AboutExpert Expertise My cooking style leans towards Mediterranean, with an emphasis on gourmet, party fare, and vegetarian cuisine. I am a food journalist, I’ve written and edited several cookbooks, and I develop and teach cooking classes.
Experience I have developed recipes for specialty food manufacturers, conducted many seminars on cooking and ethnic foods, and have taught customized cooking classes. I have also owned a gift shop, a floral design business, and a catering business.
I’m the author of Con Amore, a contemporary novel about food, love, and life – Italian style. It includes a brief history of Italy, the foods of each region, and a variety of recipes – many that are vegetarian or easily adaptable to the vegetarian diet. I am the author of Herbed-Wine Cuisine and several other books on a variety of topics.
I publish a quarterly e-newsletter, Simply Elegant, which provides information on food, decorating, and entertaining. I also publish a monthly e-newsletter, Tutto Italiano, about everything Italian. Visit my Web site, www.jtmancuso.com, to learn more.
Question I'm going to try a great recipe for baked beans but it requires pancetta, which is a slab of pork. Is there a good vegetarian alternative for the pancetta? (The recipe is by Tyler, food channel.
Answer David,
Pancetta is Italian bacon that is cured with herbs and spices. The pork, herbs, and spices add a distinctive flavor to the baked beans. To duplicate the flavor of pancetta you will need to add the flavorings to the beans. It would be difficult to give you measurements, so you will have to experiment with a small amount of each and then increase as the beans cook, keeping in mind the proportion of pancetta to beans and how the recipe is prepared.
If the pancetta is cooked before adding to the beans, then sauté the seasonings in a small amount of oil. If the pancetta is not cooked, then just add the seasonings to the beans. You may need to add a little oil also, to replace the fat that would melt into the cooked beans.
The seasonings to be added are black pepper, salt, garlic, juniper berries, nutmeg, brown sugar, thyme, rosemary, and bay leaf. In place of salt, you can add chopped olives or capers. As I mentioned, you will have to adjust the seasonings, maybe making your own blend that you can also use to flavor other recipes.
