Italian cuisine: at the very mention of it every Briton turns their head. The UK boasts an ‘authentic Italian restaurant’ on every street corner, we can’t get enough of new, less-calorific pizza styles (thanks Pizza Express), and the choice of pasta to accompany an indiscriminate array of sauces causes us to tremble with excitement. Why, though, have no genuine Italian chains snuck across Europe and settled on British soil knowing that there is guaranteed interest there – especially with their own suffering economy? Because there is frankly no such thing. The success of Italian food on native ground is built on small, family run restaurants with regional menus; try finding Cacio e Pepe (a Roman speciality) up in Milan. The cuisine we have created for ourselves over here is a lie, a false pretence under which we live in ignorant peace whilst across the continent the chefs are slaving away trying to uphold what culinary tradition they can with us foreigners throwing it back in their faces.
Let me put this in perspective before I get carried away. I wouldn’t dare shun the culinary expertise of these British/Italian chefs in the UK, what they make (generally) tastes fantastic and I myself am guilty of popping into Pizza Express with my Wednesday 241 to savour their pollo pesto pasta. The real issue here is the choice of recipe.
THE PSEUDO FOOD SCENE
cucina
"The real issue here is the choice of recipe"
All images from Flickr.com