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John Fodera of johnfodera.com aka Tuscan Vines, is back on the show. Typically when John joins the podcast we are talking wine, but John is also an Italian chef and has around 200 Italian recipes on his website. John and I have a conversation on the Foods of Italy, we talk about dishes that Americans love but aren’t found in Italy, we talk traditional dishes of Italy based on the region and we talk a little about Italian coffee.
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welcome to food wine and whiskey a podcast about having fun conversations on tasty dishes venos and Spirits from around the world Rob is your host he is an avid home Chef W set level two award in wine and a whiskey Drinker and collector time to set the table here’s Rob hey everyone welcome back to another episode food wine and whiskey and let me just say if you’re not hungry as you’re starting to listen to this I’m going to bet by the end of it you’re going to be pretty hungry so uh as you can see by today’s title we are talking foods of Italy and my guest back on the show is John foda he is the founder editor and chief of the online publication of Tuscan vines.com uh been an Italian wine journalist for a very long time been writing about wine since 1995 started the online publication Tusk and Vine .c 2010 he’s traveled extensively throughout Italy he’s had his writings featured in Psalm Journal wine buyers guide wine 360.com and others John welcome back to the show always good to be here Rob thank you very much you know usually when you’re on we uh we always talk something related to Italian wine and today we’re we’re throwing a a little bit of a curveball I say a little bit because you don’t have wine especially Italian wine without having food so these are kind of you know they go hand in hand that’s right yeah I I I don’t think we’re going to be able to get away from wine completely today yeah not at all now now we might we might throw in some some wine things that you might enjoy with some of these foods and and and like the foods the wines are probably going to be Regional So to that point we’re going to go through you know it’s funny John you think about you know where we live in the United States and I think this is true in most countries so it’s no surprise here uh as you travel through a country food and drink is very Regional that’s a very common theme amongst the globe and doesn’t really matter what country you go to and Italy is no exception they have 20 regions and uh you know for those of us in the states think of them like a state uh and and each one of them is unique to what they like to eat the types of ingredients that they use to make their food and and the wines that accompany those Foods yeah it is unique and it’s um I would say you know if Italy is is 20 countries you know remember they they only unified their provinces um more recently than the United States you know they’re younger than we are in that sense um so they’re kind of all still feeling their way around and it is very Regional uh and and very prideful if you will will about you know what they do and how they do it yeah what’s going to be fun today you know I I’ve been exploring Italy it’s just become my favorite country for for wine specifically but as you get into the wine you start eating the foods that go with them uh the foods as well and you tell me if I’m wrong John but I kind of have this thought this opinion that uh you know a lot of times when we talk about the the great wine countries of the world Italy and France come up you know first I think in most people’s minds and rightfully so uh but when I think about France I think it’s very sophisticated it’s very elegant it’s it’s very not that it’s not good food it’s great food but it’s it’s presentation and technique and all these really you know fine things that they’re doing with their food which is all well and good and and I like that but I really connect with Italian food because to me this is uh this is Grandma’s cooking this is the the blue collar workers type food these are simple ingredients a few ingredients that make a delicious dish I it’s not you know it’s not meant to wow you with presentation although there can be some fantastic presentation of Italian food but it’s absolutely going to blow you away with uh the flavors that you get in these dishes from around the regions of Italy right yeah generally speaking I agree with that I think that’s spoton I mean you can go easily find a a four or a five-star restaurant in in Rome or Florence you can go to a Michelin starred restaurant and you can have that kind of you know foodie experience yeah but if you’re in the in the countryside you know chances are and it doesn’t matter whether it’s Tuscany or UMB or larque or a Bruto Sicily it doesn’t matter you’re going to get um you’re going to eat what they’re growing there you know and that’s going to be you know they’re going to grow the the semolina for the pasta they’re going to have their own Tomatoes they’re going to have their own style of wine and if they don’t have it you’re not going to eat it you know it’s it’s very different you know when we’re here in the United States it’s it’s very easy you know in the middle of winter you know to go to the grocery store and find a cantaloupe or you know you know find you know the only thing I’ve ever found in Italy that year round that wasn’t um grown there is when I found a banana and pineapples oh really those those they will come they will get in um but everything is still very seasonal there you know so uh if you’re there in the summer um you know you’re not going to see lots of cabbages or you’re not going to see you know broccoli Rob or anything like that because that’s it’s a winter vegetable yeah you know and and and that’s not what they have uh and so they don’t you know they don’t ship you know broccoli Rob into New Jersey from California in the middle of February you know it just doesn’t work that way do it do Italians can do do they can vegetables and put them away oh I think I don’t know about can I mean definitely in the grocery store I think you could probably find canned vegetables although I’ve never actually looked for them um I think home italion probably what they probably do is jar okay yeah that’s what I mean jar canning yeah yeah yeah definitely okay I figured and they put it away in a little seller and that way they have a stock through the winter to make some y okay yeah I mean they can do that with uh you know whatever vegetables they’ll have maybe at the end of a season of the growing you know so as as summer or you know turns into you know late September and then the the fall vegetables start to come out you know they’ll clean out the garden and then maybe they replant it with you know cabbages and broccoli and garlic and kale and things like that yeah um and they will you know whatever is left over they may pickle them um you know you see a lot of pickled um zucchini pickled carrots um onions things like that yeah and one of the reasons I wanted to do this show with you today John is you know kind of like wine I always say you know great wine regions usually have one wine that takes you to that region you know burgundy could be pin Noir or lir Valley could be cab Fran but once you get into that region you you start to figure out well hey that’s not the only great wine that’s made here it’s the one that it’s known for but there’s some other great things in this area and I think the same can be said for food there’s a lot of you know regions within countries or countries themselves that are known for a particular food and that’s what you think about them for but until you go in and explore and start to find out that yeah you know let’s just throw it out there pizza’s great but Italy is so much more than pizza and pasta and I think you know a lot of specifically Americans if if you say Italian food name a couple things go they’re just going to go Pizza Pasta that’s all they’re ever going to say and exact so I think it’s great that we’re having this conversation to dive in and kind of expose the listeners to the foods of all these different regions within Italy so maybe they’ll go explore and try some things and a great resource for that John this is uh the segue to your website Tuscan vines.com uh because in addition to all the great great wine reviews you do man you have I mean a enormous long list of classic Italian dishes uh in the meat category in the pasta category I mean all over so talk about that a little bit yeah I mean and let me just correct you so it’s it’s actually you you will find me with a Google search you are correct it’s joh it’s John fod at.com yeah um but yeah you know yeah the the website has um I don’t know I last counted it it was coming up to two maybe 200 recipes and the newer ones you know as I got better you know handling my website and actually as I migrated from one platform to the other the capabilities were better so the the recipes that have been there for maybe the last five or six years are typically fully Illustrated because you know to me it’s two thing when I always looked at a cookbook I I’m a visual learner like I can easily you know read something but when I see like when someone says oh you know add the beans when when the sauce is dry or something but if you see what it looks like then you know have a better idea of what you’re doing and um I just always thought it was you know to have stepbystep pictures along the way it makes it a lot easier and less intimidating to to make a recipe yeah but I I would also say that you eat with your eyes and so I can I can read the ingredients and go it sounds good but when I see that picture I go holy cow that looks good A yeah agree 100% agree and you know my recipes since you know whether they’re Family Heritage or or based on you know my love of of Tuscany or Italy it’s it’s like you said typically they’re very simple to do right and you’re you’re looking for you can have big bold flavors but it’s not you know 25 or 30 ingredients that you need to do something it’s typically you know one maybe two ingredients that are you know Ultra fresh you know exactly what it should be right you know the best tomatoes the best porini mushroom whatever you have and I always tell people you know if you want to make broccoli Robin sausage with pasta you know and you go to the market and the broccoli Rob looks lousy well then you don’t buy it right you you buy something else so a lot of times this is like what the Italian grandmothers and mothers do they go to the market and they find what’s fresh and then they figure out what they’re going to make for dinner right not the other way around that’s a great point because I think you nailed it with a lot of the the way that we cook here in America we look at the ingredients and go you got to make it that way where you’re you’re saying and rightfully so I think you know there there’s plenty of things that could substitute for certain ingredients now maybe not all the ingredients but broccoli Rob being an example you could substitute another vegetable that could take that place in that recipe and still work to your point getting what’s the best quality is going to make that dish the best right because the fewer ingredients you have the more obvious they are in the dish right so if they’re not going to present themselves well then you’re going to have a substandard result yeah you know you lead me to uh I do a lot of pizza here at the house I’m down that pizza rabbit hole and by the way for the listeners listening uh pepperoni pizza is not Italian correct John that’s correct you gave that chuckle John I I it’s very rare in all honesty I’m trying to think I haven’t really even seen much sausage on Pizza yeah pepperoni is American thing and it’s funny you know when and I don’t know if this this was in a very very local Italian restaurant so I I have to believe that it’s semi classic but when I was in um um in Venice once my wife and I were out we were getting pizza and they were small pizzas we ordered two of them one was just the regular Margarita and the other one said um you know Pizza like with venise sausage so I was like okay let’s we’ll get that yeah well it comes out now maybe they were a superior product in what we have here I don’t know it didn’t taste that way but this pizza comes out and I swear they had sliced a hot dog and put it on on the pizza oh really and and it was I mean it was tasty enough but I was like this this just can’t be yeah you know I didn’t know what to make of that at all um you know but we were drinking beer and it was great yeah so and I was getting to you know I just had to throw that out there about pepperoni because I think a lot of folks think that pepperoni pizza is an Italian thing Pizza is but the pepperoni on the pizza is not an Italian thing that’s an American thing um no but to your point about you know simple ingredients and you know a few ingredients so they can shine when when I have guests over like I said I’m done that pizza Rabbit Hole uh and I’ll ask folks you know what kind of pizza would you like and when I get that that person that says can I get a supreme put a little bit on of every ingredient you got and I’m going what are you going to taste with that you know so to your point you know to me pizzas I I kind of have that same rule it’s you know cheese and sauce and then two maybe three more ingredients and that that’s it anything more than that you’re just kind of confusing your pallet well that’s the you know that’s the American thing right I mean the the meat lovers or the the the ultimate veggie and the stuff crust yeah the the Italians would you know become nauseous looking at that you know and they and that’s why I think you know it’s not very common but once in a while I’ll see someone like oh I went to Italy and I didn’t like the food or the pizza was terrible and I’m like well this has to be you know an American who was expecting you know like you said you know I don’t know a thick crust you know Pizza with with with pepperoni or you know pepperoni sausage ham you know God forbid pineapple you know it’s just not going to happen and and I think it’s the same thing also with um you know when they’re thinking of fetuccini alfredo or they’re thinking of chicken parm and how about how about and meatballs actually you would well see it’s very rare to see um meat in in a pasta in Italy so no there wouldn’t really be there wouldn’t really be meatball you might come across that if you’re eating in a more touristy place in a bigger city um but what the Italians do have um often is is you know meeple is a it’s a poptini a little meatball yeah they usually have um maybe you get four or or five of them as an anti pasta yeah so you would just have meatballs and then you’re you know you’re obviously free to order pasta and and we’re kind of talking about some of these things that Americans think that might be Italian and and it was on my list of things to talk about since we’ve just kind of rolled into it let’s talk about a few more uh of dishes and you mentioned one fetuccini Alfredo is one that’s I I I don’t really clearly understand the history of this I I kind of read some stories where there was a restaurant that made it in Italy and it just didn’t take off but it it did start there but it became very popular More in America I’m not sure but I will say on on the topic of that note we we’ll kind of lump carbonara in there as well uh only because in America you know we ruined that dish by putting cream in it and same with fetuccini putting cream in it and um but anyway I want to talk about those two dishes not being Italian dishes they’re their variations of an Italian Dish that Americans have made right right I have never once seen fetuccini Alfredo in Italy um the the story The Legend if you will and and I don’t know if it’s right or not um I think it was you know someone named Alfredo who was in a Roman restaurant uh I think it was actually in a in a hotel is the story that he came up with this somehow whether it was to to please an American guest or or or whatever it was but um so some people think it has origins in Italy and maybe it does but it clearly is not popular there you know and I’ve spoken to Italians you the two dishes and I’m not going to get down a tangent here but fedini alfredo and chicken parm you know I have friends here in the US that are Italian you know literally off the boat and they don’t even they don’t even know to a man they don’t even know what chicken parm was till I told them yeah they’re like what what is this chicken parm and so I told them you know oh it’s you know a chicken cutlet with tomato sauce and and melted mozzarella on it and they were like looking at me like I had four heads and somebody and they’re like no gross you know why would you do that yeah you know and it’s very rare in Italy to use um cream in a pasta yeah and to to carbonara I mean then we’re getting into the classic you know Uber classic Roman pasta dishes yeah let’s do that uh but before we do because that that’ll Segway to your point no no cream imp pasta and that’s where they mess up well I don’t want to say that’s where they change carbonara to being an American DED dish I I call it messing up just because the classic version making it that way I mean if you ever do and you should do it when you do it you’re going to realize yeah what we get at a restaurant in America you know that version of carbonara is not carbonara uh the other one I wanted to throw out there you chicken parmesan was on my list but also baked ziti B well baked yeah no pasta that they would never call it that right it’d be pasta alforno pasta bake and so yes that you could see and again wacky regionali in there you know there’s a there’s a restaurant in Manhattan where I go to all the time the owner is a friend of mine and he is from um Salo you know in CA and he does a pasta al Forno um and there’s a little bit of ground beef in there with the pasta pasta and the cheese and the sauce but what he puts in it is sliced hardboiled egg oh really and that is a um that is a solo thing so so so again you would never see that in in in Milan or in Rome you know that’s just a southern thing and it and probably has its origins in it in the South you know they were peasants they were poor so they didn’t have the money for meat you know so it’s another way to get protein into the dish you know and they had obviously would have chickens um so rather than eat the chickens they would use the eggs and so wherever they can sneak in some protein they do it and and that’s that’s where it comes from yeah it makes sense to uh eat the eggs and not the chicken because you eat the chicken you stop getting eggs you that’s right you eat the eggs you can get eggs the next day again that’s right um that that’s a great Point well let’s now shift to to your point of let’s let’s start in Rome and I know that’s kind of the the middle of Italy but I think with when people talk about going to Italy and visiting Italy I think they start in Rome you know obviously that’s where all the the tourism is and uh a a big part of the Italian History when we talk about the Romans back in the day the Coliseum and things like that so you kind of touched on it John starting to the the classic pastas of Rome there’s four of them and I think you know one thing listeners might be surprised about um one of these have tomato sauce in it but uh Tomatoes aren’t indigenous to Italy you know when people think pastas if they go do some research and things they’re going to find that a lot of pasta dishes there’s not tomatoes in these pastas right so four four RS or four pastas of Rome what are they right so every one of them I believe there’s recipe on my website um so they’re basically the exact same dish right the first one will will start with just as amatria then you have carbonara catcho Pepe and alagia so what is that okay so the first one is with tomato amatriciana has um four ingredients I guess we’ll say it’s tomato Guan chal which is the cured um Pig of the cheek guancha meaning uh means pillow in Italian so it’s like that pillowy uh mostly fat from the cheek of the pig black pepper and usually peino cheese to to present the dish so what you do is you now what did I say no olive oil right so no onion although some people do put onion but what about what about garlic and Italian pasta no no garlic in these no garlic is a southern Italian thing yeah yeah and garlic you know the Italians you wouldn’t even see garlic in Tuscany really except for one exception so the Italians tend to very if it’s a generalization right garlic is for seafood onions is for stuff that comes from the land okay that makes sense so they typically don’t do it any other way and never almost never would use both in the same dish so no as we start the the first dish you’re describing no no olive oil correct so you put the Guan chal in first on a very very low flame and you render that fat out from the from the pig pig meat and that is what gives you all the oil that you need for your dish very rarely I would put a little bit of olive oil if it’s just too dry so then you just add your tomatoes and you cook them down and again what were we saying before a few ingredients they’ve got to be great tomatoes San Marzano you know real San Marzano canned or fresh ripe fresh tomatoes cook them down salt and pepper then you just cook your pasta till it’s Al Dente drin R it right into the sauce stir and serve with more cracked black pepper so then that dish is if you will the mother dish so all the rest come from that or from variations of that so if you take that dish and you take out the tomato and you add in egg then you have carbonara if you remove the egg then you just have alagia and if you add a bunch of cheese with pasta water into the sauce this is actually the simplest dish but it’s actually the hardest one to make so if you just use your Guan chal and then you add the cheese and the pepper with pasta water I’m sorry no Guan chali you get the kacho Pepe kacho is cheese Pepe is pepper so it’s nothing but cheese and pepper but the sauce is made from an Emulsion of the pasta water and the cheese the way it melts together and a lot of people say oh this has cream in it no no no that doesn’t have anything it’s the it’s that starchy water and it how it just incorporates and emulsifies with the cheese so that is actually I think the hardest dish to pull off frankly yeah Ketch ketcho pipa is one of my favorites and I don’t know if this is right or wrong but I call it the uh the original mac and cheese I don’t know if that’s where the American version of mac and cheese came from but to me that’s the original mac and cheese it could very well be and you know and one time you know to my point I saw I forget why it was but I was watching a show with Gordon Ramsey and he was talking about if he’s interviewing a chef and he said this is one of the first things I asked him to do is you know okay you want to be a chef for me that’s fine go in the kitchen and make me catcho a Pepe and he goes if they don’t nail that dish then forget it they’re done yeah you know because that’s just you know it’s simple but it takes a little bit of technique and an understanding of of what’s going on and again you know carbonara Guan chal cheese black pepper and eggs no no sliced ham no bacon no Peas Just say that peas no cream no mushrooms you want to do that fine I always say that if you want to do that it’s fine you’ll make be delicious just don’t call it carbonara call it something else yeah you know if I go to a restaurant and I order carbonara and it comes out that way I mean I’m disappointed but usually it says you know with peas and cream I mean I don’t know yeah I’ve heard that the cream the reason Americans put cream in is it’ll it’ll sit a little longer under the light you know before it gets served uh because of that time because we both know you know when you make carbonara it’s when you finish it it’s start eating serve it and start eating you don’t want it to sit for a that I agree with and I think here but in Italy you know they it’s the eggs that they use they use a lot of egg so it doesn’t get dry and you use that pasta water again you use that pasta water to emulsify it to make it have you know a sauce um yeah because you don’t that’s a technique too I mean I think two of the things that people do wrong in this country with pasta is number one they don’t cook the pasta pasta in the sauce so many times I see people picture of a of a plated pasta and it’s and it’s like a clean noodle with dollop of tomato sauce on the top of the pile of the pasta like like a like you do when you put tomato sauce on a pizza yeah that never if you take the pasta and you drain it and you put it into a pan with your sauce cook it in there for another minute to a minute and a half with the sauce sauce Stir It Around The Noodle absorbs the flavor of the sauce and that’s what makes pasta to another level and always always reserve some of your cooking water yep because if your sauce is too tight you know too thick you can add a little cooking water and that cooking water for for example for catcho a Pepe is vital you you can’t make the dish without it it’s what helps make it creamy with all that starch and everything in there correct correct and you have salted water that’s another thing people don’t salt the water agree by all means good Lord no olive oil in your cooking water yeah and we we won’t dive down the rabbit hole of acceptable pastas for these dishes but there I would say there’s a a few types that are acceptable there’s certain ones that maybe you wouldn’t use for for you know a carbon or these four pastas for that matter I think carbonara I’ll tell you a story the last time I was in Rome with my family we went to a place great place in room and um I’ve been there many times so I knew what I wanted to eat so I asked for the um for the wine list because it’s like a book it’s about 4 inches thick so I wanted to look through it so the waiter came over and you know they have their all four of the pastas on their menu but I wasn’t paying any attention so he came to me and I said yeah you know I’ll have the Jewish artichokes he’s like okay I said and then I want the rigatoni uh card rard and he was riding you know with his pad and and he just he drops his hands like that he looks at me and he says Senor he says Raton is Amat carbon is spaghetti and I said I said oh yeah you know and I like I apologized I’m like no I want carbon a so give me the spaghetti you know but that was it you know they were not no these are Romans that you know if if pasta is a passion you know it’s it’s like a religion a dogmatic process you know but no that the chef is making it spaghetti because that’s the best way for this dish so don’t you dare you know insinuate that it should be different but I was like no no no no you know I apologize I said no no problem but I just want spaghetti yeah and that’s another thing you know that Americans oh but can can I have this but not with that or can can I have the pesto but with you know with butini instead of pen you know or something like that yeah that doesn’t usually work in Italy and and you know to me here’s what I would also say John I think uh you know a lot of the dishes that we have you know Italian or or other dishes that have been I’ll call it Americanized were done so years ago to kind of appease the the pallet of an American you know and I think in the last 10 years maybe a little bit longer you know Americans now want to know everything and they want to explore everything about what they’re they’re they’re eating and drinking whether you know wine where does it come from how do they make it what are the grapes food you know hey that steak is it grass-fed is it you know how is it wagu where did it pasture all this kind of stuff so I think we’re very open now more so than ever to exploring what are the authentic types of flavors from a particular country and I think Italy’s one of those that they’re they’re getting more into trying the authentic types of foods from these regions and you know one of the other big continents I would say is Asia I think you know the Chinese food that we want to eat today is way different than what we ate 20 years ago because we don’t want just sweet and sour pork and sweet and sour chicken now we want a you know the the garlic spicy eggplant the dishes that they really you know like to eat so I think that’s a big part of it today is that people are more open to trying things that are a good representation of what authentic foods are from these countries yeah no it’s it’s true and I mean and and you know as intertwined as they are you know like you said Tomatoes were not originally from Italy um the story of carbonara um again it’s a it’s hard to pin it down but the thought was was this was um a dish that emerged um shortly uh after the United States um army in World War II had started to liberate Rome you know so the soldiers were there and and they were hungry and and somebody real because carbonara essentially even though you have the Guan chal which is is key to the dish but it’s it’s kind of like bacon and eggs right so someone said hey you know we’ll make these American soldiers they’re hungry we’ll make them pasta we’ll make them bacon and eggs and you know the uh the folklore is that that’s how the dish was originated now whether that’s true or not I don’t know um but yeah you’re you’re completely right you know another example is um is your past your pepperoni pizza right so um where all where did the American Italian Americans come from right they were mostly poor immigrants that were immigrating from the south of Italy you know Sicily abuto calabri you pulia so in cabria they have a hot spicy sausage called Uya and it’s it’s it’s hotter than American pepperoni um we see that on pastas and on sausages there in that region all the time so I I guarantee you um that was you know the the morphing into a spicy pepperoni for pizza here you know very similar story yeah and when people hear you say Calabria and they think well I’ve heard of a calabrian Chile that’s that’s what it is that’s where it comes from you know a lot of people don’t associate spice with Italy but that’s an Italian chili that’s right and they can be viciously hot if they’re fresh yeah so going from Rome we kind of started right there in the heart of Italy where where you know tourists might go for that first trip uh and I do want to say in Rome you can also get great pizza you know pizza’s a thing there uh I think n you know would it be fair to say John pizza or a version of whether it’s a flatbread or some type of pizza is is in all the regions or is that more Central to South that that it’s there I mean I’ve had the best pizza that I’ve had um in t you know from Tuscany on South I think when I was in Venice like I mentioned that pizza was was okay but not nearly as good as what we had you know further south yeah um lagura makes some interesting more like a flatbread kind of thing but they’re using because they have you know that’s the birthplace of pesto right you know genoves um but they’ve got you know they’ll be putting you know clams and calamari on Pizza cuz they’re right that’s the Italian Riviera I mean they’re doing all sorts of things like that so it’s it’s kind of unique in that sense um but I mean Pizza na you know Brit when you see the a lot of the places here I mean even even here where I am now in North Carolina there’s not far away it’s a a brick oven um Neapolitan style pizza place that’s tremendous I was shocked you know when we found it um and that’s the kind of piece that that’s that’s emulated a lot um but I mean it’s it’s it’s thin crust you know um you can eat the whole thing and not feel like you’ve had you know a lead balloon in your gut from all the carbs because the pizza is I mean it’s probably an eighth of an inch thick to crust you know and that’s again why you don’t have those vegetable or meat lovers you know garbage pies because it would just collapse you know this is again it’s it is the Buffalo mozzarella it is San Marzano tomato it is the best freshed basil the freshest ingredients and that’s it you know and you know you how you make your pizzas in your oven there I mean they cook in 90 seconds yeah you know and the key component for not feeling heavy and and you know just bloated with pizza is how you do your dough you know making sure that you FM it right and and let it take the time days to get to a place where it’s ready to go you know because that’s that’s what makes it less dense and lighter and airier and and the other thing is just a lot of hydration you know when you put more water in your dough and you’re able to do that like in a Neapolitan style pizza uh you know water’s not going to be as heavy as just dense dough that you’re you’re you’re putting on your belly so a lot of folks will go I don’t understand in Italy how folks will eat a 14inch pizza by themselves well that’s one of the big reasons on how they do that the dough is just not that heavy and me and the toppings are not that you know yeah and you know when I do a pizza night John that’s what I like to do you know the whole point of a pizza night is you know you could order a call it a pepperoni pizza and you’re eating that same slice you know three or four times to get three or four slices I would rather cook 12in pizzas have a smaller slice and have six of them with different toppings and flavors to kind of have this experience of pizza night more than just eating one pie you know three or four slices of that that pie that’s what makes it fun for me well you want to go north and and start up there and work our way down so okay in the northern kind of regions of of Spain I think I me Spain of Italy I think some people might be surprised to know that uh not a a lot of pastas up there now now you’re going to start to get into uh risotto and palentas and some people might be surprised to know that steak is a pretty big thing up there you know meats are a big thing up there and and I think a lot of folks that think Italian food I don’t think stake would be a top five thing that they would think of no I mean you know what I think that’s probably true I mean the biggest thing I think of what you said there’s there’s like an invisible um line um if you imagine that crosses the boot of Italy so it would probably be a little bit north of where the province of Tuscany ends so south of that line you have pastas and you have your your fat of choice is olive oil above that line north of that line is’s almost no olive oil used in cooking it’s butter and then you have um as you said you have more St I mean Tuscany has their you know their fantina steak world famous that’s kind of like the the kickoff point for me as you go further north you see more and more of that especially around you know bolognia and Milan I mean bolognia is you know the fat city right I mean that’s the nickname everything there is butter and Lardo and cream uh and you know mortadela and that’s where Pano regano is from and so they have all of that very you know rich rich Cuisine and and you kind of get the demographics there from from Tuscany North right the tuscans were were very You Know Rich they were Royal they were Aris aristocratic right and as you go up north the same thing with the with the the Kings and the queens and the Normans all the way down in the south of Italy you had poor peasants the working people out in the rural areas so again they don’t have the meat they use hard-boiled eggs or they they use their pastas might be with chickpeas or with beans or with some kale chopped up into it you know very very poor they call cuchina poo right the poor Kitchen in the north they’ve got like you said they have in Venice in in in in venetsia right they have um rice patties everywhere so they have the rice and what do they make with the rice the Milan saffron right yeah a very expensive ingredient um uko osuko Milan is is the classic dish in Milano you know but you have a ve shank ve very expensive over the risotto with saffron um you go to you go to Venice or or anywhere in Veno you go to Verona they have expensive Seafood um that things that you just don’t see so much in the South um ravioli is another one ravioli is big in pamon um in Amilia Romania uh you see the um oh and what’s another another big you know expensive ingredient in Pon is the truffles oh yes right so that’s they have the white and the black you know and and for them it’s probably not as expensive now and I mean they they’re shaving those things on just about anything you can imagine you know when they’re in season if if it’s a good a good year to to to forage for them and and tell me this I think I have this right the the white truffle is the more expensive is that right way more expensive yeah yeah I I thought I remembered reading that I’ve never had it but I’ve heard that the white truffle is a very coveted very uh and you don’t get them every year right they’re not they’re not every year well you can if they you can get them every year if you can find them if it’s if the conditions are good um so yeah if you had an Alba truffle a white truffle um I think well I haven’t looked in a long time but the last time I actually bought one I would say there was probably about 12 to $1,300 a pound for the White and the black are about six to seven or $800 a pound yeah wow the bigger reason for that is um I know whites are usually a little harder to find um but you need um a specially trained dog to find white truffles um because you can use pigs to find black truffles because the pigs will eat the white ones but they won’t eat the black ones so you you they find the white ones with a dog that’s specially trained to smell them out and then dig them up uh and that’s one of the reasons why they’re more expensive but the other um thing I was going to mention is one Christmas Eve you know I splurged for a white truffle I have a friend in in pedmont who who sent me one um so it was about the size of a large you know just our White garden variety mushroom that you see in the grocery stores just like a yeah a medium to large size white mushroom so I think that cost me $75 wow you know but that was enough to shave over the four four of us had a pasta dish with truffle on Christmas Eve that was enough to to shave over the four plates and that’s $75 you probably got a deal yeah I mean you know well that included the the air it has to be you know air Shi um and it was literally found you know the day before you know because you can’t you can’t hold these things you know for five or six days that they just lose their their flavor which is what you’re paying for um yeah you know we’re talking food and and uh you make me think about all you know we’re talking about Truffles and things like that uh you make me think about a lot of things that come from Italy that are so good that that people may not know about you know and talking about truffles you make me think about nuts you know with almonds and pistachios and things like that as well that uh Italy is just known for having some of the best nuts and I’m getting a little off track there but I just wanted to throw that out there people who are listening to this you know nuts are something else pistachios particularly you know on Mount Etna and things like that that are just fantastic yeah well see weird now you’ve taken a little plane from but you know what though it’s it’s you’re right so there’s a there’s a town in Sicily it’s called Bronte and they are known I don’t know why but they are known for having the best pistachios in the entire world yeah so at Christmas time again you know my my local Italian grocery he gets in um the paneton you know paneton right so he gets in you know Artisan paneton that are you know 85 or $75 these are not the8 ones you can get in a grocery store and they are covered with Bronte pistachios and they have pistachio Crema in the filling I mean and that is just something that is super special I mean if you’ve never had like a true a paneton that is not mass-produced it is a uh it is a treat yeah and just a just a teaser uh you know John and I will come back on you know people are hearing us talking about some foods and and Italy also known for for desserts and Pastries bakery things um another episode will be coming in the future on on that topic and pistachios you know in ice cream in desserts is a is a very popular thing so uh that that’ll be covered on that dessert episode a little bit more in depth uh but hopping back on the plane and going back up north um you mentioned osuko and that’s that’s one of my favorite dishes and and I I understand that ve shank can be tough to get depending on where you are here in Houston I’m able to get it we have some some butchers that can get us some ve shank are the Italians okay if you used a beef shank instead I mean I don’t know that I’ve ever seen that um I didn’t know if shank if Shank was the key you know having that bone with Lil marrow and you know if that was the key well I think the the they would probably think the classic they would probably just call that like a um they wouldn’t call it ubuka they might call it like a an arosto like a roast or something like that I mean I’ve had them here in this country you know either um we see a lot of of lamb lamb shank like an uko style but the uko really is uko means literally bone with a hole yep uh so in the hole is the marrow and that’s what they that’s what the Italians are after right because they want to scoop out that marrow and mix it in with the rice for that you know really decadent decadent flavor it’s delicious yeah it it definitely is maybe not the healthiest thing but you know have a little more wine and you know talking about osuko if somebody looks at that dish to your point the pictures you have on your recipe um it looks like holy cow how do you make that it looks so good uh but it’s really it’s not that technically hard it just takes some time you know you’re you’re going to let the heat the oven do most of the work so yeah either the oven or the stove top you just once you once you get the dish assembled then you’re done I mean I like to make those things they’re a little bit cold weather dishes but I like to make stuff like that on NFL Sunday right yeah I get up early you know whether I’m making my grandmother’s sauce or um you know an osoo or I don’t know what else takes a long time short ribs well you mentioned bolognia a good bowling a bowling a see same thing yeah I mean that that takes time to you you can see um the pictures on my website of that dish you can just tell the um like what do you call it the um time lapse of that dish where when it first starts out it’s almost like red you know the meat and the Tomato it’s red and then it it starts getting to Orange and then by the end it’s it’s almost like a a grayish darkish kind of burnt umber kind of color um because again very little tomato is used in in bing yeah I just use a tomato paste is is really what I use I do a red wine not a white wine I know there’s there’s different uh recipes that’ll mention red or white but uh and that is a recipe that calls for a splash of cream at the end well the real I think the true bolog is um after you do your vegetables the Saito yep you Splash red or white wine to deglaze that bottom of that pan then the meat comes in and then they put in they use either cream or milk and actually that’s what cooks the meat um so to me it’s always it always kind of reminded me of the way Southerners might um marinate like chicken and buttermilk oh that’s a great example before they before they make fried chicken um because and then you just you keep that flame low until the meat just absorbs that milk and then you put a little bit of tomato and then you just start you just let it cook down and it if the flame is low it just it doesn’t stick and and then and Magic happens oh yeah you well and as you you know you might add more beef broth or whatever as you cook this over hours because I mean you’re just concentrating these flavors and you want it to do that you want it to cook down add a little bit more cook down because all you’re doing is just building this depth of just an explosion of flavors that you’re going to enjoy once it’s done that’s right and again thinking back to the to the wealthier versus the poor so what have you doing first of all in bing it’s almost all meat by the way do you have a combination of meats that you like I me know I I see some that you know ve and uh beef and I think is it pork that that are the yeah that’s what I use beef meal and pork yeah okay yeah but again ve is expensive it’s all meat they’re using cream or milk and then another ingredient kind of like a nut but spice is the nutmeg yeah very expensive so that is the key like secret hidden ingredient you know but really gives it a full brightness of flavor but very very very little because that can be you know that can just scream out it’ll be way overpowering but it makes I I don’t ever make a bolog without using the let me ask you this is there a pasta that is it padelli that is the traditional or which one is the traditional pasta with the Bolan for Bolan a um you know there’s a guy one of my um followers on Twitter who lives over in Italy and he swears by that it’s spaghetti oh you know what I like I like fil F fusili how do you say that I mean I I use T if I’m making um baz I typically use rigatoni okay you know because you have the obviously you have the long hole in it the meat gets up in there sauce in there and hold yeah that’s why I use the filia I like it to get kind of caught up in those Spirals and just hold that sauce yeah yeah the same thing y hey everyone that’s going to be it for part one of the foods of Italy we appreciate you all listening we hope you come back and uh finish out the convers with me and John next week for part two but until then thanks so much for listening to this episode of food wine and whiskey and until our next episode enjoy your next pour [Music]