Erica De Mane

Viva la Vida, by Frieda Kahlo, 1954 (her last painting).

Recipe below: Ziti with Pumpkin, Tomatoes, Pancetta, and Sage

“Color helps to express light, not the physical phenomenon but the only light that really exists, that in the artist’s brain.” —Henri Matisse, 1945

In my opinion, this truth from Matisse also sums up the thought process of a creative cook. Color often precedes aroma. The colors that light up my brain are mostly summer colors, those of tomatoes, peppers, eggplants, a hunk of blood red lamb ready for the grill, a basket of damp green herbs. Still life with Southern Italian vegetables. Colors are guides. They ignite the commotion that puts knives and flames into action.

Red tomatoes, green tomatillos, violet eggplants, ripe chilies, purple potatoes: These are all nightshades, vegetables with a touch of danger built in. A coincidence? I don’t think so. Summer colors have an uneasy pull. Their ripeness is visual. Cooking them is often optional. Can that gorgeous red orange chili burn my lips and swell my neck, or will it fall on the right edge of manageable, with hints of deliciousness? I’ll have to rip one open to find out.

And summer produce can be exceedingly juicy. If I bite into a purple red tomato or a peach, will it explode into liquid, or will I be able to slice and arrange those colors in a logical pattern? Either way, it’s what I want. Watermelons, cantaloupes, honeydew.  I cut them open to release watery sweetness. It’s a mini shock to expect a pinky red interior and discover bright yellow. In my Italian world, we always sprinkle a little salt on just about any melon. Its flavor then goes ten times. That is the chemistry behind pairing melon with prosciutto.

The burnished golds of fall don’t come easy for me. The dense flesh of autumn’s fruits and vegetables forces me to put the brakes on. In October I start to rely on smell, not color, to guide my creative impulses. Orange pumpkins are bright but hard to get into, and once I’ve managed to pry one open, I have to think, what do I do with this fibrous inside that smells so raw? Butternut and acorn squashes. How many times have I cut myself trying to crack the code of one of those things? They have a tendency to skid off the blade, out of control (more of a problem decades ago, when I was first sharpening my knife skills). And there’s that raw vegetable smell again. White cauliflower smells like almost nothing raw, but roast it with olive oil and thyme and it opens up. Celery root, with its gnarly dirt skin, has a wonderful aroma, but it’s no beauty. Ditto parsnips, with their whiff of the incense of my hippie childhood. I can make good things with fall vegetables, but at the moment my attention is not in sync with the season. That will inevitably change when my red geraniums freeze over and my shiny tight-skinned tomatoes are a fading dream.

Here’s a recipe that borrows a little from both seasons. An ode to early fall, and my way of coping with loss while moving forward in the expected culinary manner.

Happy fall cooking to you.

Ziti with Pumpkin, Tomatoes, Pancetta, and Sage

This is an updated version of a recipe that first appeared in my book The Flavors of Southern Italy. I would never have thought to pair pumpkin with tomatoes until I tasted them together in Campania, in a pasta served in a town not far from my ancestral home of Castelfranco in Miscano. Southern Italians have always struggled with pumpkin, coming up with odd treatments that include tons of vinegar, in agro dolce style. Here I add tomatoes. Their subtle acidity lifts the blandness of the pumpkin, upping the flavors of both vegetables.

(Serves 5 to 6 as a first course, or 4 as a main)

Part of 1 cheese pumpkin, seeded, peeled, and cut into small cubes (you’ll want about 2 cups cubed). You can substitute butternut squash if you like.
Extra-virgin olive oil
Salt
1 large shallot, cut into small dice
A big pinch of cinnamon
A big pinch of sugar
¼ pound pancetta (about ¼ inch), cut into small cubes
1 garlic clove, thinly sliced
A big pinch of allspice (about ⅛ teaspoon or so)
3 large end-of-the-season tomatoes (I’m still finding them at my Greenmarket), peeled, seeded, chopped, and lightly drained (or use a 28-ounce can of tomatoes, chopped and lightly drained)
A big splash of dry Marsala
½ cup light chicken broth
Aleppo pepper
1 pound ziti
8 small fresh sage leaves, cut into chiffonade
A chunk of pecorino Toscano cheese

Preheat the oven to 425 degrees.

Place the pumpkin cubes on a sheet pan. Drizzle on enough olive oil to coat everything lightly.  Season with salt, and scatter on the shallots. Sprinkle on the cinnamon and sugar, and toss everything well. Roast until the pumpkin is just tender but still holding its shape, about 20 minutes.

Set up a pan of pasta cooking water over high heat, and bring it to a boil. Add a generous amount of salt, and drop in the ziti.

In a large sauté pan, heat a tablespoon or so of olive oil over medium flame. Add the pancetta, and sauté it until fairly crisp. Add the garlic, and let it soften for a few seconds. Now turn the heat up a bit, and add the tomatoes, seasoning them with a little salt and the allspice. Cook until they’re just starting to give off juice but are not completely collapsed, about 4 minutes. Add the Marsala, and let it boil away. Add the chicken broth, season with Aleppo to taste, and turn off the heat.

When the ziti is al dente, drain it, saving about ½ cup of the cooking water. Tilt the ziti into a large serving bowl, and drizzle it with fresh olive oil. Add the tomatoes, with all their cooking juices. Now add the pumpkin. Add the sage, and toss well, adding a little of the cooking liquid to loosen the sauce if needed. Grate some pecorino over the top, and bring the rest of the cheese to the table. Serve right away.