OK, by popular demand, here is BS' first ever thread dedicated solely to food from the good ol' boot. Discuss your love (or hate...) of any pasta, pizza, cheese, meat, seafood, dessert, etc. dish which is "Italian." Gonna have to be a little picky on this since there are countless low quality imitations out there that claim to be "Italian," but feel free to discuss whatever. A particularly good dish, restaurant, ingredient, cooking style. etc. You get the picture.
The best food comes imho from Sicily 8but that may be because we have a really good sicilian restaurant in our area and we love it ther. It's the La Scala in Hanover-Bothfeld, if you should be near at some point of time just visit it ^^) I actually like it the way the Italians eat it. Have pasta as your apetizer and than just eat some kind of well spiced lamb, beef or like that. My favourite Pasta would be Penne al Arabiata, Sicily style, then ;-) and a Picata Milanese, which was copied in Vienna and the copy is now well-known as Wiener Schnitzel. Pizza is something i would not eat at an Italian Restaurant though, the fast food places generally taste better and are cheaper.
Gnocchi alla Sorrentina. 'Nuff said. P.S. -- Who do I have to sleep with to get some parmesano reggiano around these parts?
Easy, go to this thread and declare that if Parma finish in the top 10 of Serie A this season, you will eat your hat. Allycks, A BS poster based in Parma has promised to send one person who made that claim some parmigiano reggiano to go with the eating of the hat, so there you go. Maybe in his generosity he will expand that claim to everyone else! Of course, you have to hope that Parma actually do make it to the top 10, otherwise you are SOL. PS Great choice on the gnocchi alla sorrentina....mmmmmm.
I just moved to Tucson and I SERIOUSLY would not have moved here if there were not a real Italian deli here selling authentic parmigiana reggiana. That was the main reason I held out so long. On that note, anyone got a good alfredo recipe?
como se diche? my brother-in-law is sicilian and he took my sister over there. she told me they had some intestines that were, oh, so good! what's it called?
Tripe? I can't bring myself to eat that stuff. I don't care how good it is; with all the other goodness that is out there, there is no time for tripe!
that's it, nickybats! me and him got so drunk the other night, i couldn't remember the name. but that was the only food i remember them talking about. and of course, i know there's lots more cuisines to choose from over there. salud!
BTW, I will need certified and documented evidence of hat consumption, preferably with a notary public as witness.
The glory of Italian food is that there's really no such thing. Every region, every city, every villiage, and valley, and stretch of coastline has its own traditional speciality which they have reason to be proud of. Different wines, different cheeses, different pastas and sauces, different ways of cooking meat or fresh seafood, different breads and focaccia and pastries, different antipasti, different after-dinner liquors, different ways of curing ham and making salami. I love going into delis in different parts of Italy, I always feel like Charley must've felt in the chocolate factory!
Tripe is incredible. My grandmother (her parents were born in Sicily) used to make it in a Sicilian style. It's also really popular in Tuscany. Trippa Fiorentina is pretty damned good. And Troop, if you can't get Italian cheese locally, have it shipped in. http://www.igourmet.com/shoppe/shoppe.asp?cat=1&subCat=Italy
Truer words have never been spoken. Unfortunately, overseas (especially in the US) you only get the tip of the tip of the iceberg that is Italian food. The more popular dishes are the ones brought over from the immigrants 100 years ago, most of whom only represent a small part of the entire country. Not to mention these were largely poor and underprivileged folks who ate very basic things because they couldn't afford more lavish ingredients. Consequently, people here have this impression that Italian food is all about tomato sauce and meatballs. Hell, in the many years I spent in Italy, I don't think I had spaghetti and meatballs once! There is so much more out there than people can imagine...if you are lucky enough like allycks to be able to travel throughout the country and try the local delicacies, than you have a better understanding of just what food in Italy is.
That's because dishes like Spaghetti and meatballs were invented in the US. Last October I went to Florence to visit my cousin who was studying there, and I laughed in her face when she told me "I can't find any place that sells Penne alla Vodka here." Americans think dishes like Penne Alla Vodka and Chicken Francese are authentic Italian dishes when they go to American Italian restaurants. Some Americans think the only pizza in the world is big and sold by the slice, but Italians know the best pizza is an individual brick oven pizza from a nice Brick Oven Pizzeria in Italy (I love brick oven pizza, but a good brick oven pizza is so hard to find in America). Going to Italy and having the oppurtunity to experience real Italian food is such a privilege. That's why I can't go to Italy every year because when I come back to America and stand on the scale I realize that I've gained 50 pounds.
Actually, penne alla vodka does exist in Italy, though it doesn't look anything like that orange crap they sell in jars in the States.
Actually, after having eaten Kötbullar, I am pretty sure the meatballs are a Swedish invention... putting them in tomato sauce and than on spaghetti is American though nevertheless. How I missed a good Bolognaise sauce when I went to the US...
My mother-in-law is from Puglia and she makes a hellacious spaghetti with meatballs. On Sunday morning she makes the pasta fresh (it's not actually spaghetti as the pasta has squared edges and is thicker) and then we feast for lunch. She says that meatballs with tomato sauce, "polpette con sugo," is a pugliese invention.
Speaking of specialties from Puglia, orecchiette pasta with broccoli are unreal. I hate broccoli, too, but with pasta...man. I could eat that all day. Probably the only way anyone can get me to eat vegetables (unless basil on a pizza counts as a vegetable ).
Despite my last name I am NOT pugliese. My dad is napolitano/siciliano and my ma is toscana. I did spend like 3 or 4 days in Puglia a few years ago, though, and I'm not sure that I had one bite of meat (seafood and chicken excluded) the entire time I was there. What kind of meat were the meatballs made of?
Another great dish is Ribollita. It's like the dish of Florence. It's a puree of beans, bread, escarole, tomatoes, and a bunch of other stuff. It's delicious. Usually if you come from the sout hevery town has their own recipe for "pasta al forno". Pasta al Forno is great. Kind of like baked ziti but with salami, swiss cheese, and meatballs.
This shows you just how diverse Italian cuisine is. After 30 years of being from Italy, it took this thread for me to discover a Florentine specialty...