



Vicky Bennison It’s a kind of family fantasy. Each week, a kindly, twinkling grannie creates pasta by hand, making it look as easy as falling off a log. Her hands work unsupervised; kneading, stretching, pinching, rolling, the myriad shapes emerging, perfect. There’s cheesy music, and just enough information to give the impression that you too could do it. Welcome to the world of Pasta Grannies, a YouTube Channel that provides almost half a million subscribers with a regular dose of nostalgia and good eating.

Pasta Grannies is the brainchild of Vicky Bennison, although she would be the first to admit that it is the grannies that make it the success it has become. And now there’s a book, with proper recipes and instructions for those of us without a handy grannie. Vicky was kind enough to find a slot in her busy schedule to chat about pasta and grannies.

Notes


* Pasta Grannies: The Official Cookbook: The Secrets of Italy’s Best Home Cooks is the book of the channel.
* There’s nothing better than having someone show you how to shape the pasta, but you can also start by watching a video. Three that don’t need rolling out: cavatelli, orecchiete and trofie.
* Photos of the grannies from Vicky Bennison; thanks.
* And, in case you missed it, Ken Albala’s 1000 days of noodle soup.


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Pasta Grannies

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The last supper was a Passover Seder, and for two thousand years Passover and Easter have been linked. The links, however, are complex, which is why I am taking the opportunity to expand on a five-year-old episode.

The rituals of the Passover dinner have been in place for thousands of years, although always open to interpretation and evolution. And yet, although different Christian traditions have their ritual Easter foods, there don’t seem to be any universals. The episode looks at these two contrasting aspects of ritual foods.

First, I talked to Susan Weingarten talks about the Seder dinner and especially an item essential on the Passover table that is not mentioned in God’s original instructions for the last supper of the Israelites in Egypt. While nobody knows how it came to be, every Jewish culture has its own version of haroset and its own idea of what it means.

Edna Holmgren and her daughter Lois Long at the Hall of Fame celebration in 1988Then, I spoke to Lois Long about a recipe made famous by her mother, Edna M. Holmgren. Magic Marshmallow Crescent Puffs won the Pillsbury Bake-Off in 1969. Later, they were expropriated by some Christians to retell the story of the resurrection, though personally I doubt they will ever become universal.

The Recipe



This copy of Edna Holmgren’s recipe is not quite the original. Lois Long told me that “the flour in the cinnamon sugar mixture was Pillsbury’s idea. I cut it down to 1 tbsp but I don’t like it. The original recipe has no flour.” I do wonder what it is there for. Possibly to soak up melting gooeyness, because many of the comments on the Hall of Fame website are complaints about the mess if the pastry isn’t very carefully sealed.

Notes


* Susan Weingarten’s book Haroset: A Taste of Jewish History is published by The Toby Press.
* Huge thanks to Lois Long for sharing her time, her memories, and copies of some of her memorabilia.
* The cover image is of an illuminated manuscript from the workshop of Valentine Noh in Prague, about 1470. The Passover plate is Italian majolica from The Magnes Collection of Jewish Art and Life at the University of California, Berkeley.


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Passover and Easter Revisited





Malta, just off the coast of Sicily in the middle of the Mediterranean, has always been of enormous strategic importance. As a result it has been claimed, and fought over, by empire after empire. Each time it was vulnerable to a blockade of essential food supplies because the tiny island — Malta is only 27 kilometres long — cannot possibly feed itself. Despite this history, going into World War II neither the British colonial government nor the Maltese people were prepared for the inevitable blockade. When rationing was imposed, however, the authorities deliberately turned a blind eye to those who were finding ways to evade the restrictions of the black market. It made sense to do so, as I heard from Maltese historian Noel Buttigieg.

Notes


* Noel Buttigieg’s paper is Breadways and Black-Market Intrigues in 1942 Malta.
* Here is the transcript.
* The banner photograph shows part of the Turkish fleet and military at the start of the 1565 Great Siege of Malta. It was created by Giovanni Francesco Camocio as part of an effort to rouse European support against the Turks. Cover photograph shows Maltese women washing clothes in the ruins of their homes at the height of the blockade, 4 June 1942. ©IWM (GM 904)


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Malta Besieged & Black-market Intrigues





Spina bifida is a neural tube defect that is one of the most common severe birth defects in the world. The main cause is a lack of folate vitamin in the diet, and in 1991, the UK’s Medical Research Council halted a trial of folic acid supplementation early because it was obvious that the supplement was preventing a large number of cases. At the time, the trial’s authors concluded: “public health measures should be taken to ensure that the diet of all women who may bear children contains an adequate amount of folic acid.”

The United States was relatively quick to act, mandating flour be fortified with folic acid in 1998, followed by around 80 countries worldwide. Countries with mandatory fortification have seen a drop in neural tube defects of between one third and one half. But not the European Union nor, until recently, the United Kingdom.

The European Union concedes: “There has been no real progress in preventing NTDs in Europe since folic acid supplementation was shown to be an effective preventive measure.”

Finally, the UK has put forward proposals to fortify white flour, but many doctors say they could do much more. Europe is still to act.

Notes


* The US Centers for Disease Control has an excellent series of pages on neural tube defects with links to a lot more research.
* The European Union also has a page on Folic Acid and Neural Tube Defects.
* Helena Bottemiller Evich recently did a great and personal write-up of prenatal vitamins in her newsletter, Food Fix.
* Mun-Keat Looi’s article Folic acid: The case to rethink the UK’s food fortification plans is behind a paywall.
* Here is the transcript.
* Spinach salad by Lucy Clink, photographed by me. Folic acid molecular model by Ben Mills.


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The Case for Folic Acid Fortification





Anthony MongielloA recent documentary tells the story of how a kid from Brooklyn invented the stuffed crust pizza, sued Pizza Hut for ripping him off, and lost. It is a fascinating story, and left me in no doubt about who actually invented the stuffed crust pizza: Anthony Mongiello, that kid from Brooklyn. But it was the incidental asides Anthony dropped in the documentary, along with a look at Formaggio Cheese, the company he built, that really made me want to talk to him about his family of cheese engineers and his own history as a cheese inventor.

Notes


* Take a look at Formaggio Cheese if you want to get a better idea of the “75 different Fresh Mozzarella products” they offer.
* Stolen Dough, the documentary, is available on a few streaming channels.
* There’s a report of the case that I certainly am not competent to judge on its merits. Still, even if Pizza Hut did not infringe on Anthony Mongiello’s legal rights, the company’s moral judgement leaves a lot to be desired.
* Would you like to see Italian mozarella di bufala DOP being made? Of course you would.
* Here is the transcript.


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Anthony Mongiello, Inventor of the Stuffed Crust Pizza





Harry RobsonSix thousand years ago in northern Europe, the first Neolithic farmers were bumping up against Mesolithic people, who made a living hunting and fishing and gathering wild plants. Both groups of people made ceramic cooking vessels for their food, and those pots have now revealed that in many respects the diets of the two cultures were more alike than different. The hunter-gatherers were processing dairy foods, while the farmers were cooking fish and other aquatic resources. That’s the conclusion of a massive study of more than 1000 pot fragments by 30 scientists. Harry Robson, one of the team leaders, explained the results and the light they shed onto the transition to farming.

Notes


* Harry K. Robson is in the Department of Archaeology at the University of York. The paper we talked about is The impact of farming on prehistoric culinary practices throughout Northern Europe in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
* Here is the transcript.
* Banner illustration shows early Neolithic farmers in Switzerland, by J. Näf, from this publication. Cover photograph of a pot from the Funnel Beaker culture in Denmark, made by the earliest farmers across the western Baltic, CC-BY-SA by Arnold Mikkelsen, The National Museum of Denmark.


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Pasta Grannies

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