Author: Mara L.

This past week I met up with Jens in Florence, at the Mercato Centrale – as it turned out, not Jens’ favorite location. Or rather, he is quite generally through with Italian cities, especially those that can be likened to large tourist traps. Jens was in a remarkably grumpy mood, while I was in heaven: Florence’s market has wonderful produce, incomparably nicer than anything you get in New York (however, there’s a certain naturalness here that is disturbing to the Manhattenite, birds come whole with heads, and so on). I was pushing Jens to make some photos for me of all the nice fish, or the half-cow that was brought in and cut up while we were there, but no, he is not only through with the beautiful little towns in my homeland, but also with the bit of food photography that I kept pushing him into over this past year. The only picture I could pressure him into taking was one of the sign for the bar where we had coffee… Anyway, I am back in the spheres of cooking and shall report soon on some amazing Austrian cake I made.

Coming Soon: Baked Goods

I thought I had been running away from European intellectualism, to New York City, the place of bluntness, where people still talk of pictures rather than ‘signs,’ canvas rather than the ‘heterogeneous materials of the medium,’ and so on. But in my lovely nightlife, cruising the New York art world, I encounter a rather strong current of Francophile (and hence Euro-phile) art talk. I guess I shall probably have to run to China next. French philosophy – the kind of thought that involves more technical terminology than anything else I’m aware of, including quantum mechanics, and that still gives itself the air of being deeply humane – has reached these shores.

Part of this trend, it seems, is a dismissive attitude towards modernity. For the uninitiated, it may be noted that the relevant philosophies presumably have uncovered the dangers of believing in science, knowledge, or progress of any sort. Modernity, of course, is culpable of naïve optimism of the suspect kind. All of this, and much more, is discussed in such convoluted terms that it seems inconceivable to me that anyone would want to read it.

Anyway, I was quite depressed last night, when I realized that said judgment about modernity extends to Pop Art, apparently now viewed as a simple-minded happy affirmation of clear lines and straight strokes (as in “naïve belief in order and knowledge”). Has everyone forgotten about the fun in art?

The range of what people consider ‘spaghetti with tomato sauce’ is truly impressive. When I was a student in England, I would shudder at the dinners prepared in the kitchen of the dorm: tins with soft spaghetti would be warmed up, and considered a nice change from the other kind of tinned food that was constantly around, baked beans. Of course, some of my fellow students were too English to eat the latter without the former. I.e, they would pour a tin of baked beans on their plate of tinned spaghetti (also nice on microwaved pizza—grrr!).

Fast forward to my first trip to the US. To some remote place near Washington D.C. There, of course, I made my way to an Italian restaurant. It took me a while to figure out that Spaghetti Pomodoro was called Spaghetti Marinara. The even greater cultural shock came when the plate was actually sitting in front of me.

Fast forward again, to today’s Manhattan, where people have come to refer to spaghetti with tomato sauce as Spaghetti Pomodoro. In my daily life here, I once in a while take real consolation in buying Italian tomatoes, packed in Italy (read the small print on the tin you are buying!), and Italian pasta, packed in Italy. I have a really cheap dinner, and for a quick moment pretend that I am not here.

My favorite versions, however, are entirely out of reach here, and only to be had during my extensive stays at home. As it is well known, the key differences between regional cooking in Italy reside in the fats: butter up north, parmigiano next, then mozzarella, and finally only olive oil. So the true sequence, when you travel from north to south (in order to get to my much-loved island Procida near Naples), is this. Gnocchi with a light tomato-butter sauce while you are still in the mountains. Next come ravioli with tomato-parmigiano. At the tuscan seaside then, you’ll have penne with fresh yellow and red tomato, and cold bits of Mozzarella on top. And then my favorite, spaghetti with slowly cooked grape tomato with parsley and olive oil in Calabria.

Now here’s my historical speculation: In the south, people throw in all kinds of seafood, whatever is available. So maybe, when Italians from the south first made it to the US, they held on to the name of the tomato-plus-seafood version, Spaghetti Marinara, out of homesickness! Even though no bit of mare was going to be part of the dish.