Monday Night Travel is Rick Steves’ Europe’s live, weekly virtual travel series. This highlight comes from the “Italy for Food Lovers with Rick Steves and Fred Plotkin” show recorded on 2/6/23. Relive the full show: https://www.ricksteves.com/travel-tips/travel-classes/monday-night-travel/italy-for-food-lovers
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Fred I put this slide in here because
you me a word and I think I’ve almost
tell us about means how things
pair properly and that could be
different foods or food and wine um a
couple who are romantically involved how
they merge and how they become better
when paired than they are on their own
and it’s typical that you have cantaloup
Melone
but this is honeydew melon there’s
certain juicy fruits that go beautifully
with pruto pruto is pork leg that is air
dried for 14 months prugar to dry out at
length and the sweetness and the slight
saltiness and the silky texture of the
Pud with the fleshy melon or fig yeah
it’s sexy it is sexy and it’s or it must
be terribly disappointing because you
could get conceivably just a really bad
one with bad pruto and bad melon uh not
in Italy they would not serve it to you
and if they do you say I’m sorry this
melon is hard and has no flavor the
Italians take too much pride that’s
great they really would not want to dump
something on you because they feel that
they have to uphold their tradition and
reputation I just love that and you
wouldn’t think of some of the pairings
you get and have an advent and there’s
another thing I put put this slide in
because a lot of Americans we we we
judge something by what we were raised
with and if you say you want a baloney
sandwich a lot of people would say no
baloney this is mortadella Morella
Mortadella brought to the gods is
baloney brought to the gods it is a
combination of pork and pistachio and a
little bit of garlic and it’s made in
bolognia and so baloney that’s where the
name comes from but it could be served
in paper thin slices or in chunks and
tastes differently if you eat it in
chunks than if you eat it in thin slices
so don’t miss the the the great
mortadello it’s now I want to talk about
pasta this is we’ve seen my my daughter
Jackie this is my son Andy he’s one of
our tour guides now he’s in his mid-30s
now so this is a very old shot but he
loved pasta from the very beginning and
uh when we think about pasta what what
should we know Fred well it reminds me
that sfil Ren said everything you see is
because of spaghetti
pasta has to be cooked al dente pasta
can be made fresh with egg or sometimes
without egg or dried and they’re both
good there’s no snobism here certain
shapes go with different foods better
but pasta should be eaten the second it
lands sometimes a very fancy pasta will
have truffle which is what we see here
but it doesn’t have to that’s kachu Pepe
classic Roman dish and it is uh she
Chief milk cheese peino and pepper very
simple but magnificent in its Simplicity
that’s my go-to past in Rome for sure I
love
it this this looks like game or
something that’s paparelli and because I
see carrot this would tell me this is
from aeto and that would be duck
papadeli could also be wild boar but the
presence of carrot is usually a pairing
an beo with duck okay yep and those are
fresh pasta that
goodbye to never waste beautiful
ingredients like squiding by putting it
into the pasta it would dry out you use
plain white pasta and you put the squid
ink as the sauce and get rid of the
tomatoes okay that would be in Venice
bongay bongay clams um there are many
types of clams throughout Italy do not
believe what you hear that cheese and
seafood don’t go together in Old
Venetian cookery it’s tradition to GR in
a little bit of hard cheese into the
butter or oil that’s used to cook the
vong so you don’t put the cheese on the
clams you put it in the spaghetti okay
oh this is this is pesto my favorite if
I had to pick one is pesto my favorite
of my cookbooks is called recipes in
Paradise the Italian Riviera pesto is a
magnificent sauce made in a mortar and
pestle that’s where the word pestel
comes from yeah and it’s basil the best
basil in the world garlic uh nuts either
pine nuts or walnuts paranos sometimes
pecorino and loran olive oil it is
divine now when you say lagura that’s
the region where um what our favorite
little corner of the Riviera the chin
the five towns and my favorite town is
called Vera and that looks so good
doesn’t that great baby pest those are
called trophia tropia are pasta that
were invented because some woman long
time ago not wanting to waste anything
rubbed her hands together after making
pasta and these little curls came out
and she would never throw out the curls
of pasta and she discovered that troph
went better with pesto than all the
other shapes of pasta so much fun to
celebrate each region like when you’re
in the chinua you want to try the the P
the the pesto for sure and you want to
have it like the locals have it now if
you want to Maxim basil the P basil that
grows there is better than anywhere else
that’s why there you go and we’ll talk
more about that as we travel around
Italy but go with each Region’s
Forte now there are restaurants where
you know several pastas look good and if
you’re traveling with friends you could
order what’s called a beast or sometimes
of tre Beast is two and where you get
two different type there’s a treas where
you get two or three different types of
pasta or resoto in this case this one
we’re looking at is seafood and you have
different shapes of pasta and plus rice
um so that you can contrast you can’t do
that if it’s just you but if at least
one other person you can get two half
portions if you’re three people three
half portions and that’s a wonderful way
to learn more about a region and what
the restaurant offers if you’re only
there for a day or
two now I was talking before about the
hygiene I really meant it sometimes if
the table is getting the same dish they
will bake the pasta make the pasta and a
server will come out and put it on your
plate that way so we don’t really
appreciate fully all of the Care that
goes into the serving when we’re
tourists coming in but it is good to
know about that and appreciate it oh and
I want people to know look at that that
pasta especially what we call Pasta
spolia in other words and pasta that has
been filled like ravioli or anolini
which is what we see here can often be
served in broth rather than a sauce and
in
it’s a capon broth with saffron and that
taste with these fil pasta is divine huh
I want to remind Fred is referring a lot
to Regions and that’s um that’s because
he understands the importance of regions
and we make a point to have all 20
regions covered in the book and each
region will have its own unique Cuisine
and we find um that okay so there are
more than 450 cheeses made in Italy
Italy is one of the great cheese nations
of the world and one of the greatest and
people poo poo it until they taste it is
Gorgonzola which is the name of a town
near Milan and in fact it’s on the Milan
Subway on the green line appropriately
and this is a very old cheese that’s
stored in caves and gorgonzola kaban as
is were used to melt to put in a pasta
to put on Penta to in some way or
another combine it you get the grainy
taste plus the melting Gorgonzola it is
Sublime is that a case where rokford
would be the same but it’s just from
another country but rokford is not so
blue or green okay by the way there are
two types of gorgona there’s Dolce sweet
and Picante which is sharper and ruford
is more like the picante it’s whiter the
sweet one is yellow oh and there’s look
you brought it up there is Penta and
Penta is made of cornmeal which
originated in North America arrived in
Europe and particularly Northern Italy
they would grow cornmeal and yellow
cornmeal uh makes Penta that goes with
cheese with meat with heavier proteins
white penda is served with fish
especially in the Veno it can be served
soft hard cold hot grilled it’s very
versatile because nothing goes to waste
you do not throw food out in Italy
aren’t the people in the Veno nicknamed
The Corn eaters or something like that
um no they were nicknamed the cat eaters
but that’s for a different
story but but the area around Venice is
popular the Northeast so freely vanessia
Julia and uh vano and parts of lomber oh
okay so here we’re back in the cheese
department so in much of Italy but
especially the center and the South they
make m and they make rot and if I had to
pick one I would say rotta but just
barely because I love mazarella but
rotta to me one of the best breakfast is
simply fresh
ricotta of sheep of of cow served with
fresh fruit with oranges or a fresh
marmalade it’s one of the greatest
things in the world now we’re going to
get into Pizza okay so Mozzarella Pizza
Pizza is Naples now yes all over the
world have pizza but we know that
pizza’s from Naples and it’s a very
simple dish Tomatoes did not arrive in
Naples until relatively late in the game
they came from the Americas and before
that pizza in Naples was oil a crust and
cheese and maybe basil and herbs and
maybe a little bit of fish only later
did the tomatoes arrive a lot of people
wonder people brag about a a oven cooked
pizza or firewood oven right Forno
alenia is what it’s called and there’s
something about the way the heat is
generated and how the base below the
crust makes it slightly crunchy and a
little charred and the pizzolo the man
or woman who makes pizza sticks to sort
of blade in and will twirl the pizza
around leaving it in the oven exposed to
the heat it’s better than automatic you
know electric heating Naples is so
famous for pizza and I swear the pizza
is particular L good in Naples am I just
being romantic or is there something no
it’s the best I know yeah it’s
incredible really
pizza so you can get pizza with
different kinds of ingredients on it and
this is trione I see the napkin so
that’s the famous neopolitan pizeria and
um this one has fungi and cheese you
notice that it’s not overloaded with
ingredients the way American pizzas are
so that you stagger away from the Table
Pizza is meant to be a whole meal for
one and it’s only had at night it’s not
a daytime dish it’s not eaten by the
slice the way New Yorker would do that’s
a margarita and you see relatively
little ingredient but Margarita is named
for Queen Margarita who came to Naples
in 1805 and they invented this pizza
that had tomato mozzarella and basil so
the colors of the Italian flag and
that’s for whom it was named so it looks
like we’re starting a meal aunti Pasto
of different types this I would say is
Tuscany because they are crostini which
are thin toasts and they will have
different toppings such as fish or
spleen even or tomatoes or artichoke or
chopped liver and next to that is a
talera here’s a word for you talera
means a cutting board and now it’s
pretty common in Italy especially in
wine bars to ask for a talera of either
meat or fish or cheese and this cutting
board has different salumi cold cuts and
a soft cheese probably mozzarella yeah
terer is a you see that word more often
it seems like and that is a fun way to
start a meal or make a whole meal or
make a sure yeah yeah and here are
different examples of crostini so they
have it with black olive green olive um
sundried tomato you may have it with
spleen or chop liers I said that’s very
typical in Tuscany Fred what’s the
difference between brusk
and crostini brusketta is often you take
a skewer and you take a piece of Dale
bread and you stick it over a flame and
toast it and then you rub it with either
garlic or tomato add some fresh olive
oil not a lot just enough and that’s a
good way that you don’t let the bread go
to waste but crostini will be softer and
made a posit in other words at the
moment whereas H brusett is not to let
bread go to waste ah oh I love the salad
Capra so do I so this is mozzarella
cow’s milk or it could be Buffalo milk
with sliced fresh tomatoes oregano which
we don’t think of and basil and olive
oil now that’s popular down in the south
of little south from cery from comp but
it’s one of the dishes that you really
see all over Italy by now this this this
is a case when if you’ve never had good
tomatoes and you have it there with your
with your mozzarella it’s quite nice
isn’t it that’s it then when you come
home you don’t eat Tomatoes anymore
that’s a problem it’s it’s a serious
problem so now I discovered U um B Bata
yeah and that mozzarella to another
level oh it takes you to the heart
attack because Bata is filled with cream
and it’s divine and it’s from Pula which
is one of the great cheese regions and
basically you’ve made a mozarella
balloon and you sort of inject Rich
cream into it and then you always put a
borata in a dish because when you cut it
it kind of spurts like a chicken kiev
with butter but in this case it’s cream
and in America when we get Bata people
add oil and tomatoes don’t just eat the
Bata
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