Maureen B. Fant

You're still safe, if near the edge. As I expounded in another post, carbonara can indeed be varied, just as long as you change the name. In the 1970s, and even in isolated pockets of the Eternal City today, pasta dello chef, della casa, di this and di that, was almost always a carbonara variation, with peas and mushrooms, though often this was with cream and prosciutto rather than egg and guanciale. But at our local Hostaria Nerone, fettuccine Nerone is one of those overloaded carbonaras to this day. We have a friend who simply always orders it.

NOT World War II powdered eggs! It is truly a dish made out in the mountains by charcoal makers and is, in any case, one of the group, which I call the Gang of Four (cacio e pepe, gricia, carbonara, matriciana), easily made outdoors by people who had to stay away from home out in the Apennines, such as shepherds and, as said, charcoal makers. I recently spoke with someone who swears he was personally taught how to make carbonara by actual Apennine charcoal makers. Matriciana/amatriciana is anomalous because of the tomatoes, which I think were actually added when people from northeastern Lazio and Abruzzo migrated to Rome and started opening trattorias. In any case, tomatoes don't grow happily (or at all) at the altitude of Amatrice, and the true matriciana is the gricia. Official carbonara ingredients (besides the pasta and salted pasta water): egg yolk, guanciale, black pepper, pecorino romano Considered OK today by many but not all: also the whites, pancetta, parmigiano reggiano mixed in with the pec ro. Never ever: anything else Now, a dish based on two ingredients that play well in the background as well as foreground does indeed lend itself to variation, and that's OK, BUT when you vary it, you have to stop calling it carbonara. You can say it's spaghetti del giorno, based on carbonara. But you can't say it IS carbonara. I enjoyed the remark about Lombardia and the nutmeg. I wonder how long they've been making carbonara up there, because it's certainly native to Lazio.

Heresy? Cacio e pepe with guanciale is pretty much "pasta alla gricia" or "l'amatriciana in bianco" and is my fave of the Gang of Four (cacio e pepe, carbonara, matriciana, and gricia).

Probably one small yolk, skip the white, which many purists do anyway, no matter how much they're making. (just realized I'm responding to a four-year-old post, but I suppose carbonara is eternal...)

The Roman Jewish way is to (carefully) take out the inside parts, cut off the stems, then put a piece of mozzarella and anchovy in each. The mozzarella should not be too wet, so if it's quite fresh, blot it on a tea towel or paper towel. When they are all stuffed and ready, make a batter of just flour and water, a pinch of salt, and a splash of vinegar. It should be liquid but thick enough to coat your finger. Heat some olive oil pretty hot for frying. Then pick up a flower by the top (the open side) and dip it in the batter. If you've torn any flowers during the stuffing phase, you can use batter to sort of patch them up. I always give a sort of twist to the top too. Then lay them gently in the oil and fry till golden brown. Drain on papers towels and eat quickly. Some people use egg and/or yeast in the batter, but in our house we like it like this. And we fry in extra-virgin. You could throw flowers and peas in a risotto together, but it would be sort of a waste of the flowers. I find them too bland for risotto, but many people like it. Likewise, they're considered great in frittatas, but I prefer zucchini, that is, zucchine romanesche, the variety with the light-green flutes. They are also used in Rome on pizza with anchovies and mozzarella, no tomato. Ristorante Paris in Rome (and after them, others) makes pasta with scampi (i.e. langoustines) and fiori di zucca. I'm surprised they're only wilted and not turned to mush. You might get away with frying. Good luck.

I use Mac Gourmet, which does import MasterCook. macgourmet.com.

Wonderful account of what I know was a great meal. Taverna del Capitano has been a favorite of ours for years, though we haven't managed to get down there in a while. We've also stayed at the hotel -- actually twice we've brought our kayaks from Rome, parked them on the capitano's beach, and enjoyed four days of paddling, swimming, napping, and eating, never once going near the car. It sounds as though Alfonso has evolved even further, but the dentice imperiale six of us shared (actually only half of it, plus the head for Franco) lives on as one of the most memorable meals ever -- fillets in cartoccio with Vesuvian tomatoes and olives. Quattro Passi is good, but the Capitano is better, and so much friendlier, and we much prefer it to Don Alfonso too. I hope you got to see the Captain's award-winning wine cellar, which is built to resemble the hold of a ship. Congratulations to the Caputo family on the well-deserved second star.

I wrote that in an article in the NY Times some years ago, and I think it's still true, as long as we understand that it's a sweeping oversimplification. I grew up in New York, and we used to say I feel like Lebanese, or I feel like Chinese, or let's see what that Persian place is like. You don't get that here. The few "ethnic" places are either greatly diluted for Italian tastes or holes in the wall that cater for new immigrants. There isn't even much French food here. One of the two Vietnamese restaurants closed a few years ago, but the other is hanging in. There are a few Indians, and I think a couple of Thais. There are quite a few Chinese, very few of them good, and by good I mean acceptable. If there's a traditional ethnic here, it would have to be Horn of Africa, but even there, there isn't much. I've been to an upscale sort-of American restaurant called Duke (excellent), and there's a chain (well, I know of two) of Argentine steakhouses where I've never been. Exotic ingredients are creeping into the more creative kitchens, and there have been incursions from the Middle East. And there definitely are more exotic places than there used to be. There are now doner kebabs et sim., around, but if we're talking about mainstream trattorias and restaurants, when you want a change from the local fare, you're still (for now) more likely to think Sicily or Sardinia than Asia.

Yes, biscotti are cantucci or tozzetti. The word is used in English I think exclusively for this type of biscotto, not as a general word for Italian cookies, I don't know since when. The singular, biscotto, is virtually lost in English.

Dunno about that. I think I'm as Slow as the next guy, but I have no problem whatsoever with Italian food technology and its works. Anzi, I think technology is saving a lot of traditional Italian foods, starting with olive oil and wine. Nothing makes Italian foodies roll their eyes faster than another Italian saying a food is "roba genuina," straight from the contadino. The producers who get the most respect are the ones who have a 21st century outlook paired with a serious respect for traditional products and tastes. There have been some generational battles over this. The challenge will be not to eliminate modern equipment but to maintain awareness of traditional tastes in future generations. Likewise, I'm not sure simple is exactly right. Traditional definitely, also artisanal or quasi-artisanal (artisanal with privileges?). But I don't see ribollita or coda alla vaccinara or sarde in saor or risotto al castelmagno or sartù di riso or fiori di zucca fritti or carciofi alla romana as particularly simple, except in the sense that they manage to be both labor-intensive and without artifice. If Fat Guy was implying that Italian cooking is not being true to its rustic self when it uses high-tech methods, I say he is wrong in two ways. First because it is wrong to classify the ideal of Italian food as rustic -- there is too much variety here, and great sophistication; rustic is only part of it. And second, because, except for pasta, the foods he chose to illustrate his point are popular today but not particularly important in the rich, complex bigger picture of the history of the gastronomy of the Italian peninsula. I'm new to egullet, so I don't know if it's usual for Fat Guy to be interpreted like some kind of Delphic Oracle, but I hope he's enjoying it.

Pontormo, sono commossa!

Olive oil, yes indeed. It has always been expensive to extract, and today it's very high tech. For an idea of state-of-the-art oil making, see Armando Manni's site: www.manni.biz.

Nearly everybody in Italy lives in a village. Cities are just a lot of contiguous villages. So yes, almost everyone does live within walking distance of an espresso bar, a gelateria, and a pizzeria, though pizza is more important in some areas than in others.

Buongiorno, Fat Guy With all due respect, I feel that, while you raise valid and interesting points, you are approaching Italian food from somewhere in left field. (And I beg indulgence in advance if, in attempting a reply, I wander into left field myself.) Italy is known as the country that gave the world the adorable Fiat 500. But it is also the home of Ferrari, one of the heavies of Formula 1. Parma is the home of Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese, but it's also where some of the world's best food-processing equipment is manufactured. This is a modern industrial country that also appreciates good ingredients and has a very complex gastronomic landscape. Italy does rustic better than anyone else, but just because a dish is traditional, it doesn't have to be rustic (risotto alla milanese, for example). Yet many (non-Italian) people think that if a dish, or restaurant, or what-have-you, isn't peasant-grandmother-food and -style, it's not really Italian. The French are allowed to do haute, but the Italians are supposed to toss that pizza and smile? With the exception of pasta, what you are calling core foods are not what I would call core foods. Also, there is a strong social component. Going to the bar and being served by a skilled barman is as much a social ritual as a gastronomic experience. In fact, many people swear that the actual best coffee is made at home in a stovetop napoletano – grandmother coffee. At the very least, there are two standards of coffee. You have your favorite stovetop or home brew and you have your favorite bar coffee. Gelato is not a traditional core food. It’s a modern social thing. You go for gelato with your friends. You go around town trying new flavors. You argue over Giolitti versus San Crispino. It’s Italian, but it’s not traditional, so why shouldn’t it use machines? Many cooks do make excellent sorbets and gelati at home, but it doesn’t replace the whole gelateria scene. Like coffee, it’s about much more than the taste of the final product, important as that is. This would probably be the moment also to recall that Algida and Giolitti inhabit different planets. That is, the distinction that has to be made is not between homemade and industrial but between air-pumped mass production and artisanal or quasi-artisanal, with truly homemade a third category. Likewise (don’t shoot) pizza is not a core food. The core food is bread. The many kinds of pizza and focaccia are members of the bread family. Now, if you go to Ostia Antica, to the apartment building known as the House of Diana, you will see a communal oven in the courtyard. Today in Rome inscribed over the doorways of old bakeries you’ll often see the word Forno. Those places were not just bakeries, they were neighborhood resources for housewives who had no place at home to bake the lasagne. The point is, people didn’t have their own ovens. Baking was always communal. Few people today would think it was important to have a wood-burning oven at home, even if they could afford one. And even if you have one, you would hire a professional pizzaiolo for your parties. Again, many people do make pizza at home, but it doesn’t replace the ritual of going out to the neighborhood pizzeria. Pasta, yes, is a core food. And as you point out, heavy machinery is needed to mix and extrude hard-wheat pasta. You got a problem with that? Instead of looking for an Italian Paradox, why not just look on dried pasta as a product of the unique Italian landscape, inventiveness, and technical prowess? And again let us keep in mind the difference between mass production (Barilla, say) and high-end artisanal-in-spirit dried pastas (e.g., Latini, Cavalieri, and many others). The issue of industrial-versus homemade dried pasta doesn’t exist. At home you make a different thing, fresh pasta, with or without eggs, using soft-wheat flour, or sometimes a mix of various flours. You can dry your homemade fettuccine carefully and store them. Seems to me there is no inherent paradox in Latini’s using state of the art techniques to mix, extrude, and dry the pasta made from their heirloom wheats, while my pal Oretta uses her humongous Bolognese rolling pin, and superior skill, to make tagliatelle with supermarket flour. One is as genuine, and “slow,” as the other (only Oretta is probably faster). I think if we were to go look at a Ferrari car being made, we would see that those Grand Prix speeds are attained through very slow craftsmanship. Remember what the emperor Augustus used to say: “Festina lente,” go fast slowly. Maybe that’s the Italian Paradox. And btw, to make a risotto or a tomato sauce or a minestrone, an old wooden spoon is all you need.

Victor Schrager, without a doubt. www.victorschrager.com

Luchin was a high point of my visit to Chiavari and polpettone di fagioli a major discovery in Liguria. A small orthographical precisazione with regard to the Neapolitan dish. Since you wrote in all caps, you couldn't show the accent. Of course it's gattò, as in Italianized gateau. I presume this is from the Bourbon influence in Naples. Nothing to do with cats.

The reason I wished I spoke Danish in the Workers Museum restaurant was to talk to the staff, who spoke very little English. I recall understanding the menu, so it must have been in English or at least easy. But understanding the dishes is one thing and constructing a meal is another. I think we probably would have ordered more stuff if we'd been able to have a dialogue. The atmosphere was nice and traditional, to my untutored eye, but I'd have been happy enough if they had spoken English to the standard one gets used to in Scandinavia. For all I know the regular person was off that day.

In Copenhagen, there are the sandwich places at lunchtime. There are two famous ones I can th ink of, one is a woman's name I can't remember and have never been. The other, smaller, I have been to. It is Slotskaelden hos Gitte Kik, 4 Fortunstraede, 1065 Copenhagen K; (45-33) 111-537. Closed Sunday, Monday and holidays; lunch only. You need to reserve. Also nice in Copenhagen is the restaurant in the Workers Museum, very traditional, to the point that I was sorry I didn't speak Danish. Many restaurants in NyHavn have lunch buffets, and there are lots of interesting parts of the city that undoubtedly will have the sort of place you want. I wish I could be more specific. Likewise, I wish I could remember the nice place in Malmo we were taken. We had herring and potatoes, all very real. It was like a pub. No use to you, except to assure you the sort of place you want is there somewhere.

It's not something I follow closely, but mass-tourism-oriented eateries tend to ignore local specialties and serve generic stuff (spaghetti alla bolognese [sic] was one of the first) or to take somebody's local specialty (e.g., spaghetti alla matriciana), transplant it, and make it generic. When I first started coming to Italy, matriciana and carbonara were found only in Lazio (hair splitters may include parts of adjacent regions). Tourists had never heard of them. But since about the 1980s, these traditional Lazio dishes are on those generic tourist menus throughout Italy, and they come out of a can or jar. Then the Bavarians who go to Gardasee (just out their back door) think they are eating Italian food and never discover the true local cuisine unless they take some real trouble to find the places that serve it. I don't always agree with the SlowFood's recommendations, but their guide does a tremendous service by signaling modest restaurants that still respect local traditions. This is a circular problem to some extent. I assume the restaurants started serving generic food because mass wholesale distribution made it cheap, but now tourists have come to expect gloppy pasta and starchy pizza when they come to Italy, even parts of Italy that traditionally eat spatzle, so generic bad Italian is what they seek and get. And of course the original source of that gloppy matriciana they think is so typical is lost. (So bless those other tourists who make pilgrimages to Amatrice to taste the real thing.) As for the question of natural evolution, which is another thing entirely, yes, of course new ingredients will arrive and be assimilated, cooking techniques will change as technology does (and often technology makes the revival of old techniques possible, or let's say emulable). The things is not to freeze progress but to try to ensure that tradition and traditional tastes are not forgotten, that the next generation of locals and visitors knows that matriciana is from the Apennines and that in Trentino tafelspitz is Italian food and that pizza dough should be tossed moments before it goes in the oven, not frozen.

I don't know specific brands, but you should be able to narrow your selection just by reading the labels. First, eliminate anything not extra-virgin. Prefer cans to bottles (the color is irrelevant to the quality, and the can protects from light, which causes deterioration). Then look at provenance. The narrower the geographical designation, the better.

The Roman spring picnic food par excellence is raw fava beans and pecorino romano cheese. Unfortunately the fava season is now over. As soon as the figs come in, we'll be eating pizza bianca with prosciutto e fichi. Salami is unlikely to be on the summer picnic circuit -- as a general rule pork products are avoided in summer. Prosciutto e melone and prosciutto in many forms is an exception. Grilled eggplant slices dressed with oil, parsley, and garlic; roasted peppers; fried friggitelli (small peppers); wedges of frittata (invariably zucchini) -- all are delish in sandwiches, even better in pizza bianca. I'm constantly seeking menu ideas for terrace dinners that minimize (anzi, eliminate) trips back to the kitchen. Last year I got very into pasta e fagioli. The summer version uses fresh borlotti beans and can be served room temp.

I started thinking about this question some years ago when I read a review in the Gambero Rosso guide that criticized, among numerous other things, a restaurant's numerous "interregionalità" (Italian is capable of marvelous synthesis, isn't it?). Well, I'd never thought in those terms before, but I have ever since. And let's say, I see what they mean. Obviously, cross-fertilization is needed or we wouldn't even have the ingredients for penne all'arrabbiata. And the tendency in the slick new restaurants is definitely toward interregionality, but it's still not the Italian way (if I'm not being presumptuous). Over my many years in Rome, I have become extremely wary of trying to "improve" on the old ways of doing things by mixing foods usually not found in the same kitchen. Parmigiano may be ubiquitous today, but you still grate ricotta salata on your Norma and pecorino romano on your matriciana. Even the most innovative chefs are very respectful of their local traditions and mix with great care and restraint. The Piedmontese may use Sicilian anchovies in their bagna caoda, but tradition doesn't prohibit buying ingredients from somewhere else. What it does, rather, is resist unfamiliar combinations. (This horror combinationis extends to other people's combinations too -- they simply can't get their minds around pb&j, to say nothing of "they put marmalade on turkey!") Americans who are well-informed about Italian food tend to know more about more foods from more parts of Italy than most Italians and to take a broader, more catholic view of things. (The stupid quiz show I listen to on TV while I cook in the evening regularly stumps the contestants with regional food questions, which I almost always know the answer to.) Hence an American, or an Italian under 30 who has traveled a lot, is going to be the one to put oregano on the taleggio. There is a subculture of regional mixing in the lower reaches of the mass-tourism sector. But it's a parallel universe, of no relevance to the principles being discussed here. The concern should be to educate the tourists so they will not accept spaghetti alla matriciana on the shores of Lake Garda.

It's too much of a coincidence that I've been banging my head against a seaweed problem all week, so I'll add it to your post. Maybe it will jog something useful for you. I'm translating a couple of very idiosyncratic and complicated recipes by an extremely imaginative and learned Sicilian chef (I feel I shouldn't post his details at the moment, but will post the link to the recipe as soon as it's online). The recipe in question is for a lightly smoked fish with a very complicated garnish of fruits and seafood (and thank you, I will accept suggestions for how to respect in English the Italian play on frutti di mare and frutti di terra). In the ingredient list for the garnish, he calls for "a bunch of fresh seaweed of the species Gigartina tedii." He fails to deal with it in the method, so I assume it is purely decoraative (but I will ask). My Googling has turned up merely that it is probably red and possibly related to Irish moss. Logic suggests it is available at the Catania fish market. Of even less use to you is my memory of my grandmother, who grew up on the west coast of Ireland, recognizing edible seaweed on Cape Cod. I could possibly try to press my mother's memory on this.

The question has certainly been answered, but I'll add my two cents anyway. The terminology is a bit inexact even in Italy. It’s department of “I know it when I see it.” In any case, here is how I’ve observed the terms used in Rome. Bruschetta is a generous slice of toasted (grill, toaster, or whatever you have) pane casereccio (i.e. rough-textured bread) rubbed vigorously with a peeled garlic clove and sloshed with olive oil. If you omit the garlic, it's still a bruschetta, as it is if you add additional toppings, which are almost always diced tomatoes, though a slice of prosciutto makes a nice bruschetta too. NB the bread has to be rough enough to grate the garlic. It's not like rubbing the inside of a salad bowl. The Tuscan fettunta is approximately the same thing, though the bread can also be fried in the oil. As has been noted, the c has a k sound. A crostino can be one of at least two things. One is the Tuscan-Umbrian toast with a topping (sometimes but not always smaller format than bruschetta), often black truffle paste, olive paste, or pâté of liver and/or spleen. Or diced tomatoes, or just olive oil. Or any of those things in jars one tends to get in Christmas baskets (asparagus paste, artichoke paste, funghi porcini). These are often used with bruschetta too. Crostini usually come three or four to a plate of “crostini misti.” The restaurant Checchino serves crostini with slices of guanciale (yum) and with melted pecorino romano (also yum). The other kind of crostino is the kind you get in Roman pizzerias. It’s several slices of bread -- a smaller, softer bread than casereccio – arranged on a longish plate and topped with anchovies or prosciutto and cheese. Come to think of it, I haven’t seen these in a while, but they were always offered as an alternative to pizza. Then, of course, there’s the crostone, or croûton, toast or dried bread that you put in the soup bowl. Though the suffix implies that they’re large, I believe there is no official size. And one last suffix: the crostata, which is a tart made from an overwhelming crust of pasta frolla (short pastry) covered with fruit or, more usually, fruit jam or preserves.

I see them all the time at Testaccio but never buy them. I think I did buy them once and decided they weren't worth the trouble of cleaning them, but maybe I'll try them again. They come in clusters and have long stems, about 2 inches, and tiny brown caps. They're very cute, just like little nails. They are also called piopparelli or pioppini (Agrocybe agerita). I'll have to pay more attention next time I go to the market. I'm sure you know them, but by a different name.