Holy Mole: fish tacos and Barolo?

Above: Holé Molé in Hermosa Beach doesn’t serve mole (traditional Mexican chili pepper and chocolate sauce) but the fish tacos are a dollar a piece on Tuesdays. Note the ubiquitous and obligatory Prius in the parking lot.

Fish tacos and Barolo? Where’s Dr. Vino when you need him? Hey, Dr. Tyler, give us some love and help us out with this impossible food pairing (I’m a huge fan of Dr. T’s sometimes hilarious and often unlikely food and wine pairings).

Seriously, I didn’t pair fish tacos and Barolo but I did discover a great little fish taco joint in Hermosa Beach on Tuesday after I helped out my friend Robin Stark with a cellar management job she was doing in Long Beach, CA.

The tacos at Holé Molé are prepared using the traditional small-sized corn tortillas like the ones you find at a taquería in Mexico.

After an afternoon of cataloging some rich dude’s cellar, we grabbed a taco at Holé Molé, a gimmicky but delicious taquería in Hermosa. I am a sucker for reduplicatives* and so we just had to stop there.

Fish tacos are said to have originated in Ensenada (Baja California, Mexico) and were popularized by the San Diego-based franchise Rubios. They generally consist of battered and fried pollock rolled in a corn tortilla and topped with a light lime- or lemon-infused mayonnaise sauce and lettuce and/or cabbage (north of the border, cole slaw is often used instead of lettuce). Many restaurants also serve fish tacos made with grilled mahi mahi and tuna these days and in fact, when I traveled in Baja California as a teenager, fish tacos were always served with grilled (as opposed to battered and fried) fish.

Above: A classic fish taco at El Indio, an old-school San Diego Mexican eatery. There are many great places to find excellent fish tacos throughout southern California but my heart always leads me to my beloved Bahia Don Bravo in Bird Rock (La Jolla) where I generally order the grilled Mahi Mahi fish tacos.

After we got our taco on, Robin and I headed to Brix (above), a new and rather soul-less high-end winebar and enocentric restaurant and wine store also in Hermosa Beach. Brix is located in a mall together with the obligatory health club and candle shop. I did enjoy an excellent glass of 2005 Ribolla Gialla from Teresa Raiz but was disheartened to hear the bartender tell me, “yeah, Ribolla Gialla… it’s kinda like Pinot Grigio.” The star of the evening was a 1997 Barolo by Anselma that we bought at the wine store and opened and decanted for $20 corkage. Anselma is a traditional producer who makes powerful but nuanced, elegant wines. Hey, as the great Lee Evans used to say, life is too short to drink bad wine…

In other news…

In the wake my post of the other day on Bad Food, but Good Music and Wine in the Studio, my friend and engineer Bryan Cook hooked me up with a tasty grilled mahi mahi tuna melt from Blairs while we were recording guitar overdubs yesterday back at Kingsize Sound Labs in Eagle Rock, CA. I stand corrected: there is much good take-out to be had in Eagle Rock! Rock on…

* Other examples of linguistic reduplication: hanky-panky, helter-skelter, and, one of my favs, pell-mell.

More on ciuppin and South Tyrol on the way

Above: Santlhof in South Tyrol, where I had a fantastic four-hour Sunday lunch (I’ll do a post on it in the next day or so).

In case you’re wondering why no posts of late, it’s because I’ve been preoccupied with taking care of some business and getting my personal affairs into order. But stay tuned for “Italy Day 5: South Tyrol.”

In response to my post the other day, my new blogger friend, Signora Placida, posted a note on the origin of ciuppin and she points out that the word comes from the Ligurian suppin or zuppetta in Italian, a humble soup (zuppa is akin to the English sops, the same word that gives English its soup).

I was introduced to Signora Placida by Simona, whose excellent blog Briciole has become one of my daily reads.

Italy Day 1: Chianina and pisacan with old friends

Above: the Castello di Zumelle rises above the historic town of Mel nestled at the foot of the Dolomite Alps. Zumelle is the ancient name of Mel (in the province of Belluno, about an hour and a half south of Cortina d’Ampezzo). It means “two twins” in Bellunese dialect. According to legend, the castle was built in the 700s by twin brothers whose sarcophagus still resides within the castle walls.

So here goes: Italy Day 1…

I arrived in Venice on April fool’s day, picked up my Fiat Idea, and headed toward the hills. My first destination was the Castello di Zumelle, lunch, dinner, and sleep over with some of my oldest Italian friends, the Dalpiva family. I first met Renato and Lucia (left with their son, Nicola) in 1989 when I was in my second year at the Università di Padova and was making a living by playing blues and covers with my good friend Elvis (more on him later) in the many pubs and beer gardens that line the Piave river. At the time, they ran the Casa Rossa, one of the most successful venues, and in 1991, they were asked to manage the famous Birreria di Pedavena, a beautiful 1930s beer garden and botanic garden, where I spent three summers playing six nights a week with a cover band comprised of friends from California (including Charlie George, John Krylow, Ted, and Shawn Amos).

Today, they live atop a hill in a castle… yes, a castle, just like in fairy tales. A few years back, after they had retired (at a very young age, I might add), Renato won the local competition to open a restaurant in the town’s medieval castle. Not only did he build a beautiful restaurant there, but he also refurbished the living quarters and the family moved in. The ever-industrious Renato also created a medieval re-enactment walking tour for children: three or four times a week, he dons his medieval garb (as in the photo above) and teaches school children how to make chainmaille and medieval dumplings, he lectures, accompanied by music, on life in the Middle Ages.

For dinner, Renato threw some fiorentine on the grill (Tuscan porterhouse steaks, butchered from Chianina cows). Note how he chars the top of the steaks before grilling them — a sine qua non.

After our steaks, Lucia served a salad made with tarassaco (Taraxacum), a local variety of dandelion green known in Veneto dialect as pisacane or dog pisser. The name is not very appetizing but the bitterness of these tasty greens was offset by a drop or two of balsamic vinegar.

The castle armory is a highlight of Renato’s tour. He’s like a kid in a candy store…

A diorama of the castle as it appeared in the Middle Ages.

Sunset in the valley as seen from the castle tower.

Next post: a visit with Maria Teresa Mascarello, Bartolo’s beret, and the mystery of his Che Guevara star…

Brunello Scandal

Ne nuntium necare, don’t kill the messenger: I’m sorry to report that the the long-hinted-at Brunello scandal is now official. Today, the Italian daily La Repubblica published the first account based on interviews with local investigators. You can read my translation on VinoWire. Rumors regarding the scandal have been circulating for some time now and VinoWire has also covered the Brunello Consortium’s confirmation and subsequent denial of irregularities.

People have been talking about the impending scandal in hushed tones since January. But it was my friend and collaborator Franco Ziliani’s post last Friday that prompted investigators to go public.

Another Brunello controversy has also recently made news in English- and Italian-language blogs and websites: the Brunello Consortium recently asked a Californian winemaker to stop labeling his wine as Brunello.

The U.S. government does not regulate the usage of European appellation names in the labeling of U.S. wine produced in the U.S. When my band Nous Non Plus played in Seattle back in 2006, I snapped the below pic of an old wine list (I can’t remember of the name of the wonderful Greek restaurant harbor where we ate that day; the list below wasn’t the restaurant’s current list but the owners never took it down — I would imagine for nostalgia’s sake).

Gauging from the script and the wine names, I imagine this list dates back to the 1970s. I love “Gold, Pink, and Red Chablis” and “Pinot Gregio.” Who knows what was in those wines?

Oscar Party

Above: brother Abner and cousin Amalia donned Groucho Marx glasses in honor of Oscar Riles Parzen.

The Riles and Parzen families gathered last Sunday to celebrate the arrival of Oscar Riles Parzen (January 18, 2008, 7 lbs, 14 oz). Held at the San Diego Yacht Club, the affair was dubbed the “Oscar Party” and included awards, commemorative t-shirts, speeches and readings (I read “Where the Sidewalk Ends” by Shel Silverstein),* and an Oscar piñata (left).

Marguerite, Micah, Abner, and Oscar Riles Parzen treated us to a sumptuous brunch of smoked salmon, eggs Benedict, roast beef with horse radish, and pastries. Bloody Marys and Mimosas were also served. Little Oscar slept through most of the festivities.

Many years had passed since I thought of “Where the Sidewalk Ends,” a poem I read and re-read countless times as a child. With all the talk today about global warming (and how global warming is or is not affecting winemaking), recession, war, and the pitfalls of politics, it occurred to me that little Oscar is one of the “children” who know “where the sidewalk ends,” who has yet to see the “pits where the asphalt flowers grow.” It will be sometime before his halo slips into Baudelaire’s fange du macadam or mire of macadam.**

I hope the world’s a better place when little Oscar grows up and I was glad to share this moment of blissful ignorance with him.

The Riles and Parzen families and family friends. Oscar is in the first row, fourth from left, held by his grand-mère Jane Riles.

From the left, Annelise Riles (holding her son Xavier), Jane Riles (Oscar’s grand-mère), and Oscar’s mother Marguerite Riles. Annelise is a professor and has her own chair at Cornell.

Proud father Micah Parzen.

Marguerite created these nifty commemorative t-shirts.

* Where the Sidewalk Ends

There is a place where the sidewalk ends
And before the street begins,
And there the grass grows soft and white,
And there the sun burns crimson bright,
And there the moon-bird rests from his flight
To cool in the peppermint wind.

Let us leave this place where the smoke blows black
And the dark street winds and bends.
Past the pits where the asphalt flowers grow
We shall walk with a walk that is measured and slow,
And watch where the chalk-white arrows go
To the place where the sidewalk ends.

Yes we’ll walk with a walk that is measured and slow,
And we’ll go where the chalk-white arrows go,
For the children, they mark, and the children, they know
The place where the sidewalk ends.

– Shel Silverstein

** “My halo slipped off my head and fell into the mire of the macadam,” wrote Baudelaire in his prose-poem “Perte d’Auréole” or “Loss of a Halo,” 1865. The macadam process for paving roadways was invented by Scottish road-builder John Loudon McAdam (1756 - 1836). The word tarmac is also derived from his name.

Gambero Rosso in San Diego (or What Would Happen if All Tuscans Became Super Tuscans?)

Above: Giovanni Folonari pours his new Super Tuscan, Campo al Mare (Bolgheri) at the Gambero Rosso Tour in San Diego, California.

Does the world really need another Super Tuscan? This question plagued me as I tasted through the wines on display at the Gambero Rosso “Top Italian Wine Roadshow” at the San Diego Wine and Culinary Center in downtown San Diego.

Otherwise useful as a directory of Italian wineries, the Gambero Rosso Guide to the Wines of Italy favors the big “lip-smacking,” luscious wines that seem do sell well in the United States. The three-glass scoring system used in the guide is yet another – however poetically veiled – points-based system, and while the same big-name wines seem to score well year after year in the guide, few small producers and even fewer lower-end wines make it up the ladder.

When I asked how the guide has grown in the 20+ years he’s served as editor-in-chief, Marco Sabellico told me, “the guide hasn’t grown because Italians are making more wines. The guide has grown because Italians are making more higher-end wines.”

It’s not really clear to me how the wines are chosen for the Gambero Rosso “Top Italian Wine Roadshow” (held this year in San Francisco, Los Angeles, and for the first time San Diego). Its “Three Glass” tasting features only those wines that have won the guide’s top award. For the roadshow, it seems that Marina Thompson PR might have something to do with the selection. Marina happens to be Gambero Rosso president Daniele Cernilli’s wife.

What lured me to the event this year was the fact that it was held for the first-time in San Diego, California.

Above: Tim Grace of Il Mulino di Grace, a Chianti Classico producer in the township of Panzano.

I was asked by many presenters to taste this or that “new” Super Tuscan.

Giovanni Folonari had me taste his Campo al Mare, made from Merlot, Cabernet, and Petit Verdot (no Sangiovese). The estate, he told me, lies between Sassicaia and Ornellaia. The wine was well made, not overly woody, and not too high in alcohol. But does the world need yet another Super Tuscan? Maybe it does and since I’m not a fan of Merlot and/or Cabernet Sauvignon in the first place, maybe I should just keep my mouth shut. Giovanni told me it will retail for about $35 and that’s good news, I guess. Maybe the world does need a new reasonably priced Super Tuscan.

I also tasted a Super Tuscan (Gratius) by Mulino di Grace (Panzano, Chianti Classico). The Grace family’s Chianti Classico is a blend of Sangiovese with smaller amounts of Merlot and Cabernet. I kinda liked its Chianti Classico, where the addition of small amounts of international grapes give the wine more color and forward fruit, thus making it more modern in style. But I really liked the Gratius, 100% Sangiovese, a wine that showed the balance of fruit, acidity, and gentler tannin, and the lightness in the mouth that you get with Tuscany’s Sangiovese. To my palate, the Gratius tasted the most like Chianti Classico of all the wines he was pouring (in fact, owner Tim Grace told me, the wine could have been classified as Chianti Classico DOCG).

Some believe that the term Super Tuscan was coined by Nicolas Belfrage and was first used in print in Life Beyond Lambrusco (1985), co-authored by Nicolas and Jancis Robinson. The early Super Tuscans were generally made with international grape varieties and the wines generally saw some time in new wood. Because the wines — most famously, Sassicaia and Tignanello — did not meet standards for any existing appellations at the time they were first released, they were officially classified as vini da tavola or table wines, even though they were marketed as high-end wines.

According to usage, a Super Tuscan is a Tuscan-made wine that 1) does not meet requirements set forth by local appellation laws (in many cases, this is due merely to the fact that a given wine uses grape varieties not allowed by the appellation); or 2) has been intentionally declassified by the producer (as in the case of Tim Grace’ wine). While barrique aging is often used for Super Tuscans, barrique is not a sine qua non.

One of the reasons why the term Super Tuscan helps winemakers to sell wines in the United States is the moniker itself: it just sounds good and it implies that the wines are somehow better, that they surpass the rest of the field. I certainly can’t blame Tim for declassifying his wine. Chianti is a confusing appellation for Americans and if declassification helps him to promote awareness of his wines, more power to him (and his wines are good and deserve attention).

But because the term Super Tuscan is now applied to wines made in Bolgheri (on the Tuscan coast), Chianti Classico, Chianti Rufina, Chianti Colli Fiorentini (and other subzones), Montalcino, Montecucco, Montepulciano… and the list goes on… it has became a de facto über-classification that eclipses the personality of those places and the character of the persons who make those wines.

Tuscans are a highly diverse group of people and their language, their food, their traditions, and their wines change from city to city, town to town, from village to village (and from principality to principality, we would have said in another age). Just ask a Florentine what s/he thinks of the Pisans and you’ll see what I mean (and I won’t repeat the colloquial adage nor the often quoted line from Dante here). I’ve traveled extensively in Tuscany and have spent many hours in its libraries, its trattorie, and wineries. I would certainly be disappointed if the Tuscans, like their wines, all became Super Tuscans.

There may be many wine cellars in Valpolicella but…

Above: the topography of the Valpolicella or “valley of alluvial deposits” is defined by a series of small rivers.

From the Greek topos or place and onoma or name, toponymy is the study of place names.

As is the case with many wine-related place names, the names themselves reflect the vine-growing practices of the place. One of my favorites is the Côte-Rôtie or the roasted slope, so-called because the slopes are “roasted” by the sun and there are countless others.

While many erroneously claim that the toponym Valpolicella comes from a hitherto undocumented Greek term for valley of many cellars, it is widely accepted that the name first appeared in the twelfth century (in a decree by Frederic I of Swabia, aka Barbarossa or Red Beard) and by the sixteenth century was widely found in Latin inscriptions as Vallis pulicellae, literally the valley of sand deposits, from the Latin pulla, a term used in classical Latin to denote to dark soil and then later to denote alluvial deposits. In fact, Valpolicella is not a valley but rather a series of “wrinkles” defined by the Marano, Negrar, Fumane, and Nòvare torrents (streams). If you’ve ever traveled through that part of Italy, you’ve seen how the hills roll gently across the landscape. There are other Veronese place names that reflect this tradition, like the towns Pol, Pol di Sopra, and Santa Lucia di Pol where pol denotes the presence of a stream or torrent and the pebbly, sandy deposits it forms.

Above: Google’s “terrain” map shows the “wrinkles” of Valpolicella.

There are some who point to the lass or pulzella portrayed in the device (emblem) of the town of San Pietro in Cariano as the origin of the name. But this theory seems as unlikely to me as the oft-repeated valley of many cellars (another facile faux ami or false cognate).

Valpolicella’s wines were praised highly by Latin authors, notably Virgil and Cassiodorus. Etruscan and proto-Roman winemakers recognized early on that Valpolicella’s undulating landscape was ideal for growing wine grapes. As Virgil wrote famously, Bacchus amat colles, Bacchus loves hills.

I’m Too Sexy for This Wine

Above: Roman-born Piera Farina makes a line of wines called “Sexy” in Sicily (click the image to read more in Italian).

Does anybody remember the one-hit-wonder Right Said Fred? I’m sure that even Right Said (is that his first name?) wouldn’t be “too sexy” for Barolo… unless it were a Barolo made by a modernist producer like Domenico Clerico, who chimed into the “Barolo is the sexiest wine” debacle a few weeks ago saying, “Of course it’s a sexy wine, because it’s fascinating, just like all things that are hard to attain and conquer.”

Maria Teresa Mascarello, a traditionalist producer (one of my all-time favorites), was a little more even-handed in her comment on the “sexy” that never was: “‘Sexy’ can be an ironic term but I believe that Barolo is more of a intellectual wine. That doesn’t mean it’s any less seductive. I might have used the word ‘intriguing’ [to describe Barolo]. I’d use ‘Sexy’ to define a wine that belongs in a lower category.”

Clerico and Mascarello were quoted in Roberto Fiori’s January 19 article published in La Stampa, “According to Americans, Barolo is the sexiest wine.”

Never mind that Eric Asimov never called Barolo “sexy.”

Here’s my original post on the tidal wave of misunderstanding that followed an Italian news agency’s mistranslation of Eric’s January 16 article on Barolo. (The Agenzia Giornalistica Italiana erroneously claimed that he had called Barolo “the sexiest wine.”)

Italians’ views and attitudes about sex are much more liberal than Americans’ and nudity and sexuality are often incorporated into advertising for food and wine. I find it all the more strange that the “sexy” never written caused such a furor there. Below I’ve collected some “sexy” wine images — Italian in provenance — to put it all into perspective.

Alice e il vino is on of Italy’s most popular wine blogs (click image to read the post).

Even the Gambero Rosso — publisher of Italy’s leading wine guide — isn’t above the fray.

I found these bottlings of Cabernet Sauvignon from Emilia-Romagna on Italian Ebay.

*****

I’m too sexy for this blog…

I’m too sexy for my love too sexy for my love
Love’s going to leave me

I’m too sexy for my shirt too sexy for my shirt
So sexy it hurts
And I’m too sexy for Milan too sexy for Milan
New York and Japan

And I’m too sexy for your party
Too sexy for your party
No way I’m disco dancing

I’m a model you know what I mean
And I do my little turn on the catwalk
Yeah on the catwalk on the catwalk yeah
I do my little turn on the catwalk

I’m too sexy for my car too sexy for my car
Too sexy by far
And I’m too sexy for my hat
Too sexy for my hat what do you think about that

I’m a model you know what I mean
And I do my little turn on the catwalk
Yeah on the catwalk on the catwalk yeah
I shake my little touche on the catwalk

I’m too sexy for my too sexy for my too sexy for my

‘Cos I’m a model you know what I mean
And I do my little turn on the catwalk
Yeah on the catwalk on the catwalk yeah
I shake my little touche on the catwalk

I’m too sexy for my cat too sexy for my cat
Poor pussy poor pussy cat
I’m too sexy for my love too sexy for my love
Love’s going to leave me

And I’m too sexy for this song

– Right Said Fred

Aglianico ≠ Ellenico?

Does the grape name Aglianico come from ellenico or Hellenic as so many claim? A look at the earliest references leads me to believe that it probably doesn’t. May the philologically curious please read on…

Above: the frontespiece of Giambattista della Porta’s Villae or On Country Houses (Frankfurt, 1592) in the rare books collection at the Brooklyn Botanical Garden.

“As philologist, one sees behind the sacred texts,” wrote Friedrich Nietzsche in The Twilight of the Idols.* While most think of Nietzsche as a philosopher, few remember that his early training was in philology, the (inexact) science of the history and development of language and literature, literally the “love” (Greek philo-) of the “word” (Greek logos).

My philological curiosity recently led me to the Brooklyn Botanical Garden where I hoped to get to the bottom of a a etymological conundrum that has bothered me for a long time: does the grape name Aglianico come from the word ellenico or Hellenic as so many oenophiles claim or does it come from Aleatico (literally, a grape that ripens in July, from the Italian lugliatico or of the month of July) as many Italian philologists believe?

The excellent rare-book collection at the BBG includes a rare copy of Villae (On Country Houses, 1592, Frankfurt), an almanac of farming, vine-tending, and winemaking in sixteenth-century Campania by Giambattista della Porta (1535? - 1615), the great Neapolitan scientist, agriculturist, and viticulturist. Most ampelographers agree that Della Porta’s book was earliest to refer to the Aglianico grape as hellanico or Hellenic (ampelography is the study of grapes, from the Greek ampelos or “vine” and graphê or “writing”).

Above: folio 501 and a detail highlighting the line, “Ergo nostras hellanicas helvcolas [sic] antiquorum dicerem.”

The reference is found in the chapter on grape varieties and wines (folio 501): “Ergo nostras hellanicas helvcolas [sic] antiquorum dicerem.” “Therefore, I would say that the helvola [yellowish] grapes of the ancients are our Hellenic grapes.” He is referring to a passage from the Historia Naturalis (14.29) where Pliny (23 - 79) describes grapes that grow in the shadow of Mt. Vesuvius (it’s not clear that Della Porta and Pliny were describing the grape we know today as Aglianico because both of them refer to it as helvola or yellowish in color).

The earliest known occurrences of the word Aglianico in print occur around the same time as Della Porta’s Villae (Andrea Bacci, De naturali historia vinorum, 1596, and Jean Liébault, L’agriculture et maison rustique, 1586 [I've been able to verify the mention in Bacci but -- to date -- I haven't been able to get my hands on a copy of Liébault]).

There is no question that the Aglianico grape has been called hellenico, hellanico, and ellenico since the sixteenth century. But is there really a reason to believe that Aglianico comes from ellenico (besides the fact that the words sound somewhat similar)?

It is unlikely that Aglianico comes from ellenico because the the terms Hellenic and ellenico were coined around the same time Aglianico first began to emerge as a grape name.

According to the Grande Dizionario della Lingua Italiana (The [Unabridged] Dictionary of the Italian Language, edited by the great twentieth-century philologist Salvatore Battaglia), ellenico and ellenismo were coined in Italian after the French hellénisme, for which the earliest known reference dates to 1580 in France. It is a term derived from Hellenes (a tribe of ancient Greece) and came into use during the Renaissance to denote the Grecian realm and Grecian culture (according to the Oxford English Dictionary, the earliest occurrence in English is 1609). Pliny and his Roman contemporaries wouldn’t have recognized the word hellenicus because it did not exist in their time (they used graecus).

Della Porta did not claim that Aglianico comes from ellenico. He simply speculated that the grape described by Pliny (helvolas antiquorum, the yellowish grapes of the ancients) was called hellanico (hellanicas nostras, our Hellanico grapes) in his day (i.e., as of 1592).

Does Aglianico come from Aleatico and/or lugliatico? Most Italian etymologic dictionaries report that it does (and my research won’t stop here). What’s clear is that Aglianico and ellenico first appeared at roughly the same time and are related historically but probably not etymologically.

Pardon the pun: when I look “behind the text,” I find it’s not all Greek to me.

Above: the Rare Books reading room at the Brooklyn Botanical Garden. In another lifetime, I worked many nights as a guitar player in a wedding band in the Garden’s atrium, a popular NYC wedding venue.

* The Twilight of the Idols/The Anti-Christ, trans. R.J. Hollindale, New York, Penguin, 1990, p. 175.

Guanciale and Barolo in The Times

The Wednesday edition of the The New York Times and its Dining and Wine section is a weekly event for food and wine writers and culinary professionals (New Yorkers and the rest of them west of the Hudson river).

Today’s section caused many of us in the wine world to drool with envy: Eric Asimov published a great story about Barolo and a recent tasting he attended. It was one of those once-in-a-lifetime affairs (unfortunately not yet in my life!). I really like how Eric puts Barolo — a wine so misunderstood by so many — into perspective. Check out his post on the tasting at his blog (essential reading for me). It will surely make your mouth water (and bring tears of envy to your eyes as it did to mine).

Florence Fabricant doesn’t have a blog but she did do a great piece on guanciale in today’s somewhat Italophile edition of the Dining and Wine section. She writes: “Guanciale, which means pillow, a description of its shape, has an especially rich, sweetly porky flavor and a buttery texture.” It’s true that guanciale means “pillow” but in another context — that of medieval and Renassiance-era armor — it denotes the cheek pieces that were often attached to helmets (see illustration above, upper left-hand corner). It’s derived from the Italian guancia, which means “cheek” (from the old German, wanga or wanka, akin to the old English wang).

The suffix -ale is very common in Italian (as in nazione, nazionale), hence, guanciale from guancia.

Guanciale — the cured pork — is made from cured pig jowl (the part that runs from the head to the shoulder). So, it’s more likely that guanciale, when used in a gastronomic context, is more akin to “cheek” than it is to “pillow.”

I was so green with envy after reading Eric’s blog that I just had to point that out…

In other news…

I was really glad to see that a Sex Workers Outreach Program linked to my post on Sugo alla puttanesca: “Prostitutes are not responsible for the naming of an Italian dish” (scroll down the page).