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Post by tory on Dec 24, 2020 10:45:32 GMT
It's important to remember that Italy and France in particular are countries with a large agricultural base, which is why they have access to excellent ingredients. If you have access to that, all day and every day, why would you cook anything else and import it? Any serious chef will tell you that the quality of ingredients and their freshness makes a dish as good as it can be, particularly with vegetables, fruit, herbs and the like.
That's not to say that everyone in Italy is like that - I remember being quietly shocked by a guy whose farm we stayed in the Latium area just south of Rome having boil-in-a-bag pasta every night, but then convenience food is much bigger in those places than we realise. The worst meal I ever had was a pizza in Paris somewhere - shocking stuff, frozen ingredients, and of course in places like Spain, Greece and Italy for seafood, you really have to be careful because it is very easy to be served frozen octopus, squid and prawns.
So the notion of the nonna stirring the ragu all day is probably a myth in terms of being in every household, but at the same time I'd say that it is just as much a reality as British households sitting down to have a Roast lunch on a Sunday. We all know it exists.
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Post by oh oooh on Dec 24, 2020 10:55:34 GMT
It's important to remember that Italy and France in particular are countries with a large agricultural base, which is why they have access to excellent ingredients. If you have access to that, all day and every day, why would you cook anything else and import it? Any serious chef will tell you that the quality of ingredients and their freshness makes a dish as good as it can be, particularly with vegetables, fruit, herbs and the like. I think you're romanticising just a bit here. Europe is pretty homogenous these days when it comes to food shopping, most Italian families do their weekly shopping in Lidl just like they do here. I don't think most of them have access to better ingredients than we do. Mind you it's quite possible that out in the sticks that kind of thing goes on to a greater extent. But it's difficult to imagine in 2020.
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Post by cousinlou on Dec 24, 2020 11:43:25 GMT
In both France and Italy, local markets with local produce is bigger than here. We also have markets like that but most of that is as imported as it is in the supermarket.
Mind you, if you want to have a glimpse of hell, go to one of these hyper supermarkets in Italy on a Saturday.
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