MARTA’S BROLO

MARTA’S BROLO

Oct 1, 2022 | BOOKS

I sincerely thank Beatrice Tognarelli and Mari’s Manual for the opportunity to read Marta’s Brolo. 

I admit that when I first read the title of this book, I wondered what a brolo was.

Do you know?

Around here, we don’t call it brolo, we just say vegetable garden, or in slang “vineyard” even though there isn’t any vine plant.

So: at the first step of Marta,s Brolo I learned something new.

But the most beautiful surprise was this wonderful dedication.

And I listened to the author’s heart and I sensed a deep love for roots, with reference to both the land and family, and this as you know is something that I cherish.

Are you fortunate enough to have a vegetable garden?

My father has always tended vegetable gardens: at our house we only had a strip of land, but he also helped elsewhere, allowing us to eat fresh, wholesome vegetables.

This, on the other hand, is the mini garden that my father-in-law gave us for the kitchen, although in the house unfortunately the plants suffer.

Speaking of cooking, I enjoyed the recipes that Marta’s Brolo encompasses.

So did the particular “introductions” to each chapter.

I was also pleased to find several references to coffee, including this one

The smell of coffee intoxicated the room, she poured it into the cup, and stood at the window to taste it, closed her eyes as the rustle of vegetation came to her, suave sound of the countryside.

What sound comes from your window as you drink coffee?

VACUUM POT AND BALANCING SYPHON

VACUUM POT AND BALANCING SYPHON

Aug 27, 2022 | WHO CARES

We started from 1884 and the first espresso machine created by Angelo Moriondo but Lu author of the blog The Caustic Misanthrope,  in addition to tips on rice,  pointed me to the 19th century coffee maker!

It was originally the Vacuum: illustrated in this video by Trieste Coffee Experts: an event that brings us back to a place we have already talked about for its coffee supply chain

 

The Vacuum also called Vac Pot or Syphon Pot, was born in 1830.

In 1850 the next evolution: the Balancing Syphon Brewer.

The Balancing Syphon consists of two containers with a siphon tube connecting them.

Coffee is placed in one of the two containers, usually made of glass, and water in the other made of ceramic or copper.

An alcohol lamp heats the water, forcing it through the tube to the other container, where it mixes with the coffee.

As the weight changes, a balancing system based on a counterweight or spring mechanism is activated, which in turn causes the lamp to turn off.

A partial vacuum is formed, which sucks up the mixture originated through a filter, and returns it to the first vessel, from which coffee is dispensed through a tap.

 

Is your cup ready?

What do you say, wanting to make it a family affair, can we therefore say that Vacuum Pot and Balancing Syphon are the grandmother and great-grandmother of the mocha?

Certainly the names Vacuum Pot and Balancing Syphon sound more scientific than familiar, but their cruets also represent warmth, anticipation, and the ritual that foreshadows something good.

At this point the connecting links remain, and in this regard I think back to the enameled coffee pot with floral decoration with which my parents first, and my brother later, decorated the kitchen.

I then have this little one

what shall we call it?

And what about your coffee pot?

ANGELO MORIONDO DOODLE

ANGELO MORIONDO DOODLE

Jun 6, 2022 | ITALY

Today’s doodle is dedicated to Angelo Moriondo on the occasion of his birth date, so we can’t help but remember him here too!

This video from the Economy Times illustrates Angelo Moriondo’s story in broad strokes

 

I immediately focused on the date: 1884.

1884, which is the date of publication of the patent in the Official Gazette of the Kingdom of Italy. 

1884 which is the date on which the people of Turin, who already count the Bicerin among their specialties, enjoyed the world’s first espresso coffee.

1884 which is also the date when meridian 1 i.e. the Greenwich meridian was established.

But which also corresponds to exactly 100 years before what for me is the glorious and emblematic year 1984. 

To get back to coffee, Bicerin and chocolate though, Angelo Moriondo must be credited with a taste for GOOD things, since after coffee he founded the Moriondo and Gariglio chocolate shop. 

What struck me, is the historical sign, which reads “confetteria” exactly like Il caffè al Bicerin. 

The people of Turin, accustomed to coffee and chocolate, are sympathetically described to us by The Economic Times as impatient with respect to brewing times.

But precisely because of this excelling in the art of brewing, someone claims that Turin is the true Italian coffee capital … as the saying goes … there’s no two without three, right?

Here is the poster for the upcoming Turin Coffee: coffee exhibition in Turin to be held on June 11 and 12, on which “Turin coffee capital.” stands out.

Trieste, Naples or Turin then?

EGG COFFEE

EGG COFFEE

May 6, 2022 | RECIPES, WORLD

Wandering around, unfortunately only in a virtual way, better than nothing, I came across the egg coffee.

Did you already know him?

I found it in Minnesota, where the tradition of this recipe is carried on, which is actually referred to as Scandinavian.

And at this point I would ask for Luisella‘s help. 

In the Midwest, coffee with egg is also called Lutheran coffee or Church basement coffee and has become a local specialty, apparently no longer known in Scandinavia as evidenced by the tone of this Minnesota Brown tweet. 

By the way Salem! Curious coincidence, isn’t it?

The connection between Scandinavia and Minnesota dates back to the mid-1800s when Scandinavian immigrants brought their method of making egg coffee to the Midwest of the United States to improve the suboptimal coffee available.

The egg absorbs the tannins and impurities that typically lend bitterness and unpleasantness to cups of low-quality boiled coffee.

Swedes and Norwegians invented this method of preparation, which requires breaking a whole egg into the coffee grounds with a little water, mixing everything together.

After bringing the water to a boil in a coffee pot, the coffee blend is added, which must remain in the infusion.

In this video that I found really interesting you can see the procedure well

 

It doesn’t look bad, what are you saying?

Joy K. Lintelman wrote a very in-depth article: A hot heritage – Swedish Americans and coffee, I particularly like the historical images.

Instead Joy Estelle Summers tells for Eater: I remember watching my grandmother who made us egg coffee when we visited his summer cabin on the orange shores of Lake Esquagama, Minnesota. She broke an egg into a small bowl and beat it until it was well blended, then mixed the egg with the dry coffee grounds …

This grandmother‘s memory is beautiful,  right?

And your grandmother, what did she prepare?

PIEDMONT: MUGS AND … BICERIN

PIEDMONT: MUGS AND … BICERIN

Apr 30, 2022 | JOURNEY FROM MUG TO MUG, JOURNEY FROM MUG TO MUG

I am delighted to receive this photo for the categhory journey from mug to mug! 

I sincerely thank Valeria: her cute mug comes from Piedmont.

I can do it, and I will, but after the coffee.

Basically a mantra printed on the mug.
Encouragement with every sip.
What to say? Perfect!

In Piedmont there is a place of the heart for me: Novara, a city that holds important moments of my life.

But Valeria sparked my interest in another place in particular.

A place where a very special drink is served in glasses without handles… bicerin, in fact.

I’m talking about the legendary Caffè al Bicerin since 1973 in Turin. 

Here is Valeria’s Bicerin!

I don’t know about you but I feel a sudden desire to taste it 🙂

Valeria told me that it should be drunk as it is served: that is, without mixing it.

The Bicerin is in fact composed of three basic ingredients: coffee, cream and chocolate … good company no doubt about it 🙂

Obviously, however, Bicerin is much more than that, and it is above all history.

The story of an eighteenth-century drink made up of three different separate glasses, almost as if for a sort of ritual, which over time has evolved into the current version that brings together n poc ‘d tut.

Story also told in the Virtual Museum of Turin. 

History of a drink that boasts illustrious admirers.

Umberto Eco tells it in The Prague Cemetery:
… I had gone as far as one of the legendary places of Turin at the time. Dressed as a Jesuit, and enjoying the amazement I aroused with malice, I went to Caffè Al Bicerin, near the Consolata, to take that glass, which smelled of milk, cocoa, coffee and other aromas. I still didn’t know that even Alexandre Dumas, one of my heroes, would have written about the bicerin a few years later, but in the course of two or three raids in that magical place I had learned all about that nectar …

Nectar gives a pretty good idea, don’t you think?

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