June 04
Anniversary of Giovanni Jacopo
Casanova's Death
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Donald Sutherland as Casanova in Fellini's Casanova |
In Arthur Kopit's and Maury
Weston's Tony-Award musical Nine, there is a barcarole sequence
that begins:
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"Every girl in Venice is
in love with Casanova, |
| At the age of
sixteen he lost his virginity in the arms of two sisters who,
according to his account, threw themselves at him. He also obtained
his doctorate in Law when he was sixteen from the University of Padua,
where he had studied moral philosophy, chemistry, mathematics, and
law. He was keenly interested in medicine and later became a
physician. The infamous Venetian sexual athlete has been portrayed by several actors
including Donald Southerland in Fellini's Casanova (1976) in
which a somewhat freaky--looking Southerland wore a prosthetic nose and
chin and shaved off the front part of his hair, and once told crowd
laughing at his appearance "When Fellini says get a hair cut, you get a
hair cut." Health Ledger played him as a romantic and eventually
faithful hunk in love in Lasse
Hallströms' Casanova 2005. However, it was Peter
O'Toole who portrayed the aging Casanova to perfection in the Sheree Folkson's TV presentation of
Casanova (2005). |
There's a pre-Viagra adage that when a man turns forty, he begins to think more of food than sex, and that's what happened to Casanova. The world's greatest connoisseur of women became a great connoisseur of food, and began to concentrate most of his energies on gastronomy. He created several famous dishes that are still popular including Crabmeat Casanova and Pasta alla Casanova (pasta with lobster and white truffles). Casanova was an ardent lover of seafood and most of the eponymous recipes that are dedicated to him are seafood dishes. In his Memoirs, Casanova described his famous "oyster games" in which he and his sexual partner or partners (he enjoyed ménage sex, often with sisters and once with dwarfs) would initiate the evening by passing raw oysters from other mouth the the other's. When his partner inadvertently dropped an oyster in her décolletage, Casanova would gallantly retrieve it with his mouth. It was Casanova's fondness for oyster games that eventually popularized oysters as an aphrodisiac. Fellini should have used the "oyster games" in his film which might have made it less of a bomb in the United States.
to celebrate the great lover's birthday, we offer an eponymous pasta dish as complex as its namesake which for those who taste it may become as addicted to it as Casanova was to all women. Pair it with a viewing of Fellini's Casanova (1076).
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| 4 lobsters, cleaned
(meat to be used in filling)
1/3 cup olive oil 1/3 cup shallots, sliced (3 medium) 1/3 cup celery, sliced 1/3 cup carrot, sliced 1 garlic clove, chopped 1/4 cup cognac 1/2 bunch tarragon
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3 fresh thyme branches 1 bay leaf 1 1/2 cups ripe tomatoes, chopped 2 quarts water 2 cups cold crème fraîche, salt to taste 1 pinch cayenne
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| Ingredients for Tortellini Filling |
| 3/4 cup panko breadcrumbs 1/2 cup cream 1/2 pound lobster meat, raw, chopped and cold 1 large egg whites 1 tsp salt, or to taste 1 pinch cayenne |
3/4 cup cream, cold 1 1/2 teaspoons truffle oil 2 TB chives, finely chopped 3 TB white truffle shavings, chopped
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| Ingredients for pasta
dough |
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8-ounces all-purpose flour 5 large egg yolks 1 large egg, whole |
2 tsp oil 1 TB water |
Ingredients for herb salad
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| Instructions for the lobster broth |
- Clean the lobster bodies, removing the intestines, lungs, and tomalley. Crack the shells with a mallet.
- Preheat a medium sauce pot over high heat and add the olive oil. When it smokes, add the lobster shells. Sauté until red and glistening. Add the shallots, celery, carrot, and garlic. Sauté for 1 additional minute.
- Flame with brandy and then add the tarragon, thyme, bay leaf, and tomato, and cover all with water. Bring to a simmer. Skim and simmer for 45 minutes to an hour.
- Strain the stock, pounding with a wooden spoon to extract the flavor.
- Put it into a clean pan and reduce by three-quarters (2 cups remaining volume) over medium heat until flavorful. Add the crème fraîche and cook until hot and slightly thick, 2 to 3 minutes. Adjust the seasoning with salt and cayenne and chill if not serving immediately.
| Instructions for the tortellini filling |
- Mix the breadcrumbs with 1/2 cup of cream and allow to soften.
- Grind the lobster with egg white and the soaked crumbs until smooth. Season with salt and cayenne.
- With the food processor running add the cream in a steady stream and run only until incorporated. Pass forcemeat through a tamis into a bowl over ice.
- Gently stir in the truffle oil, chives, and the truffles. Test the forcemeat and adjust with either egg white or more cream (shouldn’t be necessary).
| Instructions for pasta dough |
- Mix together the flour, egg yolks, whole egg, oil, and water into a homogenous dough and knead until smooth and resilient, 8 to 10 minutes. Allow to rest for 30 minutes before rolling and shaping.
- Roll out the pasta into a long, 6-inch-wide strip. Cut the dough into 3-inch rounds.
- Moisten the edges with water and place 1/2 teaspoon-mounds of forcemeat in the center of the pasta (a pastry bags works well for this job). Fold the pasta over the filling to form a semi circle, pressing the edges together. Push your thumb into the filling from the straight edge and bring the two tips together.
- Moisten one of the tips with water and press the other tip to it until it sticks. Reserve on a tray dusted with flour under refrigeration until ready to cook.
- Boil tortellini in salted water for about 4 minutes. Warm the sauce until hot.
| Instructions for serving |
- The salad should be soaked briefly in
iced water to assure the herbs are ultra-fresh and lively.
Dry on paper towels - Serve 8 tortellini with a ladle of sauce and top with herb salad.
Makes 10 servings.