Dear Colleagues All,

I attach information concerning our annual Section meeting, to which we welcome any potential new members whom you may wish to bring along with you.  So attached you will find:

• an agenda for the meeting;
• the minutes of the last AGM, held in Milan in 2015, together with two annexes to these minutes;
• a report of the Section’s 2015/16 activities;  we have been so busy this year that only our main activities have been listed.   If you look at the equivalent report for last year, you will see other matters of lesser significance also listed, e.g. our advisory work for JPI HDHL – well, there has been plenty of this type of work in 2015/16 as well, besides all that is recorded on the attached list.

I hope to see as many as can get to it at our AGM meeting on 11th November – in just over two weeks’ time.   

Best wishes,  

Dr Christopher A Birt

President, EUPHA Section on Food and Nutrition

Honorary Clinical Senior Lecturer

Department of Public Health and Policy

University of Liverpool

Att.

AGM agenda_draft_v2_191016

Annual report_Tatjana_v1_CB_201016

AGM minutes_Milan 2015_Annex 1_221015

AGM 2015_Milan_minutes_v2_211015

AGM minutes_Milan 2015_Annex 2_221015 (2)

You’ll want 1/2 cup tomato sauce or chopped canned tomatoes, about a quarter pound of shredded mozzarella, and 3-4 fresh basil leaves. Spread the tomato sauce on the dough, sprinkle with the mozzarella, drizzle with a few drops olive oil, add the basil and bake.

Pizza Marinara: the garlic-lover’s delight

You’ll want two cloves (or more or less to taste) finely sliced garlic, and 1/2 cup tomato sauce or chopped canned tomatoes. Spread the sauce over the pizza, sprinkle the garlic, drizzle with a few drops olive oil and bake.

Pizza al Prosciutto: a standby

You’ll want 2-3 ounces finely sliced cooked ham, shredded, 1/2 cup tomato sauce or chopped canned tomatoes, and 1/4 pound shredded mozzarella. Spread the tomato sauce, sprinkle the with the mozzarella and ham, drizzle with a few drops olive oil and bake.

Pizza Prosciutto e Funghi: another standby

You’ll want about a cup finely sliced Champignon mushrooms, 1/2 cup tomato sauce or chopped canned tomatoes, 2-3 ounces finely sliced ham, and 1/4 pound shredded mozzarella. Spread the tomato sauce, sprinkle the other toppings over it, drizzle with a few drops olive oil and bake.

La Napoletana: yet another standby

1/2 cup tomato sauce or chopped canned tomatoes, 1/4 pound shredded mozzarella, 3-4 anchovy filets or more to taste, 1 tablespoon or so rinsed salted or pickled capers, a dusting of oregano. Spread the tomato sauce over the pizza, dot it with the remaining ingredients, drizzle with a few drops olive oil and bake.

The starting point is the dough production. To make the dough for 2 12-inch pizzas, you’ll need:

- 1 package (2 1/4 teaspoons) active dry yeast

- 1 1/3 cups warm (105-115 F, or 42-45 C) water

- 3 1/2 -3 3/4 cups (400-430 g) all purpose flour

- 2 tablespoons olive oil

- A healthy pinch of salt

Begin by dissolving the yeast in the water, in a large mixing bowl; let it stand for 5 minutes. Add the remaining ingredients and mix, either by hand or with a mixer set to low speed, until the ingredients are blended. Now hand-knead the dough or mix it with a dough hook setting the speed to low for about 10 minutes, or until the dough is smooth and elastic. Coat the insides of another bowl with olive oil and turn the dough in it to coat it too, then cover with plastic wrap and set it in a warm place to rise for an hour, or until it doubles in volume.

Baking

For the baking, if you have a wood-fired pizza oven, fire it up. If you are instead using your kitchen oven, preheat it to 475 F (250 C) — if you are using a baking stone it should heat for at least 45 minutes. Otherwise grease and dust two flat baking sheets with corn meal. Divide the dough in half, shape each half into a ball and let them sit for 15 minutes. Then shape them into disks, stretching them out from the center on a floured surface. Do not roll them, because rolling toughens the dough.

Topping

You are now ready to assemble the pizzas: Ladle and spread a half cup or so of tomato sauce or chopped canned tomatoes over the disks, leaving an inch of sauce-free rim, add the toppings (see next page), and bake.

If you’re using a baking stone and have a baker’s peel (a thin metal disk with a handle), lightly flour it, slide the pizza onto it, and transfer it to the stone with a deft yank — the flour will keep the dough from sticking. If you don’t have a peel, use a flat cookie sheet instead, lightly flouring it, to transfer the pizza from the work surface to the stone.

If you’re using a metal baking pan you should bake the pizza towards the bottom of the oven.

The pizza will in any case be done when the crust is browned and the toppings are cooked; this takes 3 minutes in a wood-fired oven and about 15 at home. If you discover that the mozzarella begins to brown before the other ingredients are cooked to your satisfaction, the next time add it after the pizza (with the other toppings) has baked for about 5 minutes.

Having said all this, once you have your dough, what to do with it? The standard topping combinations one encounters in Italy differ somewhat from those I have encountered elsewhere. The quantities given on the next page will be sufficient for one pizza each, so if you make the dough given above you will need to double the amounts, or select two.

This is an easy and good Italian recipe suitable as a delicious appetizer. You can prepare small pies filled with ricotta cheese and spinach personalized for each of your hosts. It is very simple to prepare them if you use a flaky pastry ready otherwise you will need much more time if you want to prepare a homemade flaky pastry. Also the personalization of the small pies is easy you only need a little bit of creative skill to make the decoration. At the end for the preparation of the filling you have only to boil the spinach, put the others ingredients all together, mix and fill the pastry with this mixture, only 15 minutes in the oven and the appetizer is ready to eat.

PREPARATION

Roll out the flaky pastry with the help of rolling pin. Cut it with a cutter-shape or with a glass in order to obtain small piece of flaky pastry with a particular shape.

Clean the spinach and let them cook in a pan with salted water for about 10 – 15 minutes. Then drain them and let them cool. Put in a bowl the ricotta cheese, add the spinach, the egg, the Parmesan and the mozzarella cut before in small cubes.

Put the pieces of flaky pastry in a pan like this shown in the picture below, make some small holes with a fork on the surface of the pastry and fill them with the mixture of spinach and ricotta cheese.

If you have some flaky pastry left over use it to make some decoration.

Pre-heat the oven at 180°C, bake the small pie in the oven for 15 minutes until the surface becomes slightly golden.

BUON APPETITO!

This is an easy and good Italian recipe suitable as a delicious appetizer. You can prepare small pies filled with ricotta cheese and spinach personalized for each of your hosts. It is very simple to prepare them if you use a flaky pastry ready otherwise you will need much more time if you want to prepare a homemade flaky pastry. Also the personalization of the small pies is easy you only need a little bit of creative skill to make the decoration. At the end for the preparation of the filling you have only to boil the spinach, put the others ingredients all together, mix and fill the pastry with this mixture, only 15 minutes in the oven and the appetizer is ready to eat.

PREPARATION
Roll out the flaky pastry with the help of rolling pin. Cut it with a cutter-shape or with a glass in order to obtain small piece of flaky pastry with a particular shape.

Clean the spinach and let them cook in a pan with salted water for about 10 – 15 minutes. Then drain them and let them cool. Put in a bowl the ricotta cheese, add the spinach, the egg, the Parmesan and the mozzarella cut before in small cubes.

Put the pieces of flaky pastry in a pan like this shown in the picture below,

make some small holes with a fork on the surface of the pastry and fill them with the mixture of spinach and ricotta cheese.
If you have some flaky pastry left over use it to make some decoration.

Preheat the oven at 180°C, bake the small pie in the oven for 15 minutes until the surface becomes slightly golden.
This is the result:

BUON APPETITO!

The bread was considered as a reference value: 100.

The table can be useful for the people interested in a “diet”. As you can see, the croissants have only 50% of the “satiety” value of bread  and the boiled potatoes have 3 times more.

Risotto with Bluberry and Speck

To prepare this risotto you just need the two main ingredients: speck and blueberry, and then you can prepare very easily a delicious Italian recipes. If you don’t have a lot of time you can just prepare the broth with water and stock cube vegetables but if you want to prepare the real Italian recipes you should prepare broth with water, salt, and fresh vegetables like onion, carrot, potatoes and celery. The blueberries give to risotto a sweet taste that in this Italian recipes is joined with the salted and savoury taste of speck.

PREPARATION

Start preparing the hot broth: you can easily and rapidly prepare it in a pan with water and the stock-cube vegetables, or you can boil water with carrots, celery, onion and potatoes but this take a bit more of time. Then wash and cut in half the blueberry.

Chop the onion and put it in a pan with butter and let it cook until it comes golden.

Add the rice and let it roast for some minutes and then add spoon by spoon the hot broth.

Stir the rice time by time and let it cook for about 15 minutes, some minutes before the cooking ends, add the blueberry and stir.

Cover the bottom of a bowl with speck.

When the rice is ready, pour it on the speck.

In this way the speck will warm and let the rice more tasty. Serve hot.

Ask to: ivsi@ivsi.it

Stretching over three continents and persisting for many centuries, the Roman Empire was home to an estimated 70 million people. In such a vast area ensuring a stable food supply was no easy task, particularly given the variable and arid climate of the Mediterranean region. So how did the Romans maintain reliable food supplies to their cities for centuries under such challenging conditions?

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