From: alexm@nmr-z.mgh.harvard.edu (Alex Milshteyn)
Newsgroups: ne.food
Subject: Re: cucina italiana
Date: 2 Sep 92 13:30:26 GMT
Distribution: ne
Organization: Mass General Hospital CIPR

{some ftuff deleted for brevity]
I agree with the author 100.00%.  Here are some comments that may be worth
reading:

In article <95110@bu.edu++> merritt@macro.bu.edu (Sean Merritt) writes:
++>The background: since 1990 I have spent ~ 18 months in italia.

I lived there for 3 months only, in Rome and suburbs

++>7) bar- in italia a bar is a place to drink coffee, eat sandwiches,
++>   pasrty or ice cream, and get the latest gossip. Oh and they serve alcohol
++>   too.

I got an impression, that small bars are more places for socializing
and light snack with a newspaper than for drinking.

++>3) salads and vegetables are served last, after the meat course.
++>   vegetables are usually cold. 

And those _are_ vegetables one could get only from a farm here, fresh and
flavourful, not ripen in a truck.

++>   ... I did eat quite a bit of rabbit

So did I.  I found out that rabbit stew was a great deal popular there
as well as roasted rabbit.  When I got to the USA I was very much surprised
to find out that rabbit is unpopular here.

++>   ... turkey and chicken
++>   (which taste so much better becasue they aren't pumped
++>    with steroids.) 

IMHO, very few people here realize, how much of taste, flavor and 
(maybe) consumers' health were sacrificed to the benefit of
steroids, antibiotics and different other additives that  make food
less perishable and more sellable.  

When we arrived in the USA I was struck bu the differences in taste
of the food, its "chemical" aftertaste (it was more obvious to me then 
than now - got adapted), rubbery taste and consistensy of all low-key
breads, absolutelu tasteless fruits (not all, but many, especially
winter ones).  Cheeses are not as bad here, especially Loraine, but
all (IMO) domestic soft cheeses are not even close to a good brie.

Cold cuts is a sparate story.   When one walks in a cold cuts store
(or butchery) he - at least myself - just drools.  The smell makes
you to almost lick the showcase.  It is absolutely normal in Austria and Italy
to walk in the store and get 3-4 slices of salami or servelad.
I never saw people getting in deli 3-4 kinds of cold cuts 1 ore more
pounds each.  I think, if one day a person from Austira or Italy would see
our deli department in his neghbourhood store, he would change his shopping
place same instance

++>boar.

- never ate it in Italy, just did not care for it.

++>5) Pizza is defined quite well

And very different form the one here

++>   ... Pizza has very little sauce on it

-if it has it at all...

++>   the crusts are very thin and taste more like pita bread.


++>   Either of these [frutti or dolce] with a cafe(shot of espresso) and some
++>   grappa or other digestivo are the finish to a good meal.

- the size of the cup should be mentioned here.  I never saw in Europe
coffee cups like "the big one" or such.  "Short espresso comes in 15-20 cc
shot in a pre-heated cup.  Coffee comes in a 5-4 oz cups, and it IS
coffe, probably because it is not "blended with columbian beans",
but just was made from good beans that do not need to be blended with anything.
Yeah, food generally is much more expensive in Italy, but if you take
comparable foods, it is not that much.

++>In my 12 years in Boston I have not found one palce that even comes
++>close to authentic italian dining. 

- neither have I.


Regards,

Alex M. Milshteyn
Newsgroups: ne.food