A recipe years in the making

"pushing the boundaries of Italian cuisine, to highlight the power food, drink and travel has on memory" Rob Hobart/Peroni Nastro Azzurro

I started out today researching piña colada inspired desserts - it was a topic in my Ideas list. Somehow or other during those rambles around a couple of Google pages, I came across this Cherry and strawberry crostata with black sesame praline a dish that Ixta Belfrage had presented in her Substack newsletter, telling us that it was a recipe years in the making. It looked worth having a go at some time - maybe Christmas - because of the cherries - although maybe a bit too adventurous for my potential audience? Definitely worth doing some time anyway, and for this reason I had also put it in my Ideas list. So when I came across it again today I thought the coincidence meant that this was the time to attack it. The piña colada has been shelved for another time.

It's been interesting - both from the point of view of Ixta's recipe and the also the traditional recipe that was it's inspiration. Evolution and history of two kinds. And people - the cherry season is almost upon us and so maybe we should all give it a go.

So perhaps we should first of all go to the traditional recipe, which many Romans say can only be obtained from a particular bakery - Pasticceria Boccione in the Jewish quarter of Rome, for this is a Jewish dish.

It's a tiny shop still run by the same family - the female members of the family - at least three generations old. It's a tiny shop with no name on the outside, but people queue for the prized Crostate di ricotta e visciole, which, as you can see does not look anything like Ixta's much flashier dish. This is rather more rustic and apparently the top is sometimes almost black. It's a thick crust surrounding a filling of ricotta and it looks like a pretty thin spread of sour cherry jam. One of these ladies, swears that it's their invention:

"It's absolutely not true! It's a cake that my grandmother invented about 65 or maybe 75 years ago. That pope thing has nothing to do with it," said Sandra Calò, one of the six women who run Pasticceria Boccione, the only Roman pastry shop where you can buy the original Crostata di ricotta e visciole."

What she is saying is not true is the idea that:

"it was designed to bypass an absurd ban on selling cheese and dairy products imposed on Jews by the Vatican in the 18th Century as outlined in Chapter XXIV of Pope Pius VI's Edict Concerning the Jews (1775)" Ruben Bondì/BBC

(The photo is of Ruben Bondìs version - no recipe though)

It is thought that the Jews came to Rome way back in ancient Roman times and brought with them sour cherries. When Christianity became all powerful, the Church:

"believed that Christianity had to replace Hebraism, and they did all they could to make Jewish people's lives impossible. Silversmiths were not permitted to forge menorah, the nine-branched candelabra used for religious rituals; Jewish men and women had to wear a piece of yellow cloth stitched to their hat similarly to when Jews were forced to wear the Star of David during World War Two; they couldn't talk to Christians; and they couldn't light the traditional torches used to honour their dead on the way from the synagogue to the cemetery during funerary rites. They were also banned from many business pursuits, including the selling of cheese." Iacopo Scaramuzzi/BBC

So it is thought they circumvented the ban on cheese, by hiding it in pastry. I must admit this does sound rather unlikely to me - easily discovered I would have thought. And indeed another authority in this BBC article said:

"this tart – with its union of ricotta, the most typical of Roman cheeses, and cherries from the East – is a metaphor for the ancient relationship between the city of Rome and its oldest religious group, where each layer remains distinct while enriching the other. ... You don't ban something unless someone is already doing it." Claudio Procaccia/BBC

Which is a rather esoteric way of looking at it. It's definitely Jewish however, definitely Roman and seems to have originally been prepared with actual cherries rather than jam together with a scented almond cream.

Which brings us back to Ixta who incorporates the almonds into her pastry and uses actual cherries - although not sour ones. In her Substack article she explains how the pastry evolved over time from a Butternut, orange and sage galette, which appears in Flavour - the book she co-authored with Yotam Ottolenghi - a recipe I have now made a few times - it is so good - and I'm not really a pumpkin fan. In her book Meczla it changed yet again to a Tomato lime and chipotle galette, which I have also made, and which I wrote about - and included the recipe - I was so impressed. And now it has changed again - in her new crostata.

I suspect she may also have also changed it yet more in a slightly different version of the crostata I am presenting today, because I found this different version - there are no strawberries for a start and no black sesame praline either, although there are black sesame seeds and there is mention of haanero chillies as well. Alas it is an Instagram post without much detail. In some ways it looks even more tempting than the semi-official one which she has been promoting in relationship with Peroni beers. The picture above is from a popup dinner that she presented - a collection of five traditional Italian dishes given the Ixta touch to reflect her childhood in Tuscany and other places that she has visited - to promote the Peroni beers.

You can watch her make it on one of those fast little Instagram videos, that make it all look so easy and fast. Each step probably isn't that hard in truth, but it certainly won't be fast. Could well be worth doing some time anyway. She certainly is enthusiastic:

"

Crunchy, crispy, flakey, sweet, salty, spicy pastry - a beautiful canvas for ricotta cream, berries macerated in pomegranate molasses, black sesame praline and very good olive oil."

A very non-traditional group of ingredients, inspired by a traditional dish but moving rapidly quite a long way away from it.

I did however, investigate the traditional dish for other people's recipes - there are lots, and even if you are sort of sticking to the tradition I found that everybody had their own take on it. I'll begin with Rachel Roddy, who, like Ixta does not pretend that her version is absolutely true to tradition, although hers is much closer. She doesn't give it the traditional name, and prefers the simple Cherry and ricotta tart. She also doesn't make it a kind of pie, but merely puts a pastry lattice over the top.

But she does explain:

"the most ubiquitous and faithful of Roman sweets, crostata di visciole, or cherry jam tart, for which every Italian seems to have a recipe that has been made so many times it isn’t really a recipe any more – more a set of moves." Rachel Roddy

So to finish; four variations from here and there in the wonderful world of the internet. Crostata di ricotta e visciole (Roman sour cherry and ricotta tart) - Frank Fariello/Memorie de Angelina; Traditional Roman-style crostata di visciole - Nicoletta/Sugar Love Spices; Crostata de ricotta e visciole (Ricotta and sour cherry tart) - Paula Barbarito-Levitt/La Bella Sorella; Ricotta and sour cherry tart - Maria Pasquale/delicious.

Most people seem to go for the sour cherry jam which is indeed available in the shops. But you can also buy sour cherries in a jar, or else, do as Ixta and just use dark cherries. If you want to make them sour - add lemon.

It's interesting however, that these days the evolution of a recipe can happen in one big leap of the imagination, rather than in incremental small steps over, if not centuries, at least decades. Or was this always so? People like Carême must have made those extraordinary leaps, which is why they are legends. I wonder how many of today's hugely experimental chefs will become future legends.

YEARS GONE BY

December 4

2024 - Nothing

2023 - Nothing

2022 - Battenberg cake

2021 - On jam

2020 - Missing

2019 - Simone Beck and pork braised in whiskey

2018 - Easier than you think

2017 - Snap, crackle, pop

2016 - Fridge doors and fridge evolution