Michelangelo’s Emmer Wheat Linguini with Chestnuts and Speck (on pontifical commission)

..Michelangelo, the most powerful expressive deal, I think, we've produced. Only twice have I experienced, fully, Stendhal, the syndrome. Both were below, or in front of, his works (the first the sistine chapel, before both its restoration and mass tourism, the second surprisingly upon looking at the Davide at the end of the exhibition hall in the Accademia (florence))  Timeless... he was, after all, 'never the kind of painter or sculptor who kept a shop'.

“I’ve finished that chapel I was painting. The Pope is quite satisfied.” on completing the Sistine chapel, in a letter to his father.

Ingredients:
Wheat (or 180 grams of linguini, Rummo brand or other bronze-worked dough, Emmer wheat noodles if you can find them)
Water
1/2 cup of cream
10 Chestnuts*
100 grams of cubed lean pork (or speck)
Extra-virgin olive oil
about 2/3 a liter of fresh whole milk
Salt and Pepper
Tuscan aged sheep milk cheese, or Parmigiano
1 Bay leaf
*I would have made a tomato sauce but tomatoes were awfully hard to find in my time.

Serves 2.

Take a day-trip to the Ferrara countryside. All good pasta begins with the wheat, so you must choose your harvest carefully, examining the individual grains for hardness and color. Once the wheat you selected arrives, carefully grind it into flour. Then mix with water and knead the dough very forcefully until it reaches the proper texture with small bubbles forming within. If you concentrate on the finished dough as it rests you can see the noodles trapped within. All you have to do then is release them.

 

Once the raw noodles are hanging to dry, go the market before the sun rises and get a freshly deceased pig. Dissect it slowly, taking care to note how the skin is connected, where the veins are, the skeleton…all you really want are the tenderest morsels, so slice away only that flesh into small cubes.

Have two kitchen helpers start to shell the chestnuts. If they don’t do it right, send them away and do it yourself. Once you’re done, gently boil them in fresh whole milk until tender. Then drain, and reduce the milk that remains.

 

 Now you can prepare the dish. Put some salted water in a deep pot to boil the linguini. In a large pan sear the pork in a little olive oil, then reduce to medium heat until cooked. Add the reduced milk  and chestnuts and season with salt and pepper. Once the pasta is almost done, drain the noodles, and then attach them to the kitchen ceiling. Now raise the kitchen table so you can reach the noodles by laying down on your back, and paint each individual noodle with the sauce. (Try not to swear too often at the pope as you do this even if you think he’s an ass, as you don’t want to spend eternity in hell.) It should take about 5 years but once you’re through you’ll realize you’ve made an incomparable masterpiece that will endure through time.

Not microwavable.

The real recipe: 
Ingredients: see ingredient list above
Cut an x into each chestnut and boil them briefly, 10 minutes or so, in water to soften the shells, drain and remove the shells. Boil the cleaned chestnuts then slowly in milk until tender through and through, adding the bay leaf into the pot. Strain, but set the resulting liquid aside and reduce it a bit on low heat. Rub the pork with olive oil, salt and pepper and sear both sides in a hot pan, and most of the chestnuts, then set aside. Cook the noodles (use according to taste, either fresh egg noodles made at the moment or dry. Farro (Emmer wheat) noodles work as well.) On high heat, place the condiment back on a burner, pour in some of the reduced milk-chestnut sauce, then pour in the almost-cooked noodles, toss then add cream (optional) and toss until you almost get to the right creamy consistency. Remove from the burner and add some grated cheese, toss well and let the cheese absorb and tie in the sauce until you get the right consistency. Plate, adding a few crumbled chestnuts over top. Serve with a well made Lambrusco.

link - Michelangelo - the most powerfully expressive artist in our species history: https://www.britannica.com/biography/Michelangelo