First Courses

What a surprise in the USA to see macaroni with cheese on the same plate as meat and vegetables. What a posh I have been to tell friends that “we Italians love to eat the dishes one after the other in succession.”

Too bad that this use is not at all an Italian invention and is also very recent!

In Italy up to the nineteenth century, it was common the French service, which presupposed large tables laid with all the dishes served at the same time. Only after the introduction of the Russian service the dishes were served one at a time.

I love a lunch with distinct dishes, and I find refined the separate service of vegetables compared to the meat. I have always simplistically considered a barbarian use eating pasta with meat in the same dish. Obviously then, collecting recipes for the blog chapters, I came across recipes of dishes that were both first and second course and were almost always very traditional, such as polenta with sprouts, or dinner representation, such as pies and soufflé.

Another thing that came back to me is that until a few years ago, the sauce of the meat courses was served to season pasta: rigatoni with the sauce of the cow, the agnolotti with the sauce of the roast, and the legendary gnocchi with the sauce of the rolls.

The main course recipes that I share are of familiar use, some always present every year on the table, others a bit “in disuse” because they are more complex in execution or in digestion.