Word: cucina
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...that the dollar is worth princely piles of lire, Americans in Italy should be getting more of everything for less, right? Yes, unless they happen to be gastronomical pilgrims in search of the Continent's current culinary wonder, la nuova cucina italiana, the new Italian cooking. In this case, the less-is-more rule applies. Also, less for more. La nuova cucina is found in expensive, often formidably serious restaurants, most of them in Northern Italy, where the fare is spare, artfully presented and somewhat outlandish. Surprising and a bit haughty, it has often been compared with the French...
...local chefs are trying to Frenchify their food. The innovators are on the march, however. The Milan-based magazine Italian Wines & Spirits has reported, with some hyperbole, that they "are gradually transforming the laws and principles of the nation's great culinary tradition ... The germs of the nuova cucina spread at the rate of a contagion...
...traditional cooking under challenge is usually described as la vera, antica cucina italiana, the true, ancient Italian cuisine. It consists of some 20 distinctive regional cooking styles that, for all their diversity, share a profusion of superb vegetables, game, fish and meat (Italians are the world's leading consumers of veal). Instead of aiming for symphonic blends of flavors, Italian cooking pays primary attention to natural tastes and textures and fresh ingredients. Pasta and in some regions rice dishes are an essential part of the vera cucina. Its dishes are characterized by locally produced sausages, hams, cheese, breads...
...menus, both aristocratic and earthy, exude all the warmth and good humor of la cucina Italiana at its best. For the primo piatto, traditionally pasta or a rice dish or soup, recipes go from the outrageously calorific, like a macaroni concoction with both cream and meat sauces, to simple ricotta croquettes (the ricotta in Rome is made from sheep's milk). To shock the neighbors, there is a fashion able pasta with vodka and red-pepper flakes...
...cream and noodles from the Far East, Italy has been receptive to worthy new dishes and techniques. This apertura is explored in The New Italian Cooking (Atlantic-Little, Brown; $15) by Margaret and G. Franco Romagnoli, who in two previous books have done a commendable job of explicating la cucina italiana for Americans. Their new book largely concerns itself with the adaptation of traditional recipes to contemporary methods and lifestyles: using an electric pasta machine; preparing a ragú in 45 minutes instead of the conventional four hours. For lagniappe, the Romagnolis offer some interesting modifications of traditional formulas, such...