I often ask friends about their favourite cuisine, and it’s surprising how many of them immediately answer: “Italian.”
I, too, am very partial to good Italian food, and often gravitate towards an Italian restaurant in a town where I’m not familiar with the foodie scene. For a relatively small country, the variety of recipes and styles is amazing.
From one town to the next, and from one valley to the next, there is a different spin on even very familiar dishes like Bolognese sauce and pasta Carbonara.
Millions around the world assume that Italian food is all about pizza and pasta, and stay stuck in this much-trodden culinary rut. And it’s true that most Italian restaurants catering to tourists in their own country, or to diners abroad, tend to stick to safe dishes familiar to the foreign palate.
I learned the basics from an Italian friend years ago, and then went on to expand my repertoire. What I like about Italian cooking is its simplicity and its use of fresh ingredients. Olive oil is central to most dishes, especially in the south.
In Sicily, if some household has neither wine nor olive oil, neighbours will wonder what’s wrong with them. Giorgio Locatelli, owner of the Michelin-starred Locanda Locatelli, star of TV cooking programmes, and author of several cookbooks, is an expert on olives, and claims that Sicily produces the best ones.