Italian cuisine encompasses a lot of things, but pasta might be the most emblematic. In a recent issue of the Italian Gambero Rosso electronic magazine, Cristina Bowerman, the Michelin-starred chef of Glass Hosteria in Rome’s Trastevere neighborhood answers the question of what Italian cuisine is to her with: “…if there is a characterizing trait, I think of pasta, in particular dry pasta…And in cooking, in the texture and sensitivity with which we handle the pasta we distinguish ourselves, it defines us.” The product is not the freshly made soft pasta that many restaurants tout, but the commercial product you can purchase in the supermarket.
Despite her non-Italian surname, Bowerman is a native of Puglia in southwestern Italy. She lived over a decade in the U.S., in California and Austin, Texas; her English faculty, in addition to her restaurant prominence and knowledge, has made her a frequent presence on American food shows on Italy in recent years.
In somewhat of a corollary to her assertion, dry pasta is both the Italian item that is most cooked by Americans and resonates most as Italian. Of course, the way we cook pasta in America is different than is done in Italy, usually with exuberance, fewer or no rules, and typically much more sauce. Pasta can be delicious in Italian, or not.
Despite her non-Italian surname, Bowerman is a native of Puglia in southwestern Italy. She lived over a decade in the U.S., in California and Austin, Texas; her English faculty, in addition to her restaurant prominence and knowledge, has made her a frequent presence on American food shows on Italy in recent years.
In somewhat of a corollary to her assertion, dry pasta is both the Italian item that is most cooked by Americans and resonates most as Italian. Of course, the way we cook pasta in America is different than is done in Italy, usually with exuberance, fewer or no rules, and typically much more sauce. Pasta can be delicious in Italian, or not.
