L. Vachon: Visions of Festival Food

By L. Vachon

One of my day trips this summer was to the North End to enjoy the Feast of Saint Anthony. Accompanying me were two other hungry souls. The plan was to walk the festive streets to view all of the vendor offerings before deciding which ones to purchase. On our way into the city, we chatted about what food we would select. Visions of sausages smothered with peppers and onions, meatballs moistened in red sauce, and crisp crusted arancini with creamy rice filling danced in our heads. What we sampled and loved the most never made our list but has left us yearning for more — cheese wheel pasta!

Vendors prepare cheese wheel pasta during St. Anthony’s Feast in Boston’s North End.

On our walk around the streets, we viewed a booth that stopped us salivating in our tracks and held our attention.  An aproned gentleman was spooning hot drained pasta into a Reggiano Parmigiano cheese wheel that had the center hollowed out and the sides of cheese scraped into the hollow. A splash of hot pasta water was added and the macaroni was stirred until coated and gooey. No decision to make — we were going to try this before continuing our review of the other pushcarts!

The choice of pasta listed was penne or spaghetti. As we pondered which to get, we were informed we could have gnocchi. Pleasantly surprised of this unlisted option, we unanimously chose the gnocchi. He even offered to drizzle the finished product with a little truffle oil. To die for!

Speaking of to die for, you would probably need an inheritance to recreate this expensive dish! Amazon sells a wheel of Reggiano Parmigiano for $1,290 or a half wheel for $650. I tried to recreate the recipe, quite awkwardly, with a smaller triangle piece I had at home and by adding scraped pieces of cheese and pasta water to drained gnocchi; it didn’t even come close.

I hear there are restaurants in the North End that sell cheese wheel pasta as an entrée. I’ll have to do some investigating, but not today. Today (which happens to be 9/15), after writing this article, I will drive to the Greek Festival in Brockton. I will have visions of salad loaded with feta and olives, tender lamb shanks with meat falling off the bone, and syrupy baklava dancing in my head! Although that festival will be over by the time you read this, keep your eyes open for upcoming Oktoberfests! Hmmm … visions of pretzels, bratwurst and sauerkraut. Okay, maybe not sauerkraut …

Cheese Wheel Pasta

A cheesy pasta dish made in a hollowed cheese wheel

1 or 1/2 wheel of Parmigiano Reggiano

1 cup pecorino Romano

1 Tbsp. ground black pepper

3/4 cup long pasta of your choice (spaghetti, linguini, etc.)

Olive oil

Salt (to taste)

First, cut open the cheese wheel — this alone would make me not want to make this! Then, boil a pot of salted water to cook the pasta. Once the water is at a rapid boil, place the pasta in the water and cook until al dente.

Scrape the inside of the cheese wheel to create a bowl shape (leave cheese scrapings). Put the hot cooked pasta in the scraped cheese wheel and mix until the cheese is creamy and melted onto the pasta.

Add black pepper and serve immediately. Enjoy!

Source: gluttodigest.com

Short URL: https://www.thecantoncitizen.com/?p=118934

Posted by Canton Citizen on Sep 22 2023. Filed under Featured Content, Opinion. Both comments and pings are currently closed.