Food in Italy: Same As India, But Different

Textual content and images by Natasha Celmi

Some locations are good for a bucket listing: one brief go to and you may fortunately verify them off your listing. However Italy shouldn’t be a kind of locations. It has the alluring attraction of a very long time lover.

I stay in Bangalore with my southern Italian husband and earlier than the pandemic hit, we visited a distinct a part of Italy each six months. Lastly in a position to journey once more this yr, we’ve simply returned from a lovely vacation after visiting our household in Naples and Sorrento.

The Kolkata of Europe

Naples or Napoli is often a hop-off level for travellers who arrive on the airport and instantly go away for the favored Amalfi coast. However I used to be launched to this charming metropolis by my husband a few years in the past and fell in love with it immediately. Sure, it’s chaotic. Sure, it has some dodgy areas the place it’s important to watch your pockets. However hey, each metropolis has a darkish aspect.

Napoli, actually, has so much in frequent with the inventive metropolis of Calcutta the place I grew up. The individuals are heat and pleasant. Life works on the tempo of dolce far niente (the sweetness of doing nothing) and romantic poetry, people music and dancing are all over the place. This metropolis is the place you get an actual style of tradition, custom and historical past. Haphazard driving and honking — that is all a part of the enjoyable, proper?

The phrases ‘Italian’ and ‘meals’ are synonymous and when in Italy, I actually eat my approach by means of every day. Breakfast begins with an array of candy pastries. Each morning I stay up for heading right down to the bar (Italian phrase for café) for a cornetto (nothing to do with ice cream) or croissant washed down with a powerful Napolitano cappuccino.

Once I say cappuccino, I’m not referring to a big cup of milky foam the place it’s important to seek for the espresso. That is actual flavourful espresso which can go away you licking the spoon! Sfogliatella and baba al rhum are are a number of the different quintessential pastries on my ‘should have’ listing.

This time we stayed at an condo by the lungomare, the central seafront promenade, with spectacular views of the Gulf of Naples and the mighty Mount Vesuvius volcano. We spent some memorable evenings on the buzzing bars and eating places that line the stretch, beginning off with aperitivo cocktails of Aperol spritz and bubbly prosecco after which transferring on to a pizza or seafood dinner.

Naples, by the way, is the motherland of pizza. This was initially a humble peasant flatbread with some tomatoes and cheese, which was launched to the town by immigrant labourers from Persia. Even at present, the previous pizzerias within the centre of Naples are primary no-frills locations. However quite like Indian dhabas, their meals means severe enterprise. Certainly one of these rustic locations featured within the film Eat Pray Love, within the scene the place Julia Roberts devours probably the most succulent slice of pizza. Sure, la Pizza Napoletana is exclusive and I assure you’ll crave one other the very subsequent day.

However even earlier than heading for pizza, I must sink my tooth into an enormous ball of mozzarella di bufala. Italy’s Campania area is the house of the contemporary mozzarella cheese produced from buffalo milk. Each Neapolitan household has their trusty cheese maker who makes this milky spongy goodness contemporary that very day which have to be consumed by the subsequent day. That is actually no completely different from what our desi paneer is to a Punjabi household, proper?

Convey on the baingan

Our subsequent cease was Sorrento, a 45-minute drive from Naples, the place we stayed in Massa Lubrense, a tiny village nestled within the hills above Sorrento. Our home was perched on a slope amidst citrus timber, olive groves and tall pine timber, giving us lengthy, scenic walks to the ocean, kicking a soccer or two with the children alongside the best way. Getting again meant hitching a journey up the steep street with some variety soul.

The native farmers’ market made me really feel like a child in a sweet store. A little bit of ham, a little bit of cheese, a couple of juicy tomatoes, a drizzle of fragrant olive oil on crusty nation bread and voila, a satisfying lunch. Easy might be particular.

Summer time is the season for candy, succulent tomatoes in Europe, starting from inexperienced and yellow hues to vibrant orange, vermilion and crimson tones. That is when entire households, together with ours, sluggish prepare dinner kilos and kilos of the ripest tomatoes to make contemporary tomato sauce or passata that can be bottled for the remainder of the yr. In fact, loads of jars are given as presents, for every household prides itself on its secret cooking method, high quality of elements and labour of affection.

Italy is as regionally numerous as India, and every area boasts of its personal dialect and culinary tradition. In Campania, seafood is on the coronary heart of the weight-reduction plan together with probably the most vibrant greens. We loved the regional delicacies of gnocchi alla Sorrentina (potato dumplings draped with a luscious tomato sauce and baked with oozy mozzarella), ravioli alla Caprese and the delish Melanzane Parmigiana (eggplant parmesan). Once I first got here right here with my husband, I used to be stunned by how the standard baingan is savoured. My desi household was fairly appalled after they learnt of pizza with eggplant and nonetheless can’t digest the concept of ‘pizza pe baingan’!

My prime dish to eat right here is the risotto al pescatore — a seafood risotto with a melange of shellfish introduced collectively in a harmonious broth. Baccala or cod is a well-liked fish served because the second course and I really like the agency, meaty flesh. Spaghetti con vongole (mussels) is a traditional, homely dish that tastes of the ocean. Fritti or fried seafood is certainly one of my favorite appetisers to nibble on with a calming prosecco.

When life offers you lemons

Naples and the Amalfi coast are well-known for his or her aromatic lemons. These lemons are mildly tart and have a definite flavour with a heady aroma. Properties within the space have lemon timber of their yard and also you simply go pluck a ripe lemon while you want one within the kitchen, which jogs my memory of the banana and coconut timber in properties round South India. My father-in-law taught me how one can eat the much less tart selection similar to an orange. And when life offers you such superb lemons, you make limoncello! Right this moment, this yellow citrus liquor is made commercially, however historically folks make limoncello at residence, cooking the very best of lemons with sugar and alcohol. Our household makes its personal limoncello too and we deliver bottles again for buddies in India.

Wine is an integral a part of each day life and it’s superb how the flavours of the meals should not full with out that sip of wine. Actually, wine is taken into account to have medicinal qualities — a glass of heat mulled wine is the traditional drugs for the flu and a glass of pink wine a day is the key to a wholesome coronary heart. The Campania area options a number of the finest wines of Italy and I just like the Falanghina, a crisp edged wine with a fragile bouquet. For a sturdy full bodied pink, the Lacryma Christi del Vesuvio, which is cultivated on the slopes of the Mount Vesuvius, is the star. How romantic is the very identify which suggests ‘Christ’s tears’.

There are such a lot of similarities and parallels between Indian and Italian delicacies, which make me marvel at how we’re all linked by means of meals – similar, similar however completely different!

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Natasha Celmi is a chef and meals author. She is the writer of the award profitable cookbook, Quick Contemporary Flavourful. Her mantra is Sensible Cooking: minimal effort, most flavour utilizing contemporary native produce.

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