BRIONY VENN
cucina
As a nation we are extremely guilty of creating new dishes and showing them off as Italian (the chicken tikka masala saga of Indian cuisine rings a bell here...). Don’t get me wrong, I think it is key to bring over the taste of Italy for the rest of the world to try, but I doubt that the way we go about it is quite what they had in mind.
Take our two favourite pasta dishes: Spaghetti Bolognese, and Spaghetti Carbonara. Bolognese: A delicacy of Bologna, a vibrant city in Northern Italy with a passion to create the perfect mince to partner with their mamma’s homemade spaghetti and serve in the family Osteria. Sorry, what was that? We’re wrong, you say? Yes. Bologna is most definitely not famous for its Spaghetti Bolognese, in fact they pride themselves instead on their tortellini, and this dish we call Bolognese hasn't the least minimal traditional rooting. In reality, if they were to make it, it would consist of thicker tagliatelle pasta and meet ragu, without vegetables. Carrots? Per favore non!
As for Carbonara, that deliciously creamy, mushroomy dish, at hand to warm us up on a cold winter’s evening down at the local Prezzo. Take your favourite version to any Italian on home soil and you are likely to solicit some form of dramatic and indistinguishable hand gesture in response, most probably accompanied by a number of disgusted obscenities. Cream and mushrooms have no place in the traditional carbonara, eggs alone are perfectly capable to create a rich and creamy sauce, they just require a little more skill.
In essence, I don’t want to offend the great job that our chefs are doing, or risk losing a single one of our ‘Italian inspired’ restaurants. Returning to England after a number of years in Rome, an aperativo at my local ASK has been the cure to a number of homesick moments. What I do ask for, however, is for us Brits to lose our ignorance and accept that most of what we are eating over here is not traditionally Italian in any way, shape or form. And don’t get me started on what I think about Domino’s…
"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"
"most of what we are eating over here is not traditionally Italian in any way, shape or form"