Discover everything you want to know about about ricotta cheese in the series Ingredients: The Secrets of Italian Cuisine.
The Institute of Italian Culture in New York hosts an event focused on this typically Italian ingredient, with Robert Zerilli, of the iconic and renowned Veniero’s Bakery in New York, in conversation with IIC Director Fabio Finotti.
Writer Germana Valentini will also present her book: Veniero. Stories of Italian Immigrants in New York (Colonnese Editore), recounting the adventures of the families at the helm of the Pasticceria, the Venieros, the Di Palmas and the Zerillis up to Robert, great-grandson of the founder, who in 2024 will celebrate the 130th anniversary of one of the longest running Italian stores in New York; so much so as to deserve the recognition of “Landmark”, a historical site.
Opened in 1894 on Eleventh Street, between First and Second Avenues, Veniero was first a candy and coffee factory, then a pastry shop. Antonio Veniero, the central figure of the book, was among the first to leave Italy to make his fortune in the new world; when he left Naples as a teenager, he had no idea that his name would be linked to the city of New York for more than a century. What a young immigrant started on the Lower East Side in 1894 still lives today thanks to his descendants, passionate Italian Americans who carry on Italian traditions now lost in our country.
The ability to choose, respect and enhance ingredients is the basis of the excellence of our culinary culture. Italy’s openness to new ingredients is the root of the richness of our gastronomic tradition. The use of innovation and technology in the agri-food sector is also improving the production of traditional ingredients in a sustainable way. Ingredients are the real secret of Italian cuisine!
Organized in collaboration with Professor Annamaria Colao, chairholder of the UNESCO chair-Federico II of Naples (PO of Endocrinology, Department of Clinical Medicine and Surgery), the series focuses on individual ingredients that constitute the elementary grammar and the foundation of Italian cuisine, and the source of its excellence, highlighting Italy’s extraordinary biodiversity, and the “sustainable” processes with which we produce and use the ingredients.
