CHAPTER IX
ITALY
Italian cookery and wines—Turin—Milan— Genoa—Venice—Bologna— Spezzia—Florence— Pisa—Leghorn—Rome—Naples—Palermo.
Italian Cookery
There is no cookery in Europe so often maligned without cause as that of Italy. People who are not sure of their facts often dismiss it contemptuously as being "all garlic and oil," whereas very little oil is used except at Genoa, where oil, and very good oil as a rule, takes the place of butter, and no more garlic than is necessary to give a slight flavour to the dishes in which it plays a part. An Italian cook frys better than one of any other nationality. In the north very good meat is obtainable, the boiled beef of Turin being almost equal to our own Silverside. Farther and farther south, as the climate becomes hotter, the meat becomes less and less the food of the people, various dishes of paste and fish taking its place, and as a compensation the fruit and the wine become more delicious. The fowls and figs of Tuscany, the white truffles of Piedmont, the artichokes of Rome, the walnuts and grapes of Sorrento, might well stir a gourmet to poetic flights. The Italians are very fond of their Risotto, the rice which they eat with various seasonings,—with sauce, with butter, and with more elaborate preparations. They also eat their Paste asciutte in various forms. It is Maccheroni generally in Naples, Spagetti in Rome, Trinetti in Genoa. Alla Siciliana and con Vongole are but two of the many ways of seasoning the Spagetti. Again, the delicate little envelopes of paste containing forcemeat of some kind or another change their names according to their contents and the town they are made in. They are Ravioli both at Genoa and Florence, but at Bologna they are Capeletti, and at Turin Agnolotti. Perpadelle, another pasta dish with a little difference of seasoning, becomes Tettachine when the venue changes from Bologna to Rome.
There are many minor differences in the components of similarly named dishes at different towns; the Minestrone of Milan and Genoa differ, and so does the Fritto Misto of Rome and Turin. I fancy that, as a compensation, only an expert could tell the difference between the soups di Vongole at Naples, di Dattero at Spezzia, and di Peoci at Venice.
The "Zabajone" the sweet, frothing drink beaten up with eggs and sugar, is made differently in different towns. At Milan and Turin Marsala and brandy are used in it; at Venice Cyprus wine is the foundation; and elsewhere three wines are used. It is a splendidly sustaining drink, whether drunk hot or iced, and Italian doctors order it in cases of depression, and it might well find a place in the household recipes of English and American households. The wines of the various towns I have noted in writing of them. "Vino nostrano" or "del paese" brings from the waiter his list of the local juice of the grape, and the wine of the district is the wine to drink. Roughly speaking, the red wine is the best throughout Italy, the white of Bologna and the Veneto being the exceptions. Finally, do not be alarmed if at a trattoria a waiter puts before you a huge flask of wine. It has been weighed before it is brought to you. It will be weighed when the waiter takes it away after you have finished, and what you have drunk, plus the great gulp the waiter is sure to take if he gets a chance, is what you will be charged for.
The Anglo-Saxon travelling in Italy is likely to strike Turin, or Milan, or Genoa as his first big town, according to the route he has chosen, and those are therefore the three towns the capabilities of which I shall first try to describe.