RFalvo69
Posts: 1380
Joined: 7/11/2013 From: Lamezia Terme (Italy) Status: offline
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quote:
ORIGINAL: RangerJoe quote:
ORIGINAL: RFalvo69 Never try "Italian Food" (quote/unquote) outside Italy, toh Do you mean to say that when I go to a local store and they have imported food from Italy that I should not try it? Or that the raviolis that I ate at someone's house were terrible even though his mother could not speak English? Only Italian? Or the restaurant that I went to in Germany which had a female wolf statue with two toddlers? Or when I go to a restaurant who's founder* may have came from Italy, that I should not eat there? *I do not know if she did or not, but it is quite likely since the original restaurant was started in 1934. The first problem is that these is NO Italian food. It may sound amazing, given the number of "Italian restaurants" around the World, but in reality that you have Italian regional food as the major generalisation - and the real truth is that every town/province has their own food. "Tuscan food", one of the best known around the World, may be defined as a selection of foods typical of Tuscany, but the food you eat in Florence is quite different than the one you eat in Lucca (I like more Lucca's BTW). The very oil used is different. So, you have Milanese food, which is different from Pavia's (only 40 minutes drive). And then all comes down to specific ingredients. Italians learned to cook by putting together the best they could find in their area. "Risotto alla Milanese" is made with rice, saffron, parmesan (and notice the root: Parma), white wine and Milanese sausage (or sometimes minced meat). Roman or Calabrese sausages are quite different: you can't really make a "Risotto alla Milanese" with Calabrese sausage (well, you can, if you hate that people come to dinner to you too often...) So, to sum it up: - You can go to a local store, buy food from Italy (ingredients I guess - I hope you don't mean frozen food) and cook something with Italian ingredients. Maybe you also get a good result. But to cook true (insert a Italian City/region here) food you need a shop that sells specific ingredients from that area, and follow their specific recipes. - If the raviolis are dire they are dire. My eldest daughter can't boil an egg... - I once went to eat in "The Best Italian Restaurant in Washington D.C.", a stunningly classy place on the harbor. We were... high on alcohol, when the owner came to ask us how it was going. My friends, who had secretly decided to pull a joke on me, pointed their fingers in my direction and told "He is the expert!" - then immediately raising their phones. Undaunted, I pulled out a pen and started to correct the menu - because not even the dishes' names were printed right (I mean... if you own a classy "Italian Restaurant", just ask to a Italian to check the menu). The owner disappeared and we got a second round of sweeties and liquors "on the house". That was my experience with this Italian Super-restaurant (Las Vegas was worse but at least they didn't pretend...) - It doesn't matter who the founder is - what matters is the quality of the food. I know people from places like China and Egypt who are very good cooks of "Italian food". But, at the end, the problem outside Italy remain the ingredients. What is common here costs you an arm and a leg if you have to import it. So, the best solution is to concentrate on "classic" Italian foods and mass-import the right ingredients - something, however, I seldom saw during my culinary trips.
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"Yes darling, I served in the Navy for eight years. I was a cook..." "Oh dad... so you were a God-damned cook?" (My 10 years old daughter after watching "The Hunt for Red October")
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