Many of my posts here are about the oddities I find living in Italy as an American, but the reverse holds true as well. Having spent so much time in Italy, when I come back to the states, there are things that are normal to Americans, but rub me the wrong way because of my time in Italy. One of these that really gets to me is how we describe food in the states.

Italian culture truly does revolve around food. It is so important, that an Italian company really can’t get away with slick marketing terms that are misleading. That is, if something is marketed as “fresh”, it damn well better have come from the farm 15 minutes ago. But in the states, all of these terms to describe food have become meaningless. So here is my list of terms I find to describe food in the states that make me say “Are you freaking kidding me???”

Fresh
How many times have you been in a restaurant that advertises “The Freshest Ingredients”? Really? Are you treating me like I was born yesterday? I mean, everyone does it, from chain restaurants to fast food establishments. That tomato that you advertised as “Fresh” likely came from a greenhouse on another continent weeks ago. Spare me.

Home Made
How many restaurants offer home-made pie? Home made meatloaf, home made just-about-everything? So, did your chef make this at his house this morning and bring it to work? Why on earth do we respond to this?

Artisan
So I walk into some fast food restaurant and see an “Artisan” sandwich advertised. ARTISAN? To begin with, How on earth does ARTISAN apply to food? Do they have some little old man in the back with a lifetime of experience sculpting the ingredients into a work of art? I mean, fast food assembly line sandwich shops advertise “artisan” food. Please!

Hand-Crafted
Put this up there with artisan. What is “Hand Crafted Roast Beef”, anyway? How do you hand-craft that? And if you do, do chain restaurants really do it? I think not, so why use the term and treat your customers like idiots?

Hand-Cut
Again, like Hand-crafted, and used ad nauseum. So the meat in your sandwich is hand cut. Does that make it better? Really? Do you honestly hand-cut it?

Pan-Fried
I see this on menus all the time, like Pan-Fried Salmon. I have just one question: How else would you fry the salmon? In a pressure cooker? In an oven? In the sink? I don’t get it.

Cooked to Perfection
How many times do you see a description on a menu that tells us the food is cooked to perfection? How else are they supposed to cook it otherwise?

100% Real
This fist struck me on a pizza box from Papa John’s. 100% Real Cheese? Are they telling me that other Pizza uses fake cheese? That may be so, and great that theirs is real… but what is the other pizza made of? How sad is it that we have to wonder if our cheese is actually cheese!

Real Fruit Flavor
I love seeing this on juice drinks. So which it? Real Fruit? Or Real Flavor? Are you telling me that the flavor is that of REAL fruit, but it is fake? Am I supposed to get excited that it doesn’t TASTE like artificial fruit, even though it really is artificial? Or are you trying to pull one over on me, thinking I will believe you are selling me real fruit, when in fact only the flavor is supposed to taste real? Huh??? Argh!!

Natural Cut
Hello Wendy’s! Are you trying to tell me that your “Natural Cut Fries” are naturally cut? Or that the fries are natural, and you cut them?  Perhaps they are natural fries that you cut naturally? Because a quick google search will show anyone that there is very little natural about Wendy’s natural cut fries.

OK, I’m done with my rant… for now.

As November comes to a close, so does the Olive Harvest in Italy.. So what better time than this to talk about the absolutely amazing experience we had this month harvesting olives and making our own olive oil in Umbria?

Liquid Gold.  The one thing that I make sure I bring back to the states every year.  After all, as I tell our guests, we can get good wine, good leather, good ceramics, etc. back in the states.  We may pay more for it, but it is there.  But no matter how much I try, I can never find decent olive oil.   At least nothing that compares to what I get from the olive mill we get our oil from.

Every week during our vacations, we take our guests one day to a tiny little olive mill and winery at the border between Latium and Umbria, in Orvieto country.  When we arrive, we take them into the mill to show them how the olive oil is produced.  This is one of Italy’s few remaining “Traditional” Cold Press mills…  The one with the giant stone wheels.  The one known to produce the absolute best of the best.

Week after week, we describe what they would see if the mill were in operation, and it takes some imagination.  After all, this places only goes into operation for a few weeks a year beginning in November when the olives are ready.  But one of our groups this year chose to brave the risk of cold and rain in order to not only see it in operation, but to be a part of the olive oil making experience.  While we were not sure how it would all turn out, it ended up being what was possibly the most exciting day we have ever had on our vacations.  We Came.  We Harvested.  We Made Olive Oil.

We started out our morning as we do each and every morning in Soriano.  We all met at the local coffee bar & pastry shop for breakfast.  We dad our “Espresso”, “Cappuccino”, and our “Cornetti:, then boarded our minibus, headed for the village of Castiglione in Teverina, just south of Orvieto, Umbria.   We stopped at the mill and met with Serena, one of the owners and a close friend.  We loaded crates, tarp, clippers & gloves, then followed her to a remote olive grove in southern Umbria.

One by one, we got off the minibus and made our way to the olive grove.  For a couple hours, our group split into smaller groups, each tackling one tree at a time.  We laughed and had a wonderful time picking olives & taking pictures on what turned out to be a beautiful sunny day with the “Dying City” of Civita di Bagnoregio as our backdrop.

When all of us had decided we had picked enough olives, we walked back to the minibus, carrying our crates full of newly harvested olives.  We loaded them into the back, climbed aboard, and headed back to the mill.

Once back at the mill, two by two, we carried the crates inside and set them on a large floor scale to see what we came up with.  All said and done, we had harvested 110.5kg (~225 pounds) of olives.  We then picked them up and dumped them into a large container inside the mill which then loaded them into the grinder where two massive millstones began to turn and crush them.

For about a half hour, the millstones turned nonstop, grinding our olives into a thick paste, while we headed into the old wine cellar, just a few feet away.  While visiting the cellar, we tasted a few of the white wines the winery here produces while having some Bruschetta that was made with the “NEW” olive oil that had just been pressed the day before..  We also had the opportunity to do a taste comparison between the new oil and last year’s oil, so that we could have a better understanding of how much better the brand new olive oil was…. AND IT WAS!

After our brief tasting, we headed back to the mill once again.  Our olives were all crushed and ready for the next step of the process.  While we only expected o be harvesting olives today, our friends at the mill had a very unexpected surprise for us.  As it turns out, we were also to operate the mill today!

One by one, guests that wanted to wore an apron and stood in front of a machine next to the grindstones.   The olive paste was loaded into a sort of large food processor.  Each guest would place a fiber disk on top of a turntable, then press a button that would start the table turning as olive paste was spread onto the disk.  Once it was spread around the entire disk, they would press another button that would cause a mechanical arm to pick up the disk, lift it and place it onto a large cylinder.  The process would repeat over and over, stacking the disks on top of one another as our guests operated the machinery one by one.

When the stack of disks layered with olive paste was tall enough, we wheeled it all over to the olive press and it it into operation.  The oil began to slowly drip along the sides of the press, and we headed into another room for lunch.

While we were operating the press, tasting wine and oil, and visiting the old wine cellar; Serena’s mom was upstairs preparing lunch for us.  We were served a wonderful assortment of local cold cuts, local cheese, Tuscan beans, fresh garden salad, and much more.  During our lunch, Serena opened up a selection of their red wines, one by one, so that by the end we had samples all seven of their amazing wines.  Finally for dessert she brought down cups of fresh ricotta cheese that had been made that day by her neighbor, then smothered in Acacia honey produced by a close friend.  As always, it was truly and amazing lunch.

Our bellies full and our sobriety in question, we walked back over to the mill once again.  While we were eating an drinking, our stack of disks had been pressing away, extracting  all the juice from the olive paste.  The olives have water content as well as the oil, so they must be separated.  The juice drips from the disks, and gets pumped into a container up by the ceiling that gravity feeds it into a centrifuge.  Out one side of the centrifuge, the water is drained.  Out the other side, a golden-green liquid gently flows… Liquid Gold!  Olive Oil.. just pressed from olive harvested from their trees less than three hours prior.

One by one, each of us took a one liter can and kneeled by the spicket.  We each filled our own can of olive oil that we had just made from harvest to pressing.

When it was all over, it was getting dark.  We hopped back on the minibus to go home to Soriano, each of us clasping onto our can as though it were a priceless treasure.  Each of us had smiles from ear to to ear, having just had one of the most amazing experiences of our lives.  To say the day was pure magic is an absolute understatement.  It was all we talked about for the rest of the week.

Every week on our tours, we visit this olive mill.  But only one week each year do we have this experience.  Only once do we get to actually see it in action, be a part of the process, and make it ourselves.  It is a source of incredible pride for us, because as a company that is all about cooking & culinary vacations in Italy, we know what a unique experience this is.  You will find a few others that include harvesting for a day.  You will find some that let you see a mill in action.  But that we know of, we are the only company that actually has its guests making the olive oil at every stage… especially in one of Italy’s few remaining traditional cold press olive mills, and what a difference it makes!

>> More info on our Olive Harvest Week can be found by clicking here.

As we learned with Alfredo Sauce in the “Who is Alfredo Sauce, and Why do Americans Keep Asking About Him? ”, that which you believe to be Italian, very often is not.  Since we do culinary vacations in Italy, you can imagine how many people come with certain expectations about Italian food, only to learn… well, NOT Italian.  Some of these things I list may seem obvious to you, but everything I list here has been an expectation by more than one person.

Hoagies / Sub Sandwiches

About ten years ago, a friend came to visit us in Italy.  He spent about a week, and when he was about to leave, I asked him how he liked it.  His immediate response was that he was actually quite disappointed with the food.  I naturally asked him to be more specific, and his response was that he had really been looking forward to having a really good Italian Hoagie in Italy. I explained that there was nothing Italian about a Hoagie, but that didn’t make him any happier.  It didn’t really sink in.  He had this expectation, and it simply was not met.

A Hoagie (or Italian Sub) is really nothing more than an American sandwich with Italian-inspired ingredients, but it is by no means Italian.  As Americans, we live our lives with the belief that more is always better.  “Extra Cheese”, “Mile High”, “Super Size”,  “Everything on it”… I could go on ad nauseum.  So an American walks into an Italian deli, and when ordering a sandwich, it has to have everything under the counter in order to be good.  The Italian Hoagie is born.

In Italian culture, more is not better.  It is all about balance.  So a hearty sub (It would be called a Panino in Italy) will have a delicate mixture of a few ingredients.  The closest you will get to your Italian Hoagie is a baguette with a little prosciutto, a little mozzarella, and a few tomato slices.  Balanced ingredients to create a symphony of flavors, not “stacked high with more”, therefor better.

There was an Italian deli in our neighborhood in Los Angeles.  The owner was an Italian immigrant who had owned this place for years.  There was a tacit understanding there when you ordered a sandwich from him. If you walked in speaking Italian, you hardly had to order.  He knew what to do, but business is business, so if you were not speaking Italian, he made the “mile high” hoagie, shaking his head all the while.

Olive Oil Dipping Sauce

Find me an Italian restaurant in the states that doesn’t bring out bread and dipping sauce.  Naturally you would think it is Italian.  But in Italy, bread is eaten plain.  No butter, no sauces.  After you eat a dish of pasta, or a second course that is saucy, you may pick up some of the sauce with the bread.  Yum, that is called “Scarpetta”, but it is generally considered poor table manners.  But you will never see olive oil dipping sauce.  Tourists will walk into restaurants and see olive oil, vinegar and salt at the table, then will instantly make their own dipping sauce.  The thing is, those are there for salad, since in Italy you dress your own.  When a waiter not accustomed to tourists sees this dipping concoction, they will wonder what on earth you are doing.  They won’t stop you, but I can pretty much guarantee that they are talking about it in the kitchen.  Don’t these people know the salad condiments are not for bread?

Italian Salad Dressing

Since I am on the subject of Italian salad, there is no such thing as Italian Dressing.  Pick up any bottle of “Italian” salad dressing and read the ingredients.  You will see oil, vinegar, peppercorns, hot pepper, rosemary, garlic, oregano, basil, black pepper, parmesan, sugar, thyme, etc.  As I explained with the Hoagies, it is a complex recipe of Italian-Inspired ingredients with the more is better attitude..  But if any Italian tastes this stuff, they will likely spit it out in disgust.  You will NEVER find this stuff in Italy.  Dressing for salad in Italy is simply Olive Oil, Vinegar, and Salt.  Period.  Salad is always served with no dressing so that you can do it yourself to your taste.

Spaghetti & Meatballs

OK, you can get Spaghetti with a red meat sauce (Bolognese) just about anywhere.  You can get meatballs (Polpette) just about anywhere.  But together?  For the love of God, don’t you have ANY standards?  After all, everyone knows that two types of food shall never touch the same plate!    This may seem ridiculous to you, but this is a really big deal in Italian culture.  The spaghetti is a ‘first course’, and the meatballs are a ‘second course’.  The thought of having them together is unheard of, and to take it a step further and have them on the same plate?  Oh my, sacrilege!   Additionally, those meatballs would never have the sauce from the pasta.

Italian Ice

Growing up I used to love having “Italian Ice”.  In Italy, there is nothing like it.  I think Italian ice derived from something called Granita, which is more like a slushy.  Granita is very similar a Slurpee, except it is a little more coarse.

Pepperoni Pizza

Order a pizza with pepperoni in Italy, and be ready for a shock.  You will get bell peppers on your pizza, not the spicy salami we call pepperoni.  You may even see the term ‘pepperoncini’ and think you are in the right neighborhood.  You are not; this will yield you a pizza with crushed red pepper.  What you think of as pepperoni is actually called “salame piccante”, but you will never see it offered as a type of pizza.

While on the subject of pizza, you also won’t see extra cheese, pineapple-ham, BBQ chicken pizza, etc.   Pizza is usually much more traditional in Italy, but I have to admit that in recent years, I have seen many pizzerias in Italy get pretty bold.  I know of one place that makes a “Hot Dog & French Fries” pizza.  They also have an “America Pizza”, which among other ingredients that make me lose my appetite includes Ketchup & Mustard.  With that in mind, while Italians once got offended at the thought of pineapple & ham on a pizza, on this subject they no longer have any culinary high ground to speak from in my opinion .

Lattes

So a man walks into a bar.  He orders a latte, and walks out with a glass of milk.  Another man walks into a bar and orders a “Venti Latte”.  He walks out with TWENTY glasses of milk.  Huh???  When I go to Starbucks and order a Venti Latte, I get a large cup of coffee and steamed milk.  Don’t these Italians know anything?  Well, they know that “LATTE” means “MILK”, and “VENTI” means “TWENTY”.  So the man just asked for twenty cups of milk… and got just that.

We had a guest fall into this once (not the twenty part).  He ordered a Latte in a coffee bar, and then walked up to me with a glass of milk and a puzzled look on his face. “Why is there no coffee in my latte?”  When I explained to him that latte simply means milk, and if he wanted coffee in it, he would need to order “Caffe Latte”, he simply responded, “Well, it’s just not the same without coffee.”  No, it is not.

While there are many ways to order coffee in Italy, they are mostly focused on coffee and milk.  They don’t have any of the candy flavors and complex options we have.  You will never find a “Grande Cinnamon Dolce Half Caf/Decaf Mocha Cappuccino”.  You will just find “Cappuccino”, and it can be “Caf” or “Decaf”.  There are all kinds of other options, but that is the subject of another post.

On that note, the coffee will very rarely be served in a take-away cup.  We had one guest get truly upset about this when they ordered a cappuccino, and it was served in a ceramic cup.  She simply couldn’t understand the reasoning behind the ceramic cup.  “What if I want to take it with me?”  The coffee culture in Italy is not like it is here.  No form of coffee is intended to be consumed over a period of minutes or hours.  All coffee drinks are small and pack a punch.  It is more like doing shots.  You would never expect a shot of vodka to be served in a takeaway cup, would you?

On day one of every cooking vacation we offer, there is a little talk with all of the newly arriving guests.  We go over the things that they can expect, and should not expect.  We discus the plans for the days ahead, and we go over some of the more common cultural faux-pas that guests can avoid as we try to integrate them into Italian culture for their brief time with us.

One of the items on the list that seems to get more resistance than others is that of doggie bags.  It just isn’t done in Italy, and once you understand Italian food culture, you will completely understand why.

Food is Sacred Art

It doesn’t matter if you are eating in the smallest Trattoria or the finest restaurant in the city.  The chef in the kitchen is an artist.  There is no line cook back in the kitchen throwing canned sauce over pre-cooked pasta.  The chef is creating the dish you ordered for you. Your dish is served, not to your liking, but to the liking of the chef.  In other words, this is the chef’s masterpiece,   and he knows how it is to be prepared.  He knows how it is to be cooked, and he knows how it is to be served.  You cannot say your meat is undercooked, because the chef cooked it properly, and he knows better than you.  It is YOU who does not know how to eat properly.  You would not ask for extra sauce, because the proper amount of sauce was used, and you would not send back what you perceive as a cold dish, because you clearly don’t know what temperature this dish must be served at.

Furthermore, telling a chef his food is less than perfect is like telling a mother her child is ugly.  Even a waiter would not normally ask you if your food is good… because the food IS good, of course… and I generally agree.

I know, it sounds like awful service…. really, I used to feel that way.  But it isn’t.  It is art.  The chef put passion into the food, and from his perspective, if you don’t appreciate it, you don’t deserve it.  You must take your mindset away from the American concept of ‘Customer-Focus’ and accept that in Italy, the customer is not right… the food is right.  This is why Italian food in Italy is so incredible.  Someone prepared it with true loving care… really!

You usually won’t see a dish come out that looks like a work of art — you know, the creative swirling drizzle of balsamic vinegar over a neatly stacked arrangement of geometric food shapes…  No, it is pure art of flavor that will arrive.  Each ingredient blended perfectly, cooked precisely, and portioned with care, such that your senses go into overdrive.  And to change that delicate balance by cooking it more, adding extra sauce, or whatever…  well, it would ruin the entire experience.  Really!

While They Were Creating Perfect Recipes, We Were Swinging From Trees

Did I say that food is sacred?  Let me rephrase:  Italian food is sacred, and Italians feel a true sense of pity for the rest of the world, because we are all starving for lack of a decent meal.  No, I’m not kidding.  Furthermore, there is a way to prepare Italian food, a way to eat it, a place to eat it, and a time to eat various dishes.  The combination is something not to be messed with.  So if you are in Italy and Italians talk to you about food (they will), remember the point of view they are coming from:  You are one step removed from the starving children in Africa, and God has graced you with the opportunity to finally have some real food in your life.  Praise be to God.

L’America e Bella, Ma La Fame!

Whenever Italians travel abroad, upon their return you can pretty much guarantee what the first words out of their mouths will be when asked how the trip was.  They all start by uttering these words:  Era bello, ma LA FAME!!!  (It was beautiful, but THE HUNGER!!!).  They then continue for quite some time describing just how awful the food was, how hungry they were, everything they did in their quest for a decent meal, etc.  This invariably segues into a discussion about the pity they feel for those poor people that live there and have to eat that awful food.  How can they possibly eat that junk?  Who knows?  Only then will they actually discuss where they had been.  That is how important food is to an Italian.

I have had people tell put their hand on my shoulder, telling me how fortunate I am to have an Italian wife to cook for me at home.  Of course, I would otherwise starve.  I have had people look at me with a confused daze when discussing various ethnic cuisines, only to finally fire off the most important question of all: What on earth do those people feed their poor children????  After all, they wouldn’t dare give that garbage to an innocent  child, would they?

Food Shall Not Touch Food

Perhaps this will help drive the concept home a bit:  Whether you are eating in a proper restaurant or a roadside truckstop in Italy, food is divided into courses.  Your salad has its own dish.  Your pasta has its dish, your meat has it’s dish, and so on.  You will never, never, never see salad, pasta and meat on the same plate.  To any Italian, that is utterly disgusting, and those of us that find that normal are little more than barely evolved barbarians.  Why?  Because flavors should not mix.  My pasta will be ruined if it comes in contact with the salad!

This is also why food won’t come out together.  Appetizers, 1st Course, 2nd Course, Dessert.  If your meat and pasta come out together, your meat will be cold by the time you finish your pasta.  RUINED!  You could not eat them together, because that would ruin the balance of flavors, of course.  This brings me back to the chef knowing better than you, see?  What do YOU know about the complexities of preparation and delivery?  He is the master and you are a consumer!

Dare Not Argue

You may disagree with these points because you have a different perspective, but this is a cultural reality, and as such, it is right when visiting that culture.  Should you try to sway others into thinking that what the customer wants, the customer should get, any self-respecting Italian will invariably pull out their smoking-gun evidence that proves their point.  Go to any country in the world and drive down the street.  Count the ethnic restaurants and you will always see more Italian restaurants than any other.  Therefore, Italian food is the most appreciated food in the world.  That means they are right.  And I agree!

So What Does a Doggie Bag Say?

Well, knowing what you know now….  how do you think a chef would feel if he knew you wanted to bunch the leftover food into a box, take it home, put it in the fridge, then microwave it the next day?  Or worse… GIVE IT TO YOUR DOG????  For the love of God, this is sacrilege! The pasta will be soggy, the sauce will be mushy and soaked in, ACK!!!  What an offense!  You may as well tell him you will be putting the food in your car’s gas tank!

Face it, the food was prepared to be eaten right there, not warmed up later in a microwave.  To reheat the food later would be offensive to the food itself… It just isn’t done.  So the concept of taking food home in a doggy bag just doesn’t exist, except in the very touristy places.  You can ask, of course.  Tourists do ask, but the concept is utterly foreign.  You may as well ask a waiter nail your leftovers to the wall and paint them.

So please… when in Italy, don’t ask for a doggie bag.

I’ve heard it time and time again.  ”I can’t wait to have Fettuccine Alfredo in Italy”.  Ummm, sorry friend… you won’t find it.  It isn’t Italian.  Well, that isn’t entirely true, actually.  You can get it in Italy, but you will never find anything like it it on a menu, and certainly not by that name.  To get you in the right frame of mind, imagine I served you a simple slice of toast with a pat of butter on it, and I told you this was a special dish I call ‘Bread alla Michael’, you would laugh, right?   Fettuccine Alfredo falls into that realm for an Italian.

My Stomach is Unsettled Tonight

When you were growing up, if you had a little stomach ache, maybe your mother gave you some chicken broth.  Perhaps some simple rice, or a little toast?  If your stomach was unsettled, she gave you something light, right?  In the pasta culture of Italy, one of the most common things ‘mamma’ would have given you is a very simple pasta, called ‘pasta in bianco’.  That translates to ‘white pasta’… or more indirectly, ‘without any sauce’.  Of course, mamma would never have just given you pasta without flavor, so she put a little butter and Parmesan cheese on it to get you to eat it.

It is the most basic of pastas.   You will never find it on a menu in Italy, because who in their right mind would go out and pay to have Pasta In Bianco?  It is so simple, so basic, that if you really wanted it any restaurant could give it to you, so to advertise it on a menu would be like Ford advertising that their cars have steering wheels.  Duh!

To go to a restaurant with the purpose of ordering this dish would be like going to a Chinese restaurant with the purpose of ordering plain, steamed, white rice.  It simply is what it is.  And if you DO ask for it in a restaurant in Italy, the waiter may show concern for you, thinking you may not be feeling well.

The Pregnant Wife

So why am I rambling on about stomach aches, anyway?  This is how ‘Alfredo Sauce’ was born.  As the story goes, there was a restaurant owner of a touristy restaurant in Rome back in the 1920′s.  His name was Alfredo, and at the time he had a pregnant wife. She was regularly having pasta in bianco, because she couldn’t keep anything else down.  The story they tell you now is that one day Alfredo rushed into the kitchen to make a special dish that she simply could not resist, and he suddenly invented Fettuccine Alfredo… well, it makes for a good tourist tale, but it is just Pasta in Bianco. It is what any Italian would make on any given day for any pregnant woman suffering from nausea.

One day, Mary Pickford and Douglas Fairbanks were at his restaurant and had this dish that the wife had been eating.  That day the pasta happened to be Fettuccine, and of course she was having it ‘In Bianco’.  They loved it,, and gave Alfredo a picture of them to hang on his wall along with a golden spook and fork.

Alfredo gave them the “recipe”.  I put recipe in quotes for a reason. Try to imagine if a visitor asked you for the recipe for buttered toast.  To any Italian, giving the “recipe” for pasta in bianco is just like that.

When they went back to Hollywood, they began to serve it to friends, telling them about Alfredo’s restaurant in Rome.  Alfredo suddenly found Hollywood elite visiting his restaurant, looking for ‘Alfredo’s Fettuccine’, so it made its way to his menu.  Pasta in bianco was now ‘Fettuccine Alfredo’, at least for the steady stream of tourists that frequented his place.  Many actors also contributed photos, of course.  The restaurant became a very popular tourist destination for Americans.

Off To America

After several years, Alfredo sold his place to the person that runs it now.  But he later got involved with another group of entrepreneurs, who opened another Alfredo (including Alfredo’s in New York, Vegas, and Disney).  Fettuccine Alfredo became even more popular in America as a result, to the point that it became a staple in just about every Italian restaurant in the US.  Of course,, as good Americans, we need to make everything bigger and better, so ‘Alfredo’ became a ‘sauce’ for just about everything, almost like a Starbucks ingredient for coffee.  Chicken Alfredo, Shrimp Alfredo, Tomato Pesto Pasta Pine Alfredo….. ugh.  People began to add cheese, pepper, starch, and who knows what… to the point that any white creamy thing that went with pasta became ‘Alfredo Sauce’.  In America.

New-Yorkese Cuisine

That is how much of what we believe to be Italian food came to be. Imported, morphed and combined shadows of what the real Italian thing was.  I call it ‘New Yorkese’.  Buca Di Beppo is not an Italian chain, it is a New Yorkese chain.  Maggiano’s? New Yorkese.  Olive Garden?  No, I won’t even give Olive Garden such a high designation.

You won’t find spaghetti and meatballs in Italy.  You will never find olive oil and herb dipping sauce with your bread.  There will be no Chicken-Pesto pasta, and you won’t see a meat lover’s pizza.  You will also never see Alfredo Sauce.  That is, unless you happen upon the restaurant that exists with the sole purpose of capitalizing on the fact that you are seeking it out.

L’Originale Alfredo

You can go there.  It is in downtown Rome.  They will have beautiful outdoor seating, they will have a people that will serenade you, and you will see the pictures all over the walls.  And yes, you can order a dish of Pasta in Bianco.  ummm, I mean Fettuccine Alfredo.  You will be joined by nothing but other Americans that were looking for the same place, for the same reasons.  You will find no Italians, no other Europeans, nada.  This place is there just for Americans.  If that is what you are after, by all means go and have a wonderful time.  It is truly a pretty place.  But for those that are looking for something authentic, by all means, keep walking.   Since they don’t cater to Italians here, they can get away with low quality ingredients, producing low-quality food.  Why?  Because you are a tourist and you won’t know the difference.  Why not stay home and go to Olive Garden if you want bad Italian food?

Actually, if you find yourself there and suddenly see what I am talking about, there is a great place next door called ReCafè, which makes fantastic pizza.

But if you really, really want it…

Hey, just because it is extremely simple, doesn’t make it bad, right?  Actually, Pasta in bianco is a wonderful light dish, just not something one would pay a premium for.   So when you are in Italy, don’t worry about the fact that it is not on the menu.  If you want it, order Fettuccine In Bianco.  If you want creamy, you can ask for Fettuccine Con Panna.  It will be what you are looking for, but will be much better than what you will get at the Alfredo place.  But if you go into ANY Italian restaurant and ask for ‘Alfredo Sauce’, they will certainly ask you who Alfredo Sauce is.

I’ve been wanting to write about this for ages.  Not about wine actually being better on the other side of the fence, but the impression that it is.

We take groups to wineries in Tuscany and the surrounding regions several times a week, and once you have done it enough, you can’t help but befriend the winemakers.  The more you talk to them, the more little secrets come out.  Here are a few of them.

Brunello di Montalcino

Perhaps the most coveted wine in Italy.  A very small area surrounding the ancient hill town of Montalcino is designated as The Brunello Zone.  There are a few very well-known wineries here.  The best known is Banfi, and the most elite is arguably Biondi Santi, followed by Casanova di Neri, and perhaps Fattoria dei Barbi.

As you a certain road from Montalcino to Castelnove d’Abate, on your left you will see a vineyard surrounding a breathtaking villa.  Signs on the vineyard read “Greppo”, which indicated that you are in the presence of the ultra-elite vineyard of Biondi Santi.  As you continue, when you reach the edge of their property, there is a small dirt road with a sign pointing to ‘Croce di Mezzo’, and after that, you are immediately in front of Fattoria dei Barbi’s vineyards.

You have probably never heard of Croce di Mezzo before.  It is a small, family run place with low volume, and happens to be sandwiched between two of Montalcino’s most famous vineyards.

Their slopes have the same basic incline.  They get the same sun, and the same water.  They produce Brunello, meaning that they use the same grapes,  They maintain the vineyard in the same way, and harvest during the same week.  Their vinification process is controlled by the Brunello Consortium the same as the others, and they age their wine in virtually identical barrels made of the same wood, from the same forest, for the same period of time.  The barrels have the same age restrictions, and are cleaned on the same schedule.  They are bottled by the same process, and aged for the same period of time in the same conditions.

What is different?  For all intents and purposes, they key differences are the side of the fence the grapes come from, and the label on the bottle…. Oh yeah, and the price.

The better-known wines will cost you up to 1,000% more.  Marketing, Marketing, Marketing.

And Then There is Banfi

We hear it all the time.  BANFI BANFI BANFI.  Yes, they are also in this area (as well as others).  Banfi is like the McDonald’s of Tuscan wine.  They are a very large American Wine Importer that started making their own wine in Italy in the late 70′s.  It is the largest in Italy, and very industrial in nature.  Many know them because they are the largest US importer of Italian wine.  I see them as being more about quantity than quality, and I’ll leave it at that.

The Hatfields and The McCoys

Down the road from Montalcino, there is another ancient hill town called Montepulciano.  They are famous for a wine called Vino Nobile di Montepulciano. They are in fierce competition with Brunello, and many (not all) would argue that their wine is far superior, but are not marketed as well as Brunello, and as such don’t call for such a high price.

One of the things I find interesting is that there was a huge scandal a few years back with some of the major Brunello wineries.  They were mixing in ‘illegal’ grapes in an effort to make it more appealing internationally.  Without getting into details, they were making their wine more like Vino Nobile!

Wine From The Wrong Zip Code

A little south of the areas I just wrote about is another well-known wine region called Orvieto, which is in Umbria.  They are well known for their white Orvieto Classico.  Just south of Orvieto is an invisible border, and a little town called Castiglione in Teverina, and IT is in the region of Lazio… not so well known.

To give you something to compare to, imagine I am a winemaker with a vineyard in Napa Valley California.  Cool… Impressive.  You are probably itching to try my wine.  Now imagine if Napa bordered with Nevada, and you could walk from a Napa Valley vineyard to another one in Some unknown town in Nevada.  If my vineyard happened to technically be in Unknown Town, Nevada, I would be significantly less popular at parties, wouldn’t I?

In fact, some truly fantastic wine comes from Castiglione, but they just aren’t popular at parties because their labels have the wrong town name and the wrong region name.

We visit one of these places on our tours, and I would love to have you try them.  The price is about 1/3 of the others, and I challenge anyone to to tell me which is which.

Like a fine wine or a great cigar, those who know their coffee are extremely discriminating.  I count myself among them.  Coffee is something I take very seriously.Technorati: VA2TJVJYZX67

Depending on the style of coffee, completely different factors come into play when determining the quality.  For example, if I were to rate a cup of American coffee, I would talk about the perfect blend of Arabica beans that, in my opinion, would include carefully proportioned percentages of beans from Ethiopia, Central America, and Sumatra.  

The beans would have to be roasted with a specific profile, to a certain darkness, and it would be brewed between 24 and 48 hours of roasting by a specific machine at just the right temperature.  But all of the rules that apply to American coffee mean nothing when it comes to espresso.  So I thought I would jot down what I have learned when it comes to one of Italy’s most celebrated exports.

The Standard of Quality

To begin, what does a great cup of espresso look and taste like? I’ll start by saying that it is universally accepted that the best espresso can be found in Naples, Italy.  To contrast that, I can honestly say that have have never had an even remotely acceptable espresso in the United States.

Keep it Short

You may be used to the concept of a ‘Single Shot’ or ‘Double Shot’ of espresso.  Even the most coffee-challenged Italian will tell you that what we consider to be a ‘single shot’, is far too much.  An espresso should measure in a standard espresso cup roughly 1 1/2 fingers.  While you may think that such a short cup will be too strong, the truth is that when the espresso is pulled, that is were the flavor is.  If you were to pull the cup away after 1 1/2 fingers, then place another cup in, the remainder of the coffee that comes out is extremely bitter.  In fact, the perfect espresso will be strong, but never bitter.

It Should Be Creamy and Silky

When you sip an espresso, let it roll on your tongue fo a second.  A good espresso will almost coat your taste buds as it goes down.  The flavors will be very complex and while it is very thin, it will have a very creamy texture to it.  The perfect expresso will have flavors and sensations that almost contradict one another.  A bad espresso will feel like extremely strong and bitter American coffee; it will completely lack texture and complexity.

Don’t be Fooled by Crema

We have been conditioned to believe that if the espresso has a thin layer of froth, it must be good.  While a great espresso will always have the crema, the crema does not mean it is good.  Most modern espresso machines are designed to produce crema no matter what.  It has become a marketing thing for them… Produces great crema! But the coffee may still be trash.

What You Drink it In is as important as What You Drink

Drinking espresso out of a paper or plastic cup is no different than eating a Filet Mignon with plastic utensils on a paper towel.  You may do it if you are desperate, but it certainly is never your choice.  Plastic and paper cups completely change the flavor, such that even the best espresso will taste like junk.  A ceramic cup is the most common and widely accepted container, but it is not optimal.  The perfect espresso is served in a shot glass.  Believe me, it really does make a difference.  When you are in Italy, you will almost always have your espresso served in a ceramic cup, but utter two magic words when you order, and you will not only get it in a shot glass, but you will likely get a nod of respect.  The two words are ‘Al Vetro’.  Simply say ‘Caffe Al Vetro’ and you will get it in just about any bar in Italy.

How the Perfect Espresso is Made

So far I have talked about what to look for and pitfalls to avoid, but what makes an espresso from one bar better than another?  Or why is espresso typically better in Naples than Rome?  There are several factors:

The Beans

Remember when I said that the best American coffee is made with Arabica beans from certain countries?  The rules are different for espresso.  The other type of coffee bean is called Robusta.  It is actually a very cheap bean that is considered to be very low quality.  However, while it is only present in the worst American coffees (Folgers, Maxwell House, etc.), it must be in the blend for espresso.  Without it, your espresso will be missing all of its kick.

The Roasting

Roasting a bean for espresso is a very delicate process.  What we consider a very dark roast is still too light for espresso.  But if you ever have the opportunity to watch coffee beans roast, there is a critical moment, during which the beans go from extremely dark to burned.  It is almost a split second, but the moment it goes too far, the coffee loses all of its flavor.  Because of this, it is very easy to get a bad roast.  So high quality espresso comes at a premium because of the difficulty, and low quality is very common.

The Delay

Coffee goes bad very quickly, no matter how much you freeze it, vacuum pack it, or otherwise.  A high-volume bar that gets good locally roasted coffee will always have an advantage.  The stuff you get at Starbucks has long since gone stale.

The Machine

No matter how muh you try, no matter how much you spend, and no matter how fancy your home espresso machine is, it will never make a great espresso, period.  You can spend $10,000 on a professional grade machine, and you will still get substandard espresso.  It is all about how much it is used.  A bar that pulls 1,000 espressos a day will always have an advantage over one that pulls 500, so your fancy machine that pulls one or two a day doesn’t stand a chance.  Of course water temperature and pressure are major factors that will make a huge difference for those of you that spent $10,000 on the professional machine, but you better be ready to turn it on an hour early and prime it for a while before pulling an espresso to drink

The Water

Now here is a place where a small thing you can do will make a world of difference.  I often wondered why espresso was so different from city to city in Italy.  I finally asked a professional roaster, and he told me that if he would take the same machine and the same coffee, it would always be significantly better in Naples, more bitter in Rome, less full-bodied in Florence, etc.  Then he proceeded to tell me every nuance of the water in these places.  But since I only really cared to know why Naples was so good, it all boiled down to the fact that the water in Naples is slightly effervescent and has a high mineral content.  He told me that if I were to buy naturally carbonated mineral water (not San Pellegrino), that it would be much closer to that of Naples, even in a home machine.

We did it.  In our little personal Gaggia Espresso Machine, we began to use high quality coffee with mineral water instead of tap water.   I won’t lie and say it even comes close to what I get at a typical Naples bar, but our home coffee experience suddenly got significantly better.

That said, I’m afraid the only truly perfect espresso requires a trip back to Naples.  If you go, don’t forget to have the pizza, and bring me back some Buffalo Mozzarella while you’re at it!

Updated 02/2010

Olive Garden is one of those places that really sets my blood to boil. Every time I hear the word ‘Hospitaliano’ I begin to cringe and twitch. When I hear them say ‘When you’re here, you’re family’, I can’t help but visualize the corporate offices of a chain with nearly 700 cookie-cutter restaurants. I’d just love to show up there one day waving my hands saying ‘Ciao!!! It’s cousin Michael’. I wonder what kind of Hospitaliano I will receive when I help myself (as family would) in their executive lunchroom at the corporate HQ. Better yet, after you leave an Olive Garden, how many people that work there know your name, let alone consider you family? Do we actually buy into this stuff?

I’ve Got Your Hospitaliano Right Here

OK, marketing marketing marketing. But now their commercials focus on their ‘Culinary Institute’ in Tuscany? They imply that their chefs all go there to learn how to make true Italian food with the freshest of ingredients. They learn from a local grandmother, then come back to their local Olive Garden and you get the benefit of their new-found talents. Yeah, Right! This is just over the top. Is Olive Garden actually trying to imply now that they serve authentic Italian food? Do they really want us to believe that it is the real thing? Fresh? We are talking about a Boil-a-meal-in-a-bag-then-serve chain here, people. Their recipes are at best ‘Italian Inspired’, but by no means Italian. It would be like having someone serve you a sausage and call it a hot dog.

Their latest commercial talked about how their chefs came back from Italy with their new recipe, ‘Chicken Crostina’ . Ummm… sorry folks, no such thing, and I can most certainly guarantee that the grandmother shown teaching the chefs in the commercial wouldn’t put an Olive Garden Chicken Crostina in her mouth to save her life, let alone teach anyone to make it.

A Dose of Reality

So what is this ‘Cooking Institute’ all about? I did a little research, and I put some two and two together. It appears that someone in corporate found an independent cooking school in Tuscany and made a deal with them. Olive Garden ranks all of their chefs and managers (as any corporation would), and the top 100 win a one-week trip to Italy the following year. It appears that they send 10 of their people at a time. It sounds like a great performance perk, and they are certainly getting a ton of marketing mileage out of it. However, I can pretty much guarantee that they come home and look at the food they make at their local Olive Garden and simply shake their heads, having finally experienced the real thing. In any case, they then go back to their ‘line chef’ system and feed you the same junk they always have. Sigh.

Are You Looking for Something AUTHENTIC?

Some have asked why my opinion is so strong on this subject.  Simply put, I own a cooking school in Italy that actually DOES create a family experience.  We actually DO teach authentic home-style Tuscan cooking, and our vacations are the stuff of dreams.  So since you probably arrived here while searching Google for information about Olive Garden’s cooking school, please do me one little favor:  Have a look at our website and check out what we are all about.  If you are really considering a cooking vacation in Italy, I think what we have will be EXACTLY what you are dreaming of.

Click here to see our cooking vacation pages.

Win a Trip to the Culinary Institute?

Hey, it’s a great promotion!  However, if you are hoping to learn the secrets of Chicken-Gnocchi-Alfrefo Soup or Deep Fried Lasagna Bites, it just isn’t going to happen.  I suspect that you will get a more authentic experience, and by the time you come home to Olive Garden, you will be squarely in my camp.

On a Final Note

Speaking of the grandmother… there is this promotional video.  Listen to what she says and you really need to ask yourself why the company that promotes this video doesn’t follow the advice

It’s not really what you think it is…

In the states, when you hear the word ‘Bruschetta’, you think about toasted Italian bread with a tomato spread. But to think that way would be like thinking the word ‘Sandwich’ means two pieces of bread with ham, cheese and mayo. It’s actually a generic term, and there are all kinds of Bruschetta.

Making Bruschetta with Sausage and Stracchino Cheese at Villa Eddarella

Let’s learn how to say it…

Before I go any further, let’s get rid of a pet peeve of mine. We’ll learn how to pronounce it. Say BROO-SKET-TA. That’s right. It is not BRAH-SHEDA. Now say it again… BROO-SKET-TA. If you can roll that R a little, you are certainly doing well!

What exactly is it then?

Bruschetta is quite simply toast. The word comes from the Italian verb ‘brusciare’, meaning ‘to burn’… or ‘to toast’, if you will. Bruschetta is made by placing a piece of bread on a grill and turning it every few seconds until it is toasted. Of course, doing it with Italian bread makes it so much more than what we think of as toast! At that point, it is Bruschetta. What you put on top of it from that point forward is completely up to you.

A little Bruschetta History

They say it originates in our area — Central Italy. But in all honesty, it is just that name that originates there. Other areas of Italy have had it for ages, just with different names. After all, how does one figure out where toast was invented? However, the name Bruschetta stuck, and became accepted world-wide.

Originally Bruschetta was simply bread toasted over hot coals, then sprinkled with some olive oil and garlic (or salt). It was something you would have while having an Italian BBQ, or when tasting the new oil in the winter. This is how what we call ‘Garlic Bread’ originated. Over time, Bruschetta became an appetizer offered in restaurants, and as such, it expanded to be a ‘carrier’ of other appetizers.

Bruschetta with Porcini Mushrooms

The tomato/onion mixture we know of is one of these. Other popular ones are olive spread, porcini mushrooms, truffles, and much more. but if you are in Italy, and you ask simply for ‘Bruschetta’, you will get toasted Italian bread with oil and garlic to rubbed on it. If you were to ask for ‘Bruschette’ — Note the ‘e’ instead of ‘a’ at the end that makes it plural, you would most likely get a platter of several varieties of Bruschetta.  What we think of as Bruschetta would be ‘Bruschetta con pomodoro’, or ‘Bruschetta with tomatoes’. This fact may not hold true in touristy restaurants, since they have learned what the tourists expect.

Bruschetta is a Comfort Food

When I think of Bruschetta, I think of friends and family. It is about going down to the farmhouse on a cold, rainy night with Paola and friends. We would bring a bunch of bread, sausage and pancetta. We would start a fire in the old fireplace and grill the sausage and pancetta while making Bruschetta late into the night, laughing and eating. I would argue that just about any Italian you run into will have similar stories. Bruschetta is something to have with friends.

A Bruschetta Recipe:

The recipe below is a simple one that we do in our cooking classes for one of the appetizers. This is one of the more popular appetizers we do in our classes.

Bruschetta with Sausage and Stracchino (farmer cheese)

Ingredients

• 4 slices of Italian bread, cut in half
• 1 mild sausage (No fennel)
• 1 package of farmer cheese (Best if you can find stracchino cheese)

Directions

Preheat oven to 400 F (275 C).

Peel the sausage and place in a bowl with 1/2 of the cheese. Blend together until smooth. Spread the mixture on the bread and place in the oven set to bake at). Watch the bruschetta carefully until golden brown. Serve warm.

I’m a city boy. I was born and raised in Los Angeles, sheltered from certain realities of life. So when I ate that bacon, I never really considered that a pig grew up, got slaughtered, was cut up and shipped to my local supermarket. To me, the bacon was just bacon. It comes from the supermarket, wrapped in plastic. Of course I knew the process, but I never really had to think of it.

In 1984 I visited Soriano and met Paola. Her parents were ‘play farmers’, meaning they lived in town, dad had a normal job, but since they had this old family farm, they would go down in the afternoon and take care of the garden.

One day I visited the ‘old family farm’. It consisted of a bunch of land, an 18th century farmhouse that was in practical ruin (now our restored villa), a garden, a fenced off area with chickens running around, and a pig-pen with one very big pig named “Giorgina”.

I honestly think that may have been the first time I had seen a pig in real life. She was both cute and disgusting. I stayed for a bit to take it all in, then left. That was that.

Fast forward a year later. I had gone back to the states and had returned to Soriano. Paola and I were now engaged to be married. I was at the house one night for dinner, and Paola’s mom had cut some prosciutto. It was unusually good. I mean it, it was truly amazing. I ate it and asked for more, then more again. I raved about how good it was. Then someone told me I was eating Giorgina.

At first I just stopped eating. I had trouble processing it. Yeah, Prosciutto is pig… I know. But how do I eat a pig that I had been introduced to? I mean really! She had a name! This was a first for me. It was a defining moment in my life… One that lasted about 30 seconds before I decided that she just tasted too good for me to care.

From that day forward, no other prosciutto ever tasted quite as good as Giorgina. Her memory is honored.

We never named a pig again. It was really all left to that until last year. Paola’s parents had both passed away, we restored the villa, and we don’t keep any animals there. But there is a family of farmers across from our house, and they do.

One day a guest of ours and I were walking around and spotted their pig. He jokingly decided to call the pig ‘Ramon Jamon’, and I got the naming on video.

From that day forward, the name stuck, and with each group of guests we would take that walk, and they would invariably meet Ramon. He became a star of sorts. Everyone knew that he was sitting there on death row, so they would visit him, feed him, etc. I got quite a bit of that on camera.

As I write this, our 2009 season is just starting up. We will have many guests back at the villa for the cooking classes, and they will all find a prosciutto on the counter… They will find Ramon in the form of his destiny.

So in Ramon’s honor, I decided put together a tribute to him. A video about the life of a pig we called Ramon.