Italian Food

I'd really like to talk about my love for Italian food this week. I got distracted about the direction of the blogs so I'd like apologize if i wasn't discussing the proper material in the past couple weeks.

I lived in Italy for three months and during that time I spent most of my time focusing on wines and the wines that complement certain foods. During the wine tastings I went to I learned how white wines are ment for fish and chicken and sweet wines are ment for desert and the main focus of italy the red wine.. Red wine was a lense to the italian identity, the main center of all meals is the red wine. Depending on which wine is used for the meal is dependent on what will be prepared. The courses of meals are large and eating is a vert social and personal encounter. I had a large authentic italian meal that my land lord invited me to join them with and there were 6 course and then tiramisu for desert.

The younger acidic red wines are ment for appitizers because the acid when rinsed in your mouth will rinse your mouth of the salts of pork or heaviness of cheese that you would eat as an appitizer. And the older red wine, ones that are very expensive and take a long time to make are the ones that are used for the main course which is accompanied with a steak or a special pasta.. Holding the wine glass in the palm of your had is punished and you are told not to warm the wine with the heat from your hand, one must hold the glass at the base ( thats why its there) only young americans make this kind of mystake.

you can twirl the wine in the glass to see the thinkness of the syrup that drizzels down, this shows the amount of alcohol in the wine. and holding your wine against a white background will show you the true color of your wine which is semi purple. If a wine is chosen correctly then it will completely accent your food and help you enjoy your meal on an entire new level that most people in the United States have never experienced.

Italians lifestyles are much more laid back and focused on health and family. Their country is not run quickly or against the clock. People would close down their stores for several hours a day. The main meal of the day was lunch and it took all morning to prepare. instead of georcery stores women buy their ingredients from local sideroad markets. I would start at the beginning of my day stoping and buying all sorts of fruits and vegetables from roadside markets and filling up my backpack and jsut eating those choices. the apples were like candy, foods grown without growth hormones things have no watered down taste and apples have juices and flavors that I've never experienced. I'm always impressed how the italians are so healthy and how they eat and live in a way that is so different from what I was raised with. In class a great example that was mentioned was lardo. I would never have thought of eating solid fat by itself and it would have a taste and a texture and a healthy factor that I would enjoy.

Slow food which was discussed in class is very relevent to what I'm talking about in this blog. The author talks about how foods can be endangered and is a part of a social movement with chemically altered foods. Looking into how food is ment to be seen, as a sustaning and personal way of caring for ones self or others. Taste education which was mentioned seems like a very important responsibiility to children or people in the United States so they can understand how to enjoy healthy foods and be aware about how certain foods effect ones body.