La Cucina Italiana – Part 2

Buon giorno, una bella giornata.

Continuing from where I left off in my last post, on an introduction to Italian Cuisine, I had stopped after mentioning the elaborate food of the Renaissance period.

The poor, of course, continued to subsist on the simple foods they had always eaten, but the wealthier middle classes developed a taste for fine foods and created their own bourgeois dishes. The finer features of Italian cooking even reached the French, when Catherine de’ Medici went to Paris to marry the future Henri II, taking fifty of her own cooks with her. They introduced new ingredients and cooking techniques to France and in return learnt the art of French cuisine. In those regions of Italy which border France, you can still find reciprocal influences of French classical cooking, but generally speaking, Italians do not like elaborately sauced dishes, preferring to let the natural flavours of their raw ingredients speak for themselves.

The essence of Italian cooking today is simplicity. The Italian way of cooking fish is a good example of this. In coastal areas, freshly caught fish is most often simply chargrilled over hot coals, then served with nothing more than a splash of extra virgin olive oil, a wedge of lemon and freshly ground black pepper. Recipes like carpaccio di tonno, in which the fish is so delicious raw that cooking seems unnecessary, and branzino al forno, where the delicate flavour of fennel is used to compliment rather than obscure the fresh taste of the fish, are typically simple, as is grigliata di calamari, squid chargrilled with chillies to reflect its robust character.

Italians learn to appreciate good food when they are young children, and eating is one of the major pleasures of the day, no matter what the day of the week or time of the year. Witness an Italian family gathered around the Sunday lunch table in a local restaurant, and consider how the Italian menu of antipasto followed by pasta, rice of gnocchi, then fish, meat and vegetables served in sequence is devised so that each can be savoured separately – both the food and the occasion are to be enjoyed as long as possible. The first course, or antipasto, is a unique feature. In restaurants, this can be a vast array of different dishes, both hot and cold, from which diners can choose as few or as many as they wish. At home with the family, it is more likely to be a slice or two of salami or prosciutto crudo with fresh figs or melon if these are in season. But no matter how humble or grand the setting or the occasion, the antipasto is always visually tempting. Dishes like bruschetta casalinga and pepperoni arrostiti con pesto, which look so attractive, are typical in this way.

The variety and diversity of the Italian ingredients available in our supermarkets and delicatessens will surely inspire you to concoct any number of delicious meals, from a simple dish of pasta to a full-blown four-course dinner. A plate of antipasto followed by pasta or risotto flavoured with seasonal ingredients, then simply-cooked meat or fish and finally a local cheese and fruit make a veritable feast. You could prepare a different meal along these lines every day of the year and almost never repeat the same combination. If, and when, you visit Italy, avail yourself of the wonderful local ingredients to prepare a menu full of the flavours of the region. Every area has its own special delights that make cooking and eating a real pleasure.

But in the meantime, use the wonderful local ingredients we have here in South Africa, follow the guidelines above, and you are on your way to living the “sweet life”.

Buon Appetito

Cheers… and salute

Love Italy, love life.

La Cucina Italiana – Part 1

Buon giorno, una bella giornata.

As mentioned in an early post on why Italian lifestyle is good for us, I made the first point of how we can duplicate this dolce vita, but looking at the Italian food. I wrote: To the Italians, food is life and as such, they honour it using the freshest ingredients.  All the senses are evoked during purchasing, growing, preparing or eating food.  Every meal is to be enjoyed to the fullest.

There’s an old Italian proverb:

“A tavola non s'invecchi mai”.  It means you never grow old at the table.

So, to continue with this important topic, which as I am sure you will understand, will be a major part of this blog, I have written an introduction to the Italian cuisine, and this is Part 1.

Italian cookery reflects the fact that the country was unified only in 1861. Until then, each region produced its own characteristic cuisine, relying exclusively on ingredients that could be gathered, cultivated or reared locally. Nowadays, of course, regional produce can be easily transported all over the country – all over the world, but Italians still prefer to base their cooking on local ingredients, because they regard quality and freshness as more important than diversity and innovation. (Can we say the same of ourselves?)

So the most flavoursome sun-ripened tomatoes, aubergines and peppers are still found in the south of the country, the freshest seafood is on offer along the coast, the finest hams come from the area where the pigs are raised, and so on. “La cucina italiana” remains distinctly regional; northern Italian cooking, for example, incorporates ingredients that are simply never found in the recipes of Sicily and Naples to the south, and vice-versa. In the dairy-farming north, butter is used in place of the olive oil so prevalent in the south; bread and polenta are eaten instead of pasta. The only unifying feature is the insistence on high quality ingredients.

Good food has always been essential to the Italian way of life. (I will do further posts in the not too distant future on the various regional cuisines.)

“La cucina italiana” is one of the oldest cooking cultures in the world, dating back to the ancient Greeks and perhaps even earlier. The Romans adored food and often ate and drank to excess; it was they who really laid the foundations of Italian and European cuisine. The early Romans were peasant farmers who ate only the simple, rustic foods they could produce, like grain, cheeses and olives. For them, meat was an unheard-of-luxury; animals were bred to work in the fields, and to provide milk, wool etc. and were too precious to eat. Trading links with other parts of the world, however, encouraged Roman farmers to cultivate new vegetables and fruits and, of course, vines, while their trade in salt and exotic spices enabled them to preserve and pickle all kinds of meat, game and fish.

Food became a near-obsession and ever more elaborate dishes were devised to be served at the decadent and orgiastic banquets for which the Romans were famed. The decline and fall of the Roman Empire led inevitably to a deterioration in the quality of cooking and a return to simple, basic foods. For centuries, regional cuisine reverted to its original uncomplicated style. With the Renaissance, however, came great wealth and a new interest in elaborate food. Once again, rich families strove to outdo each other with lavish banquets where courses of rich, extravagant foods were served – truffles, song-birds, game, desserts dripping with honey and spices – all washed down with quantities of wine.

To be continued in the next posting.

Buon Appetito

Cheers… and salute

Love Italy, love life.

Olive Oil – Green gold in a bottle

I have already posted a link to a news item about the health benefits of olive oil, and the link below is from the Irish Times also to do with olive oil. Although the information at the end of the article pertains to where to buy newly released vintage of extra-virgin olive oil, the rest of the article is interesting and gives you more of a background to the green gold. Where would Italian food be without olive oil – treated by many as their prized wines collections are treated.

 

Click on the link below to read the full article:

 

Green gold in a bottle

Eat and Live Well – The Italian Way

Buon giorno, una bella giornata.

Anyone who has travelled in Italy knows that the Italian lifestyle is defined by a love of good food, a passion for flavour, and a vibrant lifestyle. But you don't have to vacation in Rome to live "la dolce vita" - eating and living Italian style is a way of life that can be enjoyed anywhere, all year around.

Though Italian culture emphasizes eating for enjoyment (notice you don't meet many Italians on fad diets?), the Italian diet also happens to be one of the healthiest in the world; incorporating fresh, wholesome foods that are rich in nutrients and low in unhealthy fats.

To help guide people on how to eat and live like an Italian, Barilla - the Italian food brand - partnered with a team of nutritionists to create a new model that demonstrates the Italian way of eating as well as the various components that go into creating a perfectly balanced pasta meal. It's also worth noting that this model of eating fits well within the parameters of the new dietary guidelines that have been emphasised over the last few years, and the My Pyramid Food Guidance system, so anyone who considers Italian to be their favourite cuisine, can feel good about eating the Italian way while benefiting from a healthy diet and lifestyle.

Sure, there are still people who think of pasta as fettuccine smothered in fat-laden cream sauce. But traditional pasta meals are fresh, light, and easy to put together with nutritious, seasonal ingredients. Pasta is a perfect delivery system to get many healthy foods in your diet - such as a variety of colourful vegetables, tomato sauce, olive oil, fish and lean cuts of poultry. And pasta is low in sodium and cholesterol-free, as well as a good source of thiamine, folic acid, iron, riboflavin and niacin.

Pasta also ranks among children's favourite foods - especially when they can help prepare the meal. "Cooking pasta together is an easy way to get your family eating and communicating better," says Lynn Fredericks, author of Cooking Time is Family Time. "Let kids choose the pasta shape, help chop vegetables, set the table - cooking is a lot more fun when everyone pitches in."

Start experimenting with different variations on pasta meals to keep dinnertime interesting and healthy. For starters, try the two pasta recipes for typical Italian dishes that offer exceptional taste and nutrition, that will be my next two posts.

For many more authentic pasta meal recipes as well as tips on eating, cooking and living the Italian way, visit the new Barilla America website at www.barillaus.com. This is a site I can highly recommend, as well as the pasta which you can find in some shops and delicatessens in Cape Town – in which case, they must also be available in other centres as well.

Cheers… and salute

Love Italy, love life.

Olive Oil Protects the Liver

Read this very interesting article, which once again points to the health benefits of an Italian diet. :)

Olive oil protects the liver from oxidative stress

MEDITERRANEAN DIET AMONG UNESCO'S WORLD HERITAGE

 

The Mediterranean diet is now part of the UNESCO "intangible cultural heritage", as requested by Italy, Spain, Greece and Morocco, due to the important role it plays for health, local traditions and biodiversity.

Click on the link below to read the full article published yesterday.

Green Med Journal - The Mediterranean Fresh Produce Magazine