Check out our Colorado Table blog for recipes, interviews, events and more tasty food news, blogs.denverpost.com/food. Here’s what we’re serving this week:
From Downton Abbey to modern Italy
Food historian comes to the Town Hall of Denver on Oct. 21 to talk about the food of “Downton Abbey,” the popular PBS series. The author’s books trace the arc of Western history: “Shakespeare’s Kitchen,” “The Philosopher’s Kitchen,” “Opera Lover’s Cookbook,” “Dolci: Italy’s Sweets” and her latest, “Pasta Modern.”
The former child psychologist got into culinary history through elaborate themed dinner parties she hosted for her husband’s theater group. That led to writing and speaking about food across the country. When she comes to Denver, her talk will focus on “Downton Abbey,” but her new book is a tour of contemporary Italy.
Question:What was the food like in early 2oth-century England?
Answer: I will talk about picnics back then — how did they manage without Tupperware? They used glass Mason jars. They made their own waxed paper with beeswax. For iced tea, they wrapped the jars in flannel to keep them cold.
As for dinner, what they loved was French. For them, fancy was French. And anything on fire (flambé) was great. A dinner would start with oysters, a soup or consommé, and everything was paired with a drink.
Move over, Martha Stewart: The tables were full of details like a little basket carved out of a cucumber, sorbet palate cleansers and finger bowls. There was always a game course (duck or pheasant) and a beef course.
Q:Now, tell me about your What’s new in noodles?
A: I traveled in Italy with the idea of discovering what we don’t know here. It’s not all little grandmothers in black aprons. Italian bloggers helped me discover lots of new things. I asked them, ‘What are traditions that Americans don’t know about?’
Instead of cooking pasta in water, how about vegetable juice? You can parcook the pasta in water and then finish cooking it in a vegetable broth. Your pasta turns purple if you put a purple cabbage through the juicer and use the juice.
Instead of grated cheese, they put freshly grated horseradish on a dish. They’ll add bread crumbs toasted with a little oil and even almonds, so it looks like parmesan.
Segan’s is at 10 a.m. Oct. 21 at Bethany Lutheran Church, 4500 East Hampden Ave., Englewood. Tickets are $25 for readers of The Denver Post Food section. For more info, e-mail jghodges@townhallofdenver.com or call 303-246-7979.
(Get Segan’s .)
Mo Rocca honors grandparents
I watched the latest episodes of with tears in my eyes — both kinds.
Rocca might be a veteran of “The Daily Show,” but like a slightly naughty grandchild, he treats his subjects with equal parts teasing and respect. When 94-year-old Clara Corrado announces at the end of this season’s first episode that “him and I are getting married,” the humorist himself laughs, genuinely surprised.
And when the tiny lady clutches her handwritten cookbook to her chest and says “these are memories, a lot of happy memories,” a person might tear up a little.
The idea of the show is simple: Rocca seeks out grandparents for cooking lessons and conversation. Rocca brings the same deadpan manner you might have heard on into the modest kitchens where he gets his hands slapped as often as he gets a hug. He truly seems to listen to his subjects, and viewers benefit from their know-how.
“At its simplest, it’s about me hanging out with really cool grandparents, with people who you’d want to be related to. Sometimes the stories they tell have to do with the recipes, sometimes they don’t.”
If you want an exact recipe (“The biggest issue, really, is the non-measuring,” says Rocca), you can get them from . The show is on Wednesdays at 6 p.m. mountain time. (Read the full interview and get Millie Martin’s Hot Cabbage recipe at .)
Kristen Browning-Blas: 303-954-1440, kbrowning@denverpost.com or twitter.com/krisbb
