The European cookbook for American homes (from Italy, Spain, Portugal and France)

Baked pastes, usually macaroni or thick noodles, are also flavored chiefly with tomato, but boiled pastes, generally spaghetti, thin tagliarini (noodles), or vermicelli the size of string, sometimes appear alia burro, dressed with sweet butter alone, the butter melting quickly into the steaming dish. Spaghetti is ordered alia dente by the knowing, and that means it must be cooked a minute or two less than usual, so the teeth themselves may test its virtue and grind out the full wheat flavor. Spaghetti, of course, must be boiled to order and served on the instant, for it gets soggy and flavorless if it isn't eaten piping hot the second it is done and the sauce mixed with it, by lifting the mass several times with a fork and a spoon to let the excess steam escape and thoroughly impregnate the paste with its luscious gravy. Spaghetti cooked by an Italian expert is as light and fluffy as pancakes, it is dry and of good body, even its steam when sucked into the mouth has a hearty savor of the real thing and reminds one of the appetizing exhalation of hot homemade biscuits. The bull-fighting Spaniards like their beef when it has reached maturity, but the Italian takes his in the shape of veal, as young as he can get it. He eats tender kid, too, before it has become strong goat; and this seems reasonable, for while veal is tough and hard to digest, cavorting kid is as juicily gelatinous as suckling pig. But the Italian chef overcomes the difficulty with veal by flaying it for five or ten minutes before he dips it in eggy bread-crumbs and tosses it in the frying pan. At noon Naples resounds with the pounding of veal cutlets (scallopini) — the town seems to be peopled with trick drummers, practicing intricate beats and trying out their traps. Slices of lemon garnish scallopini and add zest to all fish dishes besides. Lemons and oranges, in fact, helped Italy get her cooking head start of France. Bananas, figs, pears, grapes, melons, peaches, pomegranates did their share, too, for Italy's cornucopia is not only full to the brim with Southern delicacies and luxuries of food but overflows with wines besides: Muscatel, Malvasia, Marsala, Falerno, Grignolino, Salerno, Frascati, Orvieto, Asti Spumante and Sparkling Barberas and Nebiolos, an endless variety of them from top to toe of the Italian boot. To finish off the luncheon we have Gorgonzola cheese (formaggio Gorgonzola) richer than Roquefort. A ripe banana goes well with Gorgonzola; because of the resemblance in fruity flavor each supplements the other. Caffe nero, bitter black coffee, is prepared in a unique style known as espresso, in city restaurants or cafes. A demitasse is filled from a big nickel-plated steam engine that expresses the essence of a heaping tablespoonful of powdered coffee into each tiny cup. This finishes off the luncheon (colazione) and usually is accompanied by a cigarette or cigar. But tobacco is a government monopoly here, as in most Latin countries, so the cigarettes are worse than English "gaspers," almost as bad as French Bleus. Cigars are no better; the national Toscani is brittle and badly made, its draught is ITALIAN ii