I am very interested in Italian cooking, having visited Italy because
I have a family member there. I feel it is basically a very healthy
cuisine provided one does not over-indulge in bread - which seems to
appear at almost every meal! That said, I am often at a loss with
some Italian TV personalities on US Food TV,

I realise that transplanted cuisines often take up local ingredients
and include them and that frequently the fresh local produce is not
quite of the same unique flavour as the original (proscuitto,
tomatoes, mushrooms and cheese - particularly mozarella - come to
mind here).

That said, I frequently have a problem following Molto whatshisname
because he simply never stops chattering (I have the same problem
sometimes with Emeril who goes on and on with a simple process as if
the viewer is stuck in about Grade 5 at school and needs everthing
laboriously drawn out).

So far as I personally have discovered in the Veneto, Liguria and
Emilio Romagna, cheese is never ever served with any fish dish - not
even sprinkled on and no cheese is even put on the table as a
temptation. I ate at a very nice restaurant in the Cinque Terre last
summer and when the dishes had been served the Americans at the next
table asked for cheese, only to be informed by the waiting staff that
it was not served with seafood dishes. They insisted. The wait
person brought it.

I don't try to emulate the Italian dishes I was fortunate enough to be
served in Northern Italy. One has to compromise I feel. Our
locally-grown tomatoes and some other vegetables are not the same. The
pasta is not the same. The meat (especially pork) is not the same.

I buy Italian proscuitto when I can. I sometimes buy Italian
mozarella - but it is very expensive here. I only indulge in this in
midsummer when our tomatos are sun-ripened, but even so the caprese is
not the same because our tomatoes are not so luscious (they are better
than those in England and a lot better than those I ate in the USA!)

I have managed to obtain really good balsamic vinegar - at a price.
It is worth it though! I buy dried porcini mushrooms from Italy but
only wish we could get the fresh ones!

I do make Italian desserts - because they do transplant well.
Zabaglione is very good and I often make panacotta because we like the
variations allowed.

Others may think I am being picky. Perhaps. I liked the summer
food I ate in Italy so much that I was a tad disappointed in the
Italian dishes I made at home from local ingredients (and we do have
very good vegetables here).

Cheers - and good cooking.





The Golfer's Wife

<The Golfer's Wife> ha scritto nel messaggio
...
>I am very interested in Italian cooking, having visited Italy because
> I have a family member there. I feel it is basically a very healthy
> cuisine provided one does not over-indulge in bread - which seems to
> appear at almost every meal!
> I buy Italian proscuitto when I can. I sometimes buy Italian
> mozarella - but it is very expensive here. I only indulge in this in
> midsummer when our tomatos are sun-ripened, but even so the caprese is
> not the same because our tomatoes are not so luscious (they are better
> than those in England and a lot better than those I ate in the USA!)
>
> I have managed to obtain really good balsamic vinegar - at a price.
> It is worth it though! I buy dried porcini mushrooms from Italy but
> only wish we could get the fresh ones!
>
> I do make Italian desserts - because they do transplant well.
> Zabaglione is very good and I often make panacotta because we like the
> variations allowed.
>
> Others may think I am being picky. Perhaps. I liked the summer
> food I ate in Italy so much that I was a tad disappointed in the
> Italian dishes I made at home from local ingredients (and we do have
> very good vegetables here).
>
> Cheers - and good cooking.
>
>
>
>
>
> The Golfer's Wife

You make some cogent points, and I have others.

You can find fresh mozzarella made in the US, but it isn't all that easy.
If you can grate it, it's bad. Bufala is also available, but it is almost
never fresh enough, but that goes for parts of Italy, too. I've a nearby
bufala farm, so I have had it at every point and I think from 6 hours to 12
hours in the brine is perfection, and that's hard to accomplish most places.

When tomatoes are in season they are good in the US, too. In winter
tomatoes aren't very good here, either. I use canned ones in winter for
that reason. Porcini season is short, so we used dried ones too. We use a
lot of things commonly found for free in the forest or the fields.

I don't buy just Italian prosciutto crudo, but Parma or San Daniele because
I like the less salty ones. You can buy both in the US.

The cheese and fish thing is a belief that it is bad for the digestion, but
I know one Italian who grates cheese over everything he eats and he has so
far lived longer than most wanted him to.

You can buy Italian pasta there-- look for Gragnano as the source city if
possible. All Italian dried pasta is not equal, either. You can make your
own egg pasta in moments once you get the hang of it. Ten to fifteen
minutes from flour to plate. Bread is served AS a course -- bruschetta and
crostini or with the meat course. You don't have to eat it!

Work from books if you can't keep up with TV chefs. I think they are
encouraged to talk to engage the watchers.

My beef with the US interpretations of Italian dishes is gilding the lily.
Italian food is very simple. Use the best ingredients and respect them.
Don't allow anything to be exaggerated to the detriment of the nature of the
ingredients. Too often in the US a good dish gets spoiled by adding more
stuff to it. Or exaggerating the cheese or the garlic.

Remember that Italian home cookery was developed in homes that first had no
stoves or ovens, and then moved to having woodstoves until fairly recently.
The fireplace is still used for meat very often. Refrigerators were rare
until fairly recently and then were tiny for decades. Even cucina alta,
ever more rare to find, follows those basic tenets of respect. (It seems
very French until you get to ragù, the first base sauce in cucina alta that
isn't also French.)

If you get the basic idea of respect and quality, you can look at what you
bought and almost know what to do with it.

Judith in Umbria

<The Golfer's Wife> wrote:

> So far as I personally have discovered in the Veneto, Liguria and
> Emilio Romagna, cheese is never ever served with any fish dish - not
> even sprinkled on and no cheese is even put on the table as a
> temptation.

I would say your experience is somewhat incomplete in this particular
regard. There are any number of established, traditional Italian
(Northern and otherwise) seafood recipes with cheese. It is not at all
rare to serve such fish as eel, swordfish, dried cod (baccalà), or
sardines with sprinkled parmesan or pecorino. Even sea bass is
sometimes served with parmesan. Sometimes even mozzarella is used.
Mussels are sometimes served with parmesan, too. Think of such dishes
as anguilla dorata (fried eel), baccalà alla vicentina (Vicenza style),
cernia ripiena (stuffed sea bass), frittata di mitili (mussel omelette),
orata alla pugliese (okay, it is a southern dish), sarde ripiene
(stuffed sardines), or bracciole di pesce spada (stuffed swordfish
roulades). You just do not keep sprinkling that parmesan
indiscriminately, like many people would at a lot of "Italian"
restaurants outside of Italy.

> I don't try to emulate the Italian dishes I was fortunate enough to be
> served in Northern Italy. One has to compromise I feel. Our
> locally-grown tomatoes and some other vegetables are not the same. The
> pasta is not the same. The meat (especially pork) is not the same.

This is very true. Even here in Germany, a lot of produce is different
and even imported Italian stuff is not always quite the same...

> I buy Italian proscuitto when I can. I sometimes buy Italian
> mozarella - but it is very expensive here.

It also has to be extra-fresh, like day-old, at most, and this is
generally impossible to get outside of Italy.

> I have managed to obtain really good balsamic vinegar - at a price.
> It is worth it though! I buy dried porcini mushrooms from Italy but
> only wish we could get the fresh ones!

Porcini, fresh or dried, do not have to be from Italy to be good - they
just have to be good!

> Others may think I am being picky.

No, you are not. You are being realistic.

Victor