BAY AREA STEW - NONFICTION
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My Pancetta Epiphany
by Cathy Fiorello

I had been cooking for decades before I finally used pancetta, the Italian bacon. Oh, I knew about it. Whenever I was making a recipe that called for it, I wrote “bacon” on my shopping list, then bought and used the American breakfast staple instead. Bacon is bacon, I thought.
 
But I would learn that all bacon is not created equal. It started with a recipe for Spaghetti Carbonara in Saveur magazine. The photo that caught my attention showed a white pasta flecked with shards of browned, crisp pancetta and sprinkled overall with grated Parmigiano Reggiano, the acknowledged King of Italian cheeses. There was no option here, as there sometimes is in a recipe. The bacon had to be pancetta, no substitutes allowed. That’s how I discovered Little City Market in San Francisco’s North Beach. A friend told me that was the place to get authentic pancetta, the cured pork that’s seasoned and shaped into fat-wrapped rolls in Italy and shipped to shops frequented by those fiercely demanding cooks—Italian-American nonnas.
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Using it the first time, I had a pancetta epiphany. Its flavor and texture improved the taste of the dish enormously. My carbonara looked just like that glossy magazine photo and tasted delicious. I am now addicted to Italian bacon and have eliminated that part of the American pig from my shopping list and my cooking, convinced that everything tastes better with pancetta.
 
I live in a district of San Francisco whose local Safeway supermarket didn’t have an Italian aisle when I moved here from New York. You want Asian? Go to aisle 6. You want Hispanic? Go to aisles 2, 4 and 5. You want Italian? Go back to New York.

When I found my way to the Italian specialty food shops in North Beach, I felt I was home. At Stella’s Bakery, I could get a sfogliatella, a many-layered shell-shaped pastry that we always had at Christmas because it was my father’s favorite. At Molinari’s Italian provisions store, a piece of the old country reproduced in the new, I had to take a number and stand in line, but it’s worth the wait. Every food essential for the Italian kitchen is available here—except meat.
 
That brings me back to Little City Market, which rescued my meatball recipe after Safeway scuttled it. A word here about my meatballs, a recipe handed down from generations of Italian mothers who came before me. Its success hinges on using specific ground meats in specific proportions: a half pound each of ground beef, pork and veal. When I was an East Coast Italian cook, this was no problem. My local A&P market sold meatball mix weighed and packaged to those exact specifications.
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Not so in my neighborhood Safeway. Ground beef and pork are readily available, but veal is treated like gold—they do not grind it. It was my search for pancetta that had led me to Little City Market, and while there, I found myself in veal Nirvana. The refrigerated cases offer veal any which way you want it: roasts, chops, cutlets and, most important to me, ground. I began making monthly pilgrimages into the depths of Columbus Avenue, each time buying three pounds of ground veal, wrapped in individual half-pound packets, ready for storage in my freezer. I was usually served by one of the two brothers who own the shop, a pleasant man who gave me advice on other cuts of meat and how to cook them as he worked. On a recent visit, the other brother was behind the counter.
 
“I’d like three pounds of ground veal,” I said, “wrapped in half-pound packages.”
 
“You want me to wrap your veal in six packages?” he asked.
 
“Yes, please.”
 
“I’m not gonna do that,” he said.
 
“Why not?”
 
“If I wanted to do gift-wrapping,” he replied, “I’d work at Macy’s.”
 
My husband and I were the only customers in the store and one of us was beginning to look like he’d rather be anywhere else.
 
“Well, how do you want to wrap it?” I asked.
 
“In one package. Do you want it?”
 
I should have said, “This isn’t the only veal in town!” and stomped out.
 
But it was the only veal in town. So I said, “I want it.”
 
I paid a princely sum for the veal and the indignity, collected my package and my husband, and started for the door. As we were leaving, a woman came in, went to the counter, and said, “I’d like three slices of bacon.”
 
I couldn’t resist. I yelled back, “Individually wrapped!”
 
My husband grabbed my arm and said, “Let’s get out of here before he throws a knife at you.”
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Find your passion and follow it!   -  Oprah Winfrey.  
Cathy Fiorello's  passions are food, Paris, and writing. A morning at a farmers’ market is her idea of excitement and visiting Paris is her idea of heaven. And much of her writing is about food and Paris. She worked in publishing in New York, freelanced for magazines during her child-rearing years, then re-entered the work world as an editor. She moved to San Francisco in 2008 and published a memoir, Al Capone Had a Lovely Mother. In 2018, she published a second memoir, Standing at the Edge of the Pool. Cathy has two children and four grandchildren. Her mission is to make foodies and Francophiles of them all.
Other works in this issue:
Nonfiction
Life and Love in an Italian Kitchen
The Bread is Warm         
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​Vistas & Byways Review is the semiannual journal of fiction, nonfiction and poetry by members of Osher Lifelong Learning Institute (OLLI) at San Francisco State University​.
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