What Is the BEST Contribution of Italians to CUISINE ?

The best contribution going centuries back in time is olive oil, wine, bread, cheese and some of their cold cuts like parma ham. The idea of having the best of what nature can produce fresh.

What is so special with lasagne? There are so many other good things. An antipasto certainly is something special.

Flavor and texture are the best components of it.





David

Olive oil and the cannoli. (LOL)
\
There are too many regions that offer their unique style of Italian cooking to choose one item.

I c; I had not thawt of that.

Do cannoli's count?

Correction. ZUPPA di COZZE

Then the cannoli

All my life I've wondered what Italian cooking was like before Columbus and his successors introduced the tomahto from the New World. It's almost impossible to imagine Italian cuisine without tomato sauce. (Come to that, did they have pasta before Marco Polo brought back the recipe for noodles from China?)

They might have had some pretty darn good broccoli. You never know.

Sure thay do! ANY Italian culinary contribution.





David

I don 't believe that thay did.
It was worth the trip.





David

there were lots to eat even without tomatoes and lasagna.
The broccoli also was on the list.


The ancient Roman diet resembles a classic Mediterranean diet. The ancient Romans did not consume spinach or eggplant (which later became common from the Arab world) and tomatoes or capsicum peppers. There were also few citrus fruits.

However, other items that are staples of modern Italian cooking were present in ancient Rome; Pliny the Elder discussed more than 30 varieties of olive, 40 kinds of pear, figs (native and imported from Africa and the eastern provinces), and a wide variety of vegetables (Jacques André listed 54 cultivated and 43 wild vegetables in ancient Rome). Some of these vegetables are no longer present in the modern world, while others have undergone significant changes; carrots of different colors were consumed, but not in orange.

Butcher's meat was an uncommon luxury, and seafood, game, and poultry were more common; on his triumph, Caesar gave a public feast to 260,000 humiliores which featured all three of these foods, but no butcher's meat. John E. Stambaugh writes that meat "was scarce except at sacrifices and the dinner parties of the rich."The most popular meat was pork. Beef was uncommon in ancient Rome.

Fish were more common than meat. There were large-scale industries devoted to oyster farming. The Romans also engaged in snail farming. Some fish were greatly esteemed and fetched high prices, such as mullet raised in the fishery at Cosa, and "elaborate means were invented to assure its freshness.

Dormice were consumed; the fattest of these rodents were considered to be a delicacy. A status symbol among wealthy Romans, some even had dormice weighed in front of dinner guests. A sumptuary law enacted under Marcus Aemilius Scaurus forbade the consumption of dormice, but they continued to be consumed.

Fruit was eaten fresh when in season, and dried or preserved over winter. Popular fruits include apples, pears, figs, grapes, quinces, and pomegranates. Less common fruits were the more exotic cherries, apricots, oranges, lemons, and dates; although known to the ancient Romans, these were not cultivated in Italy until the Principate. The lemon was known and was accurately distinguished from the citron. At least 35 cultivars of pear were grown in Rome, along with three types of apples.

Many kinds of vegetables were cultivated and consumed. These included cabbage and other brassicas (such as kale, cauliflower, Brussels sprouts, and broccoli); lettuce, endive, onion, leek, asparagus, French beans, zucchini (courgettes), artichoke, radishes, and cucumber. Some vegetables were illustrated in reliefs. Cabbage was eaten both raw (sometimes dipped in vinegar) and cooked.Cato greatly esteemed cabbage, believing it to be good for the digestion, and believing that if a sick person ate a great deal of cabbage and bathed in his urine, he would recover

The Roman colonies provided many foods to Rome; the city received ham from Belgium, oysters from Brittany, garum from Mauritania, wild game from Tunisia, silphium (laser) from Cyrenaica, flowers from Egypt, lettuce from Cappadocia, and fish from Pontus.

Cheese was eaten and its manufacture was well-established by the Roman Empire period. It was part of the standard rations for Roman soldiers and was popular among civilians as well; the Emperor Diocletian (284-305 CE) fixed maximum prices for cheese.The manufacture of cheese and its quality and culinary uses are mentioned by a number of Roman authors: Pliny the Elder described cheese's dietary and medicinal uses in Book 28 of Historia Naturalis, and Varro in De Agricultura described the Roman cheesemaking season (spring and summer) and compared soft, new cheeses with drier, aged cheeses. The most extensive description of Roman cheesemaking comes from Columella, from his treatise on Roman agriculture, De Re Rustica.

I agree with Saag that the key thing up and down and back and forth on the peninsula is the strong opinion that food must be as fresh as possible. Or aged beautifully, like parmagiano reggiano cheeses are.

My favorite dish, a complete surprise when I first saw it, is carciofi alla giudia, a roman fried artichoke that has a sephardic origin. Egads, it is so delicious.



Carciofi alla romana aren't bad either..

.

olives, figs, some types of cheese

http://userealbutter.com/2010/08/18/figs-with-blue-cheese-and-honey-recipe/

figs/gorgonzola
honey
candied walnuts

<swoon>

Formaggio Grana Padano



By far.

Well, that must be because you are fixed on southern italian cooking..

I've never tried it. *weeps

It "cleanses your teeth".
It "helps against any ailment".
It "takes away lactose intolerance".
It tastes great!

No, they did not.