Our regular gourmet forkful
The world of food is more than your oyster. It’s rich in sauce and sorcery too. Storied likes to poke its fork into this roiling cauldron of foodie tales from across the globe. This time: Why pasta? Should we eat insects? And how many prongs make a right?
Pasta? Basta!
We’ve all done it. Walked into our local Italian deli and stared at the 350 versions of available pasta. From agnolotti to zitone, the shelves are stacked with dried durum wheat contorted into a bewildering variety of shapes and sizes. Why 350 though? Wouldn’t a dozen do?
It’s Italian, it’s complicated. And, like lasagne, the answer is multi-layered – involving politics, kingdoms, duchies, landscapes, and the rivalries of women at kitchen tables lovingly rolling out the stories of their townships and villages.
Fettuccine. Linguine. Tagliatelle. Papardelle. The wider the flat pasta noodle, the heartier the sauce. (Jorge Zapata/Unsplash)
Italy didn’t exist until 1861. Before that, a shifting patchwork of regional statehoods shaped by local laws and centuries-old traditions prevailed while the endless turbulence of warring empires raged across Europe. So the risorgimento (that’s not a shape of pasta but the term for the gradual movement towards Italian unification) was itself, naturally enough… complicated.
Each Italian region was fervent in retaining its own cultural identity. Which broadly explains why today both rigatoni and penne exist – near-identical twins, depending on the angle of nonna’s knife, as are bucatini from Rome and linguine from Genoa, and the little hats of cappelletti from Parma that perfectly mirror tortellini from Bologna to an outsider’s eye, but absolutely don’t to the locals.
These pastas all have different names. It’s like they’re human. (Shutterstock)
One thing’s for sure, and if ever the conversation wanes around the restaurant tables of the world, you may state this with authority to your fellow gastronauts: spaghetti bolognese does not exist. Not in Italy anyway. It’s called tagliatelle al ragù, the pasta fresh not dried, the sauce a mix of veal and beef with a decent dash of milk and an absence of garlic. Tomatoes, surely? Depends if your grandparents brought them north from Naples.
What do we learn from this? Perhaps that if you can’t be Italian, be who you are. Choose the pasta you like and the sauce you prefer. There are rules, of course, that every nonna knows and non-Italians can only guess at. Whatever you create in your own kitchen, it’s unlikely to be authentic – until, that is, you give it a name of your own
Knowingly, willingly
Here’s a brave new word to throw around the table at your next dinner party: entomophagy. As in “Have you ever eaten insects?” Knowingly. As opposed to just ingesting the two pounds (900 grams) of dead-insect parts that every American swallows each year, transmitted via foodstuffs, according to the Center for Invasive Species Research at the University of Riverside in California. They report that if you enjoy beer, you might also enjoy knowing that 2,500 aphids may be found in every 10 grams of hops. Cheers!
Grubs up. Crunch time in Thailand as old proteins make their point. (Shutterstock)
Beyond knowingly comes willingly. And not just as an act of bravado on one of those celebrity jungle survival shows that seem so popular on TV. At the other end of the dining spectrum, you’re more likely to find yourself in a white-tablecloth Michelin-starred restaurant with a waiter explaining, “Yes, these ants are alive and we hope you enjoy their intense citric flavor.” Storied certainly did when 20 or so little arthropods were wriggling over some charred onion shells at Noma in Copenhagen, then ranked No.1 in the World’s 50 Best Restaurants list.
When high-end establishments were offering deep-fried grasshoppers and assorted grubs, the impetus was partly diner-shock. But also part of the modern debate about sustainable nutrition on a challenged planet. Eating protein-rich insects is no amusing frippery in parts of Central America and Asia, where entomophagy is a long word for lunch. Meanwhile in the West, government food agencies are, as we squeak, applying strict standards to how insects are farmed for human consumption.
How soon until McDonald’s launches its flame-grilled Big Beetle with cheese? Would you like to supersize that?
Tine after tine
On the subject of gourmet forkfuls, here’s a thought. Next time you pick up your dining irons, consider why the one that’s not a knife generally has four prongs.
’Twas not ever so. Once the West got hold of the idea that fingers were infra dig and sharp, stabby knives were causing too many fights over the pork ribs at table, the two-tine silver fork became the implement of nosh for the posh. Well, two prongs meant a lot of cargo was getting lost in the gap. So next up was try three, like Poseidon’s trident. A passing wave, by all accounts. It took until the 17th century for form to really follow function, when four prongs finally allowed devotees of etiquette to load up on the fodder shoveled in.
A family history of forks. Choose your weapon. (Shutterstock)
Soon enough forks of specialized contrivance were gracing the banquets of note. Oyster forks. Fish forks. Fruit forks. Sherbet forks. The more prongs your mahogany canteen possessed, the higher up your rung on the social ladder – just as the confected comestibles on your gold-rimmed plates spoke of status first, sustenance second.
For four centuries, four prongs have held sway. But there’s always room for improvement, according to that pragmatic scribe Anonymous: “I eat my peas with honey. / I’ve done it all my life. / It makes the peas taste funny. / But they do stay on the knife.”
Main image: In the kitchens of the nonnas, experienced hands make light work. (Shutterstock)
