Snippets from the Italian Scene
Begin with a quarter pound of
milk…
As anyone who reads through the recipes on this site will rapidly realize, they're almost all translated from Italian sources -- one of the advantages of living in Italy is that whenever I travel can I slip into a bookstore and look for locally published books that don't make it to Florence. When we get home I read through them, find some recipes, and… "pound out a feature?" you suggest.
Well, sometimes, but it's usually not that easy. Italian recipes differ considerably from what English-language cookbook writing manuals suggest is optimum. First of all, they're metric and by weight. Often completely by weight, including the liquids. So long as I keep in mind that a cup is about 250 ml = 250 g water, and that oil is a bit lighter than water, converting is usually straight forward, though I do find myself measuring out tomato sauce, olives, and whatnot occasionally. Flour and other starches are a little more difficult, since their density varies with the humidity of the air; at the end of a draught a cup of flour will weigh about 90 grams, whereas the same cup will weigh 120 after a month of rain. I usually figure 100 grams per cup of flour.
All this is in keeping with English-language cookbook form. However, many Italian food writers, including those who write for the major Italian cooking magazines, give quantities of the principle ingredients and then simply list the rest. Or they put q.b. after some ingredients, which means "enough," and you're supposed to know how much that is. They also assume you know what you are doing, and are often quite cursory -- pasta recipes in older books, for example often begin with "roll out a sheet of dough made with three eggs," assuming you will know that three eggs means 300 grams of flour and a pinch of salt, and also that you will know how to make pasta dough. To be honest, this sort of sketchiness doesn't bother me, because I have always cooked by eye and by now have a feel for Italian food. However, someone who doesn't and is used absolutely precise ingredient lists would likely feel lost, so I fill in amounts and cooking times, and flesh out instructions as I go along. It's fun, but not so quick as to qualify for "pounding out."
A presto,
Kyle Phillips
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