Unique Serving Platter

Italian cuisine dates back to the days of ancient Rome, with it’s roots beginning in Greece. As a matter of fact one of the first cookbooks was written by a Roman, named Apicus, in the first century A.D. Italian food today is enjoyed with relish by millions of people in countries around the world.

Italian cooks are very serious about their food, using only the freshest of ingredients which are available in season. The Italian menu is typically organized seasonally for this reason. At the base of the philosophy of Italian cooking is the belief that the freshest ingredients, combined with flavors and seasoning that complement each other will always produce a superior dish. It’s small wonder that Italian cooking is one of the most popular world wide.

In addition to using only ingredients which are in season, Italian cooking is regional in nature. Although, in modern times, certain dishes have ‘migrated’, like pizza, coming from the south to become standard fare in the north, regional cooking is still deeply ingrained in the Italian cook. Where traditional dishes are prepared in the manner they have been for centuries, with fresh ingredients found in each region.

Although Italy is a relatively small country, there are no less than eighteen separate regions, each with dishes developed with ingredients found in their locale. In the north west region of Lombardy, rice figures prominently in this region’s cooking, with over fifty different versions of risotto. A bit of history you may not know, butter was invented in Lombardy. While butter is used lavishly in Lombardy and Emilia-Romagna’s traditional Italian cooking, olive oil is the choice in the southern regions, where olive trees are abundant. As you might imagine, Italian cooking in the coastal regions feature seafood dishes, particularly Calabria and Sicily, famous for fresh tuna and swordfish native to their waters.

This abbreviated discussion can not hope to represent all the treasures of Italian cooking. Only in Rome will you find all regions represented in restaurants, prepared in the traditional way, which makes Rome an Italian cooking enthusiasts’ dream come true. Italian cooks take no shortcuts. You won’t find frozen or out of season foods in the typical Italian refrigerator. Unlike in the United States, where we typically shop once a week, stocking up on produce and meats for a week’s worth of menus, Italians shop daily for bread, fruit, vegetables, fish and meats as needed for the day’s meals.

The Italian philosophy of freshness above all, with the artful combinations of flavors which complement rather than overwhelm and the centuries old traditions of food preparation, make Italian food a gastronomic delight. If you’re only familiar with pizza and lasagna, you’ll do well to find an Italian cookbook which can teach you the art of this wonderful tradition of Italian cooking. Prego!

My husband and I have been trying to organize a group of neighbor to get together on a regular basis at each other’s home. The neighbors all agree that they would like to have a regularly scheduled activity. We just were not able to decide on what we would do. When we first started talking about this we had thought we would play some type of card game. There are two couples that want to be involved and they do not like any type of card games. We decided that for the first gathering we would host and everyone would bring along a board game so we would have a variety to pick from. I said that I would serve dinner.

I made a pasta dish with a lobster sauce. I had never tried making this before. My husband could not believe that I would experiment with lobster sauce for a group of twelve people, but I thought it would be something special. The lobster sauce is so rich that it does not take very much of it to feed a larger group. I had seen the recipe prepared on a cooking show. I went to the market and bought the ingredients for the lobster sauce. I then looked up the recipe on the website that the cooking show has. The sauce turned out wonderful and everyone enjoyed it.

While we were eating one of the couples said that they had seen the lobster sauce prepared on the cooking show. We started talking about the cooking channel and found out that all of us watched it from time to time. We talked about different recipes and entertaining ideas that we thought were interesting that we had seen on the various shows. We spent so much time enjoying the dinner and talking about cooking that we did not have time to play any of the board games. We decided that since we all enjoy cooking we would start a gourmet group. We would pick a theme for the evening and each couple would be responsible to bring a portion of the meal. The hosting couple would provide the main course and the rest of the dishes would rotate between the rest of the couples.

We are excited about having this gourmet club. I think it will be much more fun than playing games together because we will have more time to visit. I am glad that I chose to make lobster sauce for our first gathering because it started the group talking about our enjoyment of cooking.