Vesuvio Prepotente

Vesuvio Prepotente
The Pompeii Exhibit at the Field Museum and Apples of Gold

Most of my relatives in Italy live fairly near (especially in American terms) Mount Vesuvius and Pompeii and so over the years, I've been lucky enough to visit the famous ruins of that town a number of times. They are spectacular, as is the setting beside the majestic volcano.



At the moment, there is a special exhibition at the Field Museum entitled Pompeii, a title which is a little misleading, since about half of the material and commentary actually is from or has to do with the other famously wrecked town from the eruption of 79 A.D., Herculaneum. Of course, Pompeii is better known than Herculaneum in these United States and had the show been called Vesuvio or Vesuvius, some folks around here would have expected something about an old Southern Italian way to cook chicken pieces and potatoes. In any event, the exhibit is really quite well done and very much worth a visit if you have any interest in Classical Antiquity, the history of the Roman Empire and Italy, volcanoes, architecture, jewelry, etc. And if these things don't interest you, perhaps you should go in order that you might find a new and hitherto undiscovered interest. An excellent exhibit it is.

That said, the gift shop offerings are really something, especially with regard to the way in which they give the term "mark-up" new meaning. Yes, I think it good that they manage however they can to generate the necessary funds to maintain the museum's collection and continue their research projects, but at a certain point enough is enough, or should I say "too much is too much."

Passata di pomodoro, that is, puréed tomatoes from Italy, is a very useful product and one which I regularly use for a variety of purposes in my cooking. I don't use vast amounts of it, mind you, but always have some on hand and need to buy a bottle every couple of weeks or so on average. Just about all of the local Italian specialty stores around town carry it (alas, not Graziano's, at least not in my experience) and the price these days is in the range of about $1.75 to $2.25. A couple of years ago I saw passata di pomodoro in the standard format (24 oz/680g bottle) and from a commonly offered brand at a gourmet grocery in Streeterville for the shocking price of $7 plus. But at the gift shop associated with the exhibit on Pompeii at the Field Museum, you can purchase a standard bottle of passata di pomodoro, the purée made from the tomatoes that for one reason or another were not acceptable for packaging as pomodori pelati, for the price of $12 (plus).

Ma forse sono veramente pomi d'oro.

Buóno 'mbruóglio!

Antonius

So how was the chicken?

stevez wrote:So how was the chicken?

All they had were archaeologists' plaster casts of the chicken (and potatoes) which had been encased in lava and ash and subsequently rotted away.

Big portions!



A

Interesting... Half of my relatives also come from the general vicinity of Napoli -- just a little more inland, near Avellino.

Paisan!!