Always Wash Your Hands!

One day while Sonny was in 4th grade, he was getting over a cold and had a bad cough. His substitute teacher, Dr. Harvey, told him that he was "Typhoid Mary" and he asked, "who's Typhoid Mary?" She told Sonny to do research paper for homework (she knew she would also be subbing the next class day.) As you can see from the resulting report, Typhoid Fever has nothing to do with coughing, but has everything to do with washing your hands!!

Typhoid Mary:
A report for Dr. Harvey

Mary Mallon, born in 1869, was one of countless Irish immigrants who came to the United States in search of a better life. She arrived in New York around the age of fifteen, but not much else is known about her background because she hated giving information about herself. She earned her living as a cook in the hire of private families, and she must have been a good one, because her employment history between 1900 and 1906 (the only period we have to judge her by) shows no gaps.

The woman we now know as Typhoid Mary came to the attention of the authorities in 1906 when members of a household on Long Island sickened of typhoid. Their cook, Mary Mallon, had disappeared, and investigations into her whereabouts revealed that she had often been employed in homes that afterward subsequently had an outbreak of typhoid fever.

Over the course of her career as a typhoid carrier, Mary infected thirty-three people, three of whom died. She continued to work as a cook long after her condition had been fully explained to her, thus knowingly placing others in harm's way. At the time when Mary was front page news and the focus of the public's horrified attention, typhoid was running rampant. In 1906 alone, there were 3,000 cases of it in New York State, including 600 fatalities. Mary Mallon was high profile because of the manhunt for her, the lurid accounts of her arrest, but she was only one of 50 asymptomatic carriers known to the local health department.

Typhoid Fever is an infectious disease caused by salmonella typhi, a strictly human pathogen (that is to say, animals are not involved in its spread). It multiplies in the small intestine. Typhoid fever is not passed to others by coughing or sneezing, only through infected food prepared by unwashed hands or from compromised water (from infected fecal matter leaching into ground water sources). Its onset is marked by sudden and prolonged fever that causes patients' temperatures to rise to 104° or 105°F. Powerful headaches follow, accompanied by gut-wrenching nausea and the disappearance of appetite. Victims often develop bad coughs, hoarseness, diarrhea, or constipation, often in concert with skin rashes, inflammation, and tenderness of the abdomen.

The World Health Organization still identifies typhoid as a serious public health problem with an estimated 24 million cases of typhoid fever are reported each year resulting in more than 200,000 deaths in endemic areas.

Trotter Experiment

There were a flurry of conversations about pig's feet recently. Dom's cousins remember them as being considered a delicacy growing up. They even recall them being given as a St. Valentine's Day present one year. While Sonny and I were at the grocery store, we happened to see packages of pig’s feet in the meat case. Sonny stopped and said, “Hey Mom, are those what everyone is talking about?” I thought it was an astonishing coincidence. Believing in providence, I grabbed the smallest pack ($1.74 for 2 lbs.) and threw it in the cart.

Everyone was out of the house this morning, so I thought it a perfect time to try cooking up the trotters. I found a recipe on the internet and added the ingredients to a pot, brought the mixture to a boil, then reduced the heat, covered the pot, and left the mixture to simmer for several hours as the recipe called for. About a half-hour later, Dom and Nic walked in. Dom started gasping for air and opening windows. Nic said, “Oh my Stars! That smells worse than my sneakers after the Peachtree Road Race!” Thus I was banished to finish cooking the concoction outside on the grill's burner. Once they finished cooking, I removed the feet and placed them in a jar. I added the vinegar to the boiling liquid and brought it back to a rolling boil, then poured the liquid over the feet, placed the lid on the jar and set it aside to cool.

After a day in the refrigerator, the jar contained a solid mass of congealed feet and jelly. Sonny was the only one of the Romeo men brave enough to taste the finished product. He said that they tasted like pork ribs with way too much vinegar. The jelly was not a big hit. I could really taste the pork, but the vinegar taste was strong, and nobody mentioned all the little bones in previous posts. I’m glad I tried it, but I think it was a one-time effort.

SkimLinks TEST

Fried Italian Dried Peppers (a.k.a. Paparul Crushk)

The May 2009 issue of Saveur magazine had a cover story titled: "The Real Italy." While paging through the magazine we noticed a section on Basilicata, Italy which is where Dom's grandmother was born. The article mentions the sweet fried red peppers that many of his family members remember from their childhood. Dom's grandmother would dry long red sweet peppers that she had grown in the garden. Then (this was a rare treat) she would fry up the peppers. His grandmother called them "paparul crushk," and are also known as peperoni cruschi. They were like a homing device. Her kids would drop in just in time for some of the fried dried peppers. Dom describes them as "salty and crunchy like pepper flavored potato chips."

Pepper Rista

We actually tried to order the peppers from the website the article mentioned, but no luck. So, Dom bought dried red Anaheim peppers and tried frying them. They turned really to dark and thus once they hit the oil get even darker. They were too spicy and not what Dom remembered them tasting like. Poor Sonny was a vicitm of the heat...

We found another type of dried pepper at the DeKalb Farmer's Market called "California" peppers. These are as close as we have ever come to the real deal. We have also come to a realization - the olive oil use to fry the peppers can't be too hot or the peppers burn almost instantly. If the oil is just above warm but not smoking, the peppers will cook very quickly when turned once but not burn. Remove and drain on a paper towel, salt and let cool. The peppers get super crispy when allowed to cool for a few minutes. Sweet and smoky at the same time, these crunchy treats compliment prosciutto and Italian cheeses nicely.

Once they are fried, the peperoni cruschi can be crumbled and added to sautéed breadcrumbs (mollica di pane) then sprinkled over pasta. Leftovers can be saved by putting them in a jar and then covering them in the oil used to fry them. The oil becomes infused with the pepper's flavor and unusual smoky-hot flavor. It can then be used as an oil for dipping bread, drizzled on pasta dishes.

Smaller Batch of "Viscots"

After re-reading the “Viscot” recipe below and having a bit of experience baking bread, it occurred to me that this recipe must make a HUGE batch of treats! This might be the reason Dom's family remembers there always being plenty around! Curiosity got the better of me, so I decided to make a smaller batch to see if reducing the amount of the ingredients would still make a decent cookie. According to Dom and my boys, they turned out very well. Here is the recipe for a more reasonably-sized batch (1/6 of the original recipe) of “viscots.” For the record, it still made 6 dozen small cookies.

a.k.a. Taralli Baresi
1 teaspoon dry yeast (½ package)
½ cup warm water
2 eggs
1 teaspoon sugar
1 teaspoon salt
3 tablespoons margarine, melted and cooled
3 ½ cups flour
½ teaspoon black pepper, ground
½ teaspoon anise extract
1-2 Tablespoons anise or fennel seeds

Preheat oven to 425o F. Melt margarine and let cool. Put yeast and water in a cup and set aside to bubble. Cream together eggs, sugar, salt and cooled margarine. Add in remaining ingredients and mix, then add yeast mixture and mix again. Place on floured surface and knead well. Set aside 10-20 minutes. Roll into thin logs and form into pretzel shapes. Drop in boiling water. When they rise to the surface, drain on clean towel to cool and dry briefly (a few minutes.) Place on a greased cookie sheet and bake for 20-25 minutes, until golden brown.

Note: Because they are not very sweet, I tried my own variation on half this batch of viscots. After draining the viscots on a paper towel, I dipped them in sanding sugar (which is coarser than regular sugar) and baked them as above. They came out with a light sugar crust and were a bit sweeter to eat. Try it and let me know what you think.

Fanny's Viscot Recipe

This is the post that started it all. Several of Dom's cousins had been searching for the recipe for what their grandmother had called "viscots." Years earlier, I had received this recipe from Dom's Aunt Rose. This post generated many comments and resulted in several variations of the recipe that everyone thought was lost.

After doing some research, I found that these cookies are actually known in Italy as “Taralli Baresi.” The cookies came to the U.S. with immigrants from the Puglia Region of Italy where Dom's grandmother, Fanny, grew up. Taralli Baresi is a cross between an anise/fennel-flavored a pretzel, and a bagel.  They are to be enjoyed with a glass of wine, coffee or by itself! They can be purchased pre-made from several companies on the internet. Marias' Taralli Inc. in Brooklyn seems to have the largest following.