As you probably know, at the weekend I visited the Festa del Marrone di Caprese in Tuscany. While I was there I bought a couple of kilos of chestnuts and some freshly milled chestnut flour. Look what I got up to and try it yourself.
Federico Fellini perfectly summed up the Italian condition when he said, ‘Life is made of magic and pasta.’ And it’s not a cliché that Italians eat pasta every day. They really do. A recent study showed that Italians eat 28kg per person per year. Divide that by 80g, the normal portion size, and you get 350. I guess the two weeks when they are not eating it is when they are on holiday, or that you have to take into account that children eat less.
An early morning trip to the Rialto fish market in Venice is always a treat. This morning, after coffee and a croissant at my favourite coffee bar in Venice, Torrefazione Cannaregio, I hopped across the Grand Canal at the Santa Sofia, traghetto (a traditional gondola ferryboat) and on to the fish market. I was in search of mazzancolle a type of king prawn in order to make one of the most Venetian of dishes, mazzancolle in saor.