April 02

Giovanni Jacopo Casanova's Birthday
 

Heath Ledger (center) starring in Casanova (2005)
 

In Arthur Kopit's and Maury Weston's Tony-Award musical Nine, there is a barcarole sequence that begins:
 

"Every girl in Venice is in love with Casanova,
Every girl has kissed him once or twice.
Every girl in Venice is in love with Casanova,
As long as Casanova pays the price."

Aside for the euphemism "kissed", these lyrics correctly mirror the fate of the  world's greatest lover when he turned forty and his legendary sexual prowess began to fail him.

With his inability to sustain repetitive sexual acts, Casanova's self-confidence began to wane and eventually led to his total impotence. When he began to fear his inability to perform with new women, Casanova began to revisit his previous one-night stands because he had less to prove with the women with whom he was once legendary.  However, when his former conquests began to complain, Casanova began frequenting prostitutes where he was not under any pressure to perform.

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.


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 a crowd laughing at his appearance "When Fellini says get a hair cut, you get a hair cut."  Health Ledger played Casanova 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 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. Casanova 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. Enjoy it with Heath Ledger in Lasse Hallströms'  Casanova

                                                                                                                                                                                                                         
Pasta alla Casanova

(
pasta with lobster and white truffles)

 

Special Equipment
Tamis (a 12" stainless steel drum sieve)
 
Ingredient for the lobster broth
 
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
2 garlic cloves, minced
1/3 cup cognac
1/2 bunch tarragon
 
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

 
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
1 pinch cayenne
 
3/4 cup cream, cold
1&1/2 tsp truffle oil
2 TB chives, finely chopped
3 TB white truffle shavings, chopped


 

Ingredients for pasta dough
 
Ingredients for herb topping
 
8-ozall-purpose flour
5 large egg yolks
1 large egg, whole
2 tsp oil
1 TB  water
 
2 TB celery leaves
2 TB parsley leaves
2 TB tarragon leaves
2 TB green onion, thinly shredded
1 tsp water
 

 
Instructions for the lobster broth
  1. Clean the lobster bodies, removing the intestines, lungs, and tomalley. Crack the shells with a mallet.
  2. 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.
  3. 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.
  4. Strain the stock, pounding with a wooden spoon to extract the flavor.
  5. 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
  1. Mix the breadcrumbs with 1/2 cup of cream and allow to soften.
  2. Grind the lobster with egg white and the soaked crumbs until smooth. Season with salt and cayenne.
  3. 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.
  4. 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
  1. Mix together the flour, egg yolks, whole egg, oil, and water into a dough and knead until smooth and resilient, 8 to 10 minutes. Allow to rest for 30 minutes before rolling and shaping.
  2. Roll out the pasta into a long, 6-inch-wide strip. Cut the dough into 3-inch rounds.
  3. Moisten the edges with water and place 1/2 tsp 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.
  4. 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.
  5. Boil tortellini in salted water for about 4 minutes. Warm the sauce until hot.
Instructions for serving
  1. Soak salad briefly in iced water and dry on paper towels
  2. Serve 8 tortellini with a ladle of sauce and top with herb topping.

Makes 10 servings.
 

 
© 2011 Gordon Nary and Tyler Stokes