From the heart: pasta con mollica

Most of the recipes I present here, are recipes that I read and refined, or didn't, but which I feel are things that I will cook again, and I'd like some of you to cook too. This one, well, I want you to cook it, too, even if you're an Atkins follower and won't touch carbs. Touch them for this. Touch them for me. Read on, and you'll understand why.



There is a tradition, in Italian cooking of "La Cucina povera." You know what it means. Most of the books and articles that I've read which discuss it, frankly, glamorize it, in the way Marie Antoinette and her court used to pretend to be milkmaids. Remember "let them eat cake?" Well, there's no cake here. Recently, I went to a favorite restaurant which, in order to help people in this budget driven economy, offers a three course "cucina povera" menu. This week, there was an involved escarole salad, pasta with three meat ragu, and lemon pudding.



Now, let's see a show of hands: all of you out there who grew up as poor Italians: did you ever eat a meal like that? Let's get serious. There was no dessert in "cucina povera," and meat? Are you kidding? Let's not glamorize things. There is nothing wrong with that menu, but I fear that Chef Marco has forgotten his roots in calling this poor food.



No, I'm going to talk to you about poor food. And I'm going to talk from the heart, because this is one of my favorite dishes in the world.



When we were growing up, Nana would serve, with some frequency, a pasta dish she called "molleek" It was pasta, usually large, tubular pasta, with toasted bread crumbs mixed with olive oil, garlic, dried oregano and parsley. And the three of us loved it. We would devour big bowls of it, and beg Nana to make more of it.



And everytime we did, I saw Nana cry in the kitchen. Not laugh, with the crying sound she made, but CRY. And I didn't know why until many, many years later.



In southern Italian culture, there are certain basics that are always in the kitchen. Dried pasta. Always. Bread. Olive oil. Herbs and spices, fresh or dried. Then you extended to cheeses, maybe eggs, fresh vegetables like wild greens, fruit. Meat was a passing thought, so was chicken. And when things got really bad, you stopped at the herbs. And a pasta dish was invented: "pasta con mollica," the "molleek" of my Nana's dialect.



The toasted bread crumbs were intended to take the place of cheese. You made molleek when there was so little money that you couldn't even buy grating cheese. So if we were eating molleek, we were dirt poor. And that's why Nana was crying: she felt that she couldn't do her job in feeding her family. She couldn't make the money stretch, and this is what she was left to. So, even though her beloved grandchildren LOVED the dish, and would have eaten it every single day, it absolutely destroyed her to put it on the table.



Nowadays, I see the dish on a menu, from time to time, and I have very mixed emotions about it. I always want to order it, for the sake of reconnecting with those times when Nana was going so far out of her way to feed us, but I'm reluctant to do so, because I know that this is a dish that costs so little to make, that I balk at what it costs. And it NEVER tastes as good as Nana's or mine, for that matter. Then, when I don't order it, and we leave the restaurant, I wince because it may very well be months, or years until I see it again. I haven't seen it on a menu, in fact, since pre-2001, when a restaurant around the corner would serve it for Anne Bancroft, when she came in, and save a portion for me.



This is southern "soul food" at its deepest. Even if you don't eat carbs, (this is you Caz), make this once in a while, and see where Annalena is from. I'm going to make it tonight. We're having eggplant parmagiana, and since I don't bread the eggplant anymore, I have the extra crumbs.



One last thing. I may have to discuss this with my Italian teacher. "Mollica" is really the soft part of the bread, the "crumb" as it were. Dried bread crumbs are 'pan grattato." I have never understood why we call the dish after the soft part, because we never used it. Oh well, something lost in time, etymologically, but rediscovered, for something cheap filling and delicious. Try it, and when you do, think of Annalena, as a pudgy six year old, with his 5 and 4 year old sister, downing huge bowls of this stuff, while a short, fat graying woman tried to make ends meet in a big, loving, and sprawling Italian family.



You need a pound of dried pasta, preferably something tubular and on the large size. You could use fusilli though, or even spaghetti. For some reason, I do not like this with linguini. I tried it with orecchiete, and it was "so/so" so I stick with the big tubes.



You will also need a half cup of olive oil and about 3/4 cups of bread crumbs, dry. If you use the unflavored type, you will definitely need something like dried Italian seasonings, or if you have it, some fresh oregano and parsley. Nana always had a pot of parsley growing on her windowsill, so we always had that. Chop up about four-six tablespoons of fresh herbs, or stick to just one big heaping one of d ried. Also, chop up fine, about four or five (or more), big cloves of garlic . Have a few teaspoons of salt ready too.



Get a pot of salted water going , and when you pour the pasta in, start on your sauce. Pour the oil into a big frying pan and heat it up. When it's nice and hot, add the garlic, and the bread crumbs, all at once, and stir constantly. It won't take long. You'll begin to notice a toasty smell, and all the oil will have been picked up. Throw in your salt and herbs at this point, stir them into the crumbs, and take the pan off the heat. If you like things spicy, now is the time to add some dried or crushed red pepper.



When the pasta is al dente to your taste, pour off about half a cup of the water, because you will probably want it. Then drain the pasta and throw it into the toasted bread crumbs, and toss them around. The bread crumbs will be dry and they will clump. Keep stirring and add that reserved water, little by little, until you get the consistency you like.



And there it is. There's enough here for at least four older Italians. Those of you who are on reduced carb regimes will want to eat less, but when you do, keep in mind that, for many of us, this wasn't a PART of dinner, this WAS dinner. And we loved it.



Whenever I make this, I can feel one of Nana's hugs coming my way, something I can use more of. Followed by one of her crude, dirty jokes. She'd comfort me, feed me, and make me laugh. Can you ask for more?