POLLO ALLA MARENGO (MARENGO CHICKEN)

We want to propose you a recipe linked to Napoleon: Marengo Chicken. 14TH JUNE 1800,  Marengo a town in North Italy, it was about 5 p.m., In the wheat fields something is red, they are not poppies but the red trousers of French soldiers killed by Austrians. On Marengo battle field Napoleon moved continually to follow the battle development and give orders following by his faithful chef. He was far from the orderly room cars, generally he ate  at the end of the battle and now he was hungry. His chef sent his helpers around to find  something to eat. It was probably that farmers went away  with all their goods when they understood what was happening. So the helpers came back with a miserable raid . A little chicken, some river prawns, eggs, oil, garlic and tomatoes. The chef did not think a lot:  he made the chicken to brown in the oil seasoned with garlic, added the tomatoes. When everything was cooked he composed the chicken in the dish decorating it fried eggs and steamed prawns. These soldiers always had liquors so the chef put a bit of Napoleon Cognac on the dish. Napoleon loved this dish and the chef had to prepare it a lot of times without changing anything in the recipe.

            The recipe Pollo alla Marengo (Marengo chicken) is linked to

a)     Napoleon

b)    Leonardo da Vinci

c)     Pope Leon XIII

d)    King Alfred

Marengo chicken was made with

a)     refined elements

b)    fortuitous elements

c)     French elements

d)    Austrian element

Marengo chicken contains

a)     only chicken and garlic

b)    only prawns and eggs

c)     Cognac and potatoes

d)    prawns and tomatoes

HOUSE OF BOURBON

The House of Bourbon  is a European royal house of French origin, a branch of the Capetian dynasty.  By the 18th century, members of the Bourbon dynasty also held thrones in Spain, Naples, Sicily, and Parma. Spain and Luxembourg currently have Bourbon monarchs.The king that gave “Two Sicilies” kingdom to Italian Unity ruled only for a year from May1859 to February 1862. He was Francesco II Bourbon also called “lasagna king” by his father because of his passion for lasagna a kind of baked pasta that was very famous among food lovers in South Italy. Its recipe was in “Gattò di lasagnette alla Buonvicino” written by Ippolito Cavalcanti, duke of Buonvicino in 1843 and before him  Goethe in his diary “Italian travels” told about “ a delicate pasta made of fine semolina, hardly worked, boiled and with different shapes and he described Neapolitan life giving an idea of “maccheronari” job that were present at every corner and sold pasta. They were the inventors of street food.

Francesco II Bourbon was called

a)    lasagna king

b)    chicken king

c)    meat king

d)    lemon king

Goethe in his Italian travels told about

a)    a kind of liquor

b)    a kind of fruit

c)    a particular fish

d)    lasagna

 Neapolitan maccheronari invented

a)    street art

b)    street food

c)    house food

d)    court food

"LASAGNA KING"

THE HOUSE OF SAVOY’S MENUS

The House of Savoy  is one of the oldest royal families in the world, being founded in year 1003 in the historical Savoy region and  through gradual expansion, it grew from ruling a small county in that region to eventually rule the Kingdom of Italy from 1861 until the end of World War IIThe menus of House of Savoy were generally characterized by a nice but  rigorous and simple  graphic that was supported by a gastronomic very high and interesting content. The dish list was still written in French until 1907 when King Vittorio Emanuele II decided to use Italian for Court menus. Studying them we can see that the  gastronomic preparation variations were more than 500 a year. House of Savoy chefs inserted numerous elements of Italian regional cooking  and  the best Italian products in the lists. It is important to underline the difference between official occasions and private meals. Savoy's lunches and dinners did not differ much  from those of their rich subjects. When King Vittorio Emanuele III became king (1900) there was a strong difference between King table and high Italian middle class.. During the official events they had a more sophisticated cooking, with an international and refined taste that could satisfy European diplomacy and foreign guests.

The menus of House of Savoy were

a)    rich in details

b)    simple and elegant

c)    very rough

d)    inexistent

 House of Savoy meals

a)    were full of regional products

b)    did not use regional products

c)    only had French products

d)    only have Italian products

With  King Vittorio Emanuele III

a)    cooking became poorer

b)    cooking became more sophisticated

c)    menus were poorer

d)    people did not like Savoy cooking

GIUSEPPE GARIBALDI

Giuseppe Garibaldi  (July 4, 1807 – June 2, 1882) was a general and politician who played a large role in the history of Italy and the world. He is considered, with Camillo Cavour,Victor Emmanuel II and Giuseppe Mazzini, as one of Italy's "fathers of the fatherland". He had gastronomic simple habits. There were rustic vegetable and legume soups, dried cod, salami, cheese, dried figs on his table but he also liked pasta and pesto. Ship's biscuits with raisins were the preferred dessert of Garibaldi and, today,  the Garibaldi's biscuits, very good biscuits with raisins are sold in the big English stores. It seems that Garibaldi visited the town of  Tynemouth in the north-east of England  receiving a warm welcome. John Carr, a member of  a historical Scottish  family created, in Garibaldi honour, these delicious things that, marketed since 1861, by Peak Freans company became immediately successful in all the country and in USA. Garibaldi's biscuit are a classic of English pastry making confectionery and a relating collection of anecdotes exists and they are quoted in numerous sit-comedies and theatrical works.

Garibaldi had

a)    sophisticated gastronomic habits

b)    simple gastronomic habits

c)    refined gastronomic habits

d)    French gastronomic habits

Garibaldi's biscuits

a)    were created in Italy

b)    were created in UK

c)    were created in France

d)    were created in Spain

Garibaldi's biscuits

a)    are still famous today

b)    are not famous today

c)    are made of strawberries

d)    are made of lemons

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I WORLD WAR

One of the most important problems during the I World war was the nutrition for the civil population and for soldiers. The battles,  militarization of lands and raids provoked corn devastation and empty stores. Families became victims of diseases and famines caused by nutritional bad  scarcity while soldier meal became worse and worse. The little quality was caused by the habit to cook meals in the last lines of soldiers and  take them to the first lines during the night. In this way pasta and rice in big pots arrived in the trenches as stick blocks. Sauces became cold and sometimes they became as a jelly and meat and bread were hard as a stone. To warm them twice created a worse situation making food not good to eat. Every day the Italian army gives to its soldiers 600 g of bread, 100 g of meat and pasta or rice, sometimes fruit and vegetables, a quarter of litre of wine and some coffee. Fresh water was a problem and it rarely overcame half a litre a day. Soldiers in the first lines had more food and before battles bigger rations were given to soldiers: meat cans, chocolate, liquors. Today you can see in different museums, the metal containers that contained 220 g of meat or sometimes anchovies with oil and candied fruit. Every can was decorated with patriotic mottoes as “Savoia” (the royal Italian house)

During the I World War

a)       stores were full of corn

b)       there were a lot of famines

c)       people could eat only meat

d)       people could eat only pasta

During the I World War soldiers                  

a)       received fresh food

b)       received no food

c)       ate bad food

d)       ate only chocolate

 During the I World war  before a battle soldiers received

a)       more food

b)       no food

c)       only fruit

d)       only meat

1700

In the middle of 1700 a real “gastronomic revolution”, started from France and spreading in all Europe, eliminates  the cooking of Renaissance Courts to create a modern cousine that discovers fresh food, vegetables, aromatic plants, the rigid borders of flavours, the wise matching among ingredients  and between food and wine. All these things  create a  contrast between the strong and spiced flavours of the past and the  sapient delicacy  of new sauces and they introduce  the new products arrived from America: potatoes, tomatoes, peppers, pumpkins, maize. In 1796 Reggio Emilia (a city in the centre of Italy) was the location of the second meeting of Cispadane cities and on 15^th October of the same year a “patriotic meal" was offered to Napoleon to people  of Novellara. In that period he was Chief of Italian Armada  coming from Reggio and he was visiting the positions of his soldiers set in the low plain among three cities: Novellara, Reggio and Guastalla. Among the dishes offered to Napoleon the most important one was made of  pumpkin tortelli (stuffed pasta)

During the 1700

a)     fresh food was not used

b)    there was a nutritional revolution

c)     past food was used

d)    people did not eat meat

During 1700                                                      

a)     they used to combine food and wine

b)    people ate without wine

c)     they used to combine food and beer

d)    fruit was not used

During 1700 Italian people prepared for Napoleon

a)     bean tortelli

b)    meat tortelli

c)     ham tortelli

d)    pumpkin tortelli

            

RENAISSANCE

Renaissance Italy had the more capable, famous and creative chefs in Europe and they bring the Italian cooking to the maximum degree of prestige and refinement. This  period is characterized by great  unique apparatus and performances on the duke and prince tables that rules the numerous little nations in Italy. A lot of medieval elements remain in the Renaissance cooking, as the large use of species and sugar in salted dishes, the big diffusion of roast beef, stuffed pasta, cakes or the use of light sauces, made of fruit or aromatic plants. These  used as links or condensers the soft part of the bread, toasted bread, flours, almonds and eggs sometimes flavoured with the adding of acid juices and perfumed with species mixture. During the Renaissance you can note a real passion for the giblets of animals for slaughter, birds and fish. There is also a big variety of stews and stuffed pasta. Also milk and its products are used a lot: butter became important as lard, milk cream is very appreciated and different kinds of cheese are introduced. Fruit and citrus are flavouring basilar elements and fruit in general acquires an important position among the dishes served to open the meal.

During the Renaissance

a)     Italy had no good chefs

b)    Italy had a lot of very good chefs

c)     There were no good chefs in Europe

d)    Europe was invaded by good chefs

During the Renaissance

a)     Italians  loved simple pasta

b)    Italians did not eat pasta

c)     Italians ate a lot of pizza

d)    Italians loved stuffed pasta

     During the Renaissance

a)     fruit was the final dish of a meal

b)    fruit was not used

c)     fruit was one of the first dishes of a meal

d)    fruit was not very good