By Chef Joseph Massaglia
The history of food and food culinary terms has always been fascinating to me. In this column I’m going to focus on familiar Italian (of course!) foods that are part of our everyday lives, no matter what country you call home.
And while it may seem that the following three things I’m going to talk about are unrelated, they are in fact, all related to the famous Medici family – of which Catherine is the most well-known.
First, since it’s summer at the New Jersey Shore, let’s talk about gelato. Gelato means ice cream in Italian, and ice cream and gelato are like cousins. They both include milk and sugar in their bases, but ice cream has a larger proportion of cream and egg yolks to milk. Gelato on the other hand calls for smaller amounts of cream and egg yolks with the milk, so it’s lower in fat. Ice cream is churned more quickly and thus incorporates more air, while gelato, churned more slowly, is more dense.
According to the Gelato Museum Carpigiani in Anzola dell’Emila, just outside of Bologna, (yes, gelato has its own museum!) the origin of gelato goes back 12,000 years to when Mesopotamian slave runners traveled over 60 miles to collect ice and snow used to cool drinks made with fruit juices during royal banquets and religious ceremonies. During the 11th century, the Arabs developed shrbs (we call them shrubs today), sugar syrups which were the base for many things including sorbets, which became very popular in Sicily when it was under Arab rule.
It’s believed the gelato we know today was created by alchemist Cosimo Ruggieri during the Renaissance in Florence for the Medici family, and in the late 1600s Sicilian chef Francesco Procopio de Coltelli opened a café in Paris and became the first person to sell gelato to the public. The rest, as we say, is history.
A well-known culinary term also has its roots in the court of Catherine de’ Medici. Florentine or à la Florentine has come to mean a food, usually eggs or poultry, cooked in butter, served over a bed of spinach, topped with Mornay sauce and grated cheese and then popped under the broiler to brown. (Mornay sauce is a classic white béchamel sauce to which cheese, usually grated Parmesan and Gruyère, is added.)
Historians can’t agree why spinach and Florentine are related. One theory is that Arab merchants brought spinach with them to Sicily over 1200 years ago and it thrived in the Mediterranean region. Another theory is that when 14-year-old Catherine left Italy to marry King Henry II she (or her chefs) took bundles of spinach with her to her wedding. And a third theory is that when she arrived in Marseilles for the wedding, her chefs discovered spinach growing everywhere and cooked with it because it was familiar to them.
But before I end this article, Florentine also can refer to a type of cookie. Florentines are a thin, crunchy wafer or cookie usually made with honey or nuts and sometimes partially coated with chocolate. Created in the late 17th century in France, historians think they were named Florentines in honor of Catherine de’ Medici’s family in Italy. Or, that perhaps she brought the recipe with her from Italy. Truth is, no one knows how they got their name, but we do know they are delicious.
So, there you have three Italian foods that are a part of our culinary lives, and all are delicious. But as much as I like to experiment with foods, perhaps I’m not ready to try Florentine (or spinach) gelato!
Enjoy your meal! Or as we say in Italian – Buon Appetito!
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