Twenty-five-year old Chef Lorenzo Severini is quite possibly the youngest chef to head a kitchen at any of New York's famed chain of Italian restaurants Le Cirque's global outlets. And if the USA and India have one thing in common, the chef finds, it's their stereotyping of the Italian cuisine. The young chef has some pet peeves and is not afraid to share them.
Here he busts what are according to him some of the most common myths about his beloved cuisine. We have so many other meats we prefer over chicken.
Rabbit, beef, pork in the form of cold cuts, proscuito, pancetta, lamb," he adds. In Severini's native Tuscany, although beef is most common, they also use pork and fresh sausages as well as mushrooms such as porcini to add some spring to the flavour.
Even hungry migrants won’t eat the food in Italy
In the US, the Bolognese style that uses beef is perhaps most common. As you know every region as their own kind of sauce and the Bolognese sauce is just something that is made most in Bologna. They make fresh tagliatelle and they make this kind of sauce with meat," reveals the chef. He blames Indians and our love for chicken for the addition of the lean white meat in pasta.
It's the same with pork and lamb-chicken is always preferred over the other meats.
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In the USA, apart from spaghetti with Bolognese or meatballs, it is the creamy alfredo sauce that is hugely popular. But Severini insists that creaminess is not the true Italian way. It's just used as an additional flavouring sometimes but never as base of a sauce. Penne alfredo doesn't exist in Italy. It's only when you're sick that you eat pasta with a little oil or butter and parmesan.
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In the US they've twisted this around a bit to add some cream and create what they refer to as a penne alfredo," says Severini. Pink sauce is another one of the chef's pet peeves. The main thing about Italian cuisine is its simplicity; just using stuff that is available in your backyard. I don't understand the need to change that. But by the grace of all that's good in terms of food-loving roommates, I had the pleasure of living with another expat last semester, my darling Bea from Milan, Italy.
I asked her numerous times if she'd willingly debunk some of the Italian food myths I've amassed over the years. So, for the benefit of Spoon, and my sanity, here are is the latest installment of Tara asking her foreign roommates questions about food. Also, I am betting that no Italian has ever tried fettuccine Alfredo, because, coming to your second point, chicken never goes on pasta.
The thing is, in Italy we generally have meals that consist of three courses: So, the reason why we never put chicken in pasta is that we keep them as two separate dishes, with pasta being your "primo" and chicken being your "secondo," for example. We do, however, use some meats or seafood that we add to pasta. In terms of seafood, there is many different ways to include it — you can do pasta with mussels, clams, prawns, you name it.
I guess that the main no-go is just chicken. Lasagne aka the plural of one sheet of the lasagna pasta are considered Italian food, here I can confirm! But, lasagne have a very specific recipe, and I often see non-Italians try out funky versions of this dish and call them something like "vegetable lasagne.
A quite common alternative that you find in Italy, though, are pesto lasagne, which do not have a minced meat-based sauce, but have a pesto sauce instead.
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Chicken Parmesan, on the other hand, is not really a thing. It has no meat in it, but, trust me, it is one of the best things you could possibly find. Nope, never heard of that. And I honestly have no idea what ziti is. Certainly, the name does not sound Italian OK so I just looked it up now, and it seems like baked pasta. So, actually yes, we do have this dish in Italy. So, you put them in the oven to bake with a lot of cheese no cheddar please. Cappuccinos in Italian, "Cappuccini" are very, very common in Italy!
I drink one every morning and sometimes accompany it with a croissant. Often for breakfast we will have yogurt and granola or milk with cereal. Turning back to coffee, Italians generally either take an espresso in the morning or a cappuccino. Latte macchiato and marocchino are also common coffee-based drinks. Marocchino is quite similar to a cappuccino, but it has a lot of cocoa powder in it.
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A golden rule in Italy is that you can only have your cappuccino in the morning. Having espresso is fine at any time of the day, but you will never see an Italian order a cappuccino after their lunch or dinner meal. Yes, panino is the singular of panini , and we use this word to describe any type of sandwich, not only toasted ones!