(Ed note: This is Part II of Barbara Hamby's mushroom chronicles. Find Part I here. sdl)
All human history attests
That happiness for man, - the hungry sinner! -
Since Eve ate apples, much depends on dinner.
~Lord Byron, Don Juan, Canto XIII, stanza 99
We were out past midnight on Friday and arrived at the Sant'Ambrogio market too late the next morning for the ovoli mushrooms with their gorgeous red caps, but I noticed the box of little brown mushrooms with the label "Prugnoli." They were expensive--30 euros a kilo as opposed to 8 euros a kilo for the porcini--which led me to wonder if they were a seasonal specialty. I bought "due etti." An "etto" is an eighth of a kilogram, which is about a quarter of a pound. I asked the mushroom man, who my friend Sue says is called Cecco, what I should make with my little bag of prugnoli. His answer was "risotto o frittata." My husband, who loves rice, said, "No more rice," so I decided on a frittata. I remembered a small stand with fresh pecorino and eggs, so I bought six eggs that had a little handwritten sign: Uova di nostra gallina, eggs from our hen. I also bought some chives, because they would give the frittata some visual zip and not be as overpowering as onion.
When I returned to the apartment, I looked up prugnoli to see what I had found. Little did I know that there was a Prugnolo Cult in Italy. It has been chilly and rainy in Florence this year, and perhaps that's the reason why I was lucky enough to find prugnoli in the market. Late May and April are their time in the world. In Southern Italy they are sometimes called fungo marzolino or marzulolo, because March is marzo, and they mature a little sooner in the warmer parts of Italy. In central Italy they are also called il fungo di San Giorgio, because they start popping up close to the feast day of St. George (April 23). I had always dreamed of being a member of a mushroom cult, and finally it had happened. Italy--the land where dreams come true.
I had due etti di prugnoli, and I set about making a frittata for lunch. First I washed them with great care, now that I knew they were at the center of a cult, and then sliced the larger ones.
I'm winging it here. I don't have a recipe, but I've made omelets and frittatas before. When I was first married and traveling in Italy, I was a devoted slave of Marcella Hazan, who wasn't afraid of butter. And as I've said before, butter and mushrooms go together like Sinatra and The Sands, so I put a little of that glorious green extra-virgin olive oil in my skillet and a tablespoon or more (probably more ) of butter. When they had warmed up, I put in the prugnoli.
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Olive oil + butter = magic
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market-fresh chives
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While the prugnoli were cooking, I chopped the chives. How much did I use? Half the bunch I'd bought at the market.
Here I will take a minute to rant about color in cooking. A dish has to be beautiful as well as delicious. When I'm making a salad, I want a range of colors. It's almost like painting. Three different greens--maybe the pale green of frisee, the dark green of arugula, and the medium green of escarole or butter lettuce--make a canvas, and then you add the purples of red onion and radicchio, the orange and crunch of carrots, and the crimson of tomatoes. In Italy right now, Piccadilly tomatoes are all the rage. They are smaller than Romas and larger than cherry tomatoes and are very sweet. A salad would be very compatible with this frittata.
How many eggs to use? I broke four into the dish, but it didn't seem to be enough, so I broke the other two and stirred them with a fork until I had a lovely golden bowl. Then I added salt and freshly ground pepper.
How are the prugnoli doing?
They've cooked down a bit with their lovely juices mixing with the oil and butter. I taste one and it's perfect, still firm but softening. Time to add the egg mixture:
Now that's a lovely brown and gold canvas, but it needs something:
Chives! However, I have an kitchen equipment emergency. This skillet has no lid, so I place a white ceramic dinner plate on top of the skillet and try not to check it for five minutes. I'm aiming for the consistency of a just baked custard: set enough to hold its shape but still trembling in the center.
The result makes a satisfying lunch for me and breakfast the next morning for two. One of my favorite Italian cookbooks, Antipasti by Julia della Croce, says that room temperature frittata makes a welcome addition to an antipasti selection. I'm convinced! Now I'm dreaming of an antipasti party with at least ten dishes and prosecco and Negronis. Everyone's invited!
Barbara Hamby is the author of six books of poems, most recently Bird Odyssey (2018) and On the Street of Divine Love: New and Selected Poems (2014), both published by the University of Pittsburgh Press, which also published Babel (2004) and All-Night Lingo Tango (2009).She has also edited an anthology of poems, Seriously Funny (Georgia, 2009), with her husband David Kirby. She teaches at Florida State University where she is Distinguished University Scholar.
