Snippets from the Italian Scene
On Authenticity
Writing a newsletter is a two-way street; people often reply, and sometimes scorch the airwaves, especially when politics comes into play. I didn't expect a list of panettone recipes to touch a nerve, however. But it did; Jerry De Angelis, who weaves The Artisan, a delightful site dedicated primarily to Italian breads and foods (URLs: http://www.theartisan.net ), objected to my including the semi-traditional panettone on the King Arthur's Flour site because people who have never had the real thing (a light, somewhat stiff, airy holiday bread with raisins and candied fruit in the dough, which rather resembles a squat chef's hat in shape) might take the candied-fruit-and-raisin-free version as their standard, and assume *all* panettoni should be like that. A classic recipe such as panettone should, he feels, be made as tradition dictates, or be renamed if it is varied (he has nothing against variations per se, and is indeed quite interested in them, so long as they don't masquerade as the originals).
He raises an excellent point; one of the most pernicious effects of the increasing role of industrial food production is a simplification, or dumbing down, if you will, of traditional recipes. Equally pernicious, at least on the surface, is the pell-mell introduction of variations on traditional recipes. Here, however, Jerry's and my positions diverge somewhat; I am more open to variations on tradition than he is. The panettone is an excellent case in point: over the holidays this year Italian supermarkets had at least a dozen kinds on the shelves, including traditional (no frosting, candied fruit and raisins in the dough); traditional dough with frosting and slivered almonds on top; frosting and slivered almonds on top but no candied fruit or raisins in the dough; with frosting on top and almonds in the dough; with chocolate frosting and custard filling arranged in a spoke pattern (no fruit or almonds); with chocolate frosting and orange custard filling.
Some of these are obviously dumbed down versions that I would be just as happy not to see. Others, however, though not the least bit traditional, are actually rather tasty. Should they be renamed? A purist could make a good case for a yes answer, but I'm willing to accept that the packaging say how the variation differs from the original (e.g. panettone with almonds & frosting, or panettone with cream filling). Why? Because cooking is like a fast-moving stream with many tributaries; new techniques and ingredients are being introduced all the time. Over the years what was once regarded as innovative becomes traditional, be it an ingredient, a technique, or a recipe. To give a simple example, pesto alla genovese, Liguria's signature sauce (and an ingredient in many dishes other than pasta), was traditionally made with basil, olive oil, garlic, and grated Sardinian pecorino or Bra (a cheaper, sharp Piemontese cow's milk cheese). At some point, however, people began to substitute grated Parmigiano for some or all of the other cheeses -- an innovation that has by now become common practice. Nobody would think of renaming pesto alla genovese made with Parmigiano, though its flavor differs considerably from that of pesto alla genovese made with pecorino. Innovation marches on, however, and I recently saw a pesto recipe that called for Gorgonzola instead of one of the established cheeses. Here I think I would agree with Jerry, and say the recipe should be for pesto col gorgonzola, at least for now. In the future? There's no telling what it might hold.
This is actually an extremely interesting period to be working with Italian foods. The first to experiment with Italian cuisine are of course the Italians, who are keenly aware of outside influences. Of which there are many; there has been a tremendous wave of Oriental and North African immigration in the past 20 years, and Italian supermarkets stock all sorts of ingredients that were rare or unknown when I moved here in 1982 (ginger root, for one). For now the cooking magazines are doing features on foreign cuisines (Indian, Chinese, Thai, etc.) to help people recreate the dishes they enjoy in ethnic restaurants or on trips abroad, but soon some of the ingredients will begin to slip into mainstream Italian cooking as well -- much like the tomato did 200 years ago.
A presto,
Kyle Phillips
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