Cultural contaminations

[pia]

Dear Faith, thanks for your appraisal (also on Igles’ behalf)

It is my turn for questions …

Let me state first that I’m well aware that the variety of Italian regional cuisines depends also on our curiosity and tolerance for other cultures. We have been “contaminated” quite often in our past history and I’m always fascinated by discovering how food makes it clear that we are not so different …! If boundaries should be traced by cooking traditions, Italy would have quite a different shape (Arab influences in Sicily, Catalan in Sardinia, French in Piedmont and Campania, Jewish in Lazio, Austrian in North-east, not to mention all the food and eating habits imported in Italy over the centuries).

Indeed, each medal has two sides. By accepting new products or ideas we have been prized with an exciting cuisine, fresh, varied, tasteful, knowledgeable. On the other hand, every now and then, critics complain about the homologation of menus in many restaurants. I still remember 1999 introduction of Espresso Restaurants Guide, by Edoardo Raspelli. He lamented that most menus, from North to South, were similar, because the chefs where buying ingredients by phone from few suppliers. After the nouvelle cuisine, the invasion of rucola, of the French pré-salé lamb, steamed fish and vegetables, surviving foie-gras terrines, pigeons and poulet de Bresse imported from France, there seems to be a new trend: home-made fresh pasta (with egg-dough), tuna with soy sauce and sesame seeds, raw fish with wasabi, all kind of foams and jellies.

I guess that restaurants offer what the market demands. For Italians it can be new and exciting, but how do foreigners feel about it? A perfect execution makes acceptable some degree of “betrayal” of local traditions?

Do you think that there is too much of Spain and Japan in many of our restaurants? Did you meet any other “contamination”? Too much attention to “architecture” rather tan “substance”? Are we risking to loose our identity? Or there still is an Italian way to “contamination”? Will we be able to “digest” it and make it ours?

Thank you for your reply

Pia

[Faith Willinger]

Ciao Pia

Italians have always been open to new ideas--look how quickly they accepted the tomato. And the great navigating nations brought back exotic ingredients. I agree with Raspelli when he criticizes restaurants for ordering quality but standard ingredients instead of focusing on the best local stuff. But I accept new ingredients if they make sense. Spain and Japan have certainly influenced everyone in the world of cuisine. But the best chefs are applying these ideas within the Italian idiom. I find it interesting, if not what I want to eat on a daily basis. I really don't think foams and jellys are here to stay.

a presto

Faith

Dear Faith, thanks for your appraisal (also on Igles’ behalf)

It is my turn for questions …

Let me state first that I’m well aware that the variety of Italian regional cuisines depends also on our curiosity and tolerance for other cultures. We have been “contaminated”  quite often in our past history and I’m always fascinated by discovering how food makes it clear that we are not so different …! If boundaries should be traced by cooking traditions, Italy would have quite a different shape (Arab influences in Sicily, Catalan in Sardinia, French in Piedmont and Campania, Jewish in Lazio, Austrian in North-east, not to mention all the food and eating habits imported in Italy over the centuries).

Indeed, each medal has two sides. By accepting new products or ideas we have been prized with an exciting cuisine, fresh, varied, tasteful, knowledgeable. On the other hand, every now and then, critics complain about the homologation of menus in many restaurants. I still remember 1999 introduction of Espresso Restaurants Guide, by Edoardo Raspelli. He lamented that most menus, from North to South, were similar, because the chefs where buying ingredients by phone from few suppliers. After the nouvelle cuisine, the invasion of rucola, of the French pré-salé lamb, steamed fish and vegetables, surviving foie-gras terrines, pigeons and poulet de Bresse imported from France, there seems to be a new trend: home-made fresh pasta (with egg-dough), tuna with soy sauce and sesame seeds, raw fish with wasabi, all kind of foams and jellies.

I guess that restaurants offer what the market demands. For Italians it can be new and exciting, but how do foreigners feel about it? A perfect execution makes acceptable some degree of “betrayal” of local traditions?

Do you think that there is too much of Spain and Japan in many of our restaurants? Did you meet any other “contamination”? Too much attention to “architecture” rather tan “substance”? Are we risking to loose our identity? Or there still is an Italian way to “contamination”? Will we be able to “digest” it and make it ours?

Thank you for your reply

Pia

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