Lazarus Cooke wrote:

> In article >,
> ASmith1946 > wrote:
>
>
>>>>> Tomatoes are ubiquitous in Italy. Between the myriad
>>>>> variants of tomato sauces and the settings where tomatoes
>>>>> served fresh, are pickled, dried and/or salted, they're
>>>>> virtually omnipresent.
>>>>
>>>> Sorry, this is just plain wrong. They aren't. I spend a fair
>>>> amount of each year in Italy (my wife is Italian). I agree
>>>> with Arri London on this. Also, he didn't say he doesn't like
>>>> tomatoes. Indeed he said he had them in salads.
>>>>
>>>
>> I agree with Cookie.
>
>
> Perhaps the reason I reacted so fiercely is because it seemed to
> continue a popular fallacy. Of course tomatoes are popular in
> Italy, and very common in parts of Italy. There's a big difference
> between that and saying that they're "virtually omnipresent" in
> Italy.

I will concede that it was a bit overstated.

>> First, my own experience in southern Italy in the summer agrees
>> with Cookie's observation that Italians eat plenty of tomatoes in
>> various forms. Second, Italy is one of the top tomato producers
>> in the world. While many tomatoes are exported to other
>> countries, the vast majority remain in Italy for domestic use. I
>> tend to think they eat them. Third, if you look at any southern
>> Italian (or Sicilian) cookbooks, you will find dozens of uses of
>> tomatoes in numerous dishes from soups, to sauces, to salads, to
>> pizza, to juice, etc. (and recipes with tomatoes have been in
>> southern Italian cookbooks since the late 17th century).
>
>
> Big qualifications here. "Southern Italy" is not "Italy". And
> summer isn't all year round. If you go to Bavaria around now,
> everyone will be eating asparagus. (this may be true all over
> Germany - I don't know).

And canned San Marzano (and others) are readily available. Tomato
paste in little squeeze tubes are everywhere available. Fresh
tomatoes, locally grown or not are available everywhere, all the time.

> As I said in my earler post, tomatoes are common in southern
> Italian cooking - from Campania down. But there's a wild fallacy
> that southern Italians put it in everything. This just ain't true.

Not only has no one said that, it was specifically discussed in terms
of being common, not omnipresent in all the foods.

> I've spent a lot of time working with the food in Basilicata,
> traditionally a poor area, with a wonderful simple cuisine. But
> have a look at this site on the food of this area - right down in
> the south
>
> <http://www.basilicata.bancadati.it/b-gastronomia.html>

This site talks about "la cucina Lucana" to distinguish it from other
regional cuisines. And this is fine, but look at a broader picture
than one web site. The books of the Hazans, Ada Boni's books (for a
more historical picture of the regional cuisines in the last century),
Bugialli, Middione, Lorenza de'Medici...

Look at the books of Carol Field, Anna Tasca Lanza, Mark Strausman,
Patricia Wells, Susan Herrmann Loomis, Wanda and Giovanna Tornabene.
Look at the translation of Artusi by Kyle Phillips.

> You'll find tomatoes in a number of the recipes, but it's far from
> ubiquitous - probably less common than parsley or chillies. and
> remember, in southern Italian cooking the tomato is often used
> just like parsley, in quite small quantities.

Why does this concept of being integral to a cuisine seem to be being
described as "in everything" rather than as a very common component of
the cooking of a region? It's almost as though the argument is that
since it's not in every meal in every dish, it's not "significant" in
the cuisine. It's ubiquitous in the sense that it's a common,
familiar, oft-used ingredient available in some form virtually
everywhere foods are sold.

> And the fact that it's popular in some parts of the south can't be
> made to apply to the whole country. I spend a lot of time in
> Tuscany, and there you'd hardly notice tomatoes. ..

There is no "Italian cuisine." There are Italian cuisines. An easy way
to define that notion is to look at preferred cooking fats. In the
south, it's olive oil; up north, it's butter. Polenta is virtually
unheard of in the south. Smoked ham in the north is foreign to
southern cuisines. Look at the pasta differences and preferences. Look
at the vast number of dishes with local names that have no real
parallel in other regions. Or the same dishes that have different
names every few miles.

Tuscany didn't much use tomatoes until after the second world war when
people came north to find work and brought their cuisines with them.

> Goose fat is very common in the South-West of France (and I'd
> imagine that France is the leading producer and consumer of the
> stuff), but that doesnt' make it "virtually omnipresent" in French
> cuisine.

There is no national cuisine in France. One can hardly talk about the
Alsace and Provence in the same breath. Burgundy and the Loire.

> Lettuce is eaten at virtually every meal in France - a far
> higher proportion of meals than tomatoes are eaten with in Italy -
> but again, that doesn't really make it a staple of French cuisine.

Of course it does. If it's eaten at virtually every meal, it is
exactly a staple. Like bread. But lettuce doesn't define any French
cuisine because it's considered more as an interlude, a break from the
real food. The cooked food.

> So. Tomatoes are common in the cooking of the south of Italy yes,
> but "virtually omnipresent", no.

Make the distinction between any given ingredient being available in
markets and being in dishes. Just because it's not in this dish
doesn't mean that it isn't consequential in the regional cuisine as a
whole.

Italy was a lot of small states until a century and a half ago.
Dialects change over very short distances. Sicilians don't easily
converse with Romans and Romans don't easily converse with Alpine
Italians. Different accents, sure, but different vocabularies as well.
That carries over to everything about daily life. Things grow near
Naples that don't grow near Venice. And vice versa. Different cuisines
result. The cuisines of the north use a lot of corn and milk products.
The cuisines of the south use lots of tomatoes and olive oil.

Pastorio

> > Perhaps the reason I reacted so fiercely is because it seemed to
> > continue a popular fallacy. Of course tomatoes are popular in
> > Italy, and very common in parts of Italy. There's a big difference
> > between that and saying that they're "virtually omnipresent" in
> > Italy.
>
> I will concede that it was a bit overstated.

I don't really think we're disagreeing about much. That's really all I
was saying.

> > Big qualifications here. "Southern Italy" is not "Italy". And
> > summer isn't all year round. If you go to Bavaria around now,
> > everyone will be eating asparagus. (this may be true all over
> > Germany - I don't know).
>
> And canned San Marzano (and others) are readily available. Tomato
> paste in little squeeze tubes are everywhere available. Fresh
> tomatoes, locally grown or not are available everywhere, all the time.
You'll probably find the same with asparagus in Germany.


>
> > I've spent a lot of time working with the food in Basilicata,
> > traditionally a poor area, with a wonderful simple cuisine. But
> > have a look at this site on the food of this area - right down in
> > the south
> >
> > <http://www.basilicata.bancadati.it/b-gastronomia.html>
>
> This site talks about "la cucina Lucana" to distinguish it from other
> regional cuisines.
Sure. I agree. It's just one example which I like and use that's
available on the net.
> And this is fine, but look at a broader picture
> than one web site. The books of the Hazans, Ada Boni's books (for a
> more historical picture of the regional cuisines in the last century),
> Bugialli, Middione, Lorenza de'Medici...
>
> Look at the books of Carol Field, Anna Tasca Lanza, Mark Strausman,
> Patricia Wells, Susan Herrmann Loomis, Wanda and Giovanna Tornabene.
> Look at the translation of Artusi by Kyle Phillips.
I've been looking through some of these and others. They seem to
suggest that heavily tomatoe-based food sort of begins in Camapnia, and
gets heavier as you go down through Calabria towards Sicily - but
that's only a brief glance, and I certainly wouldn't stand over it.
>
> > You'll find tomatoes in a number of the recipes, but it's far from
> > ubiquitous - probably less common than parsley or chillies. and
> > remember, in southern Italian cooking the tomato is often used
> > just like parsley, in quite small quantities.
>
> Why does this concept of being integral to a cuisine seem to be being
> described as "in everything" rather than as a very common component of
> the cooking of a region?

> It's almost as though the argument is that
> since it's not in every meal in every dish, it's not "significant" in
> the cuisine.

I agree that it's a very significant element. But that's not what
"ubiquitous" means. It means precisely "everywhere" or "in everything.
>
> > And the fact that it's popular in some parts of the south can't be
> > made to apply to the whole country. I spend a lot of time in
> > Tuscany, and there you'd hardly notice tomatoes. ..
>
> There is no "Italian cuisine." There are Italian cuisines.

I agree
>
> There is no national cuisine in France. One can hardly talk about the
> Alsace and Provence in the same breath. Burgundy and the Loire.

I think you can, just about, but again I don't really think we're
disagreeing here. You could argue that certain shared notions - such
as the order of of a standard meal - constitute a national cuisine. But
it's an arugment I'd be happy to argue on either side.
>
> > Lettuce is eaten at virtually every meal in France - a far
> > higher proportion of meals than tomatoes are eaten with in Italy -
> > but again, that doesn't really make it a staple of French cuisine.
>
> Of course it does. If it's eaten at virtually every meal, it is
> exactly a staple. Like bread.
That's not how I understand a staple. For me bread is, lettuce isn't.
My dictionary's unsatisafactory on this.


(rest snipped because I agree with most of it!)

Lazarus

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