Introduction
What did lasagna taste like in Renaissance Italy before tomatoes and ragù became standard? Why are some of Thailand’s most iconic royal desserts rooted in Portuguese convent recipes? How did a chance conversation at dinner unexpectedly unlock hidden pieces of food history?
In this episode of the Unreserved Wine Talk podcast, I’m chatting with James Chatto, co-author of the terrific new book Acquired Tastes: The Lives and Recipes of Eight Culinary Ambassadors.
You can find the wines we discussed here.
Giveaway
Three of you are going to win a copy of James Chatto’s new book, Acquired Tastes: The Lives and Recipes of Eight Culinary Ambassadors.
How to Win
To qualify, all you have to do is email me at [email protected] and let me know that you’ve posted a review of the podcast.
It takes less than 30 seconds: On your phone, scroll to the bottom here, where the reviews are, and click on “Tap to Rate.”
After that, scroll down a tiny bit more and click on “Write a Review.” That’s it!
I’ll choose three people randomly from those who contact me.
Good luck!
Join me on Instagram, Facebook and YouTube Live Video
Join the live-stream video of this conversation on Wednesday at 7 pm eastern on Instagram Live Video, Facebook Live Video or YouTube Live Video.
I’ll be jumping into the comments as we watch it together so that I can answer your questions in real-time.
I want to hear from you! What’s your opinion of what we’re discussing? What takeaways or tips do you love most from this chat? What questions do you have that we didn’t answer?
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Highlights
- Why did James transition from acting and music into a career as a food writer?
- What did James learn from his godfather, Robert Morley, about why food writing is ultimately about people?
- What inspired James, Wendy, and their historian son to structure Acquired Tastes around real people who carried recipes from one culture into another?
- How did Renaissance Italians make lasagna with and why did James find the recipe so unexpectedly delicious?
- What memorable kitchen disaster turned a promising chocolate cake into something “dry as chalk”?
- Who was Maria Guyomar de Pinha and how did she become a key figure in Thai royal desserts?
- What do you need to know about the Thai dessert foi thong and its history?
- Why does James believe recipes certain recipes have survived for centuries?
- Who was Queen Bona Sforza and how did she influence Polish food culture?
- What coincidence connected James with a modern Italian wine importer whose hometown still preserves Queen Bona’s legacy centuries later?
Key Takeaways
- What did lasagna taste like in Renaissance Italy before tomatoes and ragù became standard?
- In the late 1400s, there were lasagnerie in every town in Italy, and their job was just to make pasta. And you’d go there and you’d buy a sheet of lasagna. it had to be so thin that you could see the shadow of your hand through it, then they’d cut it into three inches square, and you’d boil that in chicken stock, heavily spiced with all the good fat and juices from the chicken and then you’d push it out and you’d put the first layer on the plate, and you just brush a little melted chicken fat over it, and then you’d sprinkle on all the spices you had. Always pepper, always cinnamon. Because Renaissance Italians had this incredible appetite for cinnamon and also maybe ginger, cubeb, cumin, whatever had come through the Venetian spice route from the Far East, and then tons and tons of grated parmesan cheese. When we first tasted that we didn’t know what it was going to be like, but it was absolutely delicious, as long as you keep it hot.
- Why are some of Thailand’s most iconic royal desserts rooted in Portuguese convent recipes?
- Maria Guyomar de Pinha, who lived from 1664 to 1728, was half-Japanese, half-Portuguese, raised in 17th-century Siam, now Thailand.When she married this Greek guy, who was a complete rogue and adventurer, but he became the Prime Minister of Thailand because he charmed the king to such a degree that she, as his young wife, was elevated to become a lady in waiting to the Princess of the Siamese court. So she’s the first non-Thai woman ever to enter into that court and have that rank. These young women who were all there, they used to show off by cooking. The Thai would do the wonderful fruit carvings that are so exquisite and make their own desserts. And all Maria had to offer were these strange Portuguese convent desserts that she’d learnt as a little girl from her aunt who’d been in a nunnery in India. And she cooked them for the royal court of Thailand, and they loved them. They were very elegant, very difficult to do. They’re beautiful and most of them are golden coloured because they’re made of egg yolk and sugar. That’s an auspicious color in Thai culture. It’s a royal color. The king tried them, and he thought they were fantastic. And these Portuguese desserts entered into Thai culture, and they still there to this day.
- How did a chance conversation at dinner unexpectedly unlock hidden pieces of food history?
- You were at a wine dinner in Toronto and sitting opposite you was a young Italian wine importer you did not know. It was so weird. He was a very civil and polite young man, and he’d just arrived in Canada to become a wine agent. And he politely said, well, what do you do? And I said, funny enough, I’m writing a book about an Italian and she was a queen who married the king of Poland. And he said, oh, you mean Bona Sforza? When I was a boy, I used to see her name every day when I woke up and looked out my window, it was inscribed on the cathedral outside my window. And he turned out to come from this little town that is now a suburb of Bari. But it was called Modugno and Queen Bona when she was a young woman she liked to go hunting around in the fields around Modugno and she was a great patron of Modugno her whole life. And this young man had come from there, and he knew the whole story, and he actually, he told me a lot of these extra bits I had no idea about.
About James Chatto
James Chatto read English at New College, Oxford, before becoming an actor and musician; today, he is one of Canada’s best-known writers on the subjects of food and drink. He has written seven books, including A Kitchen in Corfu, the best-selling A Matter of Taste (with Lucy Waverman) and two memoirs, The Man Who Ate Toronto and The Greek for Love. As a journalist, he spent decades as Toronto Life’s restaurant columnist, Senior Editor of the LCBO’s magazine, Food & Drink, and editor of harry magazine; his writing has appeared in dozens of publications in Canada, the U.S. and the U.K. A co-founder of the Canadian Culinary Championship, he is a Chevalier of the Confrérie des Chevaliers du Taste Fromage de France, and a Freeman of Corfu Town. He is a puppetmaker.
Resources
- Connect with James Chatto
- Unreserved Wine Talk | Episode 90: How to Break Wine & Food Pairing Rules? with Chris Scott
- My Books:
- Wine Witch on Fire: Rising from the Ashes of Divorce,Defamation, and Drinking Too Much
- Audiobook:
- Audible/Amazon in the following countries: Canada, US, UK, Australia (includes New Zealand), France (includes Belgium and Switzerland), Germany (includes Austria), Japan, and Brazil.
- Kobo (includes Chapters/Indigo), AudioBooks, Spotify, Google Play, Libro.fm, and other retailers here.
- Wine Witch on Fire Free Companion Guide for Book Clubs
- Audiobook:
- Unquenchable: A Tipsy Quest for the World’s Best Bargain Wines
- Red, White, and Drunk All Over: A Wine-Soaked Journey from Grape to Glass
- Wine Witch on Fire: Rising from the Ashes of Divorce,Defamation, and Drinking Too Much
- My new class, The 5 Wine & Food Pairing Mistakes That Can Ruin Your Dinner And How To Fix Them Forever
Tag Me on Social
Tag me on social media if you enjoyed the episode:
- @nataliemaclean and @natdecants on Facebook
- @nataliemaclean on Twitter
- @nataliemacleanwine on Instagram
- @nataliemaclean on LinkedIn
- Email Me at [email protected]
Thirsty for more?
- Sign up for my free online wine video class where I’ll walk you through The 5 Wine & Food Pairing Mistakes That Can Ruin Your Dinner (and how to fix them forever!)
- You’ll find my books here, including Unquenchable: A Tipsy Quest for the World’s Best Bargain Wines and Red, White and Drunk All Over: A Wine-Soaked Journey from Grape to Glass.
- The new audio edition of Red, White and Drunk All Over: A Wine-Soaked Journey from Grape to Glass is now available on Amazon.ca, Amazon.com and other country-specific Amazon sites; iTunes.ca, iTunes.com and other country-specific iTunes sites; Audible.ca and Audible.com.
Transcript
