It Ain't Just Pasta

Bell Charter Oak Holsters

Bell Charter Oak Holsters

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One of my (and America's by all accounts) favorite cuisines is Italian. Growing up in New York City, which arguably, has the oldest history of authentic Italian food in the nation, you always tend to compare that with everything else, everywhere else.

Although I am of Irish ancestry by accident of birth, I have to admit that typical Erin fare pales in comparison with the somewhat more sophisticated foods of other european regions.

I started cooking very young, just a boy o', haunting my Grandmother's kitchen. I learned to select good meats being sent to the butcher (and sent back if it wasn't right) by her. All things fresh, produce, fish and baked goods made in her kitchen. I married a beautiful girl who was less than an accomplished cook, but dressed a dinner table with great charm and elegance. This was a secret to a long happy marriage, I had no competition in the kitchen. Food is love you see, and your family knows that.

I have a peculiar habit. For my entire lifetime, whenever I travel here in the U.S. or abroad, I try the local Asian food, Italian Food...and especially in the states....hot dogs. Yup...I said it. Hot dogs (Geez, now I said it twice) one of the four iconic foods of America. The other three of course being, hamburgers, pizza and historically more recent on a national level, tacos. But that's a different story....

So let's get busy, Amore' Italia....what's you fave? And if any of you guys tell me Chef Boy Or Whats his name, I'm bringing a posse and a rope, you can run, but you can't hide.

Regional Italian cuisine, fish, meats, pasta, cheese, produce, give it up!

Cheers;
Lefty

BTW
Recipies to follow...........
 
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Three dishes I like to make:
1. Risotto, usually with hot Italian sausage.
2. Carbonara. I prefer it with linguini, but my wife really likes angel hair, so I often do it that way.
3. Linguini with tuna, capers and chopped olives. I had a lot of success cooking this dish for lady friends, so much so that my wife would prefer I not cook it for her. This is a way to put a fabulous meal on the table just by opening cans.

My wife does more red sauces. One of my favorites from her is Chicken Cacciatore. She buys a big package of thighs, and doesn't waste our time by cooking white meat.

When I eat out at my local Italian joint, I usually get veal piccatta, with a side of white canelloni or risotto. They will also do a carbonara on request, although it is not on the menu.

If I see mussels on the menu, I will usually order them. Mussels in wine sauce over a bed of pasta is hard to beat. Another dish I will pounce on is cioppino. We can get good seafood here on the edge of the prairie, but most places can only get it intermittently, so it shows up as specials, here today, gone tomorrow. The places that offer cioppino or bouillabaise regularly are much too spendy for me to go to regularly.

If you are ever in Minnesota, hit University Avenue in Saint Paul, or Nicollet Avenue in Minneapolis, for a nice variety of Asian food, especially Thai and Vietnamese, but also some Hmong and good Chinese.
 
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A local Italian place has Chicken Livers over pasta with red sauce, and it's to die for. The dish may not be on your doctors health food list, but it is FABULOUS to eat.
 
FOOD

Diet is a bit restricted these days, but back in the day, when stationed at the Marine Barracks in the Brooklyn Navy Yard I learned what REAL food was. Grew up with Chef Boy Or, on occasion, but 2 years in NY taught me what real food was. Especially in the Italian venue. Never found any I didn't like, and olive oil is all we use some 50 years later. :D
 
MOONDAWG said:
My biggest complaint with "other's" idea of Italian cooking is their consistent over cooking of pasta (not al dente), and the over use of oregano.

Too much oregano will kill a dish. :(
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Oh brother, ain't that the truth! I cannot tell you how many times I had both of those experiences. Oregano should be subtle and it is too often over added. The result is bitterness. I had a relative, long passed away now, that thought everything she cooked needed more oregano. A childhood friend of mine and I were her guests for lunch one afternoon. He took one bite of the sauce she prepared and nearly hurled. I could smell the overpowering aroma of the oregano when we walked in the door, probably a hundred feet from her kitchen. I ate the lobster and passed on the pasta. The rest of the guests sucked it up to be polite I guess. There was a long line at the neighborhood drug store that evening.

Cheers;
Lefty
 
In the area I grew up, there were some great Italian and Lebanese bakeries. It seems impossible to find a great loaf of Italian bread now, with that great crust and the chewy inside. I guess it's the flour, I bake my own bread, even mill my own flour but can't duplicate it. (Tripoli's in Lawrence, Mass, if you were wondering.)

Oh, and the pita bread. Even if you didn't go to the bakery, it would arrive at the local grocery daily, still steamy and soft in its bag. Not the stale frisbees that you will find most places.

There HAS been a resurgence of good bread in this country, but the prices on some of these "artisinal" loaves is something Grandma would never have paid. So I'll continue to make my own.
 
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I've read here on the forum where some say they put ketchup, yea ketchup, on their macaroni's. :( That's unforgivable.:rolleyes:

My mother was born on Pleasant Ave in Manhattan, you probably know that area oldflatfoot. Eventually everyone moved to the Bronx. We used to go to her parents 6th floor walkup apartment(on Fulton Ave) every Sunday for macaroni, meatballs and sausage. The meat was not bought in a supermarket but ground in one of those large silver grinders that grandpa kept in the closet. The adults helped themselves to grandpa's home made wine.;) When we left, my brother , sister and I were given a quarter a piece.:)

Ronzoni sono buoni!
 
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Boston's North End

We have Italy at our fingertips.
Every Wednesday was "Prince Spaghetti Day"
Anthony!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
 
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ladder13 said:
I've read here on the forum where some say they put ketchup, yea ketchup, on their macaroni's. :( That's unforgivable.:rolleyes:

My mother was born on Pleasant Ave in Manhattan, you probably know that area oldflatfoot. Eventually everyone moved to the Bronx. We used to go to her parents 6th floor walkup apartment(on Fulton Ave) every Sunday for macaroni, meatballs and sausage. The meat was not bought in a supermarket but ground in one of those large silver grinders that grandpa kept in the closet. The adults helped themselves to grandpa's home made wine.;) When we left, my brother , sister and I were given a quarter a piece.:)

Ronzoni sono buoni!
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Sounds much like our family, very familiar. When we gathered, there was always an Uncle or two, who would hand you some coin or stuff a buck in your pocket. Today, if you handed a kid a half dollar, aside from probably not knowing what it was, they'd think you were nuts. As an aside, I enjoy paying for small items with dollar coins just to see the puzzeled look on the faces of the young clerks. I've actually had several of them ask me, "is this real money?".....God Bless!

Cheers;
Lefty
 
Just how many different 'dishes' are there with the same basic, "pasta , tomato sauce , meat , cheese" are there?
 
The only words I heard growing up were either macaroni or spaghetti, never even heard the word pasta until I moved out of the city.
 
ladder13 said:
never even heard the word pasta until I moved out of the city.
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Me too...and began to experience some of the WORST attempts at Italian cooking while living in the country. Everything saturated with oregano and pasta cooked beyond recognition like mush. I longed for Arthur Ave. and was melancholy for City Island for years afterward, but made the stop whenever I returned to the city. Somebody dropping dead wasn't always totally bad news, I had to eat coming and going to the funerals! I went even if I never liked the guy. (Just kiddin'....do ya think?)

Cheers;
Lefty
 
I love spagetti and have never been to a resteraunt that makes it as good as mine though technically pasta is Chinese since they are credited with inventing it. Italy added the red sauce :D
 
Strato said:
I love spagetti and have never been to a resteraunt that makes it as good as mine though technically pasta is Chinese since they are credited with inventing it. Italy added the red sauce :D
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The Italians got the tomato from S.America. I always wondered what their dishes were like before the New World discoveries.

No matter where they got them, The Italians perfected the use of tomatoes and peppers.

The best thing I ever tasted was Swordfish Steak Casserole made by my friends father. Mr. Ventura was a true Italian Gent. and always made me eat before his son and I went out chasing coda.
 
Al Dente?

My preferrence is not pasta cooked "al dente". I know it is said that is how you are supposed to do it (who was the first one to pronounce this rule?), but I'd rather have it fully cooked than undercooked.
My German family married into Italian families a couple of times. I can't remember the Italians actually cooking pasta "al dente". Of course they didn't produce mush either, but it certainly wasn't the tough stuff I've found in some restaurants.
We've travelled in Italy (northern Italy mostly). I find pasta cooked to many different textures there.
I love Italian food. And cooking is fun. The wine that goes with it is a blessing!
My favorite recipe is one for Pasta Fazul (or pasta ***ioli - it has several different spellings - which one is correct?)
 
Marshwheeling said:
If you are ever in Minnesota, hit University Avenue in Saint Paul, or Nicollet Avenue in Minneapolis, for a nice variety of Asian food, especially Thai and Vietnamese, but also some Hmong and good Chinese.
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Best Italian food I ever ate was at Napoli's on White Bear Avenue in ST. Paul. Don't know if it's still there but worth looking for.
 
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