cheesecake!
During my time spent in Italy I've understood something interesting - even though it can be acceptable to be late anywhere to some extent, it is intolerable to be late for lunch. Food is what one should be on time for, no matter what.
Well Italians are famous for their food. The simplicity, the taste. It's wonderful, and everyone can understand why it's being copied everywhere - even a copied version of Italian food will be good. (This is excluding the pastas boiled for 20-minutes and pizzas made with ketchup, which is another category - una bestemmia, and will be described later.) The way to keep this standard all through the country is a complicated set of rules and categories that any self-respecting Italian will cling to. For example, the strict rhythm of dishes in a meal - pasta first, meat later, and not together, but separately. The all-around ban to capuccino after 10:30 in the morning. The necessity to keep the salty and the sweet strictly apart - milk is sweet, rice is salty, so no milk soups, no rice desserts. Obviously this will become an obstacle while tasting some foreign foods (the Portuguese sweet rice, the Norwegian caramel cheese, etc) and turn to seem stubborn.
Once an American friend of a friend of mine taught me to make the cheesecake. It was the way she was used to making it and it was exquisite. So I've never taken to change the recipe, as it was perfect the way it was. When I took to making it in Italy, it was nothing more than an attempt to make a nice cake for the others to try.
As I mentioned that I want to make a cheesecake, the first reply I got was - but let's make tiramisù, it's much better! When I was looking for Philadelphia cheese in the supermarket, my friend said - but why should you use Philadelphia? Use mascarpone, it's much better. And you know, people won't want to taste the cake if they know it's made with Philadelphia. It's strange, because Philadelphia is salty.
Obviously I was convinced that the sour Philadelphia is what makes cheesecake proper (because mascarpone is rather a texture than taste, and the cream they use here, panna, is rather sweet though used with salty food) and that otherwise it would simply be just an oversweet cake with no special qualities at all. Thus I entered in a series of discussions over what a 'cheese' means (because ricotta is a cheese too, and not salty, and used in cakes), what 'a recipe' means (under which conditions should it be changed), and most of all - what Italians feel about their food.
What Italians feel about their food is most of all security. Things are done in a certain way because this is how they have been for centuries. It is allowed to try strange things, but in any case black bread or other foreign elements will never integrate with a real Italian. Try it - find an Italian that has never lived abroad and had to put up with strange food on a daily basis. Offer this Italian something coming from another country, but something that doesn't have international prestige - nothing like Swiss or Belgian chocolate, that is. Take cookies from the Netherlands (classifies as 'the north', hence means 'bad food'), or candy from an obscure Eastern-European country, and offer these to your Italian as something you seriously consider worth trying. The Italian, being a polite person, will have to accept. He will nibble a little bit off the edge of the cookie or candy, with an expression not unlike one tasting wine, decide on something, and then remark (if it's good): 'ah, si, we have something similar...' or (if it's not good) 'well, hm, it's particular / strange / we're not usually putting these things together this way... Is it typical to your country?'
This trying-session will undoubtedly be the last time this particular thing will be eaten by the Italian. It's obvious. Italy already has everything one needs to eat.
edit: I added the recipe too - Lindy's cheesecake.
Well Italians are famous for their food. The simplicity, the taste. It's wonderful, and everyone can understand why it's being copied everywhere - even a copied version of Italian food will be good. (This is excluding the pastas boiled for 20-minutes and pizzas made with ketchup, which is another category - una bestemmia, and will be described later.) The way to keep this standard all through the country is a complicated set of rules and categories that any self-respecting Italian will cling to. For example, the strict rhythm of dishes in a meal - pasta first, meat later, and not together, but separately. The all-around ban to capuccino after 10:30 in the morning. The necessity to keep the salty and the sweet strictly apart - milk is sweet, rice is salty, so no milk soups, no rice desserts. Obviously this will become an obstacle while tasting some foreign foods (the Portuguese sweet rice, the Norwegian caramel cheese, etc) and turn to seem stubborn.
Once an American friend of a friend of mine taught me to make the cheesecake. It was the way she was used to making it and it was exquisite. So I've never taken to change the recipe, as it was perfect the way it was. When I took to making it in Italy, it was nothing more than an attempt to make a nice cake for the others to try.
As I mentioned that I want to make a cheesecake, the first reply I got was - but let's make tiramisù, it's much better! When I was looking for Philadelphia cheese in the supermarket, my friend said - but why should you use Philadelphia? Use mascarpone, it's much better. And you know, people won't want to taste the cake if they know it's made with Philadelphia. It's strange, because Philadelphia is salty.
Obviously I was convinced that the sour Philadelphia is what makes cheesecake proper (because mascarpone is rather a texture than taste, and the cream they use here, panna, is rather sweet though used with salty food) and that otherwise it would simply be just an oversweet cake with no special qualities at all. Thus I entered in a series of discussions over what a 'cheese' means (because ricotta is a cheese too, and not salty, and used in cakes), what 'a recipe' means (under which conditions should it be changed), and most of all - what Italians feel about their food.
What Italians feel about their food is most of all security. Things are done in a certain way because this is how they have been for centuries. It is allowed to try strange things, but in any case black bread or other foreign elements will never integrate with a real Italian. Try it - find an Italian that has never lived abroad and had to put up with strange food on a daily basis. Offer this Italian something coming from another country, but something that doesn't have international prestige - nothing like Swiss or Belgian chocolate, that is. Take cookies from the Netherlands (classifies as 'the north', hence means 'bad food'), or candy from an obscure Eastern-European country, and offer these to your Italian as something you seriously consider worth trying. The Italian, being a polite person, will have to accept. He will nibble a little bit off the edge of the cookie or candy, with an expression not unlike one tasting wine, decide on something, and then remark (if it's good): 'ah, si, we have something similar...' or (if it's not good) 'well, hm, it's particular / strange / we're not usually putting these things together this way... Is it typical to your country?'
This trying-session will undoubtedly be the last time this particular thing will be eaten by the Italian. It's obvious. Italy already has everything one needs to eat.
edit: I added the recipe too - Lindy's cheesecake.
2 comments:
Torta di riso and biscotti di riso (cake and cookies respectively) do exist in Italy for sure (and are quite nice as well)
Also, I have found people very fond of Kalev chocolate. Ok, not of the carrot-filling chocolate, but the normal one, fillings with mint, fruit and chilli are also appriciated. At least three of those have never leaved the country - and keep politely hinting for more eastern European candies:)
you're right on the rice cookies. I think I should make a story on the things they eat that break their own rules, such as ham with melon (prosciutto e melone). of course they'll only say I'm being silly, but I'll never get over the cheesecake episode :)
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