The pasta masters
Libby Purves learns to chop, batter and drink like an Italian as she discovers the secrets of...
North of Venice, beyond a great flat plain, the foothills swell gently towards the distant Dolomites. Even in the summer heat, it is a green place, dotted with ochre villas.
This tapestry of rolling woodlands, vines, fat cattle, dairy buffalo, orchards and market gardens is the landscape that first built and fed La Serenissima.
If Venice is a romantic jewel of history, its Veneto hinterland is a place of bounty, good food and wine. For a week my husband Paul and I joined a small group at this industrious, delicious Eden for a house-party-style holiday to learn about the local cooking. We were whisked from the airport to Casa Lentiner, on the Borgoluce agriturismo estate. And we cooked. Oh, how we cooked.
On the first day, Livia, our cheerful and expert hostess, told us this is ‘not a training course but is about the flavours of Italy’. Livia is a restaurant cook and was our guide on excursions, but our guru was her friend Gabriela – an indomitable mama.
She roared up the stony track to Casa Lentiner in her car every day with ingredients, many from her own garden – a glorious long-legged and proudly free-range chicken, brontosaurus-sized turkey breasts, and fresh eggs with bright yokes which made our pasta sheets a rich pale gold. She led us through the various cooking processes, speaking Italian – which some of us understood and the rest had translated by Livia.
Our seven-strong group became a cheerful family, lavishly fuelled by prosecco (this is the heart of the prosecco vine region), and the villa was cool and reassuring.
On our first day we also discovered a piscina naturale – a swimming pond, purified by natural reed beds. I swam with the amphibians among the water lilies, and it was like being in Narnia.
I had vaguely thought that I might leave Paul a-chopping and a-blending, and duck out of half the sessions (there are four or five through the week, in between aperitif-studded visits to Venice, Treviso, Conegliano and a winery). But I got into the swing of it. A certain rivalry even developed: sometimes a group of us was pre-occupied with the first courses (primi e secondi) and the others down the table created the desserts – i dolci. So I have rarely been more outraged when, tasting my mandorlata cake at dinner, Paul mused: ‘Mmm, it tastes almost almondy…’
‘I spent half an hour pulverising those almonds!’ I cried, offended. Competition sharpened even further on the unforgettable tagliatelle session when we made our own dough, battered it violently for about half an hour to get the elasticity out of it, tried to roll it thin enough ‘to see San Luca’s church through it’, and then made tapes of pasta without it all sticking together. I had to unroll every strand of mine by hand. Even Paul concluded: ‘I now know everything about making pasta from scratch – which is, don’t!’
The San Luca rule, by the way, is from Livia’s home town, Bologna, and a great deal of discussion went on with Gabriela, from the Veneto, about the rules on everything from flour-balance to almond-bashing.
One is amazed that the unification of Italy ever happened, given the rows they had over borlotti beans to the correct shape of gnocchi.
During our stay, we grew fond of this rolling, gentle green hinterland, especially as Venice in the heat was still too crowded for pleasure. But even there Livia gave us fascinating insights about food at the Rialto market and she took us to a cafe for reviving cicchetti – traditional small bar snacks. It was first time I’ve ever agreed to eat anything octopus-related.
Another day, we headed to the family winery of Malibran to discover how prosecco is made. Over a salami and cheese lunch, we were led through a tasting of five styles of the fizzy stuff. There was a trip to a vast supermarket for cheap hunks of Parmesan. We made a triumphant semifreddo dessert, which we fell on like vultures, and an unforgettable pork dinner.
There are some things I will never see the point of, such as polenta. But the sarde in saor – sweet and sour sardines – was a revelation. It involved cleaning innumerable sardines and getting the spines out, frying the fish, and then laboriously layering them with red onions, vinegar, pine nuts and raisins and then storing in the fridge for a day. But it was worth it.
Despite the glorious views, Casa Lentiner is a fair (hot, dusty) walk from anywhere, so it’s not a holiday for restless teenagers.
The trip is a warm and tasty memory of laughs and suppers – the aroma of the next meal is always comfortingly close. And I shall cherish the moment when Pavarotti – Nessun Dorma-ing away on the kitchen CD player – hit the high notes on ‘Vincero!’ at the precise moment I finished rolling the last of my gnocchi on the tines of a fork. Vincero! I will triumph!
‘I rolled my last gnocchi as Pavarotti hit the high notes of Nessun Dorma!’