FOOD RACIST
- Luisa Cartei
- Sep 20, 2015
- 2 min read
I must admit it. When it comes to food, I am a racist.
I just don’t want any immigrated food on my plate.
Whether the food has migrated from distant Countries or from the overly creative minds of post-modern, fusion chefs: I won't let them cross the Italian Border of Classic Dishes.
To give you an example, I don’t want any pineapple on my pizza, curry in my vongole sautee, grated parsley on my pesto, noodles mixed with my spaghetti, balsamic reduction in my caprese or thyme-cardamon-honey-mustardy sauce on my fillet. What is it? Tropical meets Mediterranean? The explosion of the herbs? A Spice Odyssey?
Firstly, I want to be able to distinguish all the ingredients I have in my minestrone, without discovering any floating corpses of cashew nuts or Indian bay leaves. Secondly, I would like to be able to kiss someone after a bruschetta, without the impediment of having ingested a whole garlic. Thirdly, I don’t want to taste any papaya in my risotto, nor other audacious fruity combinations, including unknown wines. I do not enjoy coconut sauce on my scaloppine, nor apple on my fish.
I am an old, grumpy, stubborn, food bigot. I believe in “less is more”. I believe in purity of taste and minimalist eating.
Italian food is simple and does not need to be decorated. It would be like covering up Cappella Sistina with a flowery wall paper.
But there are some exception to this. Places where even a food grinch like me is tempted to smile.
Fratelli Paradiso is one of them.
Once I tried what felt like amazing chips and later found out that it was actually oven baked, crispy rigatoni pasta! I was shocked. Then they deceived me into eating a mozzarella covered in orange sauce. Unnaturally exquisite. I am not sure about the apple on the kingfish...but overall, their cusine is only slightly daring, delicately messing up with the rules without creating too much taste confusion.
In the end, even a grumpy racist like me, can’t but forgive them, pour another glass of wine, get tipsy and then suddenly come to the realization that I am an immigrant too, in this Country.
@Fratelli Pradiso, Potts Point
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