Bread, ‘the staff of life,’ is a carb essential

Bread has been the staff of life since the beginning of recorded history, holding a place of honor in almost every religion and nationality.

By:Pat Tanner

"Holiday Food" by Mario Batali evokes memories of traditional Italian favorites.

   I had no idea while growing up that one of my Italian American family’s most beloved and anticipated holiday traditions was actually a slight corruption of how that same tradition played out back home in Italy, as well as in other households like ours. While Italians everywhere eat sausage and lentils at New Year’s (their round shapes symbolize coins, which in turn connotes luck and prosperity), my family ate sausage on Christmas Eve. My father’s homemade sausage, to be exact, which he made only once
a year, and which in my memory is still the best ever.
   The sausage of choice for many Italians, especially those in the north, is cotecchino, a fat, fresh, rich sausage, made from pork meat and skin and available only in winter. Southern Italians are partial to zampone, for which pork sausage is stuffed into the skin of a pig’s foot.
   Celebrity chef Mario Batali includes a recipe for cotecchino on a bed of marinated lentils in his delightful cookbook, "Holiday Food."
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This book has all the elements I usually disdain in a cookbook — it’s written by a celebrity chef, it’s small yet relatively pricey ($23), and it is painfully limited in scope, since it covers only the Batali family recipes spanning Christmas Eve to New Year’s Day.
   Yet over the last three years it has become one of my most favored cookbooks. Its collection of hearty, homey Italian recipes are wonderful well beyond the holidays. Among other things, it includes a recipe for an over-the-top Timpano di Maccheroni similar to the one featured in Stanley Tucci’s movie "Big Night."
   Unfortunately, I have been unsuccessful in finding a local source for cotecchino (which, by the way, was a favorite dish of the composer Gioacchino Rossini), but it is available online at www.arthuravenuespecialties.com. It is shipped fresh, vacuum packed, by overnight delivery. A one-and-a-half-pound piece costs $14 plus shipping.
   Alas, that is still too late for this year’s feast, but regular Italian sausage can suffice. Especially so if it is cooked in wine, as in the ridiculously simple and ridiculously delicious manner outlined by Giovanna Bellia La Marca in her book, "Sicilian Feasts." When I first cooked sausage this way, I could not believe that only wine and water could bestow such depth and richness upon such a humble product.
   A perfect way to start off the new year. Buone feste!


COTECCHINO CON LENTICCHIE
(Big Sausage with Lentils)
"Holiday Food," by Mario Batali
(Clarkson Potter 2000)
   1 tablespoon salt, preferably kosher
   8 ounces brown lentils
   1 medium carrot, peeled and cut into 1/4-inch dice
   2 garlic cloves, thinly sliced
   12 fresh sage leaves
   ¼ cup extra-virgin olive oil
   ¼ cup red wine vinegar
   Salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste
   2 cotecchino sausages, about 2 pounds each. Note : Cotecchino is available from www.arthuravenuespecialties.com, vacuum packed and shipped fresh overnight. Regular Italian sausage can be substituted and cooked as in the recipe that follows.
   1. Bring 6 cups of water to a boil and add the salt. Add the lentils, carrots, garlic and sage and boil until the lentils are tender yet firm, about 25 minutes.
   2. Drain and place in a mixing bowl. Add the oil and vinegar, season with salt and pepper, and mix well. Set aside.
   3. Prick the cotecchino sausages with a pin several times. Place in a large pot of cold water and bring to a boil over medium heat. Reduce the heat to a very low boil and cover the pot. Cook for 1½ hours.
   4. Place the marinated lentils on a large serving platter to form a bed for the cotecchino. Drain the sausages and cut into 1/4-inch rounds. Arrange the sausage on the lentils and serve hot or at room temperature.
   Serves 8.


SAUSAGE IN WINE
"Sicilian Feasts"
by Giovanna Bellia La Marca
(Hippocrene Books 2003)
   2 pounds Italian sausage, preferably in one piece
   1 cup red wine
1. Place the sausage in a frying pan that will hold it in a single layer. Cover the sausage with water and cook until the water evaporates, about 30 minutes.
   2. Add the wine and cook until the sausage is nicely browned, turning it once so that it browns evenly on all sides. Serve the sausage with the pan drippings and good bread for dipping in the juices.
   Serves 6 to 8.
Pat Tanner can be heard each Saturday morning on "Dining Today with Pat Tanner," on MoneyTalk AM 1350 from 9 to 10 a.m.