I think I speak for many when I say that the current weather in the United Kingdom is absolutely appalling. I look back on the long, hot days of summer 2016 as a half-remembered dream, when I walked to work in short sleeves (has anyone else forgotten what their bare arms look like?) and spent my lunch breaks outdoors. Ah me. This year I have barely managed three days without a vest, and dare not venture out without a raincoat. And yet, frustratingly, it still looks and smells like summer. Nature has reached its verdant pinnacle, everything seems green and good, and the markets are overspilling with the bounty of the season: punnets of tart raspberries and swollen purple cherries, sacks of fresh peas and ginormous bunches of spinach with leaves as big as my face. Meanwhile, the mercury is stuck at 15℃ and it continues to pour. I want to soak up the season, get my fill of sunlight to see me through the dark days of winter, but this capricious island climate continues to thwart me.
I have therefore come to the conclusion that, in the absence of light, we must make our own sunshine. And given that I lack the omnipotence to actually achieve this, I find food to be the closest available substitute. If it doesn't feel like summer outside, I must simply recreate it in the kitchen. So when the wind is howling, I eat as though I were sitting in a sunny Italian garden, the sun warm on my neck, cicadas humming softly somewhere in the background. And to create a believable illusion, authentic ingredients are required.
Growing up, I quickly came to appreciate the importance of a reliable foreign supermarket: visits to my grandparents usually involved a trip to the Middle Eastern delis in Slough, followed by a long stint at a shop known solely as The Italian. It was the one vendor Nonna (my grandma) trusted to buy her coffee and parmesan, and, for a long time, was the only place she could find panettone for Christmas and pandoro for Easter. The shop was skinny and cramped, with a few short aisles piled high with jars of olives, tins of tuna, stacks of Mulino Bianco biscuits and more varieties of pasta than I ever thought possible. Just walking around was like a holiday in itself.
With storm clouds gathering outside, I decided it was time to seek out another such deli closer to home, and find my own little corner of la dolce vita in the home counties. Thus on a Saturday afternoon in July my sister and I set off in the pouring rain, hoping to seek a little sunshine at L'Isola Buona - a family run delicatessen, specialising in Sardinian produce. And we got lost. Twice.
"This is definitely the post code" she grumbled, as we reversed out of someone's driveway. "We must have missed it." After going back on ourselves, we realised that we had driven past the shop twice already - hidden in what may just be the country's most depressing industrial estate. Only a weather-beaten sandwich board, sticking out hopefully into the road, advertised its presence. We turned in and found a nondescript warehouse, a small shop attached to one wall, and a deserted car park. Not exactly what we'd expected, but the single window was lined with giant tins of tomatoes, which seemed like a good omen.
It's quite remarkable how a good cheese can improve a meal, whether or not it plays a central role. My maternal grandparents almost always have a cheese course (pre-dessert, naturally, we are foreigners after all) and I have many a fond memory of slathering Boursin over baguette, watching the adults close their eyes and sigh at the discovery of a new comté or gorgonzola. At home we ate cheese in a more functional way: melted in béchamel, grated on pasta or squished into sandwiches, and so I have always regarded this extra course as a treat, a habit reserved for holidays. Unwrapping our new cheeses from L'Isola Buona after dinner, I found myself giggling at this almost clandestine luxury. We cut cautiously into each piece and speared chunks on our knives. There was a great deal of sighing all round. The clear winner was ricotta mustia - a slightly smoked, aged cheese, milky white in colour with a subtle, creamy flavour. It tasted like every summer holiday I have ever had.
In order to preserve this sensation, these cheeses have appeared in numerous recipes throughout the first month of my challenge. I added cubes of ricotta mustia to a 9pm omelette with spring onions, parsley and dill, which my even my sister (who shudders at the smell of eggs) considered worth eating. On another occasion, crumbly ricotta salata turned out to be a natural partner for a salad of fresh broad beans and fennel. The pinnacle, though, was pasta alla norma, a Sicilian dish combining tomatoes, aubergines and basil, where my love of ricotta salata began six years ago.
I was on holiday in France, visiting a medieval village called Roquebrune-cap-Martin high in the hills between Nice and Monaco. Nestled in the curve of one of the winding, cobbled streets was a tiny Sicilian restaurant, run by a short pensioner with pinned grey hair and a floral housecoat. My mum always says you can trust a restaurant run by a grandmother, and she was right: it turned out to be the best meal of the whole trip. I can't remember what anyone else ate because my memories are wholly taken up with the joy of discovering this legendary pasta dish.
Pasta alla norma has summer in its very soul: its success lies not only in the skill of the cook, but the use of ingredients that have matured slowly in scorching Mediterranean heat, until they are swollen with a sweet and heady ripeness. In this first encounter I was presented with a stack of slick, fried aubergines, piled atop a mountain of scarlet-stained spaghetti, covered with a snowy dusting of ricotta salata. (This was perhaps no accident: it is said that the presentation of the dish is meant to mimic Mount Etna.) I was intrigued by this cheese, having never come across it before; it was slightly salty, but a far cry from the intense savoury hit of parmesan. It matched the dish perfectly and I loved it; I have been waiting for an opportunity to recreate that meal ever since.
So in 2017, with a block of this very cheese sitting patiently in my fridge, it was finally time to have a go. The method was roughly based on Felicity Cloake's "How to make the perfect" recipe, plus some pasta sauce tips from Delia Smith and my grandmother. As Cloake suggests, I opted to roast, rather than fry the aubergines, which is highly controversial, but necessary given the state of our extractor fan. It also helps, in my opinion, to bring out the depth of flavour in the aubergines, preventing them from tasting of nothing but cooking oil. I tipped them directly into my basil-laced tomato sauce, brought it to the boil, added a slug of red wine (thank you, Nonna) and left it to simmer and think about life for a good half an hour. As I stirred in the penne, it made a wonderfully unctuous sucking sound, which I took to be a promising sign.
Finally it was time to bring out the cheese. I unwrapped it carefully from its waxy paper, fervently hoping that I was not about to be disappointed. I wasn't. Like a well-chosen piece of jewellery, the ricotta brought out the best of the pasta's features, without dominating the ensemble. It offered the slightest of edges against the sweetness of the tomatoes and the richness of the caramelised aubergines, but did not monopolise the flavour. My dining companions decided that the whole thing tasted "legit", a conclusion with which I was more than satisfied. Of course it didn't taste quite like the original dish from that holiday; no amount of cheese can really replicate cloudless skies or the thrill of summer freedom. But it warmed me from head to toe, as though the ingredients still carried with them the heat of that southern sun. For the first time in a little while, I found myself smiling. And that, for now, is enough.
I was on holiday in France, visiting a medieval village called Roquebrune-cap-Martin high in the hills between Nice and Monaco. Nestled in the curve of one of the winding, cobbled streets was a tiny Sicilian restaurant, run by a short pensioner with pinned grey hair and a floral housecoat. My mum always says you can trust a restaurant run by a grandmother, and she was right: it turned out to be the best meal of the whole trip. I can't remember what anyone else ate because my memories are wholly taken up with the joy of discovering this legendary pasta dish.
Pasta alla norma has summer in its very soul: its success lies not only in the skill of the cook, but the use of ingredients that have matured slowly in scorching Mediterranean heat, until they are swollen with a sweet and heady ripeness. In this first encounter I was presented with a stack of slick, fried aubergines, piled atop a mountain of scarlet-stained spaghetti, covered with a snowy dusting of ricotta salata. (This was perhaps no accident: it is said that the presentation of the dish is meant to mimic Mount Etna.) I was intrigued by this cheese, having never come across it before; it was slightly salty, but a far cry from the intense savoury hit of parmesan. It matched the dish perfectly and I loved it; I have been waiting for an opportunity to recreate that meal ever since.
So in 2017, with a block of this very cheese sitting patiently in my fridge, it was finally time to have a go. The method was roughly based on Felicity Cloake's "How to make the perfect" recipe, plus some pasta sauce tips from Delia Smith and my grandmother. As Cloake suggests, I opted to roast, rather than fry the aubergines, which is highly controversial, but necessary given the state of our extractor fan. It also helps, in my opinion, to bring out the depth of flavour in the aubergines, preventing them from tasting of nothing but cooking oil. I tipped them directly into my basil-laced tomato sauce, brought it to the boil, added a slug of red wine (thank you, Nonna) and left it to simmer and think about life for a good half an hour. As I stirred in the penne, it made a wonderfully unctuous sucking sound, which I took to be a promising sign.
Finally it was time to bring out the cheese. I unwrapped it carefully from its waxy paper, fervently hoping that I was not about to be disappointed. I wasn't. Like a well-chosen piece of jewellery, the ricotta brought out the best of the pasta's features, without dominating the ensemble. It offered the slightest of edges against the sweetness of the tomatoes and the richness of the caramelised aubergines, but did not monopolise the flavour. My dining companions decided that the whole thing tasted "legit", a conclusion with which I was more than satisfied. Of course it didn't taste quite like the original dish from that holiday; no amount of cheese can really replicate cloudless skies or the thrill of summer freedom. But it warmed me from head to toe, as though the ingredients still carried with them the heat of that southern sun. For the first time in a little while, I found myself smiling. And that, for now, is enough.
