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Subscribe to forums RSS#1 Mon 28 Jan 13 5:49pm
Merlin
- Administrator Occupation Sub-editor/general online chap
- From London
- Member since Wed 24 Oct 12
A season for Italy
As you may have seen in the News & Blogs section, we're running a whole season devoted to Italian food culture on JamieOliver.com.
http://www.jamieoliver.com/news-and-blo … ly-season/
To coincide with this I thought it'd be pretty great if you all got talking about what you love about Italian cooking - discuss your favourite Italian recipes, share memories of great Italian food, even have a go at some of the recipes in our special Italian Jobs section (http://www.jamieoliver.com/recipes/cate … alian-jobs) and let us know how you got on!
This would also be a great time to direct any questions you may have been hanging onto about Italian cooking to Jamie and his Food team.
Thanks all,
Merlin
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#3 Mon 28 Jan 13 7:50pm
wine~o
Occupation Handyman
- From Dorset u.k
- Member since Tue 21 Oct 08
Re: A season for Italy
Italian.... 
Pizza... Pasta...and osso bucco...
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#4 Mon 28 Jan 13 8:02pm
bentpenny
- Member
- From CANADA
- Member since Wed 09 May 07
Re: A season for Italy
Excited about it! I loveeee pasta 
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#5 Mon 28 Jan 13 8:06pm
Kye
- Member since Fri 04 Apr 08
Re: A season for Italy
Pasta, pizza, panini and our poetic Mada with all her recipes and tips
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#6 Mon 28 Jan 13 9:00pm
mummza
-
Occupation avoiding housework
- From The land of song.
- Member since Tue 04 Oct 05
Re: A season for Italy
I am well aware that each shape of pasta has a type of sauce that should , please can you get the food team to chat about the different shapes of pasta and the different sauces that are generally served with the pasta
there is a great book caled 'Pasta by Design' by George L. Legendre
that not only explains the geometary of the different shapes but mentions what type of sauce is served with it.
Its a great book and I realy enjoy looking at it.
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#7 Mon 28 Jan 13 10:52pm
hippytea
- Member Occupation Chief cook and bottle-washer
- From Scotland
- Member since Mon 12 Sep 11
Re: A season for Italy
Italian food! I do make inept attempts at it at home, but when I think about that question, "what do I love about Italian food", I straight away think of restaurant food.
I live in Glasgow, which is a great place for restaurants of every type, but it seems like every third one is Italian. That's not even counting the old-school Italian cafes, and all the holidays down the Clyde Coast, where the streets are paved with Italian ice cream. The Ritz Cafe in Millport, decorated with posters of Lucca and clippings proclaiming "The Best Ice Cream in Scotland" - feather-light, milky ice cream of the type foodie fashion demands we call "gelato", as if that meant anything other than "ice cream". Even Nardini's in Largs has a "gelato" sign now, and they've been using the same recipe since Noah was a boy. The Ritz is still there, with its formica tables and Luccan family, unchanged from the 1950s. I don't know how much longer we'll have it.
And then later, romantic meals in wonderful places like the Ristorante Caprese, an unassuming downstairs place, walls covered in family photos and posters of Capri, serving Italian dishes I'd never seen before, startling in their gorgeousness. The chef would come out and banter with the regulars - one time he came out with a paper bag and started showing off a porcini the size of a small stool. And they weren't famous. This was just another Glasgow Italian restaurant, unnoticed by most, loved by a few. Wonderful.
So I have the most wonderful memories of Italian food. Gorgeous meals; rich, melting lasagnes, the smell of tomatoes and garlic, the feathery ice cream, and the waiters, mostly Glasgow Italians, with their daft banter and their exaggerated accents which they slip in and out of as it suits them. I've been to Italy twice - what a privilege - but for me, my best memories of Italian food are as a taste of home.
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#8 Tue 29 Jan 13 10:47am
Thistledo
- Member Occupation Retired something or other
- From English immigrant in S. Wales
- Member since Fri 07 Dec 12
Re: A season for Italy
Hippytea. What a beautifully written 'piece'. A start of a novel perhaps? Thoroughly enjoyed reading that. Thank you.
I've been to Italy once (Lakes) and I loved it, including the grub. However, my best memory of Italian food was found in Paignton, English Riviera. A wonderful restaurant (sadly no longer in existance) where I had my first Tornados Rossini. Absolutely fabulous.
Last edited by Thistledo (Tue 29 Jan 13 10:49am)
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#9 Tue 29 Jan 13 1:00pm
Maree
- From Newcastle, Australia
- Member since Sat 10 Mar 07
Re: A season for Italy
The term "Italian food" disturbs me, somewhat. It's regional, surely, as is most cooking.
Sorry if I'm nit-picking (again).
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#10 Tue 29 Jan 13 1:48pm
koukouvagia
- From New York
- Member since Fri 12 Dec 08
Re: A season for Italy
I agree Maree. Here in the states Italian food is pizza, lasagna, meatballs and thick red sauce. Italian-american cooking is very different than real Italian food. Here in NY they call marinara "gravy" which is a little disturbing. And they make "Sunday sauce" which is a meaty marinara with meatballs, sausage and pork spare ribs in it. If a dish is not swimming in gravy it ain't italian.
Eating food in Italy is really different. It's very simple no-fuss food. Each ingredient shines. And not every dish is slathered in red sauce! Sometimes there's no red sauce in sight!
Boy do I hate Italians though! It freaks me out that they get to eat so much pasta and stay so fashionably skinny! How do they do it? I get fat just by looking at a carb!
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