For some reason this spring I began to receive requests for the Olive Garden's Zuppa Toscana. I wasn't able to help because there aren't any Olive Garden Restaurants in Italy -- the chain seems to be American -- and their website just has pretty pictures, but no hints of a recipe. When I was in the US due to a family health crisis in June I went to the Olive Garden in the local mall. My reaction? Well, despite the décor, it's not Italian. The meal began with a heaping bowl of salad, which would have been Italian but for the pickled green peppers (Italians generally use peppers as they come from the plant in salads, and serve pickled peppers, sliced, with bland foods such as boiled chicken), and soft garlicky breadsticks of a kind I have never seen before. This was followed by a combination entrée consisting of fettuccine Alfredo, lasagna, and a fried breaded chicken breast with tomato and cheese slathered over it. Then dessert, with an espresso that had a twist of lemon in it. The wine was a woody California Cabernet that was rather like a bubble -- initially mouth filling but then collapsing to nothing.

To begin with, there's the order of the presentation: Italian meals begin with an antipasto (recipes on and site), followed by a first course (pasta or soup) followed by an entrée with one or more side dishes, and dessert -- often fruit or cheese, even in restaurants. Salad (of that kind) counts as a side dish, and never appears to start things off. The combination platter was, well, unbalanced -- lots of carbohydrates, quite a bit of fat, some proteins, and no greens. It's true that there were greens in the meal, in the salad, but most Italians expect to have them with their main course. Also, there was much too much pasta -- either the lasagne or the fettuccine would have been quite sufficient. I could easily have forgone the dessert but it looked (and was) good, though thoroughly American. Coffee with a twist of lemon peel, if you're not used to it, is quite odd.

Getting down to the specifics of the entrée, the lasagna was ricotta based, and would have been fine had the tomato sauce not been quite sweet. The fettuccine Alfredo were very rich and I found them lacking -- a mild cream sauce with just a little cheese can be good with stuffed pasta where it complements the flavors of the ingredients in the filling, but for plain flat pasta it's really not enough. Some minced ham might have been nice, together with a lot more Parmigiano and a dusting of black pepper. The chicken breast? The tomato sauce was again too sweet. And I'm not sure what it or the cheese were doing there; the breast would have been more interesting had it been butterflied, pounded flat (it was rather thick), breaded, fried, and served with a lemon wedge and a sprig of parsley as a garnish.

Was the experience a total loss? No; the waiters were pleasant and courteous, and I've eaten much worse over here on occasion. But it wasn't Italian, any more than Aunt Jemima's is Vermont maple syrup.

Last thing: I did see Zuppa Toscana, and with Teresa's note saying "it contains spicy sausage, russet potatoes, and cavolo greens according to their menu,"I have what I need to see if I can track down the Italian soup that inspired it.

The OG opens an institute in Italy

A presto,
Kyle Phillips
Webweaver, About Italian Cuisine

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