Bill Klapp

I did a little research, too, and come to the same conclusion. One packet of dry active yeast is equal to 1 cube of my Italian fresh yeast. That should be normal fuel for 3-3 1/2 cups of flour. As my recipe calls for 7 cups of flour (and the dough may pick up a little more, either due to excessive moisture/humidity or the rolling process), the proportion is right. I would be interested in trying the 24-hour rise. But at what temperature? If too warm, it must ultimately play out the yeast, which doesn't keep reproducing forever.

Sam and Robert: I would tend to think that active dried yeast is, in fact, more concentrated. The stuff that I use in Italy does not give an overly yeasty TASTE, and does not interfere with the wheat flavor. It does give a yeasty aroma during the initial 2-hour rise, but much less as time goes on, so I have to discount the old baker's dictum in this case. I can assure you that there is not too much yeast, nor do I have any sense that my yeast population is growing over time. A second thought is that the compressed yeast in Italy is added by weight, not by tablespoon, so maybe the 4-tablespoon indication in my recipe does not work. (It clearly would be too much active dry yeast, and if I broke up the Italian yeast, it might not yield 4 tablespoons. I have never actually done that.) I also realized that the so-called instant European yeast (the beige granular stuff available in the U.S.) is not likely to work at all in my recipe. It is formulated to be mixed with dry ingredients, and then triggered by the addition of liquid. In theory, it might burn itself out in the poolish phase, or, if not, certainly during the first long rise. I have no reason to believe that the quantity of yeast is the most important component. Now that I am home, I am forced to use active dry yeast, and I will start with the recommended amount for volume of flour used to see if, in fact, my recipe really uses more yeast than seems plausible to you two. For the food porn fans, I will check and see if I have any pictures of the oven/grill, but I am certain that, if I do, there won't be any of the Italian TV women around it!

Robert, I was not sure whether you were speaking of Italian breadmaking in general or pizza dough in particular. I certainly agree that it is time more than anything else that makes the dough suitably malleable, and for breads generally, the long, cool rise does develop flavor. However, I have eaten very little Italian pizza where I thought that adequate effort had been made to develop the crust's flavor potential. It seems to me that yeast does three things in this context: adds a desirable "yeasty" element (aroma more than taste), seems to punch up the other flavors involved (this observation is strictly unscientific, but the yeastiness seems to unlock other aromas as well) and insures that the pizza will undergo the essential explosive, blistering, instantaneous rise when it hits the oven. Could you do it with less yeast? Probably. But there is nothing worse than the dough working for hours, and then dying or coming up lame at cooking time, giving you a cracker effect. I also think that my approach develops significantly greater complexity of flavor than the biga approach, and in a reasonable amount of time. Remember that the addition of honey, definitely not the usual in any Italian approach that I am aware of, has an accelerating effect on the yeast, and tends to burn it up sooner than a long, cool rise would. Lastly, a word on yeast. The quantity given is for European compressed fresh yeast. The granular European yeast found in the U.S. does not appear to have the same pop. I will post appropriate quantity adjustments for European granular and good old active dry yeast. I haven't used either lately.

As promised, here is the dough recipe (for 8 ten-to-twelve-inch pizzas, considered personal pizzas in Italy, given the thinness): 2 ounces (4 heaping tablespoons) fresh European-style yeast (comes in large-ish cubes) 7 cups imported Italian doppio zero flour (Farina Tipo "00"; Barilla makes a good one fairly widely available in the U.S.; King Arthur also offers a good one by mail; also use this flour for fresh pasta)-HAVE EXTRA ON HAND 2 tablespoons salt 2 tablespoons of the garlic-chili pepper olive oil described in the original post (make at least a cup of the oil-it keeps in the fridge)-I DID NOT SAY SO ABOVE, BUT USE EVOO 2 cups water 3-5 tablespoons light honey, such as acacia; choose flavor of honey based upon personal preference, recognizing that the primary goal is sweetness and yeast stimulation, but the secondary goal is to impart a flavor that subtly enhances the dominant tomato-cheese flavors of the pizza Before I get into the actual technique of the dough, I must make an all-important digression. Remember what I said about the Zen/fung shui aspects of this process. I am serious. Generally speaking, there are two types of cooks in the world: those who follow recipes to the letter, acquiring technique as they go, and those who seem to have graduated from cookbooks and exhibit both technique and a keen sense of what ingredients taste good together, and how to balance those tastes to maximum effect. Even if you are the first type of cook, you must become the latter type for the purposes of making great pizza. But think of it this way: you will be playing in a rather small sandbox, with relatively few ingredients and techniques, all of which are familiar to you. Everybody knows what great pizza tastes like to them, so it will be fairly easy to measure your success. Best of all, the Zen of pizza allows that, if you are using the best available ingredients, even your failures and disappointments can taste awfully good! The Zen of the toppings is easy: slice ingredients really thin; do not add too many toppings, nor too great a quantity; pre-cook anything that will not cook through in 2-5 minutes (wood-fired or other hot oven); adjust pre-cooking and thickness of ingredients if you are forced to use lower heat and longer cooking time; be aware of toppings that have an unusually high water content , and do something to shed some of the water if you need to (peppers, onions, mushrooms and eggplant do NOT have a high water content for purposes of this discussion, but canned tomatoes or really juicy fresh tomatoes do, so you would want to drain excess liquid and use only pieces of pulp in either case-the key is how much water the ingredient will give up on your pizza, and how quickly will it do so). Likewise, the Zen of the sauce is relatively easy: make sure it cooks down until a spoon will stand up in it; start with minimal amounts of salt and sugar and then alternate adding more of each in turn until the sauce is so bursting with tomato flavor that it is almost painful to taste, and yet, neither salt nor sugar is a dominant taste; remember that you are going to apply the sauce very sparingly, rather like a condiment, so the sauce in its final state needs to pack a serious punch. If you use fresh tomatoes instead of sauce, you may want to sprinkle them with salt and sugar, and you will need to crush, chop or slice them and probably (except perhaps with Roma or other plum tomatoes) drain them, either in a colander, through cheesecloth or on paper towels. As you prepare all of the foregoing, be aware of how you think the components will taste together; underseasoning can be a real problem, and if every component is highly seasoned, the end product could end up, say, too salty. But yet, the Zen aspect of this is that you will not be using large quantities of any one ingredient, so underseasoning is likely to be the greater risk, and harder to correct in the final analysis (i.e., you can always add more salt to crushed tomatoes or sauce if your first pizza is a little lame, or you can sprinkle a little fine sea salt on your buffala if it seems a little flat). And now back to the dough. I know many people are afraid of dough. It is a strange thing. Nuclear physicists (and commercial bakers, by the way) can make great bread through rigid measurement and analysis of ingredients and strict adherence to a handful of physical laws. Others can make great bread by feeling their way along. Pizza dough is susceptible to the latter. It is one of the simplest possible bread doughs, and very forgiving. It can be too moist and sticy or too dry, but both problems can be corrected before you set the dough aside to rise. Do not fear pizza dough! Here goes. First, take 1 of the 2 cups of water out of the tap. The water should be warm, around 85 degrees F (an instant thermometer is useful to check this, but not essential; lukewarm to the touch is close enough, as the yeast process in pizza dough is less critical than it is in other, more complicated doughs, and we are going to goose the yeast with honey later anyway). Dissolve all of the yeast in the cup of warm water in a medium mixing bowl. Then mix in 1 1/2 cups of the flour, a little at a time, until the mixture is smooth and relatively free of lumps of either flour or yeast. Cover the bowl with a damp dishcloth (plastic wrap is OK, but I like to let the mixture breathe, and perhaps even pick up wild yeasts from the air) and set aside in a cool place (65-75F is fine; just do not put next to an oven or in hot sunlight) for 30 minutes. In breadmaker's jargon, this is called a poolish. The yeast will start to work, so there will be some rising going on, and the result will be really sticky, so make sure that your bowl is large enough to accomodate some expansion. This step is critical. It is in the poolish that the flavor of the dough begins to develop. And now, the heresy to end all heresies: pour the remaining flour into the bowl of a Kitchenaid, large Cuisinart or similar appliance with a dough hook. (If you do not have a machine large enough to work 7 cups of flour, or if you have no machine and will be working the dough by hand, cut the recipe in half.) I can hear people screaming about how the dough should be worked by hand and as little as possible, blah-blah. Not true. Fresh pasta, yes. Pizza dough, no. Notice that you see "hand-TOSSED" pizzas advertised. Hand-tossed (the twirling trick), not hand-kneaded. If you make a full recipe, only The Incredible Hulk could hand-knead 7 cups of flour! Uniformity of texture and speed yield a better product in this case. To the flour, add the yeast mixture, the salt, the olive oil and the second cup of water, as well as 3 tablespoons of the honey (to start). Following the manufacturer's instructions, knead the dough until, when you pinch it, it more or less springs back to its pre-pinch position. Before you get to that point, stop the mixing and taste the dough. Here is the Zen of the dough: if it seems salty, add more honey until you get the umami effect (really flavorful, but neither particularly salty or sweet). If the dough seems a little dry, add more oil and/or water (but only a little at a time, as oil or water can turn a dough that is nearly right into a sloppy mess in a hurry!). If the honey or other liquids have made the dough too sticky, add more flour (again, a little at a time). After any addition of ingredients, turn the machine back on (or hand knead) to incorporate the ingredients, and then test again. You want a dough that is slightly moist and elastic (the pinch test) at this point. When it passes the pinch test, put the dough into a large greased bowl to rise. I use regular EVOO to grease the bowl. Rub the bottom of the dough against the bottom of the bowl so that the dough picks up a light coating of the olive oil, then turn the dough upside down in the bowl, so that the oiled side is exposed to air. Make sure your bowl is large enough, or use multiple bowls. The dough may not only double in bulk, it may TRIPLE (because of the yeast and honey) if you are not watching it and punching it down periodically. Cover the bowl with a damp dishtowel or plastic wrap (plastic does not matter by this time, as keeping flavor in has replaced letting wild yeasts in). Put the bowl(s) in a cool place as before, and let rise for about 2 hours. If you needed to, you could use the dough at that point, but I prefer to punch the dough down and let it go for 2 more hours. Depending upon how quickly it accomplishes the repeat rising, I may punch it down a second time, and let it rise for another hour or two. There is some risk associated with the third rising, since, if the room is too warm or your yeast not the freshest, you may use up the leavening effect of the yeast before the pizzas make it into the oven. There is no harm to adding a little extra yeast at the outset, to guard against that. The multiple risings allow subtle and complex flavors to develop in the dough, and also cause the dough to become smooth and tender as it sheds its elasticity, making it easier to shape. When you are ready to make pizzas, punch the dough down a final time, and divide the dough into 8 equal portions (4 if you halved the recipe). Form the pizzas one at a time, leaving the rest of the dough covered, so that it will not dry out. (As a practical matter, I just break off pieces of dough from the big ball. After some experience, you can eyeball the dough and end up with 8 more or less equal pizzas.) Lightly flour your piece of dough as needed, to avoid sticking. Form the crust on a floured surface. If you are so inclined, try that old Neapolitan parlor stunt, triwling the pizza in the air. If the texture does not easily permit that, you can form the crust by hand. I reject both methods in favor of a rolling pin. Among other things, a rolling pin lets you make weird-shaped pizzas (heart-shaped, for instance, a real crowd-pleaser), and one thing that I have learned is that most people think that irregularly-shaped pizzas taste better than perfectly round ones. Also, I shoot for the thinnest possible crust that I think will support my ingredients, since the pizza will puff up rather violently in the wood-fired oven, and if the dough has lost sufficient elasticity, you can get a really thin crust (1/4" should be the maximum, but if you like a thicker crust, have at it-this dough will still work). If you are using a pizza peel (you should), you should place the dough on the peel before topping it, to see if it slides freely. If not, you can flour the peel, or, if you like the effect and taste, sprinkle yellow cornmeal on the peel before putting the crust on it. Next, with a pastry brush, spread a light coating of the garlic-chili oil over the entire crust, and then add the toppings as you like and pop it in the oven. If not wood-fired, I recommend using a pizza stone which has been pre-heated in a 550F oven for at least an hour. Longer is better. You can achieve extra crispness by having a spray bottle of water close at hand, and spritzing the oven right after you have placed the pizza on the stone. With a sufficiently hot stone and oven, the pizza should cook in around 5 minutes, but it is an eyeball thing regardless of what type of oven you use. tanabutler, the anti-cancer benefits of this pizza outweigh any possible benefit of the Atkins diet, but note that, the thinner your crust is and the richer your cheese, the less violence this will do to your diet! Next installment: oven-dried tomatoes-better than sun-dried tomatoes as a pizza topping? Talk amongst yourselves...

Pizza envy?

I bought a retirement home in Italy three years ago, and I was fortunate in that the house did not need a lot of work. However, with the Euro (well, lira pegged to the Euro) at 85 cents to the dollar, money that I no longer had was nevertheless burning a hole in my pocket. As a consequence, I decided to realize a lifelong ambition: my very own wood-fired pizza oven. After considerable research, I found the perfect model, a combination oven and wood-fired grill, with generous storage compartments for wood underneath each. My friends balked, but I explained that I could use it in life for making fabulous pizza, bread and steak florentine, and then be cremated in the oven upon my passing (and since nobody was likely to use the oven after that, my ashes could be stored in a small urn where the wood supply rests today). Surely that would be much less expensive than a traditional burial alone, and so much more fun! It is the size of an upper middle-class mausoleum, and the exterior was finished to match our house, right down to the terra cotta roof tiles. The whole scene resembles nothing so much as one of those grand old Victorian homes that has a playhouse for the children in the yard which is a miniature and architecturally perfect knockoff of the main house! But to my point. For the humorous side of obsession with the perfect pizza, I refer you to the earlier thread on this board entitled "Buffala Mozzarella", in which malcolmjolley attached the great Jeffrey Steingarten piece on the perfect pizza. For the past decade, I have been just as relentless as Steingarten, but far more serious. I have tried every possible dough recipe, and every topping combination. I tried pizza discs, pizza pans and pizza stones. I tried electric ovens, gas ovens, convection ovens, toaster ovens and outdoor grills. I used regular flour, whole-wheat flour, combinations of flours, and even sourdough starter. I made thick crusts, thin crusts and cracker crusts. I used regular mozzarella, buffala, four-cheese blends, everything I could think of. I used fresh tomatoes and numerous red, white and pesto sauce recipes. Eventually, I learned The Truth. Great pizza is not so much about any of those things. It is much more about technique. For the successful pizzaiolo, pizza is a spiritual thing, a Zen thing, a fung shui thing, a high-level intellectual pursuit. Like high chefdom or acting, it is about the pleasure you give to others (and, of course, the kudos that come with the territory) more than it is about mere eating. When you are at one with the process, everything else seems to fall into place. After ten years, I experienced such an epiphany this summer. I do not want to offend any Chicago deep-dish, cracker crust or "New York style" (whatever the hell that means) fans with what I am about to say. Consider the following to be one man's personal Truth. I must also add the caveat that I am arrogant enough to believe that, as remarkable as the authentic Neapolitan pizza is, it can be improved upon (but in truth, only slightly). So here goes: 1. The Oven. You must have a wood-fired pizza oven made of the terra cotta known as cotto refrattario, which, to my knowledge, is not manufactured outside of Italy. It is a material that can withstand temperatures in excess of 1,000F without suffering damage. Among other things, it absorbs moisture from the pizza to produce the perfect crust. No other commercial pizza oven has a prayer of duplicating its effect. In particular, you build a raging fire on the floor of the oven hours in advance of its use, and then leave some of the embers to one side of the oven to provide a convection-like heat to cook the top of the pizza while the floor cooks the bottom of the crust. Such an oven, stoked to 700+F, can cook a thin-crust pizza in two minutes. It gives you that charcoal-blistering effect on the rim of the pizza, while the cheese and toppings bubble like a witch's cauldron. It is a thing of unparalleled beauty to watch! 2. The Dough. Second in importance only to the oven (although you could no doubt have a deep philosophical "chicken-and-egg" debate on that point, I suppose). After years of experimentation, for me, the perfect dough has proven to be a lot easier than you might think. I left my proportions at home, so I'll post them in a follow-up on this thread, but the basic ingredients are Italian "doppio zero (00)" soft white flour, water, olive oil, fresh European-style baker's yeast and salt. (Again, apologies to those who favor whole-wheat flour or other variations.) That is the traditional Neapolitan mix. What I have learned, however, is that such a blend, in the right proportions, produces the perfect TEXTURE, but not the optimum taste, which can be rather flat. I reject the argument that the crust is there primarily for texture, and as the pedestal for the delicate flavors of buffala and perfect, ripe tomatoes. Adding flavor to the crust, if and only if the flavors enhance, rather than compete with or overwhelm, the toppings, makes a superior pizza. As a result, I alter one ingredient (the olive oil) and add another, honey. I boil whole garlic cloves in the olive oil until they resemble roasted garlic, and then, after the oil cools, I add whole cayenne peppers (or crushed red pepper, whichever is available) to the oil, so that the oil carries both the light, sweet essence of cooked garlic and the heat of the peppers. I use the flavored oil both in the dough itself, and also to brush on the crust before baking. The effect is relatively mild, both as to the garlic and the heat of the peppers, but it does add a most excellent complexity to the finished product. (By the way, I have Wolfgang Puck to thank for that idea.) Secondly, I am generous in the quantity of yeast, because I replace a few tablespoons of water with a light, mild honey. This addition is key. It must be done to taste. The goal is to balance the sugar and the salt so that the dough strikes you as neither sweet nor salty. Sugar and salt used that way produce an effect not unlike monosodium glutamate, or the so-called fifth taste, umami. The use of a mild honey (seemingly endless and excellent types of which abound in northern Italy) not only produces the umami effect, but also adds a subtle flavor of its own. Of course, the honey feeds the yeast, so the dough will rise with greater vigor than it otherwise might. For that reason, you need enough yeast to sustain multiple risings. Thirdly, although there is a pizza thread elsewhere on this board that debates the pros and cons of long rising time for pizza dough, it stands to reason that, if taste is the critical factor, pizza dough is no different than any other bread dough-the longer it rises, the more subtle and complex the flavor of the finished product will be. I accept that one or two hours may do the trick for the basic Neapolitan dough, without garlic, peppers or honey. I recommend three to four hours, and, with adequate yeast, you can actually stretch it out to six or seven hours. Another advantage to long rising, pointed out to me by Italian friends, is that the dough becomes less sticky and more pliable without giving up essential moisture. That is what allows the seemingly effortless twirling the dough on one finger trick. A two-hour dough is going to be too elastic to allow that. The dough must be twirled, hand-shaped or rolled to a thickness of no more than 1/4". Building up a rim is of no importance if you use a wood-fired oven, as the exposed rim of the crust will rise quickly to create a crust rim with a damming effect. Lastly, it is important that your dough is not so sticky that, when weighed down with toppings, it will stick to the pizza peel. Adding fine cornmeal to the peel solves the problem nicely. I use cornmeal sometimes, but usually because friends like the slight taste and crunch it provides, but cornmeal is clearly not authentic. 3. The Cheese. Unless you are doing the famous quattro formaggi (four-cheese) or another specialty pizza, use 100% buffala, if you can get it of good quality, or the best fresh, whole-milk mozzarella you can find. I am lucky in Italy, in that fresh buffala is trucked every day from Campania to a little shop in Alba. In the pizza thread mentioned earlier, someone complained that buffala was too soft and wet, and that it ended up running off the side unless a significant edge was formed. Some (including me, once upon a time) drain buffala on paper towels to reduce the moisture (and flavor, too). With a wood-fired oven, that is neither necessary nor desirable. The buffala does need to be cut into the thinnest slices possible, to be sure. And for this style of pizza, "extra cheese" is not an option. When you are using ingredients of such high quality, and doing nothing to interfere with the subtle, delicate and complimentary tastes of the overall product, it is important not to overload the pizza with toppings. The moisture from the cheese (and other water-bearing toppings) allow the crust to achieve perfect crispness on the bottom, but yet deliver a tender chewiness on the top. In addition, the evaporation of surface moisture in a wood-fired oven is so quick that liquid runoff should not exist. (That said, some vegetable toppings may have such a high moisture content that some prepping or pre-cooking may be necessary.) 4. The Sauce (Or Not). For those of you who live on the Bay of Naples, in Sicilia, Hanover County, Virginia or certain spots in southern New Jersey, or otherwise have access to flavorful, juicy vine-riped tomatoes at the peak of the season, sliced or crushed tomatoes are the way to go. However, even in Italy, access to such tomatoes is increasingly a problem. Thus, I often use the following sauce, very sparingly applied, which, to my utter amazement, enjoys great favor among our Italian friends: 2 28-ounce cans of crushed Italian tomatoes of the very best quality you can find, seeded if necessary or desired 1 can of Italian tomato paste (ditto on quality) 4 large cloves of garlic, pressed or minced very finely, as you like 1 teaspoon dried basil (fresh if desired, but as this is a thick sauce to be used sparingly, I find that this is one time that the dried herbs deliver the most consistent result) 1 teaspoon dried oregano (ditto) Sea salt, fresh ground pepper and sugar, to taste Olive oil to sautee the garlic (not much) Sautee the garlic briefly in the olive oil, just enough to take the raw curse off of it, but not browned. Add the tomatoes, tomato paste, basil and oregano, and a little salt, pepper and sugar to provide the base spicing. Bring to a boil, then reduce heat to a simmer. Taste the sauce for salt and pepper. The salt-sugar interplay is again for the umami effect, so you may need to add both from time to time to achieve a balance that produces a sauce that is neither salty nor sweet, but rather, seems to highlight the natural sweetness of the tomatoes. Be aware that the tomato paste will add sweetness, too. If you err, err in the direction of sweetness rather than saltiness. Simmer until the sauce is thick and savory, which is usually about 45 minutes. Cool to room temperature before using. 5. The Toppings. With apologies to the Outback Steakhouse people, toppings are a "no rules, just right" proposition. Well, for this particular style of pizza, maybe a couple of rules. All ingredients should be cut ultra-thin, because they will be cooked for a very brief time at extremely high heat. Some things, like eggplant, will benfit from pre-cooking, and others may require a little seasoning as well. This style of crust will not work well with a "meat lover's" approach to toppings. I recommend no more than three toppings (not including tomatoes or sauce and cheese), with one or two favored. Also, ingredients should not be cumulative (i.e., you should strive for the same net quantity of topping on every pizza, and add different toppings together to achieve that quantity). The watchword is less is more. Having gone to some lengths to create a dough and sauce that meld perfectly with the delicacy of buffala, you do not want to add toppings that mask the flavor of any of the components. It sounds hard to achieve, but it really is not if you have a deft, light touch. And there you have it. I will post the proportions for the dough soon. At the risk of lightning striking me dead, this will make a better pizza than Puck's on the West Coast and John's of Bleeker Street or Frank Pepe's on the East Coast. My friends, to a person, think that it is the best pizza they have ever eaten. Even without the wood-fired oven, it does as well as I am capable of doing. And with only a ten-year investment of time and effort! (By the way, tonight I am going to play with a new toy. Ferrari, the famous automaker, has a home appliance division called GFerrari. It makes a bright-red device that looks rather like an electric wok, but is, in fact, a pizza oven. Two giant electric elements inside, with the bottom element topped with a disc of cotto refrattario. Almost no air space inside. Said to cook a pizza in 5 minutes. It comes only in a 220-volt model, so I had to buy a 40-pound step-up power converter to use it stateside. I know that it cannot deliver that charcoal blistering effect, but on paper, it should deliver a better crust than the old pizza stone in the oven. Wish me luck!)

Bravo! I will say this: I find it increasingly difficult to generalize about American chefs (or, should I say, chefs cooking in America). There is enormous diversity and considerable originality, to be sure, but also more imitative and derivative cooking than anywhere else on earth, even when it is of relatively high quality. The Kellers and Trotters can surprise, but so many others offer up pretty but uninspired "new American" or "fusion" plates that are not grounded in any particular tradition (or treading too heavily upon several at the same time). On the flip side, it should be said that the presence of strong local or regional culinary traditions, as in France and Italy, can significantly inhibit innovation and creativity, but yes, quite often providing the reassurance that you alluded to above. I suppose that I am thankful that every young chef in America isn't trying to emulate Adria (although the Sunday NY Times Magazine article worries me a lot!).

Don't stir up trouble, Russ. I didn't visit that thread. For California cuisine, I'll accept "the best ingredients that the West Coast has to offer, SOMETIMES simply prepared (and sometimes, as elsewhere in America, merely expensive ingredients being heaped together in the "more is more" tradition)". More is rarely more on the sacred sod of Italia!

If Craig doesn't want the "defending Mario" job, then I'll stop picking on the big guy! I concede that he can cook up some of the best Italianate food in the U.S., but, as I observed to Craig with some sadness, that is not a very high bar to chin. The problem is that, with some exceptions, true Italian technique can be learned by most people who have a knack for cooking, but the essence of the cuisine is the best ingredients, simply prepared.

Fair point, Russ. I was thinking of a RESTAURANT platform, which Mario obviously has and, to my knowledge, Marcella did not. I also accept that Mario is serious about what he does, and do not deny the respect that he shows the food. I will reiterate, however, that what he does is his own adaptive thing, and, in my view, not really competitive with the best that Italy has to offer. The food may be tasty, but I do not see any real depth in what Mario does. His personal style is a little smug and preachy, and while he may be telling his Food Network audience things that they do not know, I find his knowledge of Italian food to be thin and based mostly upon the obvious. I think that, to move to the next level, he needed to have studied in Italy for a longer time over a broader range, and his celebrity may have stifled that. In my view, Alain Ducasse's food at Louis XV in Monte Carlo, presumptively French, is much more authentically Italian (largely Ligurian, in that case) than Mario's, which does not make Mario a bad chef or a bad guy, but just not the genuine item for me.

wino666, Trattoria della Posta is open for lunch. Rondo is a tricky piece of business to find. There is a beautiful back road from Alba (if you are on Corso Coppino, you head up the hill toward Localita Altavilla at Piazza Mons Grassi) which winds through the Barbaresco vineyards, through a little localita known as Tre Stelle, past the street which runs into the center of Barbaresco and then dead-ends in a "T" in Neive. If you turn right, you are heading down the hill to lower Neive. If you turn left, you are heading toward the street leading up to old Neive, and if you stay on the road, ultimately back to SS231. At the "T", it is also possible to essentially double back to the left and slightly up the hill. That is where Rondo is. You can actually see it if you look left and behind you when you are stopped at the "T". (If you come from SS231, you will be making the first right just BEFORE the "T', which is identified by all of the blue-and-white directional signs.) I highly recommend it, as it is the genuine item. (He does cater to German tourists, and at some places, you see wurstel and other German foodstuffs on the menus of establishments that serve the significant German population, but do not be fooled-the menu is 100% old-fashioned Piemontese osteria.) Re: truffles, the best and cheapest sources are, of course, non-commercial, but you need Italian friends to tap into that. Your best bet may be a bookstore/foodstore on the main shopping drag in Alba (Vittorio Emanuelle II) called Piacere del Gusto. Gigi, the balding, bearded owner, delivers good quality at a fair price. If his truffles are lame, you can assume that the worst suspicions above came true! I would not buy until you come back in mid-October. A lot of scamming goes on during the truffle fair, as suggested above (see my earlier thread called "Schroder Cancels Beach Trip" for more on this). Re: Torino, it is simply not a great restaurant city. The most exciting prospect is Combal.0 (pronounced "Combal punto zero"). It is in a wing of the savoy palace in Rivoli. I have not yet eaten there, but the chef, Davide Scabin, ran a restaurant called Al Combal in Almese for years, and he is one hot ticket. He has deep Piemontese roots, but he is doing the Ferran Adria/El Bulli thing with traditional Piemontese foodstuffs, apparently to great effect. (Some may think that Adria overdoes it a bit with his "inventions", not all of which work; what I read suggests that Scabin does not, instead opting to let the Adrias of the world remain at the forefront of the avant-garde, while adapting some of Adria's techniques to give the local cuisine a fresh face.) I also note that, in advance of the 2006 Winter Olympics in Torino and environs, more and more ethnic restaurants (notably Indian (Ghandi and Passagio in India) and Japanese (Wasabi)) are popping up, although I have not tried any of those, either. Do not miss the Porto Palazzo market, however. It is now viewed as one of the best in Europe, especially for more exotic, non-Italian ingredients. There are stories of French chefs driving four hours to shop there, several times a week!

But Mario and Marcella in the same breath? He of the day-glo orange clogs, and she of classic Italian style and grace? OK, I'll give it up now! I know that she lacked the NY platform, but she (followed by her son, a chef) did a fantastic job in the 1990s with an Atlanta restaurant called Veni Vedi Vici.

Now I'm fired for sure! Yep, that's the book. You are quite right to point out that he is a contributor, not a co-author. I did read elsewhere, however, that he and Joe (but not Lynch) did a lot of the "research" together. One guy's opinion, I do not like that book. In the wake of people like Sheldon Wasserman, Burton Anderson, Nick Belfrage (and the list goes on), it doesn't rate.

Sorry, Andy, and so fire me, Jason. Mario Batali is a phenomenon, but does not deserve to be mentioned in the same thread with many of the names above. His style is best described as "nouvelle Italian-American", and it is anything but authentic. His greatest contribution is adapting (albeit loosely) Italian ideas to American ingredients, in an attempt to address the problem that authentic Italian cooking is not really possible in the U.S., due to the inability to procure old world quality ingredients. Among other things, his schtick is lording rarified Italian ingredients, like "cheeks", shanks and entrails of everything that walks or swims, over us dumbass, know-nothing Americani. While he can cook (when he can be bothered to) and his restaurants do have their following, the recipes in his cookbooks have the highest failure rate I have ever experienced. A friend of ours who can cook and is a huge Mario fan has NEVER had a complete success with his recipes. While I'm at it, his wine book with Joe Bastianich is a horribly shallow and amateurish effort, and sometimes just flat wrong. Their section on Piemontese wines is laughably bad. In short, I favor MENO (less), rather than Molto, Mario!

wino666, welcome! And you are in luck. My wife and I have a retirement home in Neive, next to Alba. I, too, lament the passing of Il Vicoletto, but the ristorante has been replaced with a gourmet shop selling most of their classic dishes to go, the legendary cheeses (including Castelmagno and my personal favorite, the ultra-rare toma d' Elva), culatello and other great salume and an assortment of wines, olive oils and other products. Even if you do not have cooking facilities, you could do much worse than to fashion a cold lunch or dinner there. My current favorite osteria in Alba is Lalibera, which will deliver, among other wonderful things, killer tajarin. Cafe Umberto/Enoclub is also very good, but open only at night. Osteria dell' Arco, a long-time favorite of many, has slipped considerably in the past couple of years, in my opinion. Locanda del Pilone, just outside town, serves a traditional menu and was recently awarded a Michelin star, but I have not made it there yet. To really live, you need a car and need to travel to the neighboring towns. TO THE NORTH: Antine, next to Gaja's winery in Barbaresco, is superb, and cheap, given its Michelin star. Its wine list is young, but fairly choice. Vecchio Tre Stelle, also a relatively new Michelin star in Tre Stelle (near Barbaresco) is very pretty and certainly good, but Antine is less pretentious and, to my taste, superior. La Contea in Neive is capable of brilliance, but in high truffle season, the kitchen sometimes fails to keep pace. La Luna nel Pozzo, also in Neive (the high pre-Roman town), has a kitchen given to experimentation with traditional local ingredients, which can deliver real genius on occasion. For a more casual lunch or dinner, try Cantina del Rondo, where the back road from Alba joins the road leading to upper and lower Neive. They offer multiple wines from steel tanks in any quantity you choose, their own and such things as Bruno Giacosa's latest Barbaresco release. You do not get many opportunities to try six or seven local (i.e., Barbaresco/Neive-produced) wines before choosing those you wish to have with your meal. The food is ultra-traditional and superior. House-made salume and lardo with mountain butter, great pasta dishes and one of my favorite desserts, homemade fruit gelatina (usually Mandarin orange in the fall). Il Centro in Priocca has never been better. (There is also a pizzeria in Magliano Alfieri, just off SS231 at the turn for Priocca, called Il Pomodoro, which delivers good pizza and salads, with the added bonus that, a few doors down, there is one of the best gelaterias in the area.) Il Cascinale Nuovo on SS231 in Isola d' Asti is excellent, if a little pricey (especially the wine list). If you can find it, Vittoria in Tigliole d' Asti is also superb, although rather far from Alba. Finally, to the north, Gener Neuv in Asti has never been better. TO THE SOUTH: My current favorite is Trattoria della Posta, in the countryside a few kilometers beyond Monforte d' Alba. Borgo Antico in Barolo is first-rate, as is a little bar-ristorante on the main drag (Via Roma) across from the municipal building called Cantinetta (not to be confused with CantineLLa, also in Barolo). One should not miss Il Belvedere in La Morra during truffle season, either. Closer in to Alba, All' Enoteca in Canale d' Alba (referred to in a post above) is another place, like Antine, run by an ambitious and creative young chef who is recreating the classics without doing violence to them. I could go on at some length, but this sums up the best of those within easy striking distance of Alba.

lissome, so sorry! It's not a testosterone thing with the cheeses. I have never been known to turn down fine French cheeses, on political or any other grounds! It's just that my love affair with the Piemonte rages on unabated after 6 years. I, for one, am not down on the goat cheese stuffing concept, which I have actually had in Italy (both zucchini flowers and ravioli), but it all depends on the goat cheese used. It needs to be pretty mild and creamy. However, most of the Italian goat cheeses I have had are relatively milder than their French counterparts, which can be both good (for cooking and for those poor souls who are lukewarm on goat cheeses) and bad (you don't always get the characteristic acid edge that defines goat cheese for many).

I am going to do a post on pizza soon, but buffala most definitely IS used on pizze in Italy. In fact, in the north, they often charge a premium for it, as what we think of as mozzarella is sometimes called fior di latte, and not even considered to be true mozzarella (but tasty, nevertheless). The deal is this: while it is true that buffala is soft and watery, the true Italian pizza has a very thin crust, is sized for one person (10-12", but given the thin crust, not really too much food), uses toppings, including the buffala, sparingly and in small pieces and, most importantly, is baked in a wood-fired oven that can reach temperatures of 700 degrees Fahrenheit plus (mine once hit 900F!). I used to drain my thin slices of buffala on a paper towel, but soon discovered that I was just throwing away flavor. A wood-fired pizza does not bake so much as it BLISTERS, and therein lies the magic. In a hot oven, a single pizza can cook in as little as TWO MINUTES, and rarely takes more than 5 minutes. The water in the buffala and tomatoes or other high-moisture toppings vaporizes, which has the additional benefit of making the crust crisper (similar to commercial bread ovens that have misting devices attached, or spraying your own bread with water out of a spray bottle to crisp the crust). Some of this may seem counterintuitive to some of you, but it is gospel.

Any of Marcella's books, for sure. I will step up and confirm her "authenticity". In addition to the Plotkin tome on Friuli, Recipes from Paradise, his Ligurian cookbook, is probably the best that ever WILL be written. Liguria was (is?) Plotkin's home turf in Italia, and, among other things, he gives you about 50 uniquely different recipes for pesto. I am also a big fan of Biba Caggiano's Biba's Taste of Italy for Emilia-Romagna. I can't speak to authenticity there, but I can tell you that her recipes deliver results that you cannot find in many restaurants in the U.S. Lastly, I have a real soft spot for Matt Kramer's Passion for Piedmont. It is out of print now, but it is around and you should be able to find a copy. Some of his recipes have been adapted for American ingredients, but most work marvelously. I would tackle all of the above before considering anything from regions further south in Italy. Craig, is there a Lombardia cookbook on a quality level with the above? There are certainly some fine dishes to be considered. (I think Biba cops a classic risotto Milanese recipe, but you should also direct mikeycook to your own excellent mini-treatise on risotto.)

It's a lifestyle thing, Adam. You got to do what you got to do...

Spaghetti alla Checca. Check out the "Uncooked Tomato Sauces" thread on this board.

lissome, way to keep Camp in line! I do have to buy into his diversity-of-preparation argument, though. Some wine producers in Italy pay more attention to the maturity of their zucchini blossoms than they do to the maturity of their grapes. (Lucky for us, the blossoms are gone earlier, so there is still time left to focus on wine.) However, I must dispute Mr. Camp's assertion about cheeses. Piemontese cheeses are similar in style to, and as good or better than, the best French cheeses (whether goat's, cow's or sheep's milk, whether blue, hard or triple-creme), but unlike their French counterparts, which are often produced in commercial quantities, promoted heavily and widely exported, the Piemontese cheeses are generally made in tiny quantities for local consumption only. On the other hand, Piemonte abuts France, and the whole area was part of the House of Savoy at one time, so maybe this is merely a distinction without a difference. (But Gorgonzola, whether dolce or naturale, is still a finer, more versatile cheese than Roquefort, which is, pure and simple, too damned salty to be great. On this point, I simply cannot compromise!)

Robert, let me offer you a belated apology for having been totally useless to you in this quest! I think that, if one had the essential language skills, this would be a fascinating pursuit. Certainly, much more has been done on this front in France, and if it is true (as I, of course, choose to believe) that Caterina de' Medici taught the French how to cook (and eat with something other than their fingers), there must be significant undiscovered (at least by English-speakers) history.

A few reflections: First, pongi made me drool with the mention of seirass, which also is delicately herbed sometimes. Chevre might work, as was noted above, but the desired result is to let the flavor of the flower shine through, and not all goat cheeses will allow that. A mild seirass gives you a little more kick than ricotta, but yet does not fight the flavor of the blossom. Secondly, in answer to the question "Why fry them?", it is because most Italian kitchens have a gift for breading and frying in a pure, greaseless manner that is virtually unknown in the U.S. A deft Italian hand can produce a fried product that it perfectly crisp but without added flavor from the cooking fat (except, of course, for the delicate and welcome flavor imparted by excellent olive oil). Pongi also notes that the flowers have sufficient taste and aroma to flavor baked egg or cheese dishes (such as sformati, the Piemontese savory flans that figure prominently in antipasti). Lastly, my favorite stuffing is seafood: scampi, shrimp or lobster, used sparingly.

Am I an ageist for complaining about my OWN age?

I worry that I'm the only one around here old enough to get "Tana Magnani"!