Italian cooking is not one cuisine. It is a set of regional kitchens that barely agree on anything — the north cooks with butter and rice, the south with olive oil and tomatoes, and both are horrified by what the other does to pasta. What unites them is a fixation on few ingredients and correct technique.
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Pasta with pecorino and black pepper, and nothing else. Three ingredients, and the hardest to get right.
The cheese is emulsified with starchy pasta water to make a sauce — too hot and it seizes into strings, too cool and it stays grainy. The pepper is toasted in a dry pan first. There is no cream in it, and adding any is the standard mistake.
A thick T-bone of Chianina beef, grilled fast over high heat and served rare. Sold by weight.
It is cooked standing upright first so the heat penetrates, then seared on each face. It is ordered per hectogram and a portion for two is enormous. Asking for it well done is refused in most Florentine restaurants, and they are within their rights.
Rice cooked with saffron and bone marrow until it flows. Yellow, rich, and served slightly looser than you expect.
The correct consistency is all'onda — like a wave — so it spreads on the plate when tapped. It is stirred constantly so the rice releases starch, and the marrow and saffron go in late. A risotto that sits in a mound is overcooked or over-rested.
A slow meat sauce with soffritto, tomato and very little else. Not the tomato-heavy sauce sold abroad.
The authentic version is meat-forward, with white wine and milk and only a little tomato — it is brown, not red. It is cooked for hours, and it is served with tagliatelle or in lasagne, never with spaghetti, which is a genuine local objection rather than a joke.
A soft, blistered crust with San Marzano tomato, fior di latte and basil. Baked at around 450°C for ninety seconds.
The dough is slow-fermented and the cornicione — the puffed rim — is the marker of a properly made one. It is eaten with a knife and fork folded, not always by the slice, and a Napoletana pizza is soft in the centre rather than crisp all through.
Fried rice balls stuffed with ragù or cheese. Sicilian, and the shape tells you what is inside.
In Sicily the conical ones are called arancini for their resemblance to little oranges, and in the east of the island they are more often feminine — arancine — which is an argument people take seriously. The rice is cooked with saffron and the filling is ragù, pea and mozzarella.
Cold veal with a tuna, anchovy and caper sauce. Piedmontese, and better than the description sounds.
The sauce is made from tinned tuna blended with anchovies, capers, lemon and mayonnaise, and it sounds wrong until you eat it. The veal is sliced paper-thin and served cold, and the dish is at its best in summer.
Dense Italian ice cream, served from covered trays rather than piled high.
Good gelato is stored in flat, covered tubs — the piled-up, brightly coloured displays are aerated and usually worse. It is served slightly warmer than ice cream so it stays soft, and pistachio should be a dull green-brown, not bright green.
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