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This post is wrong in many areas, > Canned, fresh, whatever, just keep in mind that fresh ones may need longer cooking times. Unless you know you've got _exce

This post is wrong in many areas, > Canned, fresh, whatever, just keep in mind that fresh ones may need longer cooking times. Unless you know you've got _excellent_ fresh tomatoes, canned ones will win. > Oil or butter are fine Cooking your onion in butter is going to give a very very different result to using oil. Personally speaking, not one I would recommend. > It may be hard to find proper olive oil outside of Italy I'm told. High quality dop/docg olive oil is readily available all over the world, and there are plenty of places all around the mediterranean that have olive oil as good as Italian oil. > Put 1l of water for every 100g of pasta in a pot. Add salt. This is way too much water. serious eats[0] has an excellent article that is well worth reading if you care about pasta. You also should give an indication of how much salt to use - it's way way way more than you think it is. Like, tablespoon of salt per litre of water salty. [0] https://www.seriouseats.com/how-to-cook-pasta-salt-water-boiling-tips-the-food-lab https://www.seriouseats.com/how-to-cook-pasta-salt-water-boi...

fedeb95 4y ago
I disagree about tomatoes, you're right that to have a difference in taste of tomato alone you need very good tomatoes, but I was assuming the good taste of all the ingredients used. Anyway, using fresh tomatoes, especially if small, changes a dish completely because of its texture. About oil it's clear, I think, if not sorry, that that is my experience, and as such should be interpreted. If you have good oil, all is good. I like to use butter, it's not standard but it's used. Of course you need less butter than the same amount of oil you'd use. As for water/salt, you may be right and I will update my comment. I go by eye because I'm accustomed to the right quantities (or I taste the water for salt) so I was going by memory.
- fedeb95 4y ago
  Again on butter: historically it was used in the north of Italy a lot, especially in the mountains, where oil wasn't available. My father didn't know what oil was when he was a boy. It was used in the center and south of Italy before it spread to everywhere. Today you will almost always find oil used, but I think it's an interesting variation. You can also do a split of oil and butter.
  - jaclaz 4y ago
    Roughly the dividing line between use of oil vs. butter (or lard) in traditional regional cuisine was slightly north of Bologna, until relatively recent times (I would say until post 2nd world war). South, oil. North, butter. My grandmother (from Parma) firmly believed that olive oil was to be used uncooked for salads and similar. JFYI: https://www.cittadellolio.it/2017/06/15/olio-cucina-4-secoli-storia/ https://www.cittadellolio.it/2017/06/15/olio-cucina-4-secoli...
- maccard 4y ago
  > but I was assuming the good taste of all the ingredients used. In that case your entire post can be replaced with "use high quality ingredients, cook them". > Anyway, using fresh tomatoes, especially if small, changes a dish completely because of its texture. The texture is different, but "fresh" tomatoes that are readily available to most people even in season from their greengrocers are a poor substitue for even supermarket tinned tomatoes. My experience in Italy (and france/spain/croatia) is that excellent stuff is _available_, but it's not necessary "just" to use italian tomatoes - there's plenty of awful tomatoes available, and a large amount of the high quality tomatoes that _are_ grown in italy are canned and available outside italy; again DOCG San Marzano Tinned Tomatoes are available in supermarkets here in the UK. > About oil it's clear, I think, if not sorry, that that is my experience, and as such should be interpreted. It _really_ didn't come across as that to me, it came
  - fedeb95 4y ago
    beware of labels, because they can sometimes mislead. A whole lot of reports of fraudulent italian products exist (another thing we italians do great is fraud). Many things labeled as X DOC, DOP, DOCG don't necessarily equal high quality. Anyway, I sometimes buy Spain grown tomatoes and they're not that bad. Another point: I don't think my whole comment can be reduced to the quality of ingredients. Of course better ingredient better your plate, but the process is important. Take good quality ingredients and mix everything in a pot, you don't get a good pasta (specific recipies excluded, general rule of thumb)
thiht 4y ago
>> Canned, fresh, whatever, just keep in mind that fresh ones may need longer cooking times. > > Unless you know you've got _excellent_ fresh tomatoes, canned ones will win. I would agree on this one. I live in France, so not that far from Italy, and our fresh tomatoes suck compared to Italian fresh tomatoes. Italian cuisine use simple products with few transformations because their products are amazing. If I try to do something as basic as tomato-mozzarella at home, it'll never be as good as the same Italian recipe because our tomatoes don't grow in the same weather. Italian cuisine is very hard to make at home as well as they do it because of the quality of their raw products.
- fedeb95 4y ago
  In this case yes, canned is better. Also longer cooking times. A trick for canned products is checking the indications of when they were harvested, for Italian products you have letters for the year of production, I bet there are similar rules in other countries as well. Better to get tomatoes harvested in summer and not too long ago
radlad 4y ago
>> > It may be hard to find proper olive oil outside of Italy I'm told. > High quality dop/docg olive oil is readily available all over the world, and there are plenty of places all around the mediterranean that have olive oil as good as Italian oil. There's a whole rabbit hole you can go down here. It's not clear cut AFAICT.[0] [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olive_oil_regulation_and_adulteration https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olive_oil_regulation_and_adult...
- maccard 4y ago
  Nowhere in that link does it say that it only happens on exports. It's also true of pretty much any product, e.g. wine [0], parmesan [1], champagne [2] . [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wine_fraud#Examples https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wine_fraud#Examples [1] https://www.forbes.com/sites/rebeccahughes/2022/06/02/cheesed-off-italy-clamps-down-on-fake-parmesan-production/ https://www.forbes.com/sites/rebeccahughes/2022/06/02/cheese... [2] https://www.thedrinksbusiness.com/2022/12/e2m-of-fake-champagne-confiscated-from-producer-over-fraudulent-practises/ https://www.thedrinksbusiness.com/2022/12/e2m-of-fake-champa...
  - radlad 4y ago
    I'm not saying it only happens on exports, nor am I arguing it happens with only olive oil. I'm responding directly to your claim that "high quality dop/docg olive oil is readily available all over the world." It may be available, but readily available seems like a bit of a stretch to me. It can be deceptively difficult to obtain. > It's reliably reported that 80% of the Italian olive oil on the market is fraudulent.[0] [0] https://www.forbes.com/sites/ceciliarodriguez/2016/02/10/the-olive-oil-scam-if-80-is-fake-why-do-you-keep-buying-it/?sh=6e7de09e639d https://www.forbes.com/sites/ceciliarodriguez/2016/02/10/the...

fedeb95 4y ago

I disagree about tomatoes, you're right that to have a difference in taste of tomato alone you need very good tomatoes, but I was assuming the good taste of all the ingredients used. Anyway, using fresh tomatoes, especially if small, changes a dish completely because of its texture. About oil it's clear, I think, if not sorry, that that is my experience, and as such should be interpreted. If you have good oil, all is good. I like to use butter, it's not standard but it's used. Of course you need less butter than the same amount of oil you'd use. As for water/salt, you may be right and I will update my comment. I go by eye because I'm accustomed to the right quantities (or I taste the water for salt) so I was going by memory.

fedeb95 4y ago
Again on butter: historically it was used in the north of Italy a lot, especially in the mountains, where oil wasn't available. My father didn't know what oil was when he was a boy. It was used in the center and south of Italy before it spread to everywhere. Today you will almost always find oil used, but I think it's an interesting variation. You can also do a split of oil and butter.
- jaclaz 4y ago
  Roughly the dividing line between use of oil vs. butter (or lard) in traditional regional cuisine was slightly north of Bologna, until relatively recent times (I would say until post 2nd world war). South, oil. North, butter. My grandmother (from Parma) firmly believed that olive oil was to be used uncooked for salads and similar. JFYI: https://www.cittadellolio.it/2017/06/15/olio-cucina-4-secoli-storia/ https://www.cittadellolio.it/2017/06/15/olio-cucina-4-secoli...
maccard 4y ago
> but I was assuming the good taste of all the ingredients used. In that case your entire post can be replaced with "use high quality ingredients, cook them". > Anyway, using fresh tomatoes, especially if small, changes a dish completely because of its texture. The texture is different, but "fresh" tomatoes that are readily available to most people even in season from their greengrocers are a poor substitue for even supermarket tinned tomatoes. My experience in Italy (and france/spain/croatia) is that excellent stuff is _available_, but it's not necessary "just" to use italian tomatoes - there's plenty of awful tomatoes available, and a large amount of the high quality tomatoes that _are_ grown in italy are canned and available outside italy; again DOCG San Marzano Tinned Tomatoes are available in supermarkets here in the UK. > About oil it's clear, I think, if not sorry, that that is my experience, and as such should be interpreted. It _really_ didn't come across as that to me, it came
- fedeb95 4y ago
  beware of labels, because they can sometimes mislead. A whole lot of reports of fraudulent italian products exist (another thing we italians do great is fraud). Many things labeled as X DOC, DOP, DOCG don't necessarily equal high quality. Anyway, I sometimes buy Spain grown tomatoes and they're not that bad. Another point: I don't think my whole comment can be reduced to the quality of ingredients. Of course better ingredient better your plate, but the process is important. Take good quality ingredients and mix everything in a pot, you don't get a good pasta (specific recipies excluded, general rule of thumb)

thiht 4y ago

>> Canned, fresh, whatever, just keep in mind that fresh ones may need longer cooking times. > > Unless you know you've got _excellent_ fresh tomatoes, canned ones will win. I would agree on this one. I live in France, so not that far from Italy, and our fresh tomatoes suck compared to Italian fresh tomatoes. Italian cuisine use simple products with few transformations because their products are amazing. If I try to do something as basic as tomato-mozzarella at home, it'll never be as good as the same Italian recipe because our tomatoes don't grow in the same weather. Italian cuisine is very hard to make at home as well as they do it because of the quality of their raw products.

fedeb95 4y ago
In this case yes, canned is better. Also longer cooking times. A trick for canned products is checking the indications of when they were harvested, for Italian products you have letters for the year of production, I bet there are similar rules in other countries as well. Better to get tomatoes harvested in summer and not too long ago

radlad 4y ago

>> > It may be hard to find proper olive oil outside of Italy I'm told. > High quality dop/docg olive oil is readily available all over the world, and there are plenty of places all around the mediterranean that have olive oil as good as Italian oil. There's a whole rabbit hole you can go down here. It's not clear cut AFAICT.[0] [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olive_oil_regulation_and_adulteration https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olive_oil_regulation_and_adult...

maccard 4y ago
Nowhere in that link does it say that it only happens on exports. It's also true of pretty much any product, e.g. wine [0], parmesan [1], champagne [2] . [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wine_fraud#Examples https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wine_fraud#Examples [1] https://www.forbes.com/sites/rebeccahughes/2022/06/02/cheesed-off-italy-clamps-down-on-fake-parmesan-production/ https://www.forbes.com/sites/rebeccahughes/2022/06/02/cheese... [2] https://www.thedrinksbusiness.com/2022/12/e2m-of-fake-champagne-confiscated-from-producer-over-fraudulent-practises/ https://www.thedrinksbusiness.com/2022/12/e2m-of-fake-champa...
- radlad 4y ago
  I'm not saying it only happens on exports, nor am I arguing it happens with only olive oil. I'm responding directly to your claim that "high quality dop/docg olive oil is readily available all over the world." It may be available, but readily available seems like a bit of a stretch to me. It can be deceptively difficult to obtain. > It's reliably reported that 80% of the Italian olive oil on the market is fraudulent.[0] [0] https://www.forbes.com/sites/ceciliarodriguez/2016/02/10/the-olive-oil-scam-if-80-is-fake-why-do-you-keep-buying-it/?sh=6e7de09e639d https://www.forbes.com/sites/ceciliarodriguez/2016/02/10/the...