International Acadamy of Italian Cooking

Last Friday I went to cooking school. Arlene from New York arranged it and her friend David's future daughter-in-law, Brook, joined us. The school is right outside Lucca in an old villa and I was surprised to find that the kitchen was rather poky. It was also rather small once 15 people were crammed into it.

It turned out that the three of us were being slotted into one day of a four week course. Some of the students were local Italians training for restaurant careers. There were also five or six Japanese women who were taking the course and also studying Italian in the afternoons. They had an interpreter, who also spoke excellent English, but some of them and some of the Italians also spoke English. So,, with Arlene and my Italian, we were all able to communicate rather well.


In the above photo our instructor, Mariella, is giving instructions before we began to cook. Before this we all sat down and went over the menu and recipes for the day. The basic class structure is that the menus are prepared in common and then everyone sits down and enjoys the food for lunch. The day's selection included tortino di verdure (vegetable tart), tagliatelle paglia e fieno con ragu (tagliatelle with meat sauce), pappa con pomodoro classica (tomato bread soup), stufato di manzo con cardi (beef stew with cardi) and zuppa inglese ("English soup"--similar to trifle). Mariella would make her remarks in Italian and then I and the Japanese translator would relay the information to our groups.


After everyone moved into the kitchen it did not take long for the cooking to start. All the incredients were prepped except for being cut up. We divided into different groups, each one taking one item from the menu.



Everyone was required to have an apron and hair covering. Except for we Americans everyone had brought there own kit. As you can see above, some of the Italians were really into "the look."




Arlene, Brook and I and one of the Japanese women, Mika, were assigned the vegetable tart. We started by making the dought and slicing the vegetables. I started in on the leeks but as I was doing it wrong (!) Mariella showed me how to do it properly. We also had zucchini, zucchini flowers and porcini mushrooms for the tart. Each of the vegetables had to be sauteed separately. Here is Arlene working on the leeks.



In the tray in the foreground you can see the sauteed leeks and zucchini. The porcini are in the pan. I am not sure what Brook is talking about but it seems to amuse Mika.



Here Mariella is placing the bottom crust for the tart in the pan.



Here is the tart before the top layer of pastry is set in place. Each kind of vegetable was layered in the pan with the zucchini flowers on top. Mariella also tossed in a little parmesan cheese but that was optional.



Here is the finished tart before it was cut up. It smelled delicious!!



The finished tart plated artistically.



Throughout the morning everyone pitched in to help each other or stopped and watched as others made their dishes. Here two of the Italian women are making the pasta--half plain tagliatelle and half with spinach. They are mixing it the traditional Italian way without using a bowl.



Kneeding the pasta dough. They were doing this on a large piece of granite that could be moved around the kitchen depending on where it was needed or where it could be set out of the way.



Here is the spinach tagliatelle all cut up and resting before being boiled. The school has an extra large pasta rolling machine and then a small machine to cut it appropriately.



Here Mariella is starting the Zuppa Inglese. It is sponge cake soaked with liqueur topped with pastry cream and meringues. Several layers of each are put in the bowl and then it is refrigerated. This recipe used both plain and chocolate cream.



Here Mariella is placing the meringues on top of the chocolate cream.



One layer of everything. Three more were placed in the bowl before it was finished.



The meringues were made "in the French manner." Rather than baking them (the only way I have ever made them) they were cooked in a saucepan in a combination of milk and water. It was fascinating to watch. I even tried my hand at piping some of the meringue into the saucepan.



Here is the pot of pappa al pomodoro. We did not eat it for lunch but everyone got to taste it.



Here is a bowl of the soup drizzled with olive oil and decorated with a few sage leaves.



This lovely display of breads was on a sideboard in the dining room. Unfortunately we did not eat it. However, everything we did eat was DELICIOUS. The menu for the Monday class was going to be a variety of different types of game--wild boar, rabbit and pheasant. I REALLY wanted to go back and do that. Now my dream is to do an entire month of classes or at least a week or at least another one day session.

The school accepts students just for a day and the cost was E50 per person including a fabulous lunch. If you are in the Lucca area and have time, it is well worth arranging a visit.