The Italian Side

A note on translation by Maureen B. Fant.

The first time I wrote Italian recipes for an American publisher, I was shocked to realize how far over to the Italian side I'd slid in my thirty years in Italy. I didn't own an instant-read thermometer and hadn't touched my measuring spoons in decades. I know when my garlic was golden by looking at it — no idea how long it took to get there. And yet, when you get right down to it, I still have my U.S. passport, and I still want a recipe to tell me what to do.

Just what is the Italian side?

And yet there is an elegance to the formal, elliptical Italian recipe style, which Oretta represents. There is something seductive about cooking without a safety net of numbers, and there is considerable logic to the refusal to give temperatures and timing for somebody else's equipment or for quantities of salt without first tasting the salty ingredients. Are we all cooking in identical laboratories? Certainly not.

Oretta Zanni de Vita and Maureen B. Fant Pasta the Italian Way: Sauces and Shapes.

And so for day 2214
04.01.2013