Just enough is perfect

I am the first to arrive in my first class (which is a first in itself). It could be because the class is called: Italian Culture: Pairing Wine and Food, although I’m sure the subject material has nothing to do with my promptness ;)

I can already smell garlic and hear clanking in the kitchen that is, apparently, our classroom.

We go over logistics, and I wonder how I am ever going to survive this class. Each session we have to make three courses (including dessert, ugh) and have to try three different wines with each. We also, apparently, have to go to the Chocolate Festival this month, and a gelato festival in April. And to top it all off, we’re going to be forced to attend a mandatory five-course meal at the end of the semester, prepared by gourmet chefs, which will be the subject of our final paper.
Coincidentally, our professor is also a certified chocolate taster.

I should have just taken biology.

;)

After our chat about course “requirements” she takes us out on a historical tour of Florence’s culinary world. I learn the difference between ice cream and gelato (and real and fake gelato for that matter). In order to qualify as real, all ingredients must be entirely natural, which unfortunately eliminates most of the gelato in the world.


We see the best wine bars, the best Cioccolato (chocolate, duh), apertivo, etc. By definition, these historical places have to have existed for 150 years minimum, and retained the same ownership and type of product for that entire period.

Then we come back to class and begin our first meal: Pasta aquo, ollo e peppercino, cipolla parle, gratteigriate (rigatoni in an onion, pepper, garlic, and bread crumb sauce).


Against popular belief, Italians do not make parmigiana chicken, or smother their food in sauce and cheese. "We only make enough sauce to coat each noodle," our teacher explains, because “just enough is perfect”