Beautiful Calabria and its bounty Blue Fin Tuna

Calabria is at the southern tip of Italy.  It is surrounded by seas.  There are 3 seas in this area of Italy.  About 200 meters off the coast the sea drops to an abyss of 3000 meters.  Just north, in the Bay of Taranto, Blue Fin Tuna Spawn.  Down by Calabria the young swim by and here there is a proliferation of small tuna.  As they round the tip of Italy and enter the Mer Tyrrhenian and are in the the area of Sicily they grow larger and are readily available there and across to Sardinia. Italy map This is the only area that has Tuna.

Conserves Week

This week we are making conserves in class.  We are conserving Tuna as well as other fishes , vegetables and fruits.

Blue Fin Tuna

 Guts of Blue Fin Tuna

Cooking The Tuna 

Tuna has been cooked

Separating the sections to prepare for conserving or jarring.

This is as far as we got on this particular project today.  We do multiple things at a time throughout the day and keep quite busy.  much of what we are learning is artisan or old world.  We are learning what has worked for centuries and why and then making wonderful traditional dishes with the ingredients as we go along.  Some of the curing times for what we produce are days others months and over a year for others.  Guess I'll have to come back next year to taste what we made.  We are now tasting what the class of last year made.  So far they did a great job.  The process may not look glamourous but the results we are getting are so entirely worth the effort we put in.

Market Visit- Soverato, Calabria Italy

This is the local market about a 20 minute drive from me.  We will be shopping for our food stuffs at these markets regularly and Im very excited to watch the continuing seasonal changes reflected in the offerings.  When I was in Rome I saw an abundance of artichokes as it was just the beginning of the season upon my arrival.  As these phase out the changes show. In the southern regions of Italy there are differences as it is about 10 degrees warmer here.  Prolific fish as I am on the sea. Oranges and clementines, huge bulbs of fennel, mushrooms that don't have an actual name, raw honey of several varieties and the list goes on.

 Awesome sun dried figs, nuts seeds, procini mushrooms (dried) cookies a bounty and a fun group of guys here.

Happy Birthday to My Brother

Today is my brother's birthday !

I want to give a very big wish to him today for a Happy Happy Birthday! Today I scaled and filleted fish which brought back fond memories of our youth.  Our Dad took us fishing quite often and we had the opportunity to spend some wonderful time in some beautiful places.  We often brought home trout, blue gill, bass and salmon- huge salmon... As a matter of fact we caught so much salmon one year in Washington Island, Wisconsin that the small plane we flew over in couldn't take off with the weight.  If memory serves we took a ferry and the fish flew... Another time we had a stringer of blue gill and sun fish setting in the lake on the shore and a huge turtle tried to take the stringer of all of the fish. Another time while we fished with live bait an osprey swooped down to eat the bait and one of us either caught it or nearly did.  I also recall that my brother caught the back of his head, luckily our Dad had surgical skills.

We really were gifted so many wonderful experiences by our parents, not just fishing.  I was gifted a brother with whom I have enjoyed many adventures.  I am so very proud you Jim,  you mean the world to me.  I look forward to many more adventures with you.  Happy Happy Birthday!

Love, Pam