"Old age isn't so bad when you consider the alternatives."Cato
|
| |
Best Recipes: Banana Chocolate Milkshake
Got any ripe bananas sitting around the house? Great. Then instead of letting them get too ripe to eat, make yourself a nice, cold delicious banana chocolate milkshake. It's fun and easy to do.All you do is slice up the banana and add it to some cocoa ...
How to Grill the Perfect Steak
There is not much better in this world than sitting down to eat a perfectly grilled, tender, and juicy Porterhouse or T-Bone steak. There are many opinions and techniques available regarding the best way to master cooking a steak including whether or not ...
Planning Dinner
Cooking dinner is part of most of our lives. Some of us enjoy it while others do it out of necessity. Whether we enjoy cooking or not, for most of us, deciding what to make for dinner can be the hardest part of preparing the meal. When I was a young ...
|
|
|
| |
If you ask for pasta with Alfredo sauce at a restaurant in Italy all you get from your waiter is a stare. Why is one of the most famous "Italian sauces" for pasta unknown in its country of origin? The answer is simple: because in Italy an Alfredo "sauce" doesn't exist.
Yes, Italians make a dish of pasta, fettuccine dressed with nothing else than good aged parmigiano cheese and a lot of butter, but is such a simple preparation that Italians don't even consider it a "recipe".
Waverly Root in his famous book "The Food of Italy" (New York, 1971) wrote: "FETTUCCINE AL BURRO is associated in every tourist's mind with Rome, possibly because the original Alfredo succeeded in making its serving a spectacle reminiscent of grand opera. It is the same ribbon shaped egg pasta tat is called tagliatelle in Bologna; but the al burro preparation is very Roman indeed in its rich simplicity. Nothing is added to the pasta except grated cheese and butter - lots of butter. The recipe calls for doppio burro, double butter, which gives it a golden color."
Who was Alfredo then? Alfredo di Lelio, this was his full name, was an inspired cook who proposed this new exciting dish in the restaurant he opened in Rome in 1914. It was a high gourmet preparation in the Roman tradition of simplicity. Apparently he created his Fettuccine all'Alfredo when his wife lost her appetite during her pregnancy. To bring back her appetite he prepared for her a nutritious dish of egg fettuccine with parmigiano cheese and butter. That probably gave him the idea for his "triple butter" fettuccine.
He was an extravagant character who used to personally serve his paper-thin fettuccine with golden forks, apparently donated to him by Mary Pickford and Douglas Fairbanks, the famous silent movie stars. In the fifties and sixties, Hollywood discovered Rome. Paparazzi photographers took photos of actors such as Tyrone Power, Ava Gardner, Richard Burton, Liz Taylor, or Sophia Loren in front of a plate of Fettuccine all'Alfredo, making his restaurant famous all around the world. The restaurant is now run buy his grandson, and the golden forks are still used to serve this dish for special occasions.
Samuel Chamberlain, journalist and food writer, met Alfredo in the late fifties and wrote in his book "Italian Bouquet - An Epicurean Tour of Italy" (New York, 1958): "Finally there is the great Alfredo, showman par excellence, who draws an endless file of amazed and hungry tourists to watch his calisthenics over a dish of hot noodles. The King of Noodles has come out of retirement, and now wields his golden fork and spoon at ALFREDO ALL'AUGUSTEO, at number 31 on the Piazza Augusto Imperatore. His Maestosissime Fettuccine all'Alfredo are most majestic, without a doubt. [.] You have to visit this place at least once, we suppose, just to say you have seen this elderly, melodramatic good-hearted clown in action."
So, forget the heavy cream, the parsley, the garlic, and all the other stuff suggested in the hundreds of Alfredo recipes that circulate around. Take down from the shelf that pasta machine, prepare your fresh fettuccine (you can substitute fresh fettuccine with excellent dry egg noodles), and enjoy the simple Maestosissime Fettuccine al Triplo Burro the way Alfredo himself would do them. Find the step-by-step illustrated recipe at this URL: http://www.annamariavolpi.com/pasta_alfredo_recipe.html Enjoy!
Anna Maria Volpi, Copyright(C)2004
Anna Maria Volpi is a cooking instructor and personal chef in Los Angeles. Visit Anna Maria's website www.annamariavolpi.com/page28.html for step-by-step illustrated Italian recipes, articles, pictures, and to enroll in her free newsletter.
Permission is granted for this article to reprint, distribute, use for ezine, newsletter, website, as long as no changes are made and the copyright, resource box, and active link to her website are included.
Please inform Anna Maria if you use this article: anna@annamariavolpi.com
|
|
|
|
|
|
 |
Prosciutto Recipes: 30 Ways With The Italian HamHuffington PostBut if you've ever once tried it in a recipe, you know how much flavor it can add. That salty savoriness is a great tool in the kitchen. The classic Italian dish of saltimbocca, for example, wraps prosciutto around veal cutlets, flavoring the meat and ... |
|
