exoticism and opulence surrounding the city of Mandalay developed (which the Vegas casino Mandalay Bay riffs off, despite the fact that Mandalay is more than 500 miles inland).

Indians, Chinese and Anglo-Indians, their businesses and their foods, flooded Burma under the British, as the new rulers exploited Burma’s natural wealth and pushed railroads deep into the Burmese interior. Prior to this period, native Burmese cuisine had contrasted sharply with its neighbors. It had few of the complex spices of Indian cuisine and lacked the fiery heat of Thai food or the sophisticated salty, sour, sweet characteristics of Chinese cuisines, tending to rely on more subtle flavors and simple techniques. Things changed considerably during British rule, and the Burmese adopted or adapted many of the more generic dishes these foreign groups brought with them, so that contemporary Burmese food, while still distinct, displays these recent influences.

Perhaps the most popular dish in Burma though, is a traditionally Burmese dish that has been eaten to celebrate marriage throughout the ages. Own-o Kow-swear (or Own-o Kow-sway/swea’) is a chicken and coconut milk stew flavored with turmeric, garlic and ginger and served over wheat noodles, that due to its bright yellow color is thought to bestow luck on the marrying couple. It is also supposed that the enlivening flavors of ginger and turmeric offer a little extra oomph, shall we say, to the consummation.

We first wrote about this dish back in the very early days of this blog — apparently before lighting was an issue in our photography (or retouching, for that matter) — having enjoyed it at one of the (then) only two Burmese restaurants in New York, not to mention one of the very few such eateries in America. Sadly, this restaurant, Village Mingala, closed earlier this year, leaving its sister restaurant on the Upper West Side to fly the flag for Burmese cuisine in NYC, and so to mark its passing, we decided to give home-making Own-o Kow-swear a bash.

Of course, as my opening line suggests there isn’t much available on the internet about Burmese food, so we turned instead to the only Burmese cook book readily available in English — The Flavors of Burma/Myanmar — written by Susan Chan, a Burmese-Australian woman of Chinese heritage. From her we learned that since chicken (and other proteins, except fish) have typically been (and, to an extent, still are) exorbitantly priced in Burma, this dish came to be served at weddings as a demonstration of the hosts’ generosity and largesse. We also learned, very interestingly, that these days it is also often served — to those who can afford it — as a breakfast dish because Burmese weddings are most commonly celebrated in the morning, with the celebratory meal served around brunch time.

It is hard for us to contemplate eating anything with chicken in it before noon, let alone a bowl of fragrantly-spiced stew and noodles, but, happily, it also makes an excellent lunch or dinner instead. Do not be dissuaded from giving this dish a try, especially if you’ve been nervous hitherto about making Indian or Thai food at home due to the number and/or availability of some of the ingredients. Much of what you need for Own-o Kow-swear can be found in even the most badly-stocked grocery store, and in terms of skills, if you can make a regular beef stew, you can make this blindfolded.

Since, for most of us, visiting Burma or even finding a Burmese restaurant is largely impossible, unless something miraculous happens there politically, this dish is about as close as we’re ever going to get to experiencing the unknown pleasures of that exotic and mysterious nation. The really frustrating thing is that once you’ve tried this dish you just want to taste and know more and more about Burma and its food. Here’s hoping that one day, the government’s iron grip will relax, or be cast-off entirely, and the country and its fabulous cuisine can once again by enjoyed by Englishmen (and people of all countries) like me.

Sitting around the table last night with gusts of strong breath coloring our domestic atmosphere, Amy and I were considering the profound effect garlic has on Spanish cuisine, and we wondered aloud whether any other national cuisine makes such abundant and varied use of the perfumed rose. Certainly, French and Italian food incorporate garlic with spectacular results, as do Greek, most other Mediterranean cuisines, as well as Chinese and Indian, but if there’s a cuisine that, to us, is characterized by garlic, it’s Spanish.

All of which is great, unless you happened to be sitting next to us this morning on the subway, as last night we ate two of the most highly odoriferous dishes in the Iberian canon – patatas a lo pobre and pollo al ajillo. The humble, peasant roots of both these dishes (the former translating as poor man’s potatoes) rely heavily on large quantities of garlic to elevate the otherwise prosaic ingredients to a higher plane. The garlic somehow acts both as a spice and an acid, flavoring the dish while simultaneously cutting through and balancing the olive oil.

We recommend you make enough of both these dishes to share, not just because they make delicious tapas-style small plates, but because you’ll want to surround yourself with similarly pungent folk to avoid people covering their faces and shuffling away down the train as if you had the plague. On the other hand, you do far worse than gain a little extra personal space in this congested city of ours. Maybe we’ve hit on a smart new commuting tactic?

Following a restorative beer in the charmingly medieval town of Arras, our nerves were steadied enough to drive north through the falling snow to Lille where we were to spend New Year’s Eve. Foolishly we hadn’t made any plans for that evening and consequently ended up at the only place in town that had a spare table – a bizarre, Moroccan-themed restaurant enticing diners in for  ”One Night in Marrakech”. If that fabled North African city is nothing but a den of drunken, middle-aged Frenchmen staggering around trying to belly dance and exposing large acreages of flesh for henna tattoos then our night was indeed an authentic experience, though I would hope there is more to it than that.

However, since we couldn’t beat them, so we joined them (in all things  minus the henna), so come New Year’s morning we looked like we’d just been dragged to Marrakech and back on our faces. Venturing gingerly out onto the deserted Lille streets, we, once again, found a table hard to come by, but eventually managed it at a warm and friendly gastropub full of similarly rumpled young people. Seeing that everyone else was working through their hangovers with frothy Belgian ales and steaming bowls of black stew (and not being in much of a state to make decisions) we ordered glasses of Leffe Blonde and servings of boeuf carbonnade a la flamande or Flemish beef and beer stew.

Meats braised in ales of all kinds can be found throughout northern Europe, but nowhere else, perhaps, has the concept been raised to such a culinary pinnacle as in Flanders. There, some would argue, one finds not only many of the world’s best beers, but also cuisine that both makes extensive use of beer and is prepared to be enjoyed with beer. Carbonnade is, more or less, the national dish of Flanders and is known in Dutch-speaking areas as Vlaamse Stoverij or Vlaamse stoofkarbonade. It is noted for its slightly sour flavor that is derived from the dubbel (double) or trippel (triple) Abbey-style ales used in its preparation, as well as a jigger of cider vinegar added just before serving. The most unique aspects of a traditional Carbonnade though, and what makes it so different from all other beef and beer stews, are the slow sauted onions and the, seemingly-curious, addition of mustard-coated ginger-snap cookies that are used both as a flavoring and a thickening agent. These cookies really place the dish in its culinary context with the spice-trading and koekie-mad Dutch making key contributions.

Whether because it contained hair of the dog or was accompanied by it,  the carbonnade acted like some sort of miracle restorative on our poisoned systems and sent us back out into Lille’s cold streets for an entire day of exploring, which was just as well since there was absolutely nothing else open in the entire city that day.  Saying hearty braised dishes are perfect for wintry weather is, frankly, about as insipid a remark as most braised meat dishes, even those fortified with beer, so I shall avoid that particular cliche here, and say instead that it is perfect for curing a hangover. That’s right, you heard it here first: beer both creates and cures hangovers.

Do you ever wish you had a secret power? I don’t mean like some stupid superhero who can fly, make it rain, or look great in a unitard. I mean like a gerbil’s ability to store tasty bits in its cheeks for later, or a tiger’s ability to eat 30lbs of wild boar at a single sitting, that kind of thing. No? Hmm, well, I do, and sometimes, in my more reflective moments, I find myself wishing I was blessed with a gizzard. After all, would not my diet be expanded and my ‘intestinal transit’ made smoother if I possessed a specialized second stomach that enabled me to grind up and enjoy commonly indigestible foods?

Having recently questioned a sample group of poultry, reptiles and fish (the only three genera of animals that possess gizzards) about this, I can tell you that 9 out of the 10 chickens surveyed credited their gizzards with giving free reign to their more fibrous dietary proclivities. In the course of my survey, I also learned that while addiction and dependency issues brought on by knowingly being bred for slaughter are a big problem for young roosters, the greater worry among concerned hens is the utter disregard for their gizzards demonstrated by the carnivorous public.

“That’s my son’s (second) stomach they’re throwing them away!”, cock-a-doodle-doed one plump mother of 700 chicks, while another squawked that, “they (humans) should be so lucky to have a gizzard of their own. Ingrates!”

Chastened by these plaintive cries, and encouraged to make a salad we ate at a fabulous gastropub in Lille, France, over New Year’s, we recently explored the potential of confit-ing chicken gizzards. We found that nothing could be easier and more delicious, nor could this preparation be more suited to making the best out of what is a potentially tough part of the giblets.

We served our gizzards and some similarly confit’d chicken livers over a green salad with some boiled eggs, just as we had eaten it in Lille, but an alternative preparation typical to the Dordogne region of France, especially the town of Perigeux/Perigord, serves the gizzards over a lettuce salad with walnuts and croutons, which would be just as good, no doubt.

It is no coincidence that, in the 30 years since Franco’s death, Spanish creativity in the arts, architecture, business, and gastronomy has blossomed. It is also no coincidence that it has been, predominantly, though not exclusively, Spain’s sub-national and regional groups — who were repressed most viciously by the Fascist dictator — that have led this rebirth. Valencian architect Santiago Calatrava, designer of some of the most stunning buildings of all time, and Catalonian Ferran Adría, who runs what is, almost undisputedly, the world’s best restaurant, are but two whose genius has prospered in the post-Franco era. One could also point to more general trends of economic prosperity (prior to the recent global meltdown) in formerly moribund provincial cities like Bilbao and the resurgence of regional languages as evidence of this Spanish renaissance in recent times.

The Basque Country (País Vasco) has always been somewhat removed from mainstream Spanish affairs, even prior to the 20th century. Linguistically, ethnically and culturally unique, and surrounded on all sides by Indo-European speakers, the Basques have survived millennia of both active and passive discrimination, keeping their traditions alive with stubborn tenacity. One might be forgiven then, for assuming that these remarkable and unique people are a population of stolid conventionalists, unable or unwilling to change their habits. One would be wrong.

Historians trace the epicenter of today’s wave of Spanish gastronomic innovation to a small kitchen in San Sebastian (Donostía) in the mid-1970s. At his eponymous restaurant, Arzak, Juan Mari Arzak pioneered New Basque Cuisine (nueva cocina vasca) virtually single-handedly. Taking inspiration from the French nouvelle cuisine revolution of the late 60s — especially from Michel Guérard, whose spa-restaurant at Eugenie-les-Bains between Bordeaux and Biarritz was a particularly fine ‘local’ example — he began creating lighter and less rustic dishes from the finest traditional Basque ingredients and time-honored Basque techniques. Arzak has been so extraordinarily successful in this that not only do world-famous chefs Ferran Adría and Karlos Arguiñano credit him with heavily influencing their cooking, but his restaurant has retained the 3 Michelin star-rating it achieved in 1989, and only last year it was named the 8th best restaurant in the world.

Anyone who has eaten Basque food knows that it is characterized by simple, unadorned dishes with a weighting towards the maritime, like Marmitako (a tuna and tomato stew), Bacalao al Pil-Pil (salt cod in a spicy garlic sauce), and Txangurro (stuffed crabs), and Juan Mari Arzak’s signature dish — his hake in green sauce with clams — is of this same ilk, featuring very basic ingredients and unfussy technique.

Two things make Juan Mari Arzak such a revolutionary and this dish so seminal: (1) when he first made it, the dish demonstrated exquisitely, and for perhaps the first time by a Spanish chef, that Iberian dishes, Iberian ingredients and Iberian traditions could constitute haute cuisine — an idea that, today, resonates globally; (2) he showed in this dish that the cooking of the future would be as much, if not more, about what you didn’t do to the food as what you did do to it — a truly revolutionary notion at a time when the elaborate and time-intensive dishes of classic French gastronomy were still considered the pinnacle of the culinary arts.

Hake (merluza) is a staple of Spanish seafood cooking, and indeed, so influential has Arzak been that versions of this dish are still, 35 years later, pretty commonplace in Spain. I first ate it at a hole-in-the-wall tasca behind the Plaza Mayor in Salamanca years ago and I can still see its beautiful green color and feel the silkiness of the fish in my mind. Sadly, and for no good reason I can fathom, hake is difficult to get hold of on this side of the Atlantic and obtaining other white fish with similar properties is also problematic for the ethical consumer due to issues of over-fishing and scarcity. Nonetheless, sustainably managed Pacific cod is fairly readily-available, and most mild-flavored white fish, if left skin-on to keep it intact, will make a perfect substitute.

Juan Mari Arzak’s revelation of allowing the ingredients to speak for themselves is taken to its logical extreme here as he hardly applies his hands or any heat to create what is a fully cooked dish. Understanding that white fish can dry out and quickly fall apart if not dealt with delicately, all he does is gently caress it around a barely warm pan with garlic, olive oil, parsley, clam juice and wine. The emulsion created by this careful preparation is as sweet and elegant as you would expect from a three Michelin star chef, but with a flavor as robust as the ancestral Basque fare from which it comes, and as spirited as the revolution it began. Vivá la Revolucíon!

It might be generational, or, perhaps, philosophical, but there are, on the one hand, those who enjoy and appreciate handmade things, and the art and craft they require to make, and, on the other, those who prefer their things machine-made, reliable, and standard. The ‘things’ here could be quite literally anything. My father, who, to me, is the quintessential scientist and pragmatist, believes that most, if not all, advances for the betterment of mankind have come as a result of the increased use and application of machines, technology and science. In fact, he would argue, I’m sure, that this blog is evidence of the fact that even something as Luddite as cooking can be improved through the application of technology, though regular readers – with good reason – may not agree.

My mother was cut from very different cloth however, and, though a nurse who believed sincerely in the power of modern medicine, sanitation and inoculation, she was a true amateuse of a hand-turned chair-leg, a cut-glass goblet, and, much to the detriment of my appearance during my tender years, a hand-knitted sweater.  She was also a great lover of gardening, baking bread and, despite the fact that it rarely worked, yogurt-making. I think it’s from her that I get most of my culinary instincts, as the very notion of spending three or four hours in the kitchen doing anything would horrify my dad.

Pasta-rollers, like all machines, were invented for three main reasons: (1) to produce more quickly what used to take a long time (2) as a uniform-quality product, and (3) so that the resulting free time could be spent either more enjoyably or industriously. The assumption behind it seems to be that it makes it easier to make something that is typically quite tricky, and that the making of it by hand was a laborious pain in the ass. Those who have used a pasta roller, whether the hand-crank variety or the KitchenAid attachment, know, as we do, that it is a fabulous invention and enables even the busiest gastronome to home-make great fresh pasta in a relatively short time. They might also have found that it is actually fun to use because it combines the joy of mixing a dough by hand with the ease and convenience of not having to roll it out and cut it yourself.

Taking this notion of fun to its logical extreme this past weekend, I decided to devote my entire Sunday to doing the whole thing – the mixing, the rolling and the cutting – by hand. In spite of the recipe book’s warning that it was a painstaking exercise, I had little idea of what I was getting into. I now have a profound appreciation both for labor-saving machines, and the unique taste, texture and satisfaction derived from hand-rolled pasta.

But it is more than that. I learned something about myself on Sunday. In some ways, it was a revelation. I had always thought that I appreciated handmade things, particularly food and wine, with the all patience, care and skills that their creation implies, but I had never actually tested myself to see if I could enjoy hand-making something that required real patience and physical effort.  And, while there certainly were moments in which I did not enjoy being patient or the physical effort, on the whole, I really did find the process to be incredibly rewarding – relaxing almost. Not only did I (eventually, and with several abortive attempts) make some absolutely first-class pasta, but I learned a new technique and was, in the end, able to enjoy the fruits of my labor in a way I never have before.

Pici Keen

Famous for the lavish displays of wealth and the beautiful arts of the Renaissance found in Florence, Siena, Lucca and Pisa, Tuscans are, by contrast, rather austere in their culinary inclinations with their love of simple grilled meats, stewed beans and saltless bread. Such austerity requires the freshest and best ingredients in order to be delicious, and, fortuitously, Tuscany offers these up in great bounty. Similarly, it often requires great effort and technique.

So it is with Pici (also known as pinci — hand-rolled, eggless Tuscan thick spaghetti — perhaps the best example of this cucina povera (poor man’s cuisine) — utilizing only 00 flour, water, green Tuscan olive oil and a lot of time and effort. Indeed, it is my belief that what the poor, historically, lacked in wealth they more than make up for in patience, and disposable time. Originating from the Val d’Orcia region (the area between Montalcino and Montepulciano), pici are usually eaten with a rich meat sauce, often containing porcini mushrooms, but any hearty meat or game ragu would be a good choice.

The duck ragu recipe below is typical of the region of Arezzo which is the area where we got married in June 2007, and making it engendered all those kinds of warm feelings one gets from a house filled with delicious smells and the wonderful memories of the time of our lives.

Learning a new skill, and in this case, a new recipe, is a matter of managing to overcome self-doubt. Before you attempt making pici, I would highly recommend you try making a regular long pasta with an egg dough, so that you understand how it should feel and look. It will also allow you to develop a sense about the right elasticity of a good dough which will be useful even though Pici dough is a very different creature altogether.

If you follow the exact instructions below, you’ll probably find that your dough feels too dry and too heavy. Do not be afraid to add more water and more oil as you see fit because eggless doughs can easily become brittle when allowed to be too dry. However, do not abandon hope. I urge you to stick with the basis of the recipe (allowing for various seasonal, regional, altitudinal and indoor-outdoor climactic conditions) and overcome your fears of impending culinary disaster, as they will not materialize. If it feels too dry, add more water. Too wet, add flour until it feels right. One word of caution, though: be sparing in any additions of liquid or lipids because at the hand-rolling stage you will be adding extra olive oil to reduce friction and facilitate the rolling process, and you don’t want to find at that stage that you have to start all over again.

Also, do give yourself plenty of time. An otherwise lazy Sunday afternoon is perfect for this, as not only does the pasta make a perfect Sunday night dinner, but, more importantly, it gives you time to rest as you go along. Making enough pici for four people can be a tiring business, even if there are two of you on the job. One final proviso, do not treat pici like regular fresh pasta — i.e. sprinkle it liberally with flour and allow to set-up and dry for a while prior to cooking. I refer to my earlier comments when I say that pici can dry out and become brittle very quickly, so when you make them, plan to eat them within, at most, a couple of hours. This might appear like a disadvantage but it’s not because once cooked they are probably more robust than regular pastas and even reheat remarkably well.

So, please try making this dish. The sauce is easy and indescribably good (I know everyone says that about their food, but, really, this is very special), and the pasta is a great reward for some hard graft both corporeally and in that it offers a real sense of achievement. By the time you’re done, you’ll have sore shoulders but will have mastered the rolling technique perfectly. As a result, pasta-making will have transcended the bland uniformity of the machine-age and become what all good food should be: absolutely unique and deeply personal.