Was on a thread recently where a comment was demeaningly made, and I paraphrase, about putting cheese (or not) on a pasta vongole.
I'm getting as old as fuck, but with my maternal grandparents having come over from Naples and Sicily respectively, I thought I'd put in my 2 cents/ask others:
Does cheese belong on any seafood or seafood-related pasta dish?
Me- Reggiano Parmigiano and/or Pecorino Romano (preferably Locatelli) Hell yes. This is how I was raised.
This. Iv'e had some pretty good shrimp parm
Whereas there is a fine genre that pairs say, oysters and cream and maybe even seafood and nutmeg and cream, soft cheese's in certain dishes, not my thing but ok anyway;
Putting the hard, dry type cheeses on vongole (clams) is a monstrous abomination, a faux pas of the highest order 😃
Hope you are well.
Second, no Italian puts grated cheese on pasta and fish - none, regardless of in Sicily or north of Italy.
Olive oil, fresh clams, the clam juice, butter, pasta.
Maybe parsley
That's it.
Maaaaaaybe garlic, fresh.
You will beat me.
And I can finally retire with Serge and.my poodle, to the Alps and grow a garden
Boom.
Trachtenberg quotes the famed cookbook author Nancy Harmon Jenkins, who speaks the truth when she said, “‘One of the great things about Italy is they love making rules. And they obey very few.’”
Pasta con burro (butter) and rosemario (Rosemary) is fine.
usually fuck off
usually fuck off
Agree so when in Italy tell then Va Fangool! and don't worry about the dialect :) Stupid Italian Rules....
That's what his mother served him as a kid, and this was a multi millionaire who had no problem requesting it.
Whereas there is a fine genre that pairs say, oysters and cream and maybe even seafood and nutmeg and cream, soft cheese's in certain dishes, not my thing but ok anyway;
Putting the hard, dry type cheeses on vongole (clams) is a monstrous abomination, a faux pas of the highest order 😃
Idiotsavant +100 IMO.
Maybe it matters if you are a Northern Italian, a southern Italian, a Sicilian, or an Italian American. Maybe it matters if you know, love and truly appreciate fine fresh seafood. Maybe it matters if you have a discerning palate.
But I have read from some source (Marcella Hazan?) that no Northern Italian would grate Parmiggiano over a seafood pasta, certainly no Tuscan, Piemontese, Veronese, Venetian, or any other northern Italian with a sense of culture.
Me? If I prepare a Linguine Vongole from canned chopped clams all is fair, but if I go to the trouble and expenditure to get fresh small clams and or other molluscs, the hell you're gonna overpower that delicate sweet Briny flavor with grated hard cheese like Parmiggiano or Pecorino. Basta!
But for fresh, high quality real clams, pecorino would truly be an abomination.
And you don't need it's saltynrss anyway, as that's supplied by the clams juices, not it's fattyness, as that's in the olio and or butter
It is definitely NOT a misnomer.
But there is nothing wrong with the judicious use of cheese on a seafood pasta.
Like, it might taste ok, but, it just cannot be done and tastes bad for inexplicable reasons.
Granted my formal kitchen years are well behind me, but I believe there's a culinary middle ground here.
Also cheese goes in Escarole soup, pasta fagioli, and escarole and beans.
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or there would be no Shrimp Parm
This. Iv'e had some pretty good shrimp parm
The best is shrimp ball parmigiana, how they cut all those shrimp’s balls off I’ll never figure out!
And I'm not Italian, but I've eaten Italian food.
And you could technically put cheese on it. But you're wrong. And you should feel bad about it.
Granted my formal kitchen years are well behind me, but I believe there's a culinary middle ground here.
CR I'll grant that I am a sort of "food Nazi" who holds onto rigid ideas about some food combinations. But once upon a time I had an awesome and sensitive palate and during that time was cooking at a very, very high level and formed certain opinions that are no kind of set in stone.
As an example, take a nice fresh piece of wild line caught salmon. You can find 50 ways to prepare it and sauce it, all of which are "good", maybe even very good. But nothing, and I mean NOTHING, will be better than grilling or broiling it (high heat sear, cooked to "a point") and serving with a beurre blanc or herbed beurre blanc. It's a kind of perfection that can't be improved upon.
A great scampi made with fresh prawns or shrimp, a great pot of steamed clams or mussels can be goosed with a judicious use of fresh herbs, the exact quotient of chopped garlic and/or shallots and/or ginger (for an Asian twist) and or green onions, etc, or goosed with alternative liquids to the classic dry white wine (sherry, vermouth, cognac etc) but these dishes can't be improved by ladling cream or G-d forbid Mornay sauce into them or by being topped with grated cheese, because as some great gastronome once said "good food tastes like what it is!"
I know the theory that melted cheese and tomato sauce ladled over the top of ANYTHING makes it better. One very good chef friend used to say jokingly - "cheese is Man's friend!" but to my mind not when it takes away from or covers up the goodness and clarity of something else.
Parmeggiano and pecorino are powerful ad distinctive and delicious flavors, but I don't like them on fresh delicate seafood - or on chocolate.
For that matter, who the hell thought up the idea of dipping strawberries in chocolate? It's a disgusting combination, unlike cherries and chocolate, which I suppose gave some nitwit the idea to do it to strawberries.
I mean, chocolate and strawberries do not complement each other... neither does fresh seafood and grated hard cheese.
Does anyone over the age of 18 prefer Lobster Thermidor - or Lobster Newberg, to a fresh steamed or broiled lobster served with drawn butter? Those are dishes to be prepared when the lobsters start dying, IMO.
They were right, but why does the punishment always have to com down on a Jew? Why not on some Sicilain?
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now the French have no problem with cheese and neither should we
Does anyone over the age of 18 prefer Lobster Thermidor - or Lobster Newberg, to a fresh steamed or broiled lobster served with drawn butter? Those are dishes to be prepared when the lobsters start dying, IMO.
Catalan style is my favorite.
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sitting in a restaurant having lunch in Riccione Italy (Adriatic Coast) with 15 Italians, myself and my American Jewish accountant.. We order Pasta with shellfish (shrimp, clams, mussels and etc) family style (fresh from the Adriatic) and my American bean counter asks the waitress for grated cheese... You have no idea the silence then abuse this guy took at the table, and no he did not get the grated cheese for his plate.
They were right, but why does the punishment always have to com down on a Jew? Why not on some Sicilain?
Hahahahaha - he is my dear friend and was a great sport, no harm and no foul... Something I tease him about until this day.
I think the BIG discrepancy is people who think Italian American food is the same as Italian Cuisine.
Pasta Fazul doesn’t exist east of the US
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northern and southern italians on this. Which makes sense cause most northerners constantly have a stick up their ass about something.
I think the BIG discrepancy is people who think Italian American food is the same as Italian Cuisine.
Pasta Fazul doesn’t exist east of the US
This.
That's ALL that is in a classic Northern Italian Lasagne. The Bescamella sauce is typically redolent of fresh grated nutmeg, and for that matter so is the Bolognese ragu.
In the south, you find lasagne made with sausage and ground beef, ricotta, mozzarella, sometimes bound with egg, and the pasta is a dry pasta not containing any egg at all.
Both can be delicious, but to my taste the Norther one done right reaches another level of Heaven. Maybe because my Bolognese has some distinctively southern Italian twists to it, but the texture isn't mucked up with ricotta and mozzarella...