albiston

I think Francesco has a point. I also find Faith's reply to another post on Italian chefs quite contradictory. Having eaten recently at Torre del Saracino, and some time ago at La Caveja and Don Alfonso, I am a bit confused by her previous comment on creative cooks. La Caveja is certainly a traditional kind of place and Torre del Saracino might count as creative but is certainly deeply regional in its dishes. Don Alfonso on the other hand is IMO pretty much a creative place: sure Chef Alfonso Iaccarino uses only local if not self grown ingredients (the restaurant has a fantastic tenuta agricola called, if I remember correctly, Le Peracciole) but his dishes, flavor matching and especially his plating style are not what I'd call traditional. The best thing to do is ask Faith directly I guess.

I've been having a few problems finding "pastry" glucose here in Germany. Luckily working in a research lab I managed to rescue a can of pure glucose (99.5%) from the dustbin. A research group next to our lab is moving away and they're throwing away loads of good stuff they don't need anymore. Now, this glucose is powder while the glucose I've always seen used in pastry is more of a thick syrup. That probably means that the pastry stuff is mix of glucose and water. I was wondering if anyone here knows the percentage of pure glucose in there, so that I can recreate the right proportions to be used for pastry jobs. Thanks!

Yeah, could be medlar -- which are nespole in Italian. ... ← Thank you! That's it. No wonder it didn't taste like much - needed time to soften. Wish I had brought some home - now I'll have to look for a tree start to plant. ← This last comment confuses me a bit. I've never seen Nespole sold unripe also they don't fit the description: Nespole are indeed crunchy but have one big central brown seed, and have orange skin when ripe and pale yellow when unripe. Even unripe ones are hardly tannic, rather very sour. I still suspect what you tasted were fresh giuggiole. I've asked around for a little info and found out giuggiole are usually sold fresh but need to be left some time out to dry, during which time they turn deep brown, wrinkled and sweeter. They're usually eaten cooked in brodo di giuggiole a fruit soup made with quince, giuggiole, dried fruit and eaten as dessert. Never had it myself but it's supposed to be delicious. There's an Italan expression for being extremely happy: "andare in brodo di giuggiole" (to go ? in brodo di giuggiole).

Cara Faith, benvenuta su eGullet. You probably already know that the last two Summers have been quite bad for Italian tourism, with a dramatic 20% decrease in foreign tourist presence this year. On the Italian press comments have ranged from panic making, with calls to reform the Italian tourist board and Ministery ASAP, to those who blame everything on the economic crisis in Europe and say everything will go back to normal once that is gone. What is your view on this and what would your tip be to improve the hospitality towards tourists in Italy? I was also wondering if you have any experience with the Italian tourist board and if you think it manages to promote Italy's gastronomic offer properly. Ciao e grazie!

Grey pancetta, or any greyish looking cured meat, is usually a very bad sign. It was either not cured or not stored properly. As you said good pancetta should have deep pink-red (think Prosciutto di Parma) to burgundy looking muscle (depending on aging time) and the fat ranging from a pink hue. to white, no yellow should be present except if the pancetta was smoked (which is possible). The taste should certainly not be that of meat starting to turn bad, but it cam be a bir gamey. If you taste pancetta made from pigs grown in semi-wild state there will always be a gamey note, which to some, me for one, adds to the richness of this cured meat.

Deirdre, you make a good point. Both names are used quite freely in Italy, perhaps managing to confuse the occasional traveller even more. I could have called the topic traditional vs. creative coooking and maybe given a clearer idea of what I meant. Instead I chose to use those terms for a simple reason: in the Italian gastronomic media world there is a clear distinction beteween people who support either of these food ideologies. On one hand there´s the Slow Food followers, food "conservatives" and such, who look at the trattoria (or osteria) concept, seen as a simple often family run home-style place, as the essence of Italian food and hospitality. On the other are those who follow the ristoranti guides, may it be Gambero Rosso, Espresso or Michelin, who often see the trattorie people as those holding back the evolution of Italian gastronomy. Hence the choice of words and resulting generalization.

There´s two fruits I can think of. The first, fitting better your description, at least as looks go is giuggiole. Here´s a rather blurred picture. The other is corbezzolo. Both are rather uncommon today, but were eaten and grown more often in the past. If either one of these two is the right one I could ask for a little more info from my somewhat older relatives.

Marc, good point, and I for one certainly agree. But the question remains. How do your (or that of others readers clearly) eating habits in Italy compare to your choices when in other European countries? Do you still prefer to look for equivalents of cucina genuina or do you find this is something peculiar of Italy? P.S. A note on fegato grasso: it would be time to finally tell the truth. Italians, French, Americans.... we all copied the idea from those pyramid-fixated Egyptians

Kellytree, as long as this is not done in mean-spirited way, you're definitely free to post any negative experiences you have had.

hathor and katiaANDronald, You both make very good points, but my question was more aimed at the reasons behind the eating choices of people visiting Italy. Or are you saying that if more Italians visited fancy places then the rest would follow? It certainly is an interesting point. In a way if Italy wasn't so conservative when it comes to eating there would certainly be more possibilities for a bigger restaurant scene to develop. This could clearly bring to a livelier scene altogether, attracting more attention both at home and abroad. Still it's undeniable that there are already many classy places in Italy which could attract their share of foreign customers, but they don't. True trattorie give you, as hathor said That's what I often think too. But then why does the same happen only to a lesser extent when foodie tourists visit France or Spain, both countries having their fair share of homey traditional places?

A few days ago, on an Italian food discussion forum, someone started a discussion on how Italian food is seen from tourists visiting our country. One thing led to another and soon the discussion moved to why most tourist prefer trattorie to high-end Ristoranti. This is, on one hand, a superficial view. One just needs to look at someone like my co-FH Robert Brown and his great reports on Italian restaurants on this forum to know that is not always the case. On the other hand it is true that even on this forum many of us ask for good trattoria tips when travelling to Italy. Looking at the numbers it is easy to argue that Italy is also becoming less and less a gourmet destination, intended as having a restaurant scene which attracts foreigners, losing ground esepcially to Spain. I have a few personal ideas of why this is so, but which place would be better than eGullet to ask visitors to Italy how they feel about this issue. So here's my question: why do you prefer trattorie when visiting Italy (or the opposite, why do you prefer Ristoranti)? Tell us what your reasons are: curious minds want to know.

Francesco, thank you for this enthralling appetizer, looking forward to the main course . Very intelligent comments on Italians and food, as usual. Mind if I slightly adapt what you said to use it as a signature line?

I love the line on the intentional and unintentional ones. By coincidence in Italian "to make a frittata" means to screw up... I coul tell of quite a few unintentional ones . My favourite frittata is plain onion frittata sprinkled with a little real Balsamico Tradizionale di Modena, possibly aged 15 years or more. Interesting to see what frittata means outside Italy, for us it's just a flat omelette. And omelette is frittata arrotolata (rolled frittata) in some trattorie .

Dale what sort of place are you looking for in Milan? If you're looking for some high-end dining, Cracco-Peck (the old Peck restaurant now under the guide of rising star chef Carlo Cracco) has been recieving great reviews on the Italian press.

Balsamella is one of Artusi's neologisms. He wanted to avoid using the French terms in his famous cookbook La scienza in cucina e l'arte di mangiare bene and so he came up with all these nice Italianized versions of classical terms, like crespelle for crepes and balsamella.

Same story a few posts back.

Perfetto! I couldn't have put it better myself, especially the missing egg part . The only difference in my method is that I use a gnocchi board to shape them, but that's just my kitchen gadget mania. I have a question about potatoes: I found, sometimes with semi-disastrous results, that the definition of baking potato could mean quite different things in different countries. In Italy you would look for white, old potatoes to make gnocchi. Is that the same you'd use?

it's a matter of degree. if you overwork the dough, the gnocchi will be tough and heavy, certainly. but if you don't develop any gluten at all, what is to hold the gnoccho together? (oh sure, you could cheat and add egg ...) and i don't have an oed in front of me, but i believe knead and knuckle both come from the same root. ← I think Russ is right, although I'd imagine the gluten comes from the flour added to the gnocchi dough. You want something to keep those starch granules together. The butter and cream, apart inhibiting gluten development, might have already added too much humidity to the potatoes for the gnocchi to come out right. When I have left over mash potatoes I often prepare some duchesse potatoes, by adding two yolks to every pound of potatoes, and maybe a bit of cream if the mash is too stiff. They freeze nicely once baked, so you can save them for later.

Only if he pays for it. Ever seen a trifolau giving something away for free ?

Owen, thanks for reviving this thread, which I had completely missed before. The sugar crema or spuma (or cremina as my brother calls it) is quite close to what SL28ave described, only to work you need to catch the first drops of coffee coming out of the machine, which are richer in "cream" formning substances. I'm not a big fan: to achieve the desired result you have to stir soooo much sugar in there. You might just dip a sugarcube in your espresso and suck that!

eunny, those ravioli look absolutely fantastic. great job!

The ambassador thing is only a sort of recognition for personalities of the food scene who have helped increase knowledge of Alba white truffles throughout the world. In 2003 Wofgang Puck was awarded the same title. Maybe it's just a way of saying "thanks for spending HUGE amounts of money on Alba truffles"

Albiston, I agree wholeheartedly: cream shouldn't be used, and it's a lazy way of making the dish. I heard an interesting theory as to how cream got mixed up in there. WW II GIs who were fond of the dish, returned to the States and, in order to recreate the creaminess of the sauce, turned to...cream. Don't know if it's true, but it's certianly a colorful idea. David ← David, nice of you to join the discussion: the WWII GI role in the history of carbonara is an intriguing one in many aspects. Some even argue that they invented the dish, though that's quite improbable, as we discussed some time ago. I have my doubts about the cream story too. My suspicion is that the trick started to be used in big hotel kitchens to make the dish more manageable in those conditions. There's even supposed to be a recipe from the early 50's coming from the Accademia della Cucina Italiana calling for some cream. Don't know if it's true, but if it were, the history of the GI going back home and using cream would sound less believable.

From La Repubblica web site some truffle related trivia (hope the link will keep working once the news disappear from the website, NOTE: link updated). Tonight the International Truffle Auction of Grinzane Cavour sold a one kilo truffle for the record price of 41000 US dollars (starting bid 19k). The buyer is a 89 year old Italo-american restaurant owner, Max Giambelli. During the evening French star chef Alain Ducassse was nominated ambassador of Alba truffles in the world.

Some more news from the people at Alba Tartufi (thanks to robert): "November has come and the awaited decrease in sale prices has not been observed. This is mainly because of the low amounts of truffle available. At the moment the price remains stationary (for truffles of approx. 20-25 grams the price is 2500 Euro pro Kilo, with 100 g as minimum order). We hope in an increase in product quantities in the next weeks but the chances for this are low. On a qualitative level, truffles are now in the best phase of their aromatic development."