"Authentic" Italian Cuisine

[TrishCT]

Ciao Mario,

I was recently involved in a minor skirmish about my recipe for Buccatini All'Amartriciana. Mine includes a couple cloves of garlic in the sauce. I was severely chastised by someone who travels extensively to Italy, that Italians would never put garlic in this particular recipe. He then criticized Americans for generally putting too much garlic in Italian food and being unable to truly recreate authentic italian cuisine.

To me it begged the question as to whether Italy really has such strict and rigid regional recipes. Are Americans generally overgarlicking and mucking up authentic italian cuisine?

Grazie,

Trish

[Mario Batali]

ina word yes ..... americans, a high percentage of whom hail from the southern part (read poorer and more likely to leave the dirt poor pst war south) of the boot, have modified their recipes over time and many have included the southern penchant for more garlic and more chiles, and yes, more of everything since we are now rich and can afford more meat and cheese and everything else too.... hell lets cook everyday like it is a holiday.... or something like that is how i imagine it might have gone that is not to say that italian american food is bad... it is still the product of beautiful family traditions and heirloom recipes but is it authentic??? not so much one of the first thing you will notice eating in italy is the spareness, the nearly extreme austerity of the food... it seems to be lacking a lot of the white noise that you will taste, particularly in restaurants, in the us... it is for that reason that great authentic tasting italian food eludes us here in the us it is nearly counter intuitive to us that a little is great and a little more is not as great.... keep on cookin tho, as we mature as cooks we feel less need to impress with quantity and more to impress with simplicity mb