Adam Balic

Basic "Curry" made paste of dried shrimp/shallots/birds eye chilli (only four of the buggers)/garlic/ginger. Steamed then fried some Chinese sausage, cooked paste off in the oil that had rendered out of the sausage. Added carrot, green beans, pepper, black cloud fungus cooked these off added bean sprouts and Holy basil. Checked sweet/sour/salt balance with Palm sugar/tamarind water/yellow beans. Served with steamed Jasmine rice.

Genepi des Alpes is made from Artemisia mutellina (Alpine Wormwood). It belongs to the same genus as wormwood used to make Absinthe. My friend (French Alp native) considers it to be "King of Alpine liquors" (there are loads of these, made from different herbs/flowers". She suspects that it is one of the major componants of Yellow Chautreuse, so you could taste this or you could buy it on-line, as there seems to be several suppliers. Couldn't determine if it gets you stoned or not.

Peter - Yes I realise that Italian food that is your favorite type of food and you wish to share that experience with other people. That has never been an issue and the desire to share your experiences and knowledge is worthy and good. Italian food as served in Italy happens to be my favourite food as well. The point being though, that it is possible to discuss food in Italy or Italian food on various levels without constantly refering to this, as it is not always relevant. As I politely suggested start a new thread or are you afraid of critique? For the record, I am Australian, not American. Not that a persons race or country of origin should matter. Any sanctimonity I may have expressed is not to do with my nationality. Making these types of generalisations about individuals based on perceived nationality just make you look foolish and uninformed. Finally, if we were to treat you by the same standards that you have been using, do you not think that you would be sneered out for making generalisations about what Italians think? Shall be say "oh, you obviously don't know anything about the real Italy as what would a Neopolitin care about polenta? Are they not Italian?". If you are going to be so judgemental about other peoples comments (without really understanding them) look to your own statements first. Otherwise, you really do end up looking like another damaged person who likes shout out their own views on the internet without any though of actuallu interacting with other people.

Steve - I was making a generalization to make a point to Peter. You know about generalizations right?

Peter - If you read the original posting by FG you will see that this topic isn't about why Italian food isn't any good (which it is), but why it isn't relevant to Modern (i.e. Francocentric) dining. Not everybody who has made a contribution to this thread is a sycophant or eats in Michelin starred restaurants and if that is all you have to say about people that have made a contribution to what has been, in part, an interesting thread then don't bother again in the future. Better still, rather then banging on about how most people don't know about real Italian food as cooked in Italy at inappropriate times, start you own thread on the topic. I also spend time in Italy regularly with relatives, so I would be interested in a coherent discussion on the topic.

On Thursday night we made the decision to go to Islay for the weekend. After much car travel we made the ferry with a few minutes to spare and ended up having a lovely time. However, trying to get food was a problem. Islay is an island of the coast of a larger island. All the wet stuff surrounding these island is full of fish and other goodies. Why can't I get any of this to eat in the UK? We looked high and low of a fishmonger thay sold fresh of the boat fish. No luck. At the end of the weekend we went to Port Ellen (where the ferry docks) for a final meal. The place has a small fleet of fishing boats, the docks are full of crab and lobster pots. Local pub next to these sold scampi/haddock and chips. And that wasn't good. We had a long discussiohn over our 'lunch' about how this was the blight of the British attitude to food. We then went down to the docks to catch the ferry. Comming off the ferry were several lorries - to pick up all the seafood and take off to some location to be sold to the French and Spanish. Back of the mainland we tried to get into the Loch Fyne Oyster Bar. Several surly people told us that is was closed (what the ment was that we needed to make a booking). From what I could see it looked souless and very over-priced. I wouldn't go back there. However, had a truly excellent Pub meal at the George Hotel in Inverary. Not a gastro-pub, but a truely good pub meal. For starters we had homemade smoked salmon pate and deep fried king scallops with chilli sauce. Both excellent and there were five scallops plus roe for each portion. For main we had grilled salmon with scallops and prawns, all good. Wine list was varied and interesting. So for four people who had starters, main and desert plus whisky (excellent range at pub), bottle of wine and large glasses of desert wine (muscat from Portugal) the total cost was seventy four quid including VAT. Bargin. Also child friendly.

Pasticcio di Maccheroni con pasta dolce from Emilia-Romagna. It's a festival dish that obviously based old tradition of cooking. A sweet shortcrust pie filled with pasta, sauced with custard/bechamel flavoured with porcini, chicken livers, sweetbreads, truffles, proscuitto a few spices and other bits an pieces. Sounds weird, tastes great (Unless you are called Steve Plonicki - Pie and Pasta!). Also great fun to make.

Cucumbers and onions. Bastards. When I'm slicing/dicing I don't want to stop and wipe them off.

They is sharp. That be the problem.

Oh, in that case you just need to practice more and buy a spirit level. Tape Spirit level to the knife handle (use clear tape so you can see the bubble), practice on something easy and cheap (no, not tommy), like processed cheese. Don't be to ambitous at the begining, remember - baby steps. I would start on getting the slices even, then when you get that to the a stage you are happy with, start trying to get them thinner. I hope this helps some.

Cooked in a pit with herbs by bandits, while they wait for somebody to kidnap.

No I'm not a better man then you! I buy chunks for cooking and slices for eating. The local Spanish deli uses a sushi Knife to slice their hams (various grades), the local fishmonger uses a similar blade to slice smoked salmon, so this may be the best knife for the purpose.

I have this problem that now that I have vaguely good knives and can slice/dice stuff very fine it sticks to the knife blade. The more slicing the more sticking, until some of it comes off, usually of the cutting board and onto the floor. How do Pros prevent this? Vinegar/lemon on the blade?

Strange, I don't have any problem doing this with my Global knives. How thin are you blades? What type of meat are we talking about? Firmish salami, no problem, but softer stuff like mortadella etc is more tricky (lives keep poppin out).

So how does one apply 'relevant' 'French' technique to the antipasti. Make a terrine? Terrine? Actually yes. Have seen this several times in Italy, with the "New" Gelatin type (Charlie Trotter style?) terrine. Cotechino with lentils in gelatin, that sort of thing. On of my good friends is a great cook and likes to replicate Plated dishes from Chef books. Interestingly he said that he didn't really like Italian food as you couldn't plate it. I have always though that this is a fucking crazy reason for not liking a cuisine, but maybe not, if you consider it in context. On the one occasion where he cooked a plated 'Italian' dish it was caponata (tiny die of the individual veg.) and papadalle (cooked lightly sauced and wrapped around a rosemary stalk so you could give the plate some 'hight'). Lovely meal, but it wasn't Italian, it was French, using Italian inspiration for the base recipes.

Q: The Balic, isn't that like saying Italian cuisine is less relevant because French cuisine is more relevant? A: What Wilfrid said above. Q: If Plotnicki and I are part of a particular tradition -- call it the Pasta Haters -- the important thing about that tradition is that it's the dominant one everywhere in the Western world outside of Italy. In the Eastern world too. So why is it the dominant one? A: So McDonalds is the most relevant cuisine on the planet? Seriously, I don't think that it is a question of inherent "merit". Who got there first applies (obviously) here. If you had asked the same question 400 hundred years ago it would have been the other way around. New ideas, new fashions. Out of France when to you ever see cheap arse French restaurants, like you do with Italian etc? Perception and timing are every thing. As an exercise take a Italian recipe and make it into a Modern recipe of the highest order. Ends up being French style with the use of Italian ingredients. Doesn't say anything about merit only about expectations of the individual.

Steve - without trying in any way to be insulting, is it not possible that you and fat guy et al. are the products of a particular type of culinary tradition and this is at the heart of what makes Italian cuisine a non-relevent cuisine? Depends on what yardstick you use. I am in no way suggesting that your opinions and conclusions based on your experiences and that of other experienced diners are wrong, just that the critria used to define haute cuisine in a critical manner may not be relevent in all cuinary cases? As to the pasta, well when I went to Paul Bocuse's in the early 90's they had several pasta options. Didn't seem to harm the experience.

Steve- the use of Pasta in Italy varies from region to region, family to family. Good you have you Artusi (which was about "healthy" eating, but not in the modern sense. Try "refined", rather then healthy), so in that you can see that there is a wide range of foods. Several Italian chefs in the 19-20th C. have been critical of the over use of pasta in Italian diet and have called it "unhealthy". I'm not sure what type of Ragu you have had but tradionally you would make the Ragu, cook the pasta, take a small portion of the Ragu "fry/saute" this off (alters the flavour, possibly renders out some of the fat), mix this with the pasta, then place a serving of the un-sauted Ragu on top of the sauced pasta. Sounds similar to what you do with a Daube and noodle dish? Pasta is carbohydrate, it serves a purpose. In the UK the same purpose was taken by puddings which were served before meat. They also have carbohydrates in France. I hear what you are saying, but I think that you are overplaying the significance of the pasta portion of the meal. If that was the impediment to the development of Italian High Cuisine then it would have been dropped or reduced in significance. Other reasons are more important, unless you are obsessive about paste/pie. It is a little unfare to see Italian cooking as a static thing. The use of pasta in the North has increased significantly as has the use of tomatoes (difficult to find any significant use of them in most of Italy until late 19th. C.) etc. I agree with you points (didn't I make some of them?), but one point that I think is valid and hasn't been picked up by you is that Italian simply isn't French. By this I don't mean that there is an overt French bias, simply that as a self contianed cuisine it doesn't fit into the French model, which is the model of Modern dining.

Good.

Steve - the various regions that make up modern Italy have a long history of cooking for the aristocrats. It changes from period to period, but international scale books have come out of the Papal courts, Venice, Milan. Please try to find an English translation of Artusi's book, so that you can make a comparison to Escoffier. Maybe the answers you seek are contained in why this author is known as the father of Modern cooking and the other is regarded highly in his own country, but unknown elsewhere. At the time when Catherine went to the French court it would seem that Venetian Chefs were in vogue and it was many of these that went with her. One hundred odd years later some of the French chefs went to Venice, where the Venetians complained that they had ruined good Venetian cooking! In 15-18th C. British cookbooks there are many references to the Italian style of cooking. In an early English cookbook (Robert May, who cooked for toffs) there are several recipes for ravioli and other pasta types. In Modern Italian cooking, I'm not sure where this historical upper class food fits in. Certainly, some of the Festival food seems to be directly taken from this tradition (some of it is even obviously medieval), but could it be that the case in Italy is similar to what is the case in Modern China? A long tradition of Aristo. cooking that was wiped out on the mainland due to changes in the form of government.

Never had the pleasure of eating out with Mr. Plotnicki, Bux. When you get an "obvious-sacasm-that-might-be-being-cute-or-might-have-an-edge" smilie then I will use it.

Yes and I hope that you read my reply. On the offensive note, if you are going to make generalizations about what is the real deal with Italian (without and evidence or facts), tell people that it is their own fault that they have eaten badly and imply that American's don't know anthying about food then really, what do you expect, a pat on the head?

Hopleaf - good luck with the book. I look forward to reading about up-dates. Are you concentrating on a region (North/South/Islands etc) or being more broad? A difficult task as from my limited experience some people in Chianti consider people in Volterra as "strangers" and there cooking equaly strange. So making choices about the most 'correct' recipe is going to be hard.

That can't be, Ravioli and Risotto are like - starch!

OK- before this goes any further, how about showing evidence about this historical facts of "developed from peasant cuisine". You and Ron can't both be correct , so look up the topic in "General Topics" on "Peasant Cuisine?" and see how you go.