Why Italians Love to Talk About Food (49 page)

Italians transform the ingredients for food preparation into poetic elements, elevating them to the rank of the most beautiful objects in the world. They know their products well and know the names of many varieties. It is very chic to be so well prepared as to be able to explain the difference between
Citrus limonum
,
Citrus lumia
,
Citrus medica
,
Citrus bergamia
,
Citrus limetta
,
Citrus decumana
, and so on, all varieties of lemons grown in Sicily.

This approach is the opposite, for example, of a certain French attitude that we find in the characters of Jean La Bruyère: “If you go into a kitchen and become aware of all its secrets; . . . if you see all these foodstuffs not on a sumptuously laden table, but in any other place, you would consider them scraps and feel repugnance.”

Undoubtedly, the genetic tendency of Italians to be fascinated by commodities was not created out of thin air. This passion already distinguished the nation in the time of ancient Rome:

 

I'll tell you the precepts themselves,
but hide their author.
Remember to serve eggs
of elliptical shape,
Since they're whiter
and better flavoured than the round:
They're harder-shelled
and the yoke inside is male.
Cabbages grown in dry soil
taste sweeter than those
From farms near town: tasteless
from moist gardens.
If a guest suddenly descends on you
in the evening,
To whose palate a tough fowl
might not be the answer,
You'd be wise to plunge it alive
in diluted Falernian:
That will tenderise it.
Mushrooms from the meadows
Are best quality:
others are dubious.
Healthy each summer he'll be,
who ends his lunch with black
Mulberries, picked from the tree
before the sun's strong.
Aufidius mixed honey
and strong Falernian,
Unwisely: since one shouldn't admit to empty veins
Anything that's not mild:
you'd do better to flood
The stomach with mild mead.
If the bowels are sluggish
Mussels and common shellfish
and tiny leaves of sorrel
Will clear the problem.
but not without white Coan wine.
¹

 

By Alexey Pivovarov

This unique sensibility of the ancient Romans toward the most minute details of their products and food acquisitions has amazed all historians, and of course historians of gastronomy: “In fine, what can we desire in a faculty susceptible of such perfection that the gourmands of Rome were able to distinguish the flavors of fish taken above and below the bridge? Have we not seen in our own time, that gourmands can distinguish the flavor of the thigh on which the partridge lies down from the other?”
²

Not feeling the slightest repugnance (unlike La Bruyère), on the contrary, in an outburst of poetic enthusiasm and scientific interest, an individual who takes part in Italian table talk is capable of indulging in long debates, for example, on the right cuts of meat. It is a civilized conversation, given today's vapid, hurried times. If we continue at the rate we're going, most likely there will soon be very few people able to recognize, name, and prepare some rare beef or lamb part.

Rushed and hurried, many think that to create an adequate meal, it is enough to stop along the way and buy a part of the butchered animal's hindquarters. In the hindquarters there are chops, fillet, top round, and rump, as well as loin. That's where the tender meat
is found, which is used to prepare cutlets, and bottom round; and then the rump and shank. In today's hurried, distracted daily life, the fore and hind shank and the rind are still used, for better or worse. Few know how to cook the shoulder, neck and
sottocollo
below the neck. Not to mention the
biancostato
, part of the ribs.

Specialists gladly tell which typical dishes (specifying the exact origin: region, city, or town) require a cut of meat that is not highly esteemed, such as chuck. Which typical dishes (for example, Genoese
cima
) cannot be prepared without breast of veal, which must be stuffed and then sewn with a needle and thread. Experts would like to know how
scalfo
(or
bollito
,
tasto
,
pancetta
, all regional names for flank) can be used and how to prepare the head, spinal marrow, tendons, tongue, lungs, heart, liver, rumen, tail, udder, brain, lips, spleen, kidneys, tripe, sweetbreads, offal, and testicles.

There is no end to these lists. The topside (top round), arm clod, and rump can be used for roasts in large cuts. The heart of the fillet, which is the best part, makes an excellent roast. A good cut for roast beef is the loin. Chuck, bottom round (silverside), heel of round, thick flank, and rump are the best cuts for braising. There is also the
bamborino
(flank that runs along the back part of the belly) and the cross ribs.

The neck, it seems, should be stewed.
Ragù
(meat sauce) and meatballs can be made from it. The boneless blade is cooked for several hours, and this is how
stracotto
(braised beef) is prepared, that embellishment and pride of the culinary traditions of Emilia Romagna and Sardinia. The
cappello del prete
(priest's hat) is made with zabaglione, while
cotechino
(pork sausage) is cooked
in galera
(in jail: the curious definition is due to the large, thin slice of beef that “imprisons” the
cotechino
once it's cooked and its casing is removed). In Emilia Romagna breast of veal with white sauce is renowned. Roast game, in Tuscany, calls for
barberina
sauce (dry white wine, broth, lemon juice, bread crumbs, and olive oil, seasoned with onion, parsley, bay leaf, salt, pepper, and nutmeg). As far as oxtail is concerned, the Roman oxtail
vaccinara
-style is one of the best, most popular, and most horribly awkward dishes of Lazio to eat (see “
Eros
”).

As for entrails, from the conversation of those who know, it is clear that it is not enough to know the ABCs; a kind of doctorate is needed. Moreover, from the way beef is sold in Italy we can see how narrow traditional specialization is, and how much detailed knowledge professional butchers must possess. Indeed, two thousand years ago meat merchants were divided into
boari
,
suari
, and
pecuarii
, depending on whether they sold beef, pork, or poultry. This tradition has been maintained, and today there are still shops that sell cold cuts and chicken but not meat, since to be a butcher requires special preparation and training.

The stomach of the bovine has four chambers: rumen, reticulum, omasum, and abomasum. Each part is prepared according to a particular procedure, and when properly presented is a rare culinary pearl. Then too,
lampredotto
of baby calf (that is, the thin intestine full of semi-digested food) is a fundamental ingredient for preparing a well-known Roman dish like
pajata
. Spinal marrow (called
filone
in Piedmont) is essential for cooking a proper Piedmontese
finanziera
.

 

There is also regular veal (from an animal approximately 120 days old); if the animal is younger (up to ten weeks), it is referred to as a milk calf or baby calf. Both types of meat are pale, not too high in calories, and are not considered optimal for digestion. Veal is not recommended for small children, for example. Much better in flavor and nutritional value is the meat of
vitellone
(fatted calves twelve to eighteen months old) or beef (three to four years old: young bulls must be castrated, and the heifers should not have calved, since sex hormones adversely affect the digestibility of the muscle mass).

Held in less esteem is the meat of ox or cow (beef) four years old and more. The meat of the bull is of mediocre quality, while that of cows that have already calved, a dark, stringy, tough meat, is considered almost inedible.

Ovines and their cuts of meat are classified separately. With regard to ewes and rams and their offspring, cooking distinguishes milk lamb or spring lamb (
abbacchio
), that is, an animal no more than three months old, that has been fed only milk. The word
abbacchio
means “slaughtered with a cudgel” (
bacchio
), or “tied to a cudgel” (
ad baculum
); a lamb that is tied up is unable to browse and eat grass; thus it cannot compromise the exclusive quality of its meat.

Also popular in Italian cuisine is lamb (
agnello
) no older than ten weeks that is fed primarily with mother's milk, but has already started grazing. The paler its meat, the more prized it is. Once it has grown more mature, it is called an
agnellone
: this is a young ram, one year old, that has already been sheared twice. Its legs, ribs, tripe, and head are eaten. The adult ram, on the other hand, is not esteemed. In Italy it is felt that its meat “tastes wild” or, worse, “smells of mutton fat.” The same is said of female sheep. Ewe meat, however, is used for sauces. One exception is
castrato
, the meat of gelded sheep, which are bred and eaten only in southern Italy, for the most part in Abruzzo and Molise.

Another branch of this science teaches how the names of the cuts of meat change from region to region, and also which parts may suddenly, unexpectedly, go from being a prized ingredient to scrap material. It all depends on the situation, it seems, and in some
cases even on the style. Thus, getting into the specifics of how to make an authentic Milanese-style veal cutlet, we learn to our amazement that the expert discards an entire half of the butchered animal, and ends up eliminating yet another half of the remaining half (seven ribs):

 

Pardon me for interrupting, but this ridiculous nonsense over quality meats must end. It is an unacceptable waste. Are you aware that we import the hindquarters from Holland and Germany, paying the price of the entire animal, and give the forequarters away to the vendors because they are too fatty and ruin our figure? We behave like someone who goes to a store to buy a complete suit, and then has only the jacket wrapped up, giving the pants away to the sales clerk. Pure madness . . .

“Alfredo, how many ribs of a calf are used?”

“Fourteen, seven on each side. There's an eighth, but I don't care for it: too close to the neck, too many nerves. The best are the first four; the other three have some strands of fat.”
³

 

All of this requires knowing and understanding the ingredients, loving them and protecting them, handling them intelligently and gently, knowing that an unwise move could destroy all the potency and value of a God-given asset. Carlo Petrini, founder of the Slow Food movement, recounts in his book the almost paradoxical case of an apprentice chef who was fired only because he allowed himself to hold and handle a knife in a different manner than that prescribed by the omniscient master chef:

 

For example, Pierangelini told me how he had fired a young assistant on the spot, after a few days' probation, even though he had worked in important kitchens before then. The young man wouldn't hear of cutting fish by moving his hands as Pierangelini had taught him. Whether out of convenience or ineptitude, he stubbornly persisted in making the cut at an angle with respect to the work surface, completely different from what he had been shown.
⁴

 

Not by chance, experts in ancient times advised this method to bring a prized wine out of the wine cellar: on the first day, move the bottle from the last step of the ladder to the second-to-last step, the following day from the second-to the third-to-last step, and so on until reaching the cellar door. Only in this way would the contents not be traumatized by abrupt fluctuations in temperature.