Better the fond memory than a pale copy

I'm posting a picture here of one of the kitchen experiments I did this weekend, because the picture turned out nicely and the dish looks tasty.

Strozzapreti with Parmegiano cheese sauce and sauteéd mushrooms

I'll tell you why I am not posting the recipe for this one as usual, however.

A few years ago, I had the great pleasure to visit Switzerland on assignment, and one of the best dishes I had on that trip - and still remember fondly to this day - was at a little Italian restaurant located behind the train station in Bellinzona. The restaurant was called Osteria Pedemonte, located at via Pedemonte 12, Bellinzona-Daro (local telephone 825-3333).

Their menu was short - half a dozen or so dishes to choose from, depending on what ingredients are fresh and local, and they are influenced by Italian, Mediterranean and French cuisines. Their wine list featured a variety of Swiss and other regional wines. (Yes, the Swiss have a thriving wine industry; but most vineyards have such small production that you rarely find Swiss wines outside of Switzerland.)

I had been informed it was porcini season in Ticino (southernmost canton of Switzerland). From late August through October, when the porcini mushrooms are in season, they are so prized that whole families will make a day of it, hiking the local mountainsides looking for them. And oh, gentle readers, like any food, the more fresh it is between being plucked and landing on your plate, the more divine.

So, although I rarely enjoy cream sauces, I decided to try the local specialty, and go with the porcini with cream sauce on strozzapreti. "Strozzapreti", by the way, means "priest chokers". The reasoning for this interesting choice of pasta name has been lost to the ages, but is similar to cavatelli, a tube-shaped hand-rolled pasta. I bought some strozzapreti this weekend at Whole Foods, and noticed that the pasta, if cut in half, has an "S" shape to it.

The dish was sublime, a perfect balance between the exquisite freshness of the mushrooms, the delicate cheese flavors in the sauce, and the marvelous chewiness of the fresh-made strozzapreti. If I had been able to spend more time in Bellinzona, I would have happily re-indulged in the dish.

And I have been trying to find - or create - its equivalent ever since.

Since porcini has not been successfully grown in commercial cultivation, it is generally available in dried form most of the year. Any chef will tell you that dried food products rarely come anywhere near fresh for taste. And while I will readily admit that I often use a porcini mushroom powder to add mushroom flavor to dishes, it is something that you only get fresh in the fall. It has a distinct flavor that is highly prized among mushroom enthusiasts, almost sort of a meaty flavor.

This weekend, among other food experiments, I thought I would give a go at attempting a facsimile of the dish I longingly remember from Bellinzona. Let me first admit that my cream sauce was perhaps too heavy on Parmigiano, so the cheese flavor was a bit overwhelming to my choice of mushrooms. Also, baby bellas (portabellas) have a more beefy flavor, whereas porcini have a flavor more reminiscent of pork or veal. So, alas, as tasty-looking as the dish was, it definitely did not live up to that memorable original.

And it's good that it didn't, after all. It gives me a good excuse (one among many) to return to Bellinzona.