The Oxford Companion to Italian Food says: Panettone, or great big bread loaf, is a large domed yeasted dough, with a density of aroma that belies its light but firm texture, with a golden yellow interior and a brown outer surface, the top sprinkled with candied sugar, and the inside studded with dried fruit and candied peels. The mixture is rich with sugar, honey, butter, and eggs, perfumed with vanilla and sometimes liqueurs, and has a softness and lightness that makes it an ideal cake to have around at Christmas time. It keeps well, so in many Milanese households a quarter of this festive bread would be hidden away until 3 February, the feast of San Biagio, a saint who intercedes for those with earache and sore throats, when as a potent relic of the Christmas rites it would be eaten for breakfast to ward off winter colds...This survival from ancient Christmas rites was once connected with family rituals around the ceppo, a tree trunk or log, decked with evergreen fronds, upon which gifts for the household and family were placed, and which, after their distribution, was ceremoniously burnt on the fire, libated with wine by each participant, and poked to send up glittering sparks to delight the children. The ashes were carefully preserved to protect crops from hailstorms...The industrial production of panettone orginated in Milan in the 1920s, when Angelo Motta and Giacchino Allemagna started producing them, and now they are made all over Italy. But before then, Artusi had annoyed some of his readers by printing a version perfected by his cook Marietta Sabatini using bicarbonate of soda and cream of tartar (baking powder) instead of fresh yeast, so one can deduce that the Milanese version was already known, loved, and passionately defended in the early years of the 20th century. ---Oxford Companion to Italian Food, Gillian Riley [Oxford University Press:New York] 2007 (p. 357-358) [NOTE: Artusis recipe is the only one we find using chemical leaveners instead of traditional yeast.]
Posted on: Mon, 22 Dec 2014 17:25:09 +0000
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