December 29, 2022 • 32 mins
This sweet yeast bread is studded with treats and leavened to great heights for the holidays. Anney and Lauren dig into the science and history of panettoni.
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Speaker 1 (00:08):
Hello, and welcome to Savor Protection of I Heart Radio.
I'm Any and I'm Lauren Vogelbaum. And today we have
an episode for you about panatone which I have never
had zero idea what it was when we started. Really,
oh oh, that's so exciting. What a what a what
a delicious thing to get to learn about. Um, yes, yes, uh,
(00:33):
this one was. I appreciate it because while a lot
of the stuff I'm going to talk about and the
history section is probably not true legends, stuff of legend,
will say, it was nice that so many people have
written about it and it felt more concise than a
lot more of our a lot of our other topics lately. Um,
so I like that. And because I researched it, now
I'm seeing it everywhere, like now share one of those
(00:55):
getting all these ads for it, all these local restaurants
are like, hey we made panato. Yeah, and you will
and you will start seeing it in shops like now
that you know to look for it right there, there
are an increasing number of shops in America that carry it. So, um, yeah,
I'm familiar with it because, um, I have a friend
(01:17):
whose family is from Argentina and uh and and his
father would always have a panatone around Christmas time. Um,
and it was just one of the most lovely, like
kind of like like coffee break like snacks to to
sit down and enjoy. Um. So yeah, but I've only
had uh like store bought like prepackaged ones. They're usually
(01:41):
store bought, but I've never had like an art artisanal
uh panatone. So now I'm like, oh man, I'm about
to order like an eighty dollar cake. Like this is expensit, Lauren,
And this is research, is very very important research. I
need to know about the texture. It's it's amazing, it
is amazing. And the butter people are talking about putting
(02:04):
butter on it. Okay, oh okay, delicious so excited. You
can see our fruit cake episode actually related, Uh we've done.
I would say some relative like in the world of
cake and bread, some episodes that are relevant. Sure, maybe
a Kingcake I think would be would be a good
(02:25):
one to to reference. Mm hmmmm hmm. But if you
like me, then perhaps this brings us to our question. Pentatone?
What is it? Well, pentatone is a type of sweetened
bread or cake that's risen and risen and risen with yeast,
(02:49):
typically studded throughout with a dried or candied fruit or
other morsels like maybe chocolate chips or something. Um. They're
baked up around and very tall, like like about a
foot tall, maybe like thirty centimes or so. Um, often
in a in a in a mold, like like a
paper mold um that the cake will dome up out of.
They're fluffy with a fine wheat flour and rich and
(03:12):
golden with eggs and butter, and can be flavored in
any number of ways. But but in my experience, tend
to be on like the more straightforward and uh not
not too sweet, like maybe a little bit of vanilla,
maybe a topping of crunchy nuts or sugar crystals or
a glaze. Um. They're sliced and served in wedges as
a snack or a treat. Um or once they've gone
(03:33):
a little bit stale, turned into French toast or bread pudding. Uh,
just so so soft and simple, but in this airy,
elegant kind of decadent way. Um. It's like the higher
the cake, the closer to God. Um. They they make
me feel like I'm having coffee. In an Edwardian era
(03:54):
advertisement for coffee m m once again spot on. If
you are like me, listens and you don't know what
this is, look at the pictures because it's quite The
height is pretty impressive on some of them. They're they're
they're pretty stunning. Um, I mean it is, it is.
It is a bread that is meant to be stunning. Yes,
(04:15):
And I say that as someone who is frequently stunned
by bread. I'm like bread, Um, so so yeah um okay,
And and and right that the bread here is like
the star of the show. Um, it's a sour dough. Um.
The types I've I've had haven't tasted very tart, though, right,
I haven't had one made fresh, so maybe I'm super
missing out. But um yeah. They are paid mistakingly made
(04:36):
from from a yeast starter that's developed over the course
of days and then risen over the course of more days,
then baked, and they're cooled upside down, um to prevent
them from collapsing. Uh more in all that in a sect,
because like this is a whole process, And first I
want to talk about the other components that we're dealing with.
So so, candied fruit is the most traditional, uh featured
(05:01):
ingredient here. Um And and specifically candied citrus, lemon, orange, citron,
something like that. Uh. Raisins that have maybe been soaked
in a sweet wine are also popular. But but anything
goes really um. And bakers in different parts of the
world use what's popular locally. UM. Candied apricots or figs
or papaya or chestnuts. Chocolate chips are also common, right
(05:22):
and uh and these things will be a spangled evenly
and prettily through the dough. So it almost reminds me
of like the lights on a Christmas tree. Uh, just
kind of a little little pops of color throughout. Um.
But yeah, yeah, any any anything goes UM. You can
make the batter with cocoa or saffron or cinnamon. You
(05:43):
can put some some vertical stripes of of of cream
that's been flavored with I don't know, like amoretto or
lemon cello or or hazel nuts. Um. You can top
it with a sweet frosting or icing. You can even
get them plain whoa, I know, wacky um. Although plaine
is more a feature of the related pandora um, which
(06:06):
is from all from from a another area of Italy
close by anyway, Okay, we're talking about uh panatone today. Yes,
so making this thing okay, um, I saw I read
so many different descriptions of what specific bakeries do and
(06:27):
it is wildly complicated. Um. I'm I'm terrified of of
yeast dough to begin with because it's so like it
can be so finicky, um, and it seems like a
lot of work. Although I mean, sour dough bread is
like my favorite thing to eat, so anyway, but this
is a lot um. Okay. You begin with a sour
dough starter UM. That is a colony of a friendly
(06:49):
yeasts and ealactic acid bacteria that you keep alive but
like fairly inactive um in a slurry of flour and water.
So so the first thing that you want to do
is activate them, get them to grow. That's because the
elactic acid bacteria are gonna work to prevent unfriendly bacteria
from growing as your dough develops, UM, and also add
some lovely tart flavors UM, and then your yeasts are
(07:13):
going to be providing the carbon dioxide bubbles that help
your your dough reach such such great heights. UM. In Milan,
where this is a traditional pastry shop craft, uh, the
starter is called the mother yeast or the mother dough,
and some shops have been keeping their's alive for like
eighty years running. That's my very favorite thing. Oh yeah,
(07:37):
oh yeah. That and and right, and that reminded me
of our San Francisco or of our sour dough episode
and some of the bakeries in San Francisco that have
been doing santilar things. Okay, So for panatona um, you
take a bit of starter and feed it with flour
and water and then let it rest at around room temperature.
That people get very specific about their temperature ranges. Um.
And you and you do this twice about four hours apart,
(07:58):
and then a third time for a little bit longer.
This is going to be the base of your dough,
to which you add more flour and water probably um
plus some egg and or egg yolks, butter and sugar.
You need that. You let it rest, let it rise,
then you punch it down. Hit it with more of
the same again, let that rest and rise, punch down,
add your mix ins. Let that rest and rise, punch
(08:19):
it down. Okay, then you're round the dough um kind
of kind of do like a little stretchy stretchy on
the top so that it'll it'll have like a nice
um uh, not firm crust, but but but but the
capacity to be elastic and let the let the thing
really stretch in the oven. Um okay, and then you
place it in your mold or your sleeve, let it
(08:41):
rest and rise. Each of these rest and rise periods,
the lettings takes about six hours or maybe up to
twenty four hours. Like, this is a bread that you
were working with for like three days, and from what
I understand that is like three days minimum. Um uh.
(09:02):
But then finally, um, it is ready to score, meaning
you make slices in that stretchy top to let steam
escape when it gets hot, and you bake it afterwards. Yeah,
it's placed in a rack that hangs it upside down
while it cools. Um. They'll come in these tall boxes
or get wrapped up in pretty paper. Um. It's just
(09:23):
so so festive, so nice. Um. Really popular around Christmas,
in the New Year and at other holidays in various
places around the world. Um. And yeah, you can embark
on this mission at home. Um. But again, they are
traditionally like a thing that you buy, not a thing
that you make yourself. Yeah. Most of the recipes I
(09:43):
read for quite complex and time consuming. So yeah, you
can do it. But yeah, yeah, I mean, oh my goodness,
if you have done this, we need photographs, yes, and
if you in general, because there are some amazing flavor
combinations people. I'm talking like caviar, Yeah, like anything you
(10:08):
can imagine. People have tried to put in a pandatin
that's so good. Yes, I know, so please let us
know about that as well. Oh but speaking of what
about the nutrition, Oh, it's you know, cake cakes or
cakes or treats. Um uh, you know probably actually has
a decent punch punch of protein in there from the
(10:29):
butter and eggs and flower. Um. But treats are treat
are nice. Treets are nice. It's the holidays, Yeah, treats
are nice the holidays. Go for it. We do have
some numbers for you, Okay. During the holiday season, which
in the article I was reading this in was defined
as like September to December, Italian shops bake thousands of
(10:54):
these breads. Yeah, Italy alone produces over seven thousand tons
of pentatone a year um and Italians consumed some seventy
five million of these cakes as of UM, like per year. Yeah.
They're also very popular in South America. UM. That year
(11:16):
Peru consumed some forty two million UM. But the biggest
producer is probably uh, Brazil's baduco Am I saying that, right,
I'm not sure I didn't look it up. I'm so sorry,
but but yeah, it's an industrial producer that cranks out
two hundred thousand tons a year out of six bakeries
(11:37):
like bigle industrial bakeries UM, which they then shipped to
over fifty countries. Wow. Yeah, yeah, and seventy of Italians
say that it is an integral part of Christmas. Wow.
Interesting UM. According to one source, I found the average
(11:57):
Italian family eats about two and a half panatoni a year,
which is about five point five pounds. Uh and right,
and that's that's that's average. Yeah. There there can be
a lot of involved over the course of a holiday season. UM.
Some families are scaling back though during the pandemic UM
(12:18):
due to rising food costs, things like you know, butter
and wheat having an IMPACTUM on the final price money
being tied overall, UH, the cost panatoni was up about
eleven year over year as of December one, UM, adding
like a euro or two to the price tag of
each cake. UM, though at the same time, the high
(12:41):
end panatone production was on the rise, like bakeries were
making more year over year than they had previously. So yeah,
uh there is UM a festival every November called UM
King Panatone or I think ray Panatone UM that that's
(13:02):
been in Italian UM that's been running since two thousand eight. Uh.
It invites bakers to bring their like, best, weirdest, freshest
panatone for display and tasting UM with an emphasis on
the fresh they're like. No artificial additives or preservatives are allowed.
The same organization that throws this also provides certifications of
(13:22):
authenticity to local pastry shops cakes and they are petitioning
Ninesco to add panatone to their list of intangible heritage stuff.
They do take it quite seriously, Yes, yes, and I've
seen some like definitions of what is you know, authentic
(13:43):
Italian pentatone And at a two thousand seven press conference,
an Italian official claimed that seven out of ten Americans
purchasing in quote Italian style panatona are getting a fake. Yes.
There he was probably referring to these like industrial industrially
(14:03):
produced ones. But yeah, I mean Italy only sells about
ten of what it makes internationally, so so yeah, I mean,
I guess he's not wrong, but uh, but he's also intense.
He is intense. He is intense, and he was he
(14:25):
was working out a strict definition I remember in the article,
so you can look that up. But pan atone, I mean,
he's also not wrong, and that it has long been
associated with Italy in oh, yes, and we are going
to get into that history after we get back from
a quick break for a word from our sponsors, and
(14:53):
we're back. Thank you sponsoring, Yes, thank you, Yes. And
like I hinted at at the top, I kind of
appreciated the research for this one because while I think
a lot of these were probably apocryphal, their fun stories
and they were very concise. It was nice that so
many people had written like, this is the story, even
if none of the match really. So we're gonna go
(15:16):
on that journey together because Yeah, like with many pastries,
this one does have a lot of legends about it.
How how it came about um and the roots, according
to some sources, go back to ancient times, like perhaps
most specifically to ancient rooms penam try to come a
bread loaf that used eggs and raisins to give the
(15:38):
bread a sweetness to it. Um. Most historians do cite
Milan as the home to our more modern day understanding
of panatone. All right, so this brings us to some
of the legends, some of the stories. By the time
the thirteen hundreds rolled around, citizens of Milan often celebrated
(15:58):
Christmas by partaking in three loaves of wheat bread. Uh.
The wealthy and rural class would like cut out these
slices of these loaves for their friends, families, potentially clients. Um. Yes,
And it was such a popular tradition that a decree
was issued in that required that Italian bakeries make this
(16:18):
bread available to everyone on Christmas. Um. One reason for
this was because it was expensive. According to a BBC
article I read about it, wheat was so exorbitantly expensive
for so many that almost all bakeries in Milan made
wheatbread only once a year during this time, and that
(16:39):
once a year was somewhere near Christmas. Yeah. Yeah, it's
it's certainly like all wheat bread because at the time
spelter or rye or mixtures thereof were much more affordable. Yes,
and the candied fruit was viewed as indulgent and luxurious
since it had to be imported. Um. And the bread itself,
while light, took up enough space to make a statement.
(17:01):
Oh yeah yeah um. And right in terms of the
candied fruit, um, I mean, raisins might have been fairly common,
but but certainly the candied citrus peel, like citrus in
any form, was such a luxury outside of the areas
where it was grown until very recently. Right, So panatone
(17:23):
are are This bread was a treat and an expensive one,
a difficult one to make and to procure it was
time consuming. Um. And that's part of why it became
associated with the holidays and gift giving. Um. However, panatone
is adaptable based on available ingredients, and people did experiment
with it um and they continue to do so, Oh
(17:45):
my goodness do they um. And some of these experiments
yielded a more accessible product, some yielded a less exceptible
both ways. Yes, yes. But there is a much more
specific legend about how panatonia came to be that is
very widely told. Um. It tells of a kitchen boy
(18:08):
in the court of the Duke of Milan named Tony
short for Anthony, I believe. And so, while he was
whipping up some Christmas Eve desserts for the Duke in
the fourteen hundreds, Tony accidentally burnt the treats or the
shifted um. Yes, so desperate, desperate to salvage the situation,
(18:28):
Tony took some of the dough, mixed in some sugar, eggs, raisins,
and candied fruit, resulting in a large sweet loaf of bread. Gosh,
I wish my accidents turned out right. Um. As these
stories often go, the Duke loved it. He loved it. Um.
He named it l pan to Tony and declared it
(18:50):
an official Christmas dessert. So pan panatone. Yeah. And this
is not the only version of Tony the Baker's story. No.
In another, he fell in love with a woman who
he saw every day walking by I think it was
a bakery specifically in this story, and in an attempt
(19:12):
to lure her into talking to him, he spent months
perfecting a recipe for a sweet bread. And then there's
another version where he had gotten dumped and the resulting
depressed breakup bread was a Christmas miracle and it became panetone. Yeah,
(19:33):
so it's either like, oh, this worked out so well
or oh, it didn't work out at all. Here's my
sad breakup bread. Yeah, we've all been there. We had
no very important yeah. M there's another legend that's sort
of a flip of this one, and it involves a
nobleman named you Get though I couldn't find a pronunciation,
so I'm going with that um who fell for the
(19:53):
baker's daughter, who Ghetto's family disapproved and refused to give
the couple their blessing to get married. But this didn't
stop the two from meeting up at night in secret. However,
Baker fell ill at this bakery and u Ghetto's lover
had to step in to fill in his spot, meaning
they had the less time to meet up, and Ghetto
(20:16):
was annoyed, so he developed a disguise a disguise and
worked at the bakery undercovery. However, yes, yes, I love
this story, even though I'm sure it's not true. Um.
There was another problem though, a competitor opened to bakery nearby,
so they were losing business, and du Ghetto took it
(20:40):
upon himself to strike back, adding more sugar and butter
to the bread recipe, however, but it was expensive, so
to afford it, he sold some of his hawks. There
are hawks in the story. There are hawks in the story.
It's the best story I've read in a while, because
he was a hawk dealer of the Duke of Milan.
(21:02):
So he sold his hawks. He got the butter, The
bread was made, the customers loved it, but he wasn't
done experimenting. He added some candied fruit and eggs to
the mix and some raisins to make it festive for
the holiday season, kind of going back to that like
lights thing you were saying, Lauren Um. The townsfolk loved it,
(21:23):
and lu Ghetto was able to marry the woman he loved.
That story took turns that I was not expecting. I know,
it's the hawks that I'm like. I feel like the
Duke would have had questions about his hawks going missing,
but maybe not. Maybe he was busy with other things,
(21:43):
you know, maybe he was so impressed with the bread
that he was like maybe maybe there's also a legend
behind the tradition of saving a slice of panatoni to
eat on February third, which listeners, he's right in about this.
I'm fascinated by this um. So. The story goes that
(22:05):
sen biago Um also St. Blaise also known as St. Blaise,
saved a child who was choking on a fishbone by
feeding this kid bread um and because of that one
of his many skills, he had a lot of very
diverse set of skills, and it included protecting sore throats.
(22:25):
After this um, the idea is that on February third,
people toast up and butter the bread and eat it
to keep away a sore throat and illness in general.
And there's so many really fun interviews about this where
people are like, I know it sounds silly, but I
just whear it works. That's great, I know. Yeah. One
(22:48):
of the earliest known written mentions of pentatone is from
a fourteen seventies manuscript, with recipes popping up fairly often
in Italy by the eighteen hundreds. Uh and yeah, panetone
can be tricky to pull ups still is um so
bakers have a long search for tips and shortcuts and
making it An Italian recipe from eight claimed that using
(23:10):
baking soda as opposed to yeast not only sped up
the process but also resulted in something quote much better
than the Milanese style panatone. Yes you too, me too,
and many at the time vehemently created. It wasn't until
(23:31):
the nineteen twenties and thirties that the product began to
be commercially industrially produced, um, and this helped to lower
the price um and to make it more available to
more people. And on top of that, over the years,
with industrialization lowering the prices of sugar and flour and
most things, panatone has largely become a much richer, sweeter bread.
(23:54):
From what I've read, it wasn't as as dense and
sweet as it is now all um. But again, let
us know, listeners. Yeah mm hmmm. Waves of Italian immigrants
spread panatone worldwide, and their foods became a part of
how they would express their identity and their history, and
(24:14):
panatone was a part of that. Yeah. Yeah, just just
for one example, there was a whole wave of integration
from Italy to Peru in like the mid eighteen hundreds,
and so yeah, mm hmm, and yeah. While panatoni has
long been a staple in Italy and in Italian bakeries
and delis around the world, where locals did adapt the
(24:35):
recipe to what they had on hand. Only recently did
Panatone start seeing a big boost outside of that, particularly
in the UK. After it was mentioned in the episode
of peep Show. UM headlines from the twenty teens asked
if we're in the quote golden age of Panatone or
(24:55):
that they wondered why American bakeries were quote obsessed with it. Yeah,
and it really has had a glow up in recent years. UM.
It's fun to read early descriptions calling it like a knockoff,
sad version of fruitcake. Not my words. Don't be mad
at me. I did not say this away from that
(25:17):
one too. Heck, yes, this is a lot of stepping
away in this episode. UM. Two articles that are talking
about really fancying it up, UM, which people also like
to argue about. They also we, I mean every we
talked about this. It's that thing of like, at what
point does a pantone become not a panatone if you've
(25:37):
read it like to fancy um or to whatever. Yeah, uh,
I will say that. UM. This year saw the third
annual Panatone World Cup in Milan. Baker's from all of
the world went there in October or November of this year,
(25:58):
like late October early early November, to compete um in
either the traditional category, um, which is just candied fruits,
or the chocolate category, which is separate. Yeah that there
were There were forty two finalists, and I love that
this is the World Cup of Panatonic. Yes, as there
(26:19):
should be. That's that's only right, right. Yeah, listeners, again,
please let us know if you've been involved, participated and
if you've made panatone, have pretty pictures of Panatone, if
you just have like really good memories. Um, yeah, another
(26:42):
thing to add to the list for me, and I
will try some. I'm very excited. They're very pretty. They
are they are They're They're really I just had this
like urge to like bring you one like tonight. Um.
But but it's it's really big, Like I mean, like,
I guess you are going to go visit family this
weekend for for the holidays, so um, so you could
(27:04):
bring it with you and you wouldn't know. I was
just like I was imagining your panic at like receiving
an entire case. Yeah, I wouldn't want to panick you pantone.
I appreciate that you said that you called it stunning,
so like a foot tall, that's a that's an undertaking.
(27:27):
I'm curious about the slicing part. But yeah, if I
showed up to my family with a pan attone, they'd
be very happy with me. So we'll see. Who knows
what tomorrow will bring. But that's what we have to
say about pan Atone. For now. It is um. We
(27:48):
do have some listener mail for you, though, and we
are going to get into that as soon as we
get back from one more quick break for a word
from our sponsors. And we're back. Thank you, sponsored, Yes,
thank you, And we're back with the snow. It's like
(28:16):
a rising and the kind of settling. Yeah. I don't
know that's what, but we're going with it. We're going
close enough. Uh. Mike wrote a message in response to
my story about how I use a lot of goofy
kind of euphonisms when I would when I could be swearing,
(28:37):
when I would like to be swearing. Okay, alright, alright, yeah,
so Mike wrote, swearing has never been a big part
of my vocabulary, but the birth of my son pushed
me to adopt even more alternatives. In pre pandemic days,
I was working in office. One day, I was walking
back to my desk and dropped to my mouse. It
hit the floor and the door to the battery compartment
popped off. The batteries flew out, and opposite to actions,
(29:00):
I yelled, son of a biscuit. While picking up the pieces,
I realized that people sitting nearby were laughing at my exclamation.
I could only shrug and eventually laugh with them. This
group of employees developed an inside joke based on that day.
Whenever something was going wrong, they would say things like, oh,
a lot of biscuits today, or I'm making biscuits over here.
(29:23):
No regrets on my part. I still say son of
a biscuit whenever the need arises, and I love it.
That is a good one. That is a good one. Yeah.
I have a friend who says son of a biscuit. Yes,
it's it's so funny because you're kind of like like
I said when I was telling the story, I don't
know where mind came from. I got a good gravy train. Like,
(29:46):
no one says that in my life. It's funny what
just comes up. Biscuits a great word. Biscuit is a
great word. Yeah, because most I mean if we were
a different show. You know, we love etymology, but most
curse words have that kind of hard like clicking tea
sound at the end. So biscuit, Yeah, biscuit satisfying to say,
(30:11):
very very satisfying. I love this and I love that
it was adopted by your co workers. Um, Samantha wrote,
I just listened to the artichoke episode and I had
to write in. My mom named me Samantha after the
main character from Bewitched, so I've always loved the show.
One of my favorite scenes is right after and Dora,
her mother, meets Darren, her husband. It does not go well. Afterward,
(30:34):
Darren and Samantha are talking and they have this adorable interaction. Uh,
Darren says, say, could she, I mean, really turned me
into an artichoke if she wanted to? That's creepy. What
could you do? I mean, if she did nothing except
except what I could become an artichoke too. It's so sweet.
(30:59):
I actually tried to work it into my wedding ceremony
but couldn't find a place for it. Oh that is
so sweet. Goodness too, are to chokes? And oh I
had forgotten about that scene. That's so lovely. It is
and I love that that you're named after this and
(31:21):
that trying to work it into your wedding ceremony. That's fantastic,
so good, so so good. Um well, thanks to both
of those listeners for writing in. If you would like
to write to us, and you can, our email is
hello at favorite pod dot com. We're also on social media.
You can find us on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram at
saver Pod and we do hope to hear from you.
(31:43):
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hope that let's work. Good things are coming your way
Hello, and welcome to Savor Protection of I Heart Radio.
I'm Any and I'm Lauren Vogelbaum. And today we have
an episode for you about panatone which I have never
had zero idea what it was when we started. Really,
oh oh, that's so exciting. What a what a what
a delicious thing to get to learn about. Um, yes, yes, uh,
(00:33):
this one was. I appreciate it because while a lot
of the stuff I'm going to talk about and the
history section is probably not true legends, stuff of legend,
will say, it was nice that so many people have
written about it and it felt more concise than a
lot more of our a lot of our other topics lately. Um,
so I like that. And because I researched it, now
I'm seeing it everywhere, like now share one of those
(00:55):
getting all these ads for it, all these local restaurants
are like, hey we made panato. Yeah, and you will
and you will start seeing it in shops like now
that you know to look for it right there, there
are an increasing number of shops in America that carry it. So, um, yeah,
I'm familiar with it because, um, I have a friend
(01:17):
whose family is from Argentina and uh and and his
father would always have a panatone around Christmas time. Um,
and it was just one of the most lovely, like
kind of like like coffee break like snacks to to
sit down and enjoy. Um. So yeah, but I've only
had uh like store bought like prepackaged ones. They're usually
(01:41):
store bought, but I've never had like an art artisanal
uh panatone. So now I'm like, oh man, I'm about
to order like an eighty dollar cake. Like this is expensit, Lauren,
And this is research, is very very important research. I
need to know about the texture. It's it's amazing, it
is amazing. And the butter people are talking about putting
(02:04):
butter on it. Okay, oh okay, delicious so excited. You
can see our fruit cake episode actually related, Uh we've done.
I would say some relative like in the world of
cake and bread, some episodes that are relevant. Sure, maybe
a Kingcake I think would be would be a good
(02:25):
one to to reference. Mm hmmmm hmm. But if you
like me, then perhaps this brings us to our question. Pentatone?
What is it? Well, pentatone is a type of sweetened
bread or cake that's risen and risen and risen with yeast,
(02:49):
typically studded throughout with a dried or candied fruit or
other morsels like maybe chocolate chips or something. Um. They're
baked up around and very tall, like like about a
foot tall, maybe like thirty centimes or so. Um, often
in a in a in a mold, like like a
paper mold um that the cake will dome up out of.
They're fluffy with a fine wheat flour and rich and
(03:12):
golden with eggs and butter, and can be flavored in
any number of ways. But but in my experience, tend
to be on like the more straightforward and uh not
not too sweet, like maybe a little bit of vanilla,
maybe a topping of crunchy nuts or sugar crystals or
a glaze. Um. They're sliced and served in wedges as
a snack or a treat. Um or once they've gone
(03:33):
a little bit stale, turned into French toast or bread pudding. Uh,
just so so soft and simple, but in this airy,
elegant kind of decadent way. Um. It's like the higher
the cake, the closer to God. Um. They they make
me feel like I'm having coffee. In an Edwardian era
(03:54):
advertisement for coffee m m once again spot on. If
you are like me, listens and you don't know what
this is, look at the pictures because it's quite The
height is pretty impressive on some of them. They're they're
they're pretty stunning. Um, I mean it is, it is.
It is a bread that is meant to be stunning. Yes,
(04:15):
And I say that as someone who is frequently stunned
by bread. I'm like bread, Um, so so yeah um okay,
And and and right that the bread here is like
the star of the show. Um, it's a sour dough. Um.
The types I've I've had haven't tasted very tart, though, right,
I haven't had one made fresh, so maybe I'm super
missing out. But um yeah. They are paid mistakingly made
(04:36):
from from a yeast starter that's developed over the course
of days and then risen over the course of more days,
then baked, and they're cooled upside down, um to prevent
them from collapsing. Uh more in all that in a sect,
because like this is a whole process, And first I
want to talk about the other components that we're dealing with.
So so, candied fruit is the most traditional, uh featured
(05:01):
ingredient here. Um And and specifically candied citrus, lemon, orange, citron,
something like that. Uh. Raisins that have maybe been soaked
in a sweet wine are also popular. But but anything
goes really um. And bakers in different parts of the
world use what's popular locally. UM. Candied apricots or figs
or papaya or chestnuts. Chocolate chips are also common, right
(05:22):
and uh and these things will be a spangled evenly
and prettily through the dough. So it almost reminds me
of like the lights on a Christmas tree. Uh, just
kind of a little little pops of color throughout. Um.
But yeah, yeah, any any anything goes UM. You can
make the batter with cocoa or saffron or cinnamon. You
(05:43):
can put some some vertical stripes of of of cream
that's been flavored with I don't know, like amoretto or
lemon cello or or hazel nuts. Um. You can top
it with a sweet frosting or icing. You can even
get them plain whoa, I know, wacky um. Although plaine
is more a feature of the related pandora um, which
(06:06):
is from all from from a another area of Italy
close by anyway, Okay, we're talking about uh panatone today. Yes,
so making this thing okay, um, I saw I read
so many different descriptions of what specific bakeries do and
(06:27):
it is wildly complicated. Um. I'm I'm terrified of of
yeast dough to begin with because it's so like it
can be so finicky, um, and it seems like a
lot of work. Although I mean, sour dough bread is
like my favorite thing to eat, so anyway, but this
is a lot um. Okay. You begin with a sour
dough starter UM. That is a colony of a friendly
(06:49):
yeasts and ealactic acid bacteria that you keep alive but
like fairly inactive um in a slurry of flour and water.
So so the first thing that you want to do
is activate them, get them to grow. That's because the
elactic acid bacteria are gonna work to prevent unfriendly bacteria
from growing as your dough develops, UM, and also add
some lovely tart flavors UM, and then your yeasts are
(07:13):
going to be providing the carbon dioxide bubbles that help
your your dough reach such such great heights. UM. In Milan,
where this is a traditional pastry shop craft, uh, the
starter is called the mother yeast or the mother dough,
and some shops have been keeping their's alive for like
eighty years running. That's my very favorite thing. Oh yeah,
(07:37):
oh yeah. That and and right, and that reminded me
of our San Francisco or of our sour dough episode
and some of the bakeries in San Francisco that have
been doing santilar things. Okay, So for panatona um, you
take a bit of starter and feed it with flour
and water and then let it rest at around room temperature.
That people get very specific about their temperature ranges. Um.
And you and you do this twice about four hours apart,
(07:58):
and then a third time for a little bit longer.
This is going to be the base of your dough,
to which you add more flour and water probably um
plus some egg and or egg yolks, butter and sugar.
You need that. You let it rest, let it rise,
then you punch it down. Hit it with more of
the same again, let that rest and rise, punch down,
add your mix ins. Let that rest and rise, punch
(08:19):
it down. Okay, then you're round the dough um kind
of kind of do like a little stretchy stretchy on
the top so that it'll it'll have like a nice
um uh, not firm crust, but but but but the
capacity to be elastic and let the let the thing
really stretch in the oven. Um okay, and then you
place it in your mold or your sleeve, let it
(08:41):
rest and rise. Each of these rest and rise periods,
the lettings takes about six hours or maybe up to
twenty four hours. Like, this is a bread that you
were working with for like three days, and from what
I understand that is like three days minimum. Um uh.
(09:02):
But then finally, um, it is ready to score, meaning
you make slices in that stretchy top to let steam
escape when it gets hot, and you bake it afterwards. Yeah,
it's placed in a rack that hangs it upside down
while it cools. Um. They'll come in these tall boxes
or get wrapped up in pretty paper. Um. It's just
(09:23):
so so festive, so nice. Um. Really popular around Christmas,
in the New Year and at other holidays in various
places around the world. Um. And yeah, you can embark
on this mission at home. Um. But again, they are
traditionally like a thing that you buy, not a thing
that you make yourself. Yeah. Most of the recipes I
(09:43):
read for quite complex and time consuming. So yeah, you
can do it. But yeah, yeah, I mean, oh my goodness,
if you have done this, we need photographs, yes, and
if you in general, because there are some amazing flavor
combinations people. I'm talking like caviar, Yeah, like anything you
(10:08):
can imagine. People have tried to put in a pandatin
that's so good. Yes, I know, so please let us
know about that as well. Oh but speaking of what
about the nutrition, Oh, it's you know, cake cakes or
cakes or treats. Um uh, you know probably actually has
a decent punch punch of protein in there from the
(10:29):
butter and eggs and flower. Um. But treats are treat
are nice. Treets are nice. It's the holidays, Yeah, treats
are nice the holidays. Go for it. We do have
some numbers for you, Okay. During the holiday season, which
in the article I was reading this in was defined
as like September to December, Italian shops bake thousands of
(10:54):
these breads. Yeah, Italy alone produces over seven thousand tons
of pentatone a year um and Italians consumed some seventy
five million of these cakes as of UM, like per year. Yeah.
They're also very popular in South America. UM. That year
(11:16):
Peru consumed some forty two million UM. But the biggest
producer is probably uh, Brazil's baduco Am I saying that, right,
I'm not sure I didn't look it up. I'm so sorry,
but but yeah, it's an industrial producer that cranks out
two hundred thousand tons a year out of six bakeries
(11:37):
like bigle industrial bakeries UM, which they then shipped to
over fifty countries. Wow. Yeah, yeah, and seventy of Italians
say that it is an integral part of Christmas. Wow.
Interesting UM. According to one source, I found the average
(11:57):
Italian family eats about two and a half panatoni a year,
which is about five point five pounds. Uh and right,
and that's that's that's average. Yeah. There there can be
a lot of involved over the course of a holiday season. UM.
Some families are scaling back though during the pandemic UM
(12:18):
due to rising food costs, things like you know, butter
and wheat having an IMPACTUM on the final price money
being tied overall, UH, the cost panatoni was up about
eleven year over year as of December one, UM, adding
like a euro or two to the price tag of
each cake. UM, though at the same time, the high
(12:41):
end panatone production was on the rise, like bakeries were
making more year over year than they had previously. So yeah,
uh there is UM a festival every November called UM
King Panatone or I think ray Panatone UM that that's
(13:02):
been in Italian UM that's been running since two thousand eight. Uh.
It invites bakers to bring their like, best, weirdest, freshest
panatone for display and tasting UM with an emphasis on
the fresh they're like. No artificial additives or preservatives are allowed.
The same organization that throws this also provides certifications of
(13:22):
authenticity to local pastry shops cakes and they are petitioning
Ninesco to add panatone to their list of intangible heritage stuff.
They do take it quite seriously, Yes, yes, and I've
seen some like definitions of what is you know, authentic
(13:43):
Italian pentatone And at a two thousand seven press conference,
an Italian official claimed that seven out of ten Americans
purchasing in quote Italian style panatona are getting a fake. Yes.
There he was probably referring to these like industrial industrially
(14:03):
produced ones. But yeah, I mean Italy only sells about
ten of what it makes internationally, so so yeah, I mean,
I guess he's not wrong, but uh, but he's also intense.
He is intense. He is intense, and he was he
(14:25):
was working out a strict definition I remember in the article,
so you can look that up. But pan atone, I mean,
he's also not wrong, and that it has long been
associated with Italy in oh, yes, and we are going
to get into that history after we get back from
a quick break for a word from our sponsors, and
(14:53):
we're back. Thank you sponsoring, Yes, thank you, Yes. And
like I hinted at at the top, I kind of
appreciated the research for this one because while I think
a lot of these were probably apocryphal, their fun stories
and they were very concise. It was nice that so
many people had written like, this is the story, even
if none of the match really. So we're gonna go
(15:16):
on that journey together because Yeah, like with many pastries,
this one does have a lot of legends about it.
How how it came about um and the roots, according
to some sources, go back to ancient times, like perhaps
most specifically to ancient rooms penam try to come a
bread loaf that used eggs and raisins to give the
(15:38):
bread a sweetness to it. Um. Most historians do cite
Milan as the home to our more modern day understanding
of panatone. All right, so this brings us to some
of the legends, some of the stories. By the time
the thirteen hundreds rolled around, citizens of Milan often celebrated
(15:58):
Christmas by partaking in three loaves of wheat bread. Uh.
The wealthy and rural class would like cut out these
slices of these loaves for their friends, families, potentially clients. Um. Yes,
And it was such a popular tradition that a decree
was issued in that required that Italian bakeries make this
(16:18):
bread available to everyone on Christmas. Um. One reason for
this was because it was expensive. According to a BBC
article I read about it, wheat was so exorbitantly expensive
for so many that almost all bakeries in Milan made
wheatbread only once a year during this time, and that
(16:39):
once a year was somewhere near Christmas. Yeah. Yeah, it's
it's certainly like all wheat bread because at the time
spelter or rye or mixtures thereof were much more affordable. Yes,
and the candied fruit was viewed as indulgent and luxurious
since it had to be imported. Um. And the bread itself,
while light, took up enough space to make a statement.
(17:01):
Oh yeah yeah um. And right in terms of the
candied fruit, um, I mean, raisins might have been fairly common,
but but certainly the candied citrus peel, like citrus in
any form, was such a luxury outside of the areas
where it was grown until very recently. Right, So panatone
(17:23):
are are This bread was a treat and an expensive one,
a difficult one to make and to procure it was
time consuming. Um. And that's part of why it became
associated with the holidays and gift giving. Um. However, panatone
is adaptable based on available ingredients, and people did experiment
with it um and they continue to do so, Oh
(17:45):
my goodness do they um. And some of these experiments
yielded a more accessible product, some yielded a less exceptible
both ways. Yes, yes. But there is a much more
specific legend about how panatonia came to be that is
very widely told. Um. It tells of a kitchen boy
(18:08):
in the court of the Duke of Milan named Tony
short for Anthony, I believe. And so, while he was
whipping up some Christmas Eve desserts for the Duke in
the fourteen hundreds, Tony accidentally burnt the treats or the
shifted um. Yes, so desperate, desperate to salvage the situation,
(18:28):
Tony took some of the dough, mixed in some sugar, eggs, raisins,
and candied fruit, resulting in a large sweet loaf of bread. Gosh,
I wish my accidents turned out right. Um. As these
stories often go, the Duke loved it. He loved it. Um.
He named it l pan to Tony and declared it
(18:50):
an official Christmas dessert. So pan panatone. Yeah. And this
is not the only version of Tony the Baker's story. No.
In another, he fell in love with a woman who
he saw every day walking by I think it was
a bakery specifically in this story, and in an attempt
(19:12):
to lure her into talking to him, he spent months
perfecting a recipe for a sweet bread. And then there's
another version where he had gotten dumped and the resulting
depressed breakup bread was a Christmas miracle and it became panetone. Yeah,
(19:33):
so it's either like, oh, this worked out so well
or oh, it didn't work out at all. Here's my
sad breakup bread. Yeah, we've all been there. We had
no very important yeah. M there's another legend that's sort
of a flip of this one, and it involves a
nobleman named you Get though I couldn't find a pronunciation,
so I'm going with that um who fell for the
(19:53):
baker's daughter, who Ghetto's family disapproved and refused to give
the couple their blessing to get married. But this didn't
stop the two from meeting up at night in secret. However,
Baker fell ill at this bakery and u Ghetto's lover
had to step in to fill in his spot, meaning
they had the less time to meet up, and Ghetto
(20:16):
was annoyed, so he developed a disguise a disguise and
worked at the bakery undercovery. However, yes, yes, I love
this story, even though I'm sure it's not true. Um.
There was another problem though, a competitor opened to bakery nearby,
so they were losing business, and du Ghetto took it
(20:40):
upon himself to strike back, adding more sugar and butter
to the bread recipe, however, but it was expensive, so
to afford it, he sold some of his hawks. There
are hawks in the story. There are hawks in the story.
It's the best story I've read in a while, because
he was a hawk dealer of the Duke of Milan.
(21:02):
So he sold his hawks. He got the butter, The
bread was made, the customers loved it, but he wasn't
done experimenting. He added some candied fruit and eggs to
the mix and some raisins to make it festive for
the holiday season, kind of going back to that like
lights thing you were saying, Lauren Um. The townsfolk loved it,
(21:23):
and lu Ghetto was able to marry the woman he loved.
That story took turns that I was not expecting. I know,
it's the hawks that I'm like. I feel like the
Duke would have had questions about his hawks going missing,
but maybe not. Maybe he was busy with other things,
(21:43):
you know, maybe he was so impressed with the bread
that he was like maybe maybe there's also a legend
behind the tradition of saving a slice of panatoni to
eat on February third, which listeners, he's right in about this.
I'm fascinated by this um. So. The story goes that
(22:05):
sen biago Um also St. Blaise also known as St. Blaise,
saved a child who was choking on a fishbone by
feeding this kid bread um and because of that one
of his many skills, he had a lot of very
diverse set of skills, and it included protecting sore throats.
(22:25):
After this um, the idea is that on February third,
people toast up and butter the bread and eat it
to keep away a sore throat and illness in general.
And there's so many really fun interviews about this where
people are like, I know it sounds silly, but I
just whear it works. That's great, I know. Yeah. One
(22:48):
of the earliest known written mentions of pentatone is from
a fourteen seventies manuscript, with recipes popping up fairly often
in Italy by the eighteen hundreds. Uh and yeah, panetone
can be tricky to pull ups still is um so
bakers have a long search for tips and shortcuts and
making it An Italian recipe from eight claimed that using
(23:10):
baking soda as opposed to yeast not only sped up
the process but also resulted in something quote much better
than the Milanese style panatone. Yes you too, me too,
and many at the time vehemently created. It wasn't until
(23:31):
the nineteen twenties and thirties that the product began to
be commercially industrially produced, um, and this helped to lower
the price um and to make it more available to
more people. And on top of that, over the years,
with industrialization lowering the prices of sugar and flour and
most things, panatone has largely become a much richer, sweeter bread.
(23:54):
From what I've read, it wasn't as as dense and
sweet as it is now all um. But again, let
us know, listeners. Yeah mm hmmm. Waves of Italian immigrants
spread panatone worldwide, and their foods became a part of
how they would express their identity and their history, and
(24:14):
panatone was a part of that. Yeah. Yeah, just just
for one example, there was a whole wave of integration
from Italy to Peru in like the mid eighteen hundreds,
and so yeah, mm hmm, and yeah. While panatoni has
long been a staple in Italy and in Italian bakeries
and delis around the world, where locals did adapt the
(24:35):
recipe to what they had on hand. Only recently did
Panatone start seeing a big boost outside of that, particularly
in the UK. After it was mentioned in the episode
of peep Show. UM headlines from the twenty teens asked
if we're in the quote golden age of Panatone or
(24:55):
that they wondered why American bakeries were quote obsessed with it. Yeah,
and it really has had a glow up in recent years. UM.
It's fun to read early descriptions calling it like a knockoff,
sad version of fruitcake. Not my words. Don't be mad
at me. I did not say this away from that
(25:17):
one too. Heck, yes, this is a lot of stepping
away in this episode. UM. Two articles that are talking
about really fancying it up, UM, which people also like
to argue about. They also we, I mean every we
talked about this. It's that thing of like, at what
point does a pantone become not a panatone if you've
(25:37):
read it like to fancy um or to whatever. Yeah, uh,
I will say that. UM. This year saw the third
annual Panatone World Cup in Milan. Baker's from all of
the world went there in October or November of this year,
(25:58):
like late October early early November, to compete um in
either the traditional category, um, which is just candied fruits,
or the chocolate category, which is separate. Yeah that there
were There were forty two finalists, and I love that
this is the World Cup of Panatonic. Yes, as there
(26:19):
should be. That's that's only right, right. Yeah, listeners, again,
please let us know if you've been involved, participated and
if you've made panatone, have pretty pictures of Panatone, if
you just have like really good memories. Um, yeah, another
(26:42):
thing to add to the list for me, and I
will try some. I'm very excited. They're very pretty. They
are they are They're They're really I just had this
like urge to like bring you one like tonight. Um.
But but it's it's really big, Like I mean, like,
I guess you are going to go visit family this
weekend for for the holidays, so um, so you could
(27:04):
bring it with you and you wouldn't know. I was
just like I was imagining your panic at like receiving
an entire case. Yeah, I wouldn't want to panick you pantone.
I appreciate that you said that you called it stunning,
so like a foot tall, that's a that's an undertaking.
(27:27):
I'm curious about the slicing part. But yeah, if I
showed up to my family with a pan attone, they'd
be very happy with me. So we'll see. Who knows
what tomorrow will bring. But that's what we have to
say about pan Atone. For now. It is um. We
(27:48):
do have some listener mail for you, though, and we
are going to get into that as soon as we
get back from one more quick break for a word
from our sponsors. And we're back. Thank you, sponsored, Yes,
thank you, And we're back with the snow. It's like
(28:16):
a rising and the kind of settling. Yeah. I don't
know that's what, but we're going with it. We're going
close enough. Uh. Mike wrote a message in response to
my story about how I use a lot of goofy
kind of euphonisms when I would when I could be swearing,
(28:37):
when I would like to be swearing. Okay, alright, alright, yeah,
so Mike wrote, swearing has never been a big part
of my vocabulary, but the birth of my son pushed
me to adopt even more alternatives. In pre pandemic days,
I was working in office. One day, I was walking
back to my desk and dropped to my mouse. It
hit the floor and the door to the battery compartment
popped off. The batteries flew out, and opposite to actions,
(29:00):
I yelled, son of a biscuit. While picking up the pieces,
I realized that people sitting nearby were laughing at my exclamation.
I could only shrug and eventually laugh with them. This
group of employees developed an inside joke based on that day.
Whenever something was going wrong, they would say things like, oh,
a lot of biscuits today, or I'm making biscuits over here.
(29:23):
No regrets on my part. I still say son of
a biscuit whenever the need arises, and I love it.
That is a good one. That is a good one. Yeah.
I have a friend who says son of a biscuit. Yes,
it's it's so funny because you're kind of like like
I said when I was telling the story, I don't
know where mind came from. I got a good gravy train. Like,
(29:46):
no one says that in my life. It's funny what
just comes up. Biscuits a great word. Biscuit is a
great word. Yeah, because most I mean if we were
a different show. You know, we love etymology, but most
curse words have that kind of hard like clicking tea
sound at the end. So biscuit, Yeah, biscuit satisfying to say,
(30:11):
very very satisfying. I love this and I love that
it was adopted by your co workers. Um, Samantha wrote,
I just listened to the artichoke episode and I had
to write in. My mom named me Samantha after the
main character from Bewitched, so I've always loved the show.
One of my favorite scenes is right after and Dora,
her mother, meets Darren, her husband. It does not go well. Afterward,
(30:34):
Darren and Samantha are talking and they have this adorable interaction. Uh,
Darren says, say, could she, I mean, really turned me
into an artichoke if she wanted to? That's creepy. What
could you do? I mean, if she did nothing except
except what I could become an artichoke too. It's so sweet.
(30:59):
I actually tried to work it into my wedding ceremony
but couldn't find a place for it. Oh that is
so sweet. Goodness too, are to chokes? And oh I
had forgotten about that scene. That's so lovely. It is
and I love that that you're named after this and
(31:21):
that trying to work it into your wedding ceremony. That's fantastic,
so good, so so good. Um well, thanks to both
of those listeners for writing in. If you would like
to write to us, and you can, our email is
hello at favorite pod dot com. We're also on social media.
You can find us on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram at
saver Pod and we do hope to hear from you.
(31:43):
Savor is production of I Heart Radio. For more podcasts
to my heart Radio, you can visit the I Heart
Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your
favorite shows. Thanks as always to our superproducers Dylan Fagan
and Andrew Howard. Thanks to you for listening, and we
hope that let's work. Good things are coming your way
Savor News
Hosts And Creators
Anney Reese
Lauren Vogelbaum
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