matherto said:
It could admittedly be down to localised tastes. Similar to Chinese food being better over here than in China. It probably isn't but it's tuned towards what we like.
I swear I've never had a decent meal when I've been to Italy though.
no, it isn't down to localised tastes... and no, u won't eat better italian food in uk than u will in italy, unless u go to cotidie (bruno barbieri's new restaurant in london) but that would cost u a fortune. the point is, like u said,
u just never had a good meal when u were in italy. that's because u picked the wrong places to eat and also because (most certainly) u didn't order the right food.
italy is famous for its cuisine, but that doesn't mean that all the millions of restaurants and trattorias all over italy are gonna give u the culinary experience of your life..... there are plenty of shiny fancy restaurants wich are specifically designed to lure poor innocent tourists who don't know better.
also foreigners always make the same mistake whenever they visit italy: they never eat local.
italian cuisine is local... there's not a national cuisine, like in other countries.... infact, if u ask an italian, they'll tell you the very concept of "italian cuisine" is wrong..... there's sicilian cuisine, ligure cuisine, romagnola cuisine, campana cuisine, calabrese cuisine....... every italian region has its own food culture and tipycal dishes. so if u're in roma u have to eat roman, if u're in genova u must stick to typical genovese cuisine, and so on.
let's say u're in venezia and u ask for some tortiglioni alla norma (wich is a tipycal sicilian dish).... yeah sure they will prepare them for u, as they will certainly have it on the menu..... but they won't be real tortiglioni alla norma because no one can prepare a proper norma outside of sicily (outside sicily, they all add some other ingredients to the original recipe, wich inevitably ruins the dish). the truth is eating some norma in venezia or roma or genova or milano is pretty much the same thing as eating it in london or new york or tokyo... that's not gonna be the real norma recipe.
for years i thought i hated pesto alla genovese, i tried it several times, but it never really impressed me. but that was because what i tried wasn't real pesto genovese.... it was pesto genovese prepared by sicilians, napoletani, romani. Then, during my first time in genova i went to this little trattoria and a friend persuaded me to try the pesto. i told him i didn't dig the pesto and he replied that i didn't even know what real pesto was about, since i had never eaten pesto prepared by those who invented it (the genovesi). and he was right, it was just spectacular.
there's a small trattoria right across the street from my office. with 20 euros u're gonna have the best meal u ever had in your life.... as long as u stick to sicilian cuisine. if u ask the cook to prepare something roman (like bucatini alla amatriciana) or something milanese (like polenta), then it will be just an average meal, if not worse.... because asking a sicilian to cook milanese food or genovese or roman or fiorentino food is pretty much like asking an indian to make some sushi (and vice versa, no cook from other italian regions can prepare sicilian dishes as a sicilian can).
the problem is that usually tourists don't even know what dish is from what region... they only know a handful of italian dishes, so once they see them on the menu they usually think "
oh man, there's carbonara on the menu. i've always wanted to taste some proper italian carbonara!"... and so they pick the carbonara (wich is a tipycal roman dish)... even if they're in firenze and the cook has no idea how to make some real carbonara.
so my 2 advices are:
1 - always eat (and drink) local
2 - if u don't know wich are the local dishes on the menu, just ask the waiter "what should i eat". the waiter will always address u to the dishes they prepare the best.
Was lovely!
