Going past pasta

There's more to Italian cuisine than pizza and pasta. We got chefs from two different regions of the country to tell us all about it

There is an interesting theory about how pasta was introduced to Italian cuisine, though it's a contested explanation. Apparently, Marco Polo was the person who brought it to the country in the late 13th century. The enigmatic Venetian merchant and explorer had travelled to China, and the noodles prevalent there served as the inspiration for the Italian staple. This is what some schoolchildren in the country were taught for many years.

But now, there's another theory accepted as more credible, which says that Polo didn't quite discover pasta as much as rediscovering a noodle that already existed in Italy before his time. This noodle was called lagane (which the modern-day lasagna gets its name from) and was found in Italy as early as the 1st century AD, before the Arabs arrived around 800 years later and spread it throughout the land.

Either way, pasta — along with pizza — is the overriding dish that defines Italian cuisine outside the country. Even in Mumbai, turn to the Italian section of any menu and you're likely to find only variations of the two. This perception, though, does great injustice to a rich culinary tradition where different regions have their own approach to food, leading to a level of diversity that is often ignored in talk about the country's cuisine. The island of Sardinia, for instance, is famous for its fish dishes, while Tuscan beef is supposed to be the best in the land.

And in order to shed light on how there is so much more to Italian cuisine than just pizza and pasta, we spoke to two Italian chefs who were recently in the city to showcase the diverse food of their hometowns. Chef Antonello Cancedda from Sardinia decoded what seaside cuisine in Italy is like. Chef Marouane Rahali, on the other hand, is from Milan and gave us a primer on what food in the landlocked regions of Italy is all about. Here are the highlights of what they shared.

Chef Antonello Cancedda on coastal Italian cuisine
. Much like Mumbai, even the air in the coastal regions of Italy is mixed with sea salt, which is why cars and iron goods get rusted faster. So, it follows that you'll find a flavour of salt in every dish. At the same time, salt is also used to preserve anchovies in a glass jar called arbanella.

Anchovy pie

. Coastal cuisine is full of fish and seafood starters, like fish ravioli, fried and marinated anchovies, anchovies in olive oil, anchovy tart, etc. It is said that a piece of anchovy is found in almost every dish — from the stoccafisso [cod stew] and burrida [cuttlefish stew] to the focaccia pizzata [cheese focaccia topped with marinara sauce].

.You cannot leave a coastal city in Italy without trying the cozze alla marinara [mussels in white wine and garlic]. Usually, the best mussels come from Sardinia and once you try that, you don't compromise with other mussels.

Chef Antonello Cancedda

. Genovese cuisine specifically has taken inspiration from the Arab countries and from the French. One of our pastas in fact has been named 'mandilli', which in Arabic means 'handkerchief'. It is a sort of fresh lasagna tossed with pesto sauce.

Chef Marouane Rahali on the landlocked regions
. Nowadays, fine-dines serve their versions of almost every dish that Milanese families eat at home. But some dishes you will never get at a restaurant are cassoeula (a traditional pork stew where different cuts of the pig and cabbage are used), busecca (a trip stew), polenta and gorgonzola.

Cassouela

. In the olden days, people were poor and used only what was accessible to them in a quick and easy manner. Climate also played an important role. I hail from the mountainous region, where the winters are pretty cold; so most of the food, in comparison to the seaside, is a bit heavier.

. We use ingredients that help us generate heat in the body, like a lot of beans made from different flour (such as polente or buckwheat flour), butter, pork meat and steak. Also, most of the dishes in my region are stews.

Chef Marouane Rahali

. Though both are landlocked cities, Milan and Rome don't have much in common, except that a lot of meat, beans and grains are used in both the cuisines. But the Roman cuisine is richer because of its strategic position on the map. Over the course of history, Rome used to get all the best ingredients from everywhere in Italy.

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