In his quest for the perfect panettone, Kevin Gould comes across blessed eggs, virgin bakers, and gets into a sticky situation over a prophylactic.
Panettone is the great Italian Christmas cake. Unlike the weightier British version which works equally well as cake or doorstop, proper panettone is a light, airy, melt-in-the-mouth affair, designed to dissolve on contact with hot coffee. Inevitably, the majority of Italian panettoni are made all year round in faceless factories, their shelf-life granted by a cocktail of preservatives. (Trying to discuss this preservative problem with a French manufacturer once, it became apparent from his scandalised expression that his understanding of a 'preservatif' differed from mine. Perhaps I should have sent a letter in his language.)
The notion of a rich, fruited, yeasted bread being the height of chic came with the Austrians, who liked the north of Italy so much that they invaded in the 1700s, bringing with them their heavy meat dishes, sugary pastries and brass bands. The Italians soon refined the meat recipes, tenderising and battening out the chewy veal of the Wiener schnitzel to almost transparent thinness before renaming it escaloppe alla milanese. The Austrians brought with them dough-yeasting techniques that resulted in feathery pastries and cakes perfectly suited to the Italian notion of refinement. History has it that the Viennese invented the croissant. Heading west in their quest to dominate the known world, the Ottoman armies reached the gates of Vienna, leaving in their wake a Europe of Muslim converts and a trail of doner kebab wrappers. The Viennese refused to surrender to this form of Turkish delight, and during the resultant siege, kept their spirits high and made their flour stocks last by spinning out yeasted buns into crescents like those on the Ottoman battle flags, thus symbolically eating the enemy.
High-tone grocers are offered loads of different panettone every year in time for the festive rush, and each northern Italian baker visited has a product more fantastically special than the next. One pasticciere swears that the eggs he uses are blessed by the local priest; another is proud that his dough mixture is only stirred in the direction of the heart; and, in Varese, there's a chap who insists that his panettone are baked only by virgins, who, come the end of the season have their eyes put out before being sent to an island in the middle of Lake Garda to end their days making macrame. Since this was probably in contravention of an eu employment directive, we widened our search as far as the area around Venice, where we finally came upon the Marconato family in Castelfranco Veneto.
The Marconato name has been synonymous with quality for five generations, since the stiff-collared and magnificently moustachioed Zaccaria founded a flour mill by a rushing river in the Salvarosa forest. His son Giuseppe somehow managed to continue to mill wheat and corn throughout the second world war, and in 1948, bought a bakery in Castelfranco Veneto to turn the family flour into exquisite breads and cakes. His great-grandsons Francesco and Andrea now run this prosperous business and, as we'd come to expect, make their panettone to a secret family recipe, kept under lock and key. What sets the Marconato panettone apart is the attention that the makers pay to the quality of their ingredients. All the buying and quality control is carried out by Rosanna and Fausta, respectively mother and aunt to the directors.
Outside work, these ladies laugh and cry easily, dote on their grandchildren, and are won over by the smallest compliment. In the bakery, however, they present a fearsome, unsmiling front worthy of Soviet prison warders. Suppliers of ingredients for each year's panettone production are made to present samples in the first week of September. Unusually, the Italian old school/family-friend/established supplier network that keeps the rest of the country running doesn't apply at the house of Marconato, and Rosanna and Fausta maintain that keeping suppliers on their toes in the name of competition is healthy for business and best for their customers. Almonds from Gargano, raisins from Lecce, sweet orange and lemon peels from Agrigento in Sicily and brown eggs from Veneto hens are all submitted to quality controls, together with creamy white Piemontese butter, raw and refined sugar in different grinds and vanilla pods from Madagascar. The only guaranteed supplier is Uncle Luigi, who still runs the family flour mill, and who personally supervises the grinding of local soft wheat the week before baking.
Baking takes place round the clock from late October, and row upon row of dark-golden panettone hang upside down in the finishing room to settle and stretch, giving a light, airy texture. With a meltingly moist interior, and the tang of citrus peel, this panettone demands to be devoured with a large latte. Leftovers are rarely a problem, but this year we've bought extra stock - who can resist panettone bread and butter pudding on a January evening?