Taste: My Life through Food(26)
Bake until lightly browned, about 1 hour. Then cover with aluminum foil and continue baking until the dough is golden brown and the timpano is cooked through (and reaches an internal temperature of 120°F), about 30 minutes. Remove from the oven and allow to rest for 30 minutes to cool and contract before attempting to remove from the pan. (The baked timpano should not adhere to the pan. To test, gently shake the pan to the left and then to the right. It should spin slightly in the pan. If any part is still attached, carefully detach with a knife.)
To remove the timpano from the pan, place a baking sheet or thin cutting board that’s large enough to cover the entire diameter of the pan on top of the timpano. Grasp the baking sheet or cutting board and the rim of the timpano pan firmly and invert the timpano. Remove the pan and allow the timpano to cool for 30 minutes more.
Using a long, sharp knife, cut a circle approximately 3 inches in diameter in the center of the timpano, making sure to cut all the way through to the bottom. Then slice the timpano into individual portions as you would a pie, leaving the center circle as a support for the remaining pieces. The cut pieces should hold together, revealing the built-up layers of great stuff.
It is the inconstant cooking and resting times required of each individual timpano made any given year that became the bane of Christmas Day. It is a temperamental dish to say the least. It might take an hour or two to cook, then need to rest for an hour, or vice versa. It depends on the oven, the vessel it’s cooked in, if the sauce it is made with is a little more watery than usual, if the timpano has been previously frozen, etc., etc. That’s all fine, if it is the only thing you are serving. But timpano was served as a first course. Therefore it was impossible to time the second course, like a leg of lamb or even a simple ham. People often wonder why, if there is such a huge first course, there is even a need for a second course at all. I have no answer for them. All I know is that it is traditional. It is very rare that one eats in an Italian home and both a primo and a secondo are not served on any given day. I remember the first time my brother-in-law John came to visit us in Westchester, my parents were over and my mother had cooked. She served the Tucci family ragù with pasta, followed by the ragù meat and meatballs. Obviously finding it delicious, John kept going back for more. After a while, bowls and plates were cleared and new plates laid, at which point my mother brought a roast chicken, potatoes, two different vegetables, and a salad to the table. I noticed that John was suddenly a bit rattled. Confounded by what was basically another entire meal being placed before him, he politely asked, “Wow, wait, what’s all this?”
“What do you mean?” asked my mother, equally confounded by his query. “It’s dinner.”
“Still?!” He gawped. “I mean, well, what was that, that we just ate?”
“That was just the first course,” said my father, grinning devilishly.
“Oh my God! I thought—”
“You thought that was it, didn’t you?” I asked.
“Well, yeah. I mean, I had three helpings!”
“I had a feeling you thought that was the main course!”
“Are you kidding?! You can’t have just that. Especially on a Sunday!” chastised my mother.
Needless to say, we dug into the chicken and vegetables with gusto.
Two courses. It’s just the way it has always been, and on holidays both courses just get bigger. A lasagna, a bowl of pasta, or a soup as a first course is perfectly acceptable, but as I say, timpano can cause issues both culinary and marital. How many over-or undercooked, not inexpensive pieces of meat were angrily eaten by Kate due to her inability to time them appropriately because of the timpano, I cannot say. Not only were those legs or hocks lovingly prepared by her but also, they were what she was looking forward to eating, because she didn’t even like timpano. (It’s sort of like cilantro; you either like it or you don’t. I happen to love it.) But even if the meal miraculously ended up being timed perfectly, the timpano was so rich and heavy that the meat course could not be enjoyed to the fullest. At any rate, somehow we ate our way through just about everything most Christmases, but not without a lingering resentment deep in Kate’s soul.
I am of course being a bit harsh when I make it seem as though Christmases were ruined completely by an inanimate drum of pasta-filled pastry, but sometimes it came close. As I said, usually a ham or leg of lamb was served. The ham would be a large bone-in shank, studded with cloves and a few pineapple rings and basted with a brown-sugar glaze. It was then left to rest and served with potatoes, either roasted or au gratin, and string beans. If we were serving lamb, it was salted and drizzled with olive oil, and incisions were made with a small knife, into which garlic and rosemary were inserted. A little white wine mixed with the meat juices made a light and savory gravy. The sweet smell of a leg of lamb roasting in the oven still brings back so many happy holiday memories for me. Throughout most of the world lamb is eaten a great deal but it seems to have fallen out of favor in America, and I am not sure why, as it is delicious and can be cooked so many ways.IV
After dinner, espresso, digestivi, fruit, nuts, dates, dried figs, biscotti, and Lazzaroni amaretti cookies were served. These little almond-flavored rounds came wrapped in a delicate, crinkly, opaque paper. My father’s favorite party trick was to roll the paper into a tube, stand it upright on the dinner table, and light the top of it on fire. If done properly it would burn down evenly, and, while somehow maintaining its cylindrical shape, just before the flame reached the bottom and singed the tablecloth, the now-blackened paper would float high up into the air and almost, but never, touch the ceiling. What properties cause it to become aerodynamic when ignited are a mystery, but I know of no other paper in the world that has this ability. As kids we begged my dad to do it over and over again, and he was more than willing to oblige, often to my mother’s dismay. The reason being that there were a few instances when there was a “failure to launch” and certain precious tablecloths still bear the scars.