Top to Bottom Italy #1: Ingredients
Great ingredients are enormously important in Italy. As my friend Silvestori pointed out, Italians start with great stuff and don’t fuss about with it like French chefs do. Italian cooking methods are simple; the wow comes from what is used rather than from sophisticated techniques and delicate procedures. Though a veteran of at least a hundred meals in this journey, I’m not trying to pretend to be an expert - even on the food of one town of Italy. This is therefore a personal and possibly wildly unrepresentative set. Even from that I have chosen only a few stars - there’s much I had that I’ve left out. Its a blog post, not a compliance document. Tomato The defining ingredient in Italian food, to my mind, is the tomato (or pomodoro). Many countries have tomatoes but somehow in Italy it is juicer, tangier, sweeter and more tomato-y than anywhere else I’ve seen. The tomato is universal in Italian cuisine - raw, grilled, dried, stuffed, puréed, roasted, in salads, sauces, sandwiches, insi...