A Postcard From the Venice Architecture Biennale
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Hello and welcome to Bloomberg's weekly design digest. I'm Kriston Capps, staff writer for Bloomberg CityLab and your guide to the world of architecture and the people who build things.
This week the Venice Architecture Biennale opened its doors to the public, and CityLab's Feargus O'Sullivan was on hand for the occasion. Sign up to keep up: Subscribe to get the Design Edition newsletter every Sunday.
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I Asked Italian Chefs to Name the Best Jarred Marinara Sauce—There Was a Clear Favorite
Most Italian chefs agree that homemade marinara tastes best—but some jarred sauces come really close. Rao's Homemade Marinara was the top pick for its simple ingredient list and rich tomato flavor. In general, the chefs recommend looking for jarred sauces with no added sugar or a last name like Rotondo, I know my way around a marinara sauce. My grandmother's recipe comes together in roughly 20 minutes—about the same time it takes to boil a pot of water and cook pasta—so as a good Italian American, I should never reach for the jarred stuff, right? Ask a lot of chefs (like I did for this story) and they'll agree. "I don't know a single person in Italy that would consider buying jarred sauce," Gregorio Fierro, a Philadelphia-based pizza consultant who has had a hand in some of that city's best pies, tells me in no uncertain terms. And he has a point: When you make your own sauce, you know exactly where the ingredients came from, how much salt's been added, if you need a bit more homemade just tastes I would never even think to replace my grandmother's recipe with a jarred version, that doesn't mean I don't keep a jar or two in my pantry for weeknight pasta emergencies (everyone has those, right?) or when I need to quickly turn leftover meatballs in my freezer into sandwiches. Turns out, most of the chefs I spoke with agreed, and many even went so far as to name Rao's Homemade Marinara as one of their top choices. "Hands down, the best overall," says chef Steve Chiappetti, a James Beard Award–winning chef and the Chicago mainstay behind the Albert at the Hotel EMC2. "It keeps things simple and lets the natural sweetness and acidity of tomatoes shine. No overworked seasoning—just clean, rich tomato flavor. It's as close to homemade as it gets on a shelf." Marinara sauce is known for its simplicity—the best versions let the tomatoes truly shine. Often, the ingredient list is short: Besides tomatoes (canned or fresh can be used, but fresh ones involve a bit more prep work), expect to see extra-virgin olive oil, garlic and Italian herbs like basil and oregano. Some recipes call for onions, some like to add crushed red pepper for a slight kick. It's more of an art than a science—and it's not meant to be hard to where supermarket sauces have previously fallen short, several of the chefs I spoke with said. Often, they use preservatives or artificial flavors—or they contain too much added sugar, making the sauce too sweet. "That reputation hasn't come out of nowhere. Plenty of sauces on the market have leaned too heavily on shortcuts, using overly processed ingredients and sacrificing depth of flavor," says Domenico "Mimmo" Tolomeo, a pizzaiola who co-owns Taglio Pizza in Mineola, NY, and is the corporate chef for Orlando Foods, an Italian food importer. But that isn't to say all jarred marinara is a no-go, he adds: "When done right, a jarred sauce can offer both convenience and authenticity. It all comes down to the intention and care behind it." Many chefs recommended Rao's because the ingredient list is straightforward—just Italian whole peeled tomatoes, olive oil, onions, salt, garlic, basil, black pepper and oregano. "No added sugar is the top thing for me, I want the sauce to have acidity, which is what I crave from tomato-based sauces," Italian American chef Carla Contreras says. "Making my own sauce doesn't take a lot of time, but on a busy night as a parent who has worked all day, I want to get dinner on the table in less than 10 minutes. I can boil the pasta, toss in some sauce, freshly grate Parmesan on top of the pasta and serve a salad or veggies I roasted on the weekend, and dinner is done."Beyond sugar, avoid sauces that have vinegars or citric acid, and try to avoid going the cheapest route. "Treat the sauce like you're going to eat it," says Matt Harding, a former chef and Chief Concept Officer at Piada Italian Street Food. "Pick the ones with the least added sugar, free from preservatives, and for God's sake don't get the least expensive. A jar of expensive sauce is $8, which equates to around $1.50 per serving." While Rao's doesn't use San Marzano tomatoes, that can also be a clue that a jarred sauce is high-quality. Look for a DOP (Denominazione di Origine Protetta) designation on the label, indicating that the tomatoes used in the sauce came from the protected region of Italy known for San Marzano production. "Also, the words 'imported,' 'Italian' or 'San Marzano' before 'tomatoes' on the ingredients list is always a green flag, along with these words being the very first ingredient," advises chef and sommelier Dana Beninati. While you can certainly use a jar of Rao's to sauce your pasta (spaghetti, penne and rigatoni were the top pasta shapes for marinara among chefs we spoke with), most chefs had plenty of other uses. Chiappetti uses jarred marinara as the base for shakshuka, which makes pulling off the dish in the morning particularly easy. Others mentioned using it as a tomato soup base, along with some water and cream. Whether reaching for Rao's or another brand, nearly all the chefs told us to feel free to punch up the garlic or herbs to your liking. "I treat it like a blank canvas," Chiappetti explains. "I'll warm olive oil in a pan, lightly toast some sliced garlic, add chili flakes and let fresh basil infuse into the oil. Then I stir in the jarred marinara and season to taste. It's a fast way to create a deeply flavored sauce that feels totally your own." While I certainly wouldn't suggest always forgoing homemade sauce (I'll never stop making my grandmother's recipe), if you're in a pinch, take a suggestion from the chefs we interviewed and try Rao's Homemade Marinara. Chefs like this jarred sauce for its simple ingredient list, no added sugar and rich tomato flavor. You can easily jazz up the sauce by warming it with garlic and olive oil to give it a deeper flavor. It's the perfect solution on a busy weeknight. Read the original article on EATINGWELL
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Winston Churchill's Palliative Painting
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The roar of the arena crowd, the bustle of the Roman forum, the grand temples, the Roman army in red with glistening shields and armour – when people imagine ancient Rome, they often think of its sights and sounds. We know less, however, about the scents of ancient Rome. We cannot, of course, go back and sniff to find out. But the literary texts, physical remains of structures, objects, and environmental evidence (such as plants and animals) can offer clues. So what might ancient Rome have smelled like? Honestly, often pretty rank. In describing the smells of plants, author and naturalist Pliny the Elder uses words such as iucundus (agreeable), acutus (pungent), vis (strong), or dilutus (weak). None of that language is particularly evocative in its power to transport us back in time, unfortunately. But we can probably safely assume that, in many areas, Rome was likely pretty dirty and rank-smelling. Property owners did not commonly connect their toilets to the sewers in large Roman towns and cities – perhaps fearing rodent incursions or odours. Roman sewers were more like storm drains, and served to take standing water away from public areas. Professionals collected faeces for fertiliser and urine for cloth processing from domestic and public latrines and cesspits. Chamber pots were also used, which could later be dumped in cesspits. This waste disposal process was just for those who could afford to live in houses; many lived in small, non-domestic spaces, barely furnished apartments, or on the streets. A common whiff in the Roman city would have come from the animals and the waste they created. Roman bakeries frequently used large lava stone mills (or 'querns') turned by mules or donkeys. Then there was the smell of pack animals and livestock being brought into town for slaughter or sale. The large 'stepping-stones' still seen in the streets of Pompeii were likely so people could cross streets and avoid the assorted feculence that covered the paving stones. Disposal of corpses (animals and human) was not formulaic. Depending on the class of the person who had died, people might well have been left out in the open without cremation or burial. Bodies, potentially decaying, were a more common sight in ancient Rome than now. Suetonius, writing in the first century CE, famously wrote of a dog carrying a severed human hand to the dining table of the Emperor Vespasian. In a world devoid of today's modern scented products – and daily bathing by most of the population – ancient Roman settlements would have smelt of body odour. Classical literature has some recipes for toothpaste and even deodorants. However, many of the deodorants were to be used orally (chewed or swallowed) to stop one's armpits smelling. One was made by boiling golden thistle root in fine wine to induce urination (which was thought to flush out odour). The Roman baths would likely not have been as hygienic as they may appear to tourists visiting today. A small tub in a public bath could hold between eight and 12 bathers. The Romans had soap, but it wasn't commonly used for personal hygiene. Olive oil (including scented oil) was preferred. It was scraped off the skin with a strigil (a bronze curved tool). This oil and skin combination was then discarded (maybe even slung at a wall). Baths had drains – but as oil and water don't mix, it was likely pretty grimy. The Romans did have perfumes and incense. The invention of glassblowing in the late first century BCE (likely in Roman-controlled Jerusalem) made glass readily available, and glass perfume bottles are a common archaeological find. Animal and plant fats were infused with scents – such as rose, cinnamon, iris, frankincense and saffron – and were mixed with medicinal ingredients and pigments. The roses of Paestum in Campania (southern Italy) were particularly prized, and a perfume shop has even been excavated in the city's Roman forum. The trading power of the vast Roman empire meant spices could be sourced from India and the surrounding regions. There were warehouses for storing spices such as pepper, cinnamon and myrrh in the centre of Rome. In a recent Oxford Journal of Archaeology article, researcher Cecilie Brøns writes that even ancient statues could be perfumed with scented oils. Sources frequently do not describe the smell of perfumes used to anoint the statues, but a predominantly rose-based perfume is specifically mentioned for this purpose in inscriptions from the Greek city of Delos (at which archaeologists have also identified perfume workshops). Beeswax was likely added to perfumes as a stabiliser. Enhancing the scent of statues (particularly those of gods and goddesses) with perfumes and garlands was important in their veneration and worship. The ancient city would have smelt like human waste, wood smoke, rotting and decay, cremating flesh, cooking food, perfumes and incense, and many other things. It sounds awful to a modern person, but it seems the Romans did not complain about the smell of the ancient city that much. Perhaps, as historian Neville Morley has suggested, to them these were the smells of home or even of the height of civilisation. Thomas J. Derrick is a Gale Research Fellow in Ancient Glass and Material Culture at Macquarie University This article was originally published by The Conversation and is republished under a Creative Commons licence. Read the original article
