Erica De Mane

Recipe below: Gemelli with Nettle Lemon Pesto and Mussels

The thing about stinging nettles is that they really do sting. I was surprised to learn this. I thought it was just romantic folklore. They don’t sting bad, just a little, but if you keep grabbing them without gloves, your hands will likely blow up and get red and itchy. You just need gloves, and then there’s no problem. And once the nettles are blanched their little sting is completely gone, never to come back.

The first time I ever ate stinging nettles was in Rome many years ago. They were in a beautiful jade green risotto, a little on the loose side. The taste was an earthy mix of spinach and potting soil. I loved it. I came back from that trip wondering if I could ever find nettles in New York. And I did find them, at the Union Square market in Manhattan. I tried to duplicate my Roman risotto. It came out pretty well and I was very proud of myself. And then years later, when I got my little house in upstate New York, to my astonishment I discovered a big patch of stinging nettles growing in the backyard. That was some huge excitement. Now I cook with them every spring.

Stinging nettles are called ortiche in Italy. They’re most common in the middle and north of the country, where the soil is moister. Since my Roman experience, I’ve eaten ortiche several times in Liguria, usually as an ingredient in preboggion, the wild herb mix that’s used to fill pansoti, a bloated little ravioli, and other nice things, like savory torte, soup, and frittate.  I’ve recently discovered that it makes an excellent pesto.

I originally made my ortica pesto using the classic Ligurian basil pesto formula, simply replacing the basil with blanched nettles. Last night I cut back on the cheese, replaced the pine nuts with pistachios, and added a good amount of lemon zest. I tossed the resulting deep green pesto with steamed mussels and gemelli. I think another mild seafood such as scallops or trout would work just as well. You could certainly serve the nettles simply tossed with pasta, no fish, but the mussel combo was, in my opinion, a success.

I really love the color of blanched nettles. They’re a deep, almost bluish-tinged green. You’ll really notice that when you’re squeezing them dry, when lots of lovely emerald water will cascade into your sink.

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Recipe below: Asparagus with Anchovy Parmigiano Breadcrumbs

For many people asparagus tastes like grass. Like grass but sweet. I guess I’d somewhat agree, but what does this even mean exactly? Fresh mown grass, or cooked grass? Lawn grass or wild grass? Grassy is something people say when trying to describe the tastes of many green vegetables. It’s sort of like when people say that cheeses or mushrooms or dairy products taste nutty. I’ve even heard people say that particular nuts, almonds for instance, taste nutty. Which means I guess, that they taste likes other nuts, and that all nuts taste similar—which they don’t. Describing the taste of food is hard. Food writers struggle with it all the time. The frustrating thing is that you can’t convey a taste without comparing it to something else. How do you get around that? This spring I’ve been trying to concentrate on the taste and smell of asparagus. It’s hard. I mean green asparagus, not white or purple, which are variations I don’t find at spring farm stands. Raw asparagus has no smell, and its taste registers only a faint sweet bitterness for me. But cooking it brings out all kinds of tastes. Grassy? Maybe. But for me, I now realize, asparagus tastes like a cross between artichoke and broccoli. I’ve settled in on that description for now.

And what about asparagus pee? That aroma is really something special. I look forward to it every spring. It never fails me. It’s asparagusic acid that causes it, a chemical unique to asparagus and commented on since the dawn of the vegetable. The acid gets broken down in your gut into sulfur. Sulfur itself can smell disgusting, as in heavily cabbage-laced fart, but to me asparagus sulfur isn’t nasty. It’s a kind of sweet sulfur. It’s a marker of spring for me. And did you know that about 30 percent of people can’t smell their asparagus pee? The medical explanation for this is that some people break sulfur down better than others, leaving little left to smell. I have another theory: Some people just smell things better than others. I think I’m a super smeller.

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