Monday, August 13, 2007

Italians Try to Raise Calibre of Cuisine in Britain, But it'a a Chore!!!!

The ANNOTICO Report

 

In Italy, it is an accepted fact that the British are beyond salvation in the kitchen. "The inglesi will learn to cook when cows learn to juggle," they warn.

 

Even after a new wave of Italian immigrants arrived in the UK, in the 1960s, many who set up restaurants, the quality of the English cuisine failed to improve much.

 

Why? Apparently it was the very high level of ignorance and bad taste in Britain about food, .

 

It wasn't that the Italians didn't try. They did, but the Britons weren't interested in the authentic savory, and the Italian restaurateurs had to modify their recipes to suit the British palate, and now the Italian cuisine mostly is a ghastly parody.

 

The following article is rather amusing in that John Dickie, culinary historian brings his former Landlord in Italy to London, to do a critique of Italian Restaurants.

 

 

Britain's Italian Restaurants Face the Ultimate Test

Few cuisines have influenced our eating habits more than Italian. But do the provolone, prosciutto and pizza in Britain's restaurants measure up? Culinary historian John Dickie brought his favourite food critic to London to find out

Independent - London,England,UK
August 13, 2007

Remember what Italian food in Britain used to be like before we started drizzling extra virgin olive oil on our rocket and putting porcini mushrooms in our risotto? In the 1960s, a new wave of Italian immigrants arrived in the UK, and many set up restaurants with names like Amalfi or Da Luigi.

To survive, they had to adapt their cooking to obtuse British palates, and the result was hopelessly mongrelised. The spaghetti was mushy, and the sauce, whether made with meat, fish or vegetable, invariably contained enough cooked tomato and/or UHT cream to drown a dog. Then there was spag bol, which is about as Bolognese as beans on toast. To make our evenings at Da Luigi feel exotic, the waiters showered everything with black pepper from stupidly large grinders. That was what the British wanted Italian food to be. There was no clearer symptom of the shocking state of our cookery.

Now, of course, we know better. Balsamic vinegar is as familiar as ketchup. They sell buffalo-milk mozzarella at Sainsbos. Most of us understand what al dente means, and some of us can even tackle an artichoke with confidence.

The biggest single factor in Britain's recent food revolution has been the influence of Italy. If he hadn't been trained by Gennaro Contaldo, Jamie Oliver would still be knocking out bangers and mash in his parents' pub. Britain's new culinary value system has Italian fingerprints all over it; the passion for local, seasonal produce may be news here, but it has been holy writ in the peninsula for centuries.

But how much have we really learned from Italy? And are our Italian eateries as authentic as we like to think? It is no paradox to say that the most revealing measure of the health of Britain's food is the quality of its Italian restaurants. If the trattorie we patronise pass muster, it can truly be said that, gastronomically speaking, we have come of age.

That's my working hypothesis, and it goes without saying that the only people qualified to test it are the Italians. But in Italy, it is an accepted fact that the British are beyond salvation in the kitchen. "The inglesi will learn to cook when cows learn to juggle," I was once warned. Faced with such granite prejudices, it is not easy to find a suitably open-minded judge. Fortunately, I happen to know someone tolerant enough to do the job: my old friend Anna Maria.

Anna Maria was my landlady when, nearly 20 years ago, I lived in Genzano, a little town in the hills just south of Rome. While I was renting her spare room, she taught me to appreciate good food, and even to cook. As someone who turned 18 before he tasted olive oil and wine vinegar, I was an even more hopeless prospect than most of my compatriots. Nevertheless, the sweet-natured Anna Maria was saintly in her patience, and by the end of my time in Genzano I was even trusted to prepare elementary dishes. If it hadn't been for her, I would never have dreamed of writing a history of what Italians call their "civilisation of the table".

So Anna Maria's judgement on Italian food can be relied upon to be benevolent as well as authoritative. The experiment I want her to perform is simple: she will come over to London, we will eat at a range of places (both posh and popular), and she will tell me what she thinks.

Day one, lunch, San Lorenzo

Over the years, those tactless enough to gawk across the intimate yet airy dining-room of London's most famous Italian restaurant have spied Al Pacino, Diana, Princess of Wales and Johnny Depp among the potted palms. It isn't an environment designed to put anyone at ease, let alone Anna Maria. There's something of the mamma from the Dolmio stable about her: she is a tiny, round, red-faced woman with a kindly smile; her brawny forearms look as if they were built up kneading the dough for countless batches of fettuccine and gnocchi. (As, in fact, they were.)

But nothing else about her fits the mamma stereotype. Her parents were Communist peasants. In the 1970s, Italy's blood-soaked "years of lead", she was a non-violent anarchist, and her house in Genzano became a kind of commune; almost every misfit and revolutionary in southern Lazio got to taste her fettuccine. She now works with disabled kids, and lives with her partner Bruno in the country just outside Genzano, where she raises chickens and grows all her own fruit and veg. In short, she is gloriously out of place among the chauffeured and coiffeured of Knightsbridge.

As she gulps at her kir royal to soothe her nerves, Anna Maria makes a first hesitant inquiry: "Why have they brought us a dish of olive oil?"

"To dip our bread in."

"Is that what you do in England, then?"

Of course, the dish of olive oil. Come to think of it, I couldn't remember seeing one in a restaurant in Italy either. This fad is a 21st-century version of the giant pepper-mill.

My encouraging response to this first apergu does little to boost Anna Maria's confidence. When the antipasti arrive, she tastes everything methodically, ponders for several moments, and pronounces her opinion on the bresaola with rocket and Parmesan: "Buono." She is reluctant to elaborate. I begin to worry that she's going to need more chivvying than the rules of my experiment allow.

When the pasta course arrives, she takes a clam from her spaghetti alle vongole. Some thoughtful chewing, and it is declared to be "buona". This looks like being hard work.

But then she tries a forkful of spaghetti and everything changes. Puzzlement is the first emotion to flash across her face. "Un po' scotti!" (a bit soft), she exclaims. After sampling another few strands, she is rapidly and visibly filled with a disdainful self-assurance to match any of the showbiz demigods who have eaten here. She angrily observes that they've done something "very strange" to the dish, because the oil and juices have become a viscous sauce. After the third forkful, she is still mystified, and refuses to touch any more.

Her attention then turns briskly to my taglierini con gamberoni (fresh pasta with prawns) and her ruling is peremptory: "roba da ristorante cinese," she snarls loudly  "like something out of a Chinese restaurant". The tomato sauce does indeed have a strangely tangy chilli sweetness. She dismissively wonders if they have used monosodium glutamate.

There is no stopping Anna Maria now. When the second course is set in front of her, she blurts out: "Che orrore! What have they done to the saltimbocca?" Saltimbocca alla romana is, like everything on the San Lorenzo menu, a classic: a thin slice of veal, with Parma ham and a sage leaf. To cook it, you just fry it in butter. The problem with the version on Anna Maria's plate is that a slick of congealing gravy has been poured over the top. "If I served Bruno that, he would kill me." I do a double take: she is in deadly earnest, contemplating the saltimbocca as if she were a vertigo sufferer peering over the edge of a cliff.

News of the British food revolution has clearly not reached San Lorenzo.

San Lorenzo, 22 Beauchamp Place, London SW3 (0871 223 8072)

Day one, dinner, Strada

That evening, we take my two-year-old son Elliot to a pizzeria, a Strada. This chain has been in the vanguard of re-Italianising pizza for the British: the words forno a legna (wood oven) are printed proudly on the canopy outside, and there are no giant pepper-grinders. It's a promising concept.

Pizza is both ancient and modern. As it comes from an extended Mediterranean family of flatbreads, its roots are prehistoric. But Neapolitan pizza as we know it, topped with tomato sauce and mozzarella, is a newcomer from the mid-1800s. The Margherita dates back to 1889 when it was named after the queen. In the late 1940s in Italy, the word "pizzeria" was used in inverted commas because most people outside Naples didn't know what it meant. What is often forgotten is that the Italians are good at innovating at table too, at adapting their food to modern lifestyles. Given pizza's modernity and simplicity, there is no reason why it cannot be made just as well here as it is in Italy.

The Strada staff prove that they have one quality that is a sine qua non in any pizzeria: infinite patience with the under-fives. As I try to stop Elliot kissing a dog and rolling on the floor with his racing cars, I blindly order garlic bread, suspecting we'll get more fuel for Anna Maria's ire. What arrives is a pleasant surprise: a light focaccia with a sheen of oil and some fresh rosemary. Elliot is impressed enough to eat a big slice. Anna Maria likes it too, applauding its authentic simplicity. "Buona." The basket is quickly finished; a good start.

But when she cuts into her pizza Margherita, Anna Maria's face drops. "It's raw." I taste it. Raw is an exaggeration, but the base is pale and undercooked. Yet again, she won't eat any more, leaving Elliot to pick off the basil leaves. My pizza rustica (tomato, mozzarella, sausage, oregano, artichokes, capers, roasted tomatoes, and onion) is scarcely greeted with more enthusiasm. "C'h troppa roba sopra", she says - "there's too much stuff on it". She adds: "And, as a peasant's daughter, I can tell you that there is nothing 'rustic' about tinned artichoke slices." Anna Maria's tolerance has been tested to destruction. In the pizzeria, too, the inglesi still have much to learn.

Strada, branches nationwide (www.strada.co.uk)

Day two, breakfast, Carluccio's

The next day begins at Carluccio's, where the espresso is buono enough to satisfy Anna Maria, and the chocolate pastry even better. Her judgements now have an imperious ring. She sniggers at the peasant women on the cover of Carluccio's cookbooks. "Is this how you see us?" But a taster of lemon-infused olive oil even elicits a "buonissimo". Phew. With renewed optimism, I try to tell to her about the British food revolution. But she remains sceptical: "Why do the inglesi have to exaggerate? Look at those pizzas last night: 15 different ingredients on top. Or those awful spaghetti alle vongole. I still can't understand what they did to them. When a thing is good, lasciala stare"- "let it be".

Later, on the way into town, I try to manage expectations, explaining about UHT cream and giant pepper-pots. But Anna Maria is only half listening. It is only her second visit to London, and she hasn't yet absorbed Underground etiquette. I should have warned her that you're not supposed to stare at anyone on the Tube. She is visibly tense, and her fiery glare is fixed on a well-dressed young man taking grapes and chunks of melon from a plastic box and popping them into his mouth. Just when it seems that Anna Maria is about to unleash the ripest expletives Roman dialect offers, she shrugs with downturned mouth and raised eyebrows that say: "Where on earth have you brought me?"

When we emerge into the sunshine at Leicester Square, she grabs my elbow: "In Rome, not even a tramp would eat on the metropolitana. I'd rather do a pipl in the piazza." Expectations have duly been managed. The truth is that we would do well not to disgust Italians with our food, let alone impress them.

Carluccio's, branches nationwide (www.carluccios.com)

Day two, lunch, Il Siciliano

Perhaps out of sympathy for our plight, Anna Maria is now taking her new role as a restaurant critic very scientifically. Once we're settled into the window seats in Il Siciliano she picks linguine alle vongole in order to compare it with San Lorenzo's high-end version. Il Siciliano comes out the winner, if only by a small margin. There is too much sauce and the clams come from a jar, but the taste is buono. "I would give it six out of 10, if the pasta weren't overcooked," she says. Her chicken alla cacciatora even rates a seven, "although it is nothing like chicken alla cacciatora".

After lunch, we settle down with a limoncello to chat to the waiter, who is also from Rome, and also a new arrival in the UK. He's already identified the fundamental problem Italians in catering face in Britain: their customers' ignorance and bad taste. Shaking his head in disbelief, he tells how, on his first night in the job, one customer ordered penne all'arrabbiata "with added chicken, mushrooms and prawns". We inglesi get the food we deserve.

The menu at Il Siciliano tells the same sad story. At some point in the restaurant's recent history, somebody Sicilian clearly tried to make its offer more genuine. For example, pasta cu li sardi (pasta with sardines) is among the specials, handwritten in dialect. It's one of the many highlights of the island's cuisine - pasta dressed with a mash of fresh sardines, wild fennel, onion, salted anchovies, saffron, pine nuts and tiny raisins. It's a unique and unforgettable taste. But the people who pass through Soho obviously didn't like it. Il Siciliano's version of pasta cu li sardi is now a ghastly parody: only a lingering trace of fennel survives from its subtle blend of flavours, because everything else has been obliterated in a pint of tomato sauce. "At least it wasn't UHT cream," Anna Maria laughs. I'm starting to feel ashamed: I hadn't expected her verdict to be quite so relentlessly damning.

Il Siciliano, 33 Dean Street, London W1 (0871 332 7275)

Day two, dinner, Pane Vino

Our last, best hope lies across the road from Kentish Town Tube, at a little family trattoria called Pane Vino, which specialises in Sardinian food. We start our dinner with a generous local antipasto, which certainly looks delicious: a disk of Sardinian "music paper" bread (something like a hard poppadom) comes loaded with olives, sliced aubergines in oil, salame, pieces of hard sheep's-milk cheese, and two or three amber strips of bottarga (compressed, dried mullet roe).

Before we can begin, a waitress approaches with a giant pepper-mill - a worrying signal, at which we both shake our heads. Apprehensive, I then watch Anna Maria take her first tasters, which are by now habitually deliberate and thoughtful.

"Buono?" I suggest, in hope. "No," comes the clipped reply. "Squisito."

She says the word so matter-of-factly that its meaning takes a second to register - "exquisite". "These are the real tastes of the Mediterranean," she adds, in the same dead-pan tone - as if squisito were her birth-right.

The antipasto inspires such confidence in her that she ignores the spaghetti alle vongole at the top of the menu and just opts for what she really wants to eat: paccheri (napkin rings of pasta) dripping with an oily tomato sauce made with pieces of Sardinian sausage and clams. It's so good that Anna Maria is genuinely enraptured. My fregola (grain-sized pasta) in a fish and saffron broth with mussels and clams is declared to be just as good: it is delicate, aromatic and fresh.

Stefania, who runs Pane Vino, comes over to explain that fregola is a cousin of couscous and harks back to the North African origins of pasta. (Cagliari, the Sardinian capital, is one of the port cities where dried pasta's presence on Italian soil is first documented in the Middle Ages.)

Through the small talk, it emerges that, although the chef is Sardinian, Stefania herself is from Marino, a wine-producing town just a few kilometres from Genzano. Somewhere in the Roman hills, in the 1970s, her circle of friends intersected with Anna Maria's. It is the beginning of a very talkative evening, punctuated with some fabulous food.

Midway through the second bottle of Karmis, after hearing our horror stories from the past two days, Stefania solves the mystery of the gloopy spaghetti alle vongole at San Lorenzo. Every packet of pasta ever produced in Italy comes with the instruction to use "abundant water" which must be "fully boiling" before the pasta goes in: these are words that Italians can recite as if they were the Lord's Prayer. But some chefs here think themselves too sophisticated to obey these timeless precepts. So they part-cook the spaghetti, then throw it in the sauce with a few splashes of water to finish it off. The problem is that some of the gluten from the spaghetti is retained in the sauce, causing a soupiness that completely ruins the mouth-feel of the pasta. "It's a French technique, and I hate it," Stefania concludes. I nod, relieved to hear that the French share some of the blame for the way we continue to mongrelise Italian food.

Stefania goes on to reassure Anna Maria that the British food revolution is not a myth: things are genuinely improving. "Yes," reflects Anna Maria. "The situation in London isn't as disastrous as I expected." It isn't a glowing report, but it's the best we can reasonably expect for now.

Pane Vino, 323 Kentish Town Road, London NW5 (0871 332 7232)

Delizia! by John Dickie is published by Sceptre (#20). To order a copy for the special price of #18 (free P&P), call Independent Books Direct on 0870 079 8897

 

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