Wednesday, 21 May 2014

The Italian Food Experience

On Sunday as I leaned back in my chair, stomach full to bursting with an assortment of amazing foods we had just finished for lunch, and thinking how delicious it had all been I suddenly realised something. I have been in Italy for over a month, the country known for its fantastic food, but I still hadn’t written about it! So here it is, my first (and I say first as I am sure there will be more to come on the topic!) blog post dedicated to Italian food.
 
Who doesn't think PASTA when you hear 'Italian Food'?
(http://www.favfamilyrecipes.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/Niccosspaghetti.jpg)
 
 Before I had spent a decent amount of time in Italy I thought Italian food basically consisted of pizza, pasta and gelato. These are of course all readily available and absolutely delicious, but to think they are the only foods of Italy was definitely one of my more ignorant moments. So I hope to share some of the not quite so well-known foods of Italy. In saying that, I cannot help but first talk about the most famous of Italian foods; pizza!
 
Pizza, as everyone knows, originated in Italy. In Naples to be exact. I have always liked pizza, how could you not? But when I moved to Italy I fell in love. Italian pizza is what a pizza should be. It is almost as if my whole childhood of pizza was a lie. Whenever I thought of pizza it would the Pizza Hut style, heavy crusted with endless toppings and covered in cheese and strong sauce that came to mind. I enjoyed these, but didn’t love them, and I would very rarely eat a whole pizza to myself. If I ever did I would feel bloated and heavy. And then I met Italian pizza. The first time I had pizza here was on the night I arrived. We picked up the pizza on the way home from the Florence train station. I waited in the car with the kids and Filo while Massimo picked them up. I was expecting him to come back with 2 maybe 3 boxes, but then I saw him head over with 5. Each one of us, even the kids, had an entire pizza to ourselves. My first thought was this was crazy, followed by a panicked oh my gosh I am going to get so fat here! It wasn’t until I had (easily) finished the entire pizza by myself did I realise not only did it taste amazing, but that it was very different to what I used to think of as pizza. The crust was thin. I don’t mean Pizza Hut thin, I mean really thin. So thin, in fact, that last week the centre of my pizza stuck to the box and I could not scrape off the delicious base without taking the paper with it! On top is a rich tomato sauce followed by mozzarella cheese (not pre-grated Colby or cheddar). After this you basically add only an extra 2 or 3 ingredients (my favourite is ham and mushroom!) Eating pizza this way means that you can really appreciate every flavour, the rich, savoury sweetness or the sauce, the stringy texture and slightly salty taste of the cheese and whatever other few ingredients you choose. There is no problem with only having a few ingredients as their flavours do not have to compete with a thick, doughy base. Instead is a light, thin companion to the topping, a foundation that doesn’t overpower, but simply adds to the overall taste. Pizzas here have few, good quality ingredients, all so full of flavour that to add any more (let alone overpower sauces such as BBQ sauce) would simply be murder to a masterpiece. And thankfully due to all this, Italian pizzas generally have fewer calories, and thus you can eat an entire one to yourself without worry too much! Now I am not saying that I do not like, and have not enjoyed both Pizza Hut style pizzas in the past and undoubtedly will again in the future, but it is and now always will be my preference to have proper Italian Pizza.
 
 
Something I didn’t really expect was that Italy and Italian food has taught me a new way to look at food combinations. I already knew that melon and prosciutto was an Italian food combination which may seem (and did seem the first time) rather odd but turns out to taste amazing. The sweetness of the melon with its soft texture contrasted with the salty prosciutto, thin and slightly tough makes for an amazing mouthful. However, I have found out and fallen in love with further combinations since living here. The first I am sure some people know about and may not seem that weird, though to me it did. After the main part of lunch one sunny Sunday afternoon, Filo stated that she would get some cheese and honey. Cheese and what!? Yes, it turns out cheese and honey is an amazing combination. When she returned she had a board with a selection of sheep and cow cheeses and a small bowl of warmed-to-soften honey. I proceeded to copy her in drizzling the honey over one of the slices of cheese. And oh my word was it delicious! It’s like cheese and chutney, but better! Though I had been sceptic at first, I have to admit I ended up eating the better half of that platter, enjoying every mouthful!
 
 
The second odd combination I have come across was cantuccini (biscotti to us English speakers) with sweet wine. When Filo mentioned this combination (a typical Tuscan specialty) I laughed before realising she was serious. Biscuits with wine? I don’t know about the rest of you (not including any Italians that is!) but I usually have tea or coffee with my biscuits. However, as always I decided to give it a go. She poured me a shot glass of the sweet wine (high in alcohol as it turns out) and told me to tip the cantuccini into the glass. Even more hesitantly than the cheese and honey I did so, and was even more surprised and delighted by the amazing taste that followed. In fact taste doesn’t quite cover it, it was an experience. You see while you usually taste food, have this hard cantuccini dipped in this high alcohol wine made it more than taste. Yes, initially you tasted the sweetness of the wine and cantuccini but then you felt the texture of the hard biscuit that was disintegrating in your mouth as the alcohol broke it down. And as you swallowed you could faintly feel the warmth of that sweet wine down your throat, warming you from the inside. I have no more to say other than wowzah!
 
 Another I-will-give-it-a-go that led to a miracle in my mouth was olio con peperoncino (that’s oil with red chili in English!) First I have to say that I have never been one for spicy food. It was not so much the way in which it burns out the inside of your entire head, but more the odd flavour it brings and the way in which (in my past experience) totally overrode and killed any flavour in the food it was supposed to accompany. The first time I had pasta here I noticed both Massimo and Filo putting an oil over there pasta. It was from a jar, half filled with the oil, and half with crushed dried hot chili peppers. They offered some to me, to which I responded, “No no! Me and spice do not go well together!” Filo laughed and said, “Well I will offer it to you ever time. We will have you using it before you leave.” I didn’t say anything, but secretly thought she had set herself up for failure. However, as promised, she asked every time and every time I refused. Until once. I decided that the best thing to do was to prove how much I could not handle spice. I opened the lid of the jar and tentatively put two tiny teaspoons of the oil over my entire plate of pasta. After stirring it around so that I wouldn’t have my head blasted off with one mouthful, I took a small bite. The usual spicy fire swept around my mouth, but surprisingly I could still taste every flavour. The fresh pasta, the slow-cooked sweet tomato sauce and the strong, tasty parmesan. I looked up and half laughed. It was amazing! And from that day I have always been the first to put that oil spice over my pasta, more and more each time. It makes the meal more than a taste, but again an experience. In fact in so many ways that is what food is here in Italy. It is more than the flavours. It’s the textures, combinations and contrasts, and how it feels as you eat it. Eating Italian is more than a meal, it’s an experience.
 
 
 
 
 
Disclaimer: As this blog post was written about food experiences over a period of time, I unfortunately do not have my own photos and thus I DO NOT OWN ANY of the above photos and no copy right infringement is intended.
 
 
 
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