Thou Shalt Not Live by Panettone Alone
I've always been fascinated by the Britishism 'gobsmacked.' The first time I heard it, I thought it was vile because back in the US a 'gob' was something you hawked into a spittoon — not the kind of culinary experience I tend to write about. However, that's not how the adjective is used here in the UK. The website for the Oxford English Dictionary, which tracks English usage through the centuries, says its meanings can range from 'flabbergasted' to 'astounded' to 'speechless or incoherent with amazement.' Being gobsmacked might throw you for a loop — to use an Americanism — but it needn't involve something you want to expectorate.
Earlier this year, I was gobsmacked by the luxuriousness of what's being called the 'marble panettone.' Self-described 'pastry provocateur' Gianpaolo Bassi has concocted it with several items of fashionable foodism: low-gluten heritage grains, butter from the Italian alps, costly manuka honey from New Zealand and tough-to-harvest, supposedly therapeutic birch sap. The key innovation? It is leavened and baked in marble vessels originating in the Carrara quarries in Tuscany, from which Michelangelo took the stone he chiseled into the monumental David. The calcium carbonate in the rock is said to lower the acidity in the final loaf, which arrives on a marble serving platter. It is a rectangular block, not the traditional globe in a plus-size cupcake wrapper. The marble panettone is also packaged in an elegant box of pale wood. If all that doesn't leave you 'incoherent with amazement,' maybe the price will. There is yet to be a price set for the basic model — but, like a Lamborghini, you can customize your panettone with special ingredients. Adorned with chocolate, candied fruit, chestnuts, raisins, all the above and more, the top-of-the-line version can set you back £1,000 ($1,330).
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