The gourmet's guide to Europe

Farther and farther south, as the climate becomes hotter, the meat becomes less and less the food of the people, various dishes of paste and fish taking its place, and as a compensation the fruit and the wine become more delicious. Really good pure olive oil is almost unknown outside the boundaries of Italy. An Italian gentleman never eats salad when travelling in foreign countries, Italy 233 for his palate, used to the finest oil, revolts against the liquid fit only for the lubrication of machinery he so often is offered in Germany, England, and France. The fowls and figs of Tuscany, the white truffles of Piedmont, the artichokes of Rome, the walnuts and grapes of Sorrento, might well stir a gourmet to poetic flights. The Italians are very fond of their Risotto , the rice which they eat with various seasonings, a burro e formaggio , a sugo di pomodoro , a sugo di came , the latter best suited to the robust British palate. The Italians, however, do not cook their rice to that point of softness to which we are accustomed. They also eat their Paste asciutte in various forms. It is Maccheroni generally in Naples, Spaghetti in Rome, Trinetti in Genoa. Alla Siciliana and con Vongole are but two of the many ways of seasoning the Spaghetti. Again, the delicate little envelopes of paste containing forcemeat of some kind or another change their names according to their contents and the town they are made in. They are Ravioli both at Genoa and Florence, but at Bologna they are Tortolini , and at Turin Agnolotti. Perpadelle , another paste dish with a little difference of seasoning, becomes Tettachine when the venue changes from Bologna to Rome. The egg is an important primo piatto at lunch ( colazione). In the egg da here the chill is just taken off it, and it is drunk out of the shell — not a pleasant operation either to see or to hear. The open egg — uove aperte — is a safe thing in remote districts, being two eggs fried and served up in the enamelled metal dish in which they are cooked. Be careful to ask for them a burro , otherwise you may get them done in oil. Fried or poached eggs, a salso di pomodoro (with tomato sauce), are distinctly tasty. Then there is every variety of stuffed egg ( uove ripiene, those with a basis of anchovy and parsley being the most savoury. 234 ^he Gourmet's Guide to Europe Uove in canape , eggs in a deep encasement of fried bread, are satisfying enough to form a piece de resistance; while eggs powdered with white truffles are a veritable delicacy. The fish of the Mediterranean are coarse and poor, compared with the glorious fish of the Channel. But thanks to the culinary art the traveller who likes a change of cookery can do himself pretty well, though the resident gourmet may grumble. For that great delicacy, the fresh herring, you must put up with the cured article from Yarmouth, which comes to Italy in extraordinarily large quantities, for the Italians are great lovers of cured fish. So for the lovely cod of the North Sea, you must be content with cured Newfoundland and “ Shore ” fish ( baccala ), or with stockfish from Norway. But the baccala the Italians really cook in many appetising ways. The monarch of Mediterranean fish is the Dentice (Fr. Dentale and a fillet of fresh tunny with stewed peas may well take the place of a beefsteak on Fridays without grave hardship.