Does Italy lack culinary relevance?

[Jinmyo]

Do we need to call someone in Italy and let them know that apparently they can't cook worth a shit and have been deemed irrelevant? 

Mario will tell them on his next trip.

[Adam Balic]

My challenge to you, responding to your own words about Italian cuisine is to name one country apart from France which has adopted its own style of haute cuisine

Persians, Chinese and Thai all had a cuisine that was reserved for nobles etc, was very refined and was far removed from the food of the general populartion. Is this a form of Haute cuisine (sorry I was afraid to read the 'What is Haute cuisine?' thread)?

[Steve Plotnicki]

Marcrosan - Yes but Heston Blumenthal, Gordon Ramsey and others are British. It doesn't matter how they express their talent. Whether they cook French, modern British, inspired by modern Spanish, etc., they are British chefs working in Britain and have international acclaim. There are no Italians I could describe in a similar manner. As for otherr countries developing their own version of haute cuisine, I listed them earlier (including derivitive of.) But how about Spain for one?

Adam - Well it is odd which is what FG's question was about in the first place (drawing my inference.) Why Italy is so isolationary on matters culinary is puzzling. Especially with their core cuisine being so delicious.

Ron - I am sure if you call Italian cookbook publishers you will find that their business is pretty dead. And the same happens to be true of the French cookbook business as well. Spain, Britain and the U.S., now they have cookbook businesses that are booming. Even Germany is having a good run and the Australian cookbook business is great.

[Ron Johnson]

Ron - I am sure if you call Italian cookbook publishers you will find that their business is pretty dead.

Are you speaking of cookbook publishers physically located in Italy and/or wholly owned by an Italian corporation, OR are you speaking of publishers of cookbooks about Italian cuisine?

[Adam Balic]

Adam - Well it is odd which is what FG's question was about in the first place (drawing my inference.) Why Italy is so isolationary on matters culinary is puzzling. Especially with their core cuisine being so delicious.

Yes, but forget the natives for the momment. Why hasn't somebody else stepped in? Doesn't make sense. Why hasn't some French chef crossed the bordre and set up? New season olive oil sorbert with a white truffle gnocco etc.

After we set up the Ortolan farm, we really should do this new project.

[Steve Plotnicki]

Ron - Well wouldn't publishers who release cookbooks about Italian cuisine (books written by high end chefs or their cuisine) be in Italy? Don't get me wrong, there is a booming cookbook business for traditional Italian cuisine in almost every country. I'm sure Marcella Hazan is the equivelent of a money press for publishers. But in the high end, fancy technique category, the only book I can think of that was released in recent years is Don Alfonso which is outside of Sorrento on the Amalfi Coast. And that is only because they had three Michelin Stars for a few years (down to two now I believe.) If you go back to the link I posted with the Gamberro Rosso top 10 restaurants, I don't think a single one of those chefs have published cookbooks.

Adam - Well you are exactly right. It would seem obvious but it doesn't take for some reason. Not only that, and Robert B. will confirm this, many of the top rated restaurants that are near the French border cook more in a French than Italian style. People complain about it all of the time.

[Robert Schonfeld]

Why Italy is so isolationary on matters culinary is puzzling. Especially with their core cuisine being so delicious.

Why is it still puzzling? Haven't a number of good reasons been put forth?

And I have this question: Is there any reason that Italian cooking *should* be relevant, as it has been peculiarly defined for this discussion? If we just say, yet again, that, no, it's not relevant as defined, is that not sufficient? Can't it just be what it is?

[Ron Johnson]

Ron - Well wouldn't publishers who release cookbooks about Italian cuisine (books written by high end chefs or their cuisine) be in Italy?

I wasn't arguing, just making sure I understood your point. And, to answer your question, not necessarily. Not that it matters.

[Steve Plotnicki]

Robert - It's relevant because the gastrotourists are disappointed in that aspect of travel there. If you do not define yourself that way, this prong of the thread has no relevance to you. Otherwise I competely agree with you.

[Adam Balic]

And I have this question: Is there any reason that Italian cooking *should* be relevant, as it has been peculiarly defined for this discussion? If we just say, yet again, that, no, it's not relevant as defined, is that not sufficient? Can't it just be what it is?

No at all, it doens't need to be 'relevant', nor do I think that it would nessarily be improved by it, but it is curious that somebody hasn't given themselves the task of doing just that.

[Steve Plotnicki]

but it is curious that somebody hasn't given themselves the task of doing just that.

But they have and they haven't been particularly successful at it. That's really what has us scratching our heads.

[Adam Balic]

but it is curious that somebody hasn't given themselves the task of doing just that.

But they have and they haven't been particularly successful at it. That's really what has us scratching our heads.

Oh, in that case they should make it more French then, that always seems to work.

[hollywood]

So you see Steve, either you are terribly wrong or you have to admit that what your saying is In Your Humble Opinion, nothing more, nothing less.

Humble opinions are an oxymoron for some folks.

[Tonyfinch]

The only thing that's puzzling is why Steve insists that the situation is puzzling.

As Robert said at least half a dozen excelent reasons have been put forward as to why it might be so viz:

The innate conservatism of the Italian marketplace for things culinary (set stucture to meal, compulsory pasta etc.)

The need for Italy to consolidate its unity rather than risk experimentation through cuisine

The desire of Italy to find "Mamma" in their cooking and to see the restaurant as an extension of their home instead of a culinary laboratory

Less of a market in Italy for "worked" food and a greater belief in allowing top class ingredients to express themselves more naturally

A reflex resistance to adopting French cultural,including culinary practices

OR

Pure happenstance. Even as we speak the Italian Heston Blumenthal and Pierre Gagnaire's are washing dishes in their ncle's trattoria.

And there are more possible reasons. Of one is still puzzled after that then it must be because one is just not listening.

[robert brown]

For various reasons I have had to be doing other things and have been absent from this fun discussion. Now I will be away from a computer until 10/21 or 22. I just want to say that what people have ovelooked is that France excelled in the decorative arts, pre-WWII, and Italy in industrial design. In fact I would have to think hard about an example of significant French industrial design (the post-war Citroen comes to mind). More great industrial design came from Olivetti than from all of France, let alone Fiat. As far as every day decorative arts after WWII, the Italians have it all over the French: Gavina, Allessi, Memphis, Mulino, Gio Ponti. In architecture, Renzo Piano, Aldo Rossi,etc. I gotta run.

[Tonyfinch]

Reading the reports of gastronomic restaurants by such as Cabrales and Lizzie one cannot help wondering what a perceptive poster asked a couple of pages back ie. what relevance does modern cutting edge haute cuisine have to ANY country's indigenous cuisine or indeed anything outside of its own terms of reference?

At L'Astrance Lizzie describes a dish of fish and peanut butter. She hated it. Others might not but what are the culinary roots of such a dish? Are they French?

We now have (maybe we always did) a number of restaurants where all the rules only exist to be thrown out of the window and where the chef's culinary pyrotechnics deliberately fly in the face of tradition.

One might love it or hate it or be indifferent to it but it doesn't constitute the highest expression of a country's cuisine because it has no country. That,presumably, is its point.

Therefore it is no good looking for Italy's relevance in the existence of these restaurants and claiming it has none because there currently aren't any. If an Italian El Bulli was to open tomorrow it would still shed no light on Italy' relevance because it would have little to do with Italy

Italy's relevance lies elsewhere. Macrosan explained it clearly. One either accepts that or one doesn't.

But maybe the next question should be What is the relevance of El Bulli, The Fat Duck, Astrance etc. to the cuisine of the country's in which they are located?

[Steve Plotnicki]

Tony - I'm not puzzled because I haven't heard or question those reasons. When I say I'm puzzled I mean that I don't understand why someone hasn't been able to overcome those reasons.

Robert B. - This is true about postwar design. Except when does the great tradition of eating in France start? When do the palaces of haute cuisine start showing up on the scene? Lucas-Carton is art nouveau so what is that, turn of the century?

[Robert Schonfeld]

It's relevant because the gastrotourists are disappointed in that aspect of travel there. If you do not define yourself that way, this prong of the thread has no relevance to you. Otherwise I competely agree with you.

To the gastrotourists: sorry; you're looking in the wrong place.

For the rest of your reply, thanks, Steve. That ends it for me.

Pasta for dinner tonight with a sauce made of chicken gizzards. Let me see... if I put the sauce through a chinois, add some cognac and maybe some nuggets of black truffle, then pipe it into pastry cornets...

[Jonathan Day]

Pasta for dinner tonight with a sauce made of chicken gizzards. Let me see... if I put the sauce through a chinois, add some cognac and maybe some nuggets of black truffle, then pipe it into pastry cornets...

No, no, no. Robert, haven't you been listening? Pasta forms no part of haute cuisine. Pasta and other starches are the antitheses of haute cuisine.

The poor Italians (every one of 'em) never made it onto the list of hautes cuisiners. Why? Because they were too busy choking down masses of pasta and risotto. You must not make the same mistake.

So you should eliminate the pasta, puree the sauce, flame it with cognac, mount it with butter (lots of butter), add those truffles, then sauté a nice piece of meat and pour the sauce over the meat.

This is a Fundamental Transformation of Haute Cuisine: starch into meat.

While you're at it, stop all that bread baking you like to do. Bread is starch and forms no part of haute cuisine. Potatoes, however, count as a demi-vegetable, thanks to M Parmentier. To turn a potato into a real vegetable, you may effect another Transformation: cover the potato with truffles and sauce, removing its starchiness entirely.

Now you know.

[John Whiting]

Cultures have preserved their indigenous cuisine uncorrupted to the degree that their populations do not speak or comprehend (American) English.

Think that one over.

Edit: Not to imply that there is necessarily a causal relationship.

[Steve Plotnicki]

JD - I didn't say that there weren't starches in haute cuisine. I said that there wasn't a starch only course. And that the Italian way of serving a meal, where they insisted on serving a course that revolved around starch, held them back from creating a more modern cuisine. And I believe that Robert B. made the point that the pasta course is the most varied course in an Italian meal, and that Italian meals revolve around that course. I also made the point that the French when using starch, served it as a side dish flavored with a little gravy. As opposed to the Italians who combine the starch with a more substantial sauce that is thickened with bits of meat. Otherwise Robert S's sauce for his pasta sounds fine. But he needs to leave those cornets out. Too much starch.

Whiting - Not speaking english definitely hurts. But don't you think it falls under isolationism? The French aren't good english speakers either. Yet they managed to overcome that and invade the rest of the world with their culinary technique. Countless French cookbooks were translated into English. Very few Italian cookbooks that I know of were translated. In fact that's a good statistic for this thread. I am going to go to KAL tomorrow morning and compile a list of cookbooks over the last 30 years which were written by Italian chefs and which were translated into English.

[Jonathan Day]

I didn't say that there weren't starches in haute cuisine. I said that there wasn't a starch only course. And that the Italian way of serving a meal, where they insisted on serving a course that revolved around starch, held them back from creating a more modern cuisine. And I believe that Robert B. made the point that the pasta course is the most varied course in an Italian meal, and that Italian meals revolve around that course.

I am struggling both with the premises and the conclusion here. I have never felt pressured to eat pasta, risotto or polenta in any Italian restaurant (most recently Da Vittorio in Bergamo, two Michelin stars, but also including some very humble places). Yes, starches are on offer, but even when they appear in a set menu I have seen diners who don't want risotto or pasta ask for a soup or a vegetable in its place, and the restaurants have always been accomodating. I remember a tiny village restaurant where bistecca alla fiorentina was the only thing on offer. When an Italian friend asked about an antipasto or a primo piatto he was told "don't bother, you won't have room."

I have never seen a "starch only course" in any Italian restaurant (or any other kind, for that matter).

I don't believe that a good Italian menu (again, including both upscale and less elevated places) "revolves around starch" or that the pasta course is the most varied in the cuisine. I also don't see why pasta should be in any way inimical to fine cuisine, as long as it is served in moderate proportions. But I would say make the same call for moderation in regard to, e.g., foie gras.

Finally, I don't see why a heavier reliance on starches has held any country back from creating a modern cuisine, unless you define modern cuisine as starch-free. What about the Chinese and Japanese use of rice or noodles? Has that held them back?

Is there a confusion between correlation and cause here? A number of writers have argued that the Italian tradition of pastas and heavier soups as starters is a reflection of the high relative cost of meats in a poor nation. I can see that it may be harder for a "haute cuisine" (as defined in a certain sense e.g. using luxurious ingredients) to develop within a poorer economy. But that has nothing to do with pasta or with starch: a symptom not a cause.

[peterpumkino]

Steve. JD said he has some issues with your style of argunent. I was agreeing with him.But you are right. Listing them out on the boards is not the way to go.If I'm bestirred enough again in the future to be bothered I'll PM you about it.

could you copy me?

And me!

Surely the whole point of a board like this is to exchange opinions regardless of right or wrong therefore to have 'secret' pm's hidden away defeats the whole purpose and anybody subscribing to this view should be banned from the site. It's far too easy to 'cop out' by pming when the going get's tough.

[Steve Plotnicki]

Hang on hang on, I didn't say anyone forced you to eat pasta. I said that it's an integral part of the meal and it is served as a course all by itself. But I'm not understanding why you say there isn't a "starch only course?" What else would you call a pasta course? Yes the pasta is flavored either with a topping or something that is stirred into the dish as in a risotto but the course revolves around the starch. I remember one time being on vacation in Italy and I bought a local food magazine. It included a food supplement where they published recipes and beautiful color pictures from about 30 of Italy's top chefs. Speaking from memory, nearly half of the dishes were pasta dishes. And the single most famous modern Italian dish I can think of, Gualtiero Marchesi's Ravioli Aperto topped with god leaf, is a pasta dish.

As for the Chinese and the Japanese, the Japanese have formulated their own version of haute cuisine (using many French techniques I might add) but IMO the Chinese, despite their delicious cuisine have not. There is Nobu, Tetsuya, Morimoto, etc. I don't know of a single Chinese chef or restaurant that is famous on an international level.

Your last point about correlation and cause asks a good question. But, surely you can't be saying that there is a shortage of money at the high end in Italy and therefore all they can afford is pasta? Because that is were this question lies. How come Italy, with all their delicious food on a traditional level, and with all of their inventiveness and creativity in things like design and fashion, hasn't managed to produce a single chef who is making an impact on the international food scene?

[peterpumkino]

How about fish? Italy is a country that is surrounded by water. Name one chef in that country who is famous for preparing fish?  in the U.K. you have Rick Stein. Why are there no restaurants or chefs in Italy that are famous for preparing fish?

First of all I ate in Padstow and was NOT impressed by his cooking. The best fish I have had outside of Italy strangely enough was a couple of thousand miles inland at the Aspen version of Nobu's in the Little Nell's restaurant.

As far as I'm concerned virtually EVERY Italian restaurant cooks wonderful, fresh, expertly seasoned fish. That's a given and therefore there is no need to shut it from the rooftops. But is this 'haute cuisine'? Probably not. Is this wonderful and far better than Stein's? Most definitely yes.

I'm glad you liked Arzak. My meal was "correct" and nothing more. I apply a higher standard then that.

Oh, do you??? I'm sure quite a few people have something to say about you applying higher standards (including Anthony Bourdain - now there's a celebrity chef for you, does that keep you happy?) you silly, parsimoniuos, arrogant little man - I'M SORRY,I know I can be an oaf ses but to say that you apply higher standards is just too much for me.ometim.