two qs abotu italian food

[LittleMouseWithCLogsOn]

i once read an article abotu hwo the Ities dont put paremsan on tomato based pasta sauces - only cream ones

is this true? 9 havign put parmesan on spag bol)

ANd in restruaants why cant we alll haev our OWN balck pepper mmill and do it oursleves

tia

collision is on hol.

so what would the italians serve with spaghetti - meatballs?

quite tempted now to try doing my bolgnaise tonight with tagliatelle, hmmm.

Tomato sauce, sometimes pesto (though should be with trenette), things that aren't "chunky" IYSWIM.

Here I am!!

What is the question?

Typically something like Aglio, olio e peperoncino (garlic, olive oil & chilli peppers) or just sugo (tomato based sauce), maybe with some capers or olives chucked in, or a bit of pancetta

My ex used to make a delish tomato sauce with baby clams - sans parmesan naturellement

Reading through this, parmesan is put on most pasta dishes apart from fishy ones.

I love parmesan on most things but DH says that to put cheese on fish is abhorrent!!

Spag bol does exist but not as we know it and it certainly isnt as wet as we would make it. It is mainly meat with pasta and is called ragu.

All the Italians I knew when we lived in Italy put cheese on their ragu.

I'm Scottish but not from Aberdeen!...I know a couple of girls from up that way whom worked in Milan before me though, maybe it was one of them?

I left Milan in 1999.

So has nobody else heard the pepper grinder theory that I mentioned earlier in the thread ? (that its supposedly bad luck to have more than one in a home/restaurant)

betty - no I hadn't heard that. i know they are vast in size because pepper used to be very expensive so a large mill was a sign of wealth.

Spag Bol doesn't exist - it is purely a figument of your collective imagination.

-thanks alifrau !

parmesan is good, just ask my dd2 who has in on all pastas and salads and in her pack lunch ham sandwiches!

she would tell big tworzel waiter woth balck pepper to get lost though!

don't have a clue about the one pepper grinder rule. This thing about the waiter grinding suggestively (lol) is actually pretty new. Or maybe not. Everything strikes me as pretty new, but mostly because I don't want to acknoledge that I'm getting pretty old.
Parmigiano reggiano (parmesan is not the authentic one!!!!) can go on pretty much what you want. But yes, I wouldn't grate it on spaghetti alle vongole. However, on pasta with vegetable and tomato sauce or pasta alla matriciana what you really want to grate is pecorino. But then again there's pecorino romano, pecorino sardo, pecorino toscano etc etc. Life is that hard.

but carmere don;t you get parmesan with vongel jobby wotsit. or does that not count as fish?

Ooh I love spaghetti with cherry tomatoes, garlic, pecorino & lots of oil! [yummy emoticon]

No hatwoman Italians are incredibly strict about their fish/parmesan rule, they faint at the idea of our cod in cheese sauce combos

true Carmanere, although there are few exceptions (sp?). In the Veneto area for instance they cook baccala' (dried salted cod) with milk and eat it with polenta.

Best I ever came across was an american girl sitting at the table next to us in Florence and she looked at the menu and said ...
"Oh wow! They have Pizza - just like America!"