teaching the world how to eat

 

On The Sopranos when food is referenced, even the children are sophisticated and discriminating - at Janice's house, preparing for Sunday dinner one of the kids questions her using soup out of a can!

        When I was that age I would not have spoken up on this topic - cans are where they keep the soup, right?

Something else I notice during Sopranos food conversations is, they call pasta sauce "gravy."

        Obviously I call it "sauce" - and maybe Italian Americans would find that to be offbeat.  Then my question is what do they call the sort of brown, tasty liquid that goes on mashed potatoes at Thanksgiving? - because to me, that's gravy...

Anyway:  and I want to add, in yesterday's post a YouTube comment mentioned Tony Soprano heating up pasta in the microwave and drinking milk out of the carton, like he doesn't care about good cooking if he has to do it himself.

However in another episode it showed him preparing pasta for his Uncle Junior - two pans on the stovetop, he pours pasta into boiling water, in the other pan is "gravy" ... So yes, he can prepare something good for dinner.

        I think in the earlier microwave scene, he was tired, didn't have time, and was in a bad mood.  At Uncle June's, he has Artie Shaw music playing - it's a more relaxed moment.

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other viewer comments on the Sopranos food video:

---  Simple sequences like that make me love this show

---  Probably lots of stuff like this makes us subtly love Tony - I don't have any desire to make proper food either

---  lol  back in the 90s and 00s Americans thought Europe was some magical place

---  Yeah but at least their cuisine isn't just junk food and unoriginal.

---  U.S. food is much maligned, but it isn't all junk.  There's some regional variation, but I take your point that it is a lot of man vs. food type stuff.  Barbecue has a lot to answer for.

        Generally speaking, the U.S. hasn't accentuated the provenance of ingredients.  The Italians will venerate a tomato or an Amalfi lemon and build a dish around it.  In the U.S. a dish is much more than the sum of its parts, and the cuisine suffers because of it.  Much like in the U.K. really.

        As for origin.  Well, pasta comes from China via Marco Polo, all cultures borrow and adapt.  I prefer a Californian zinfandel to a cheap Euro white.  Love a deep pan pizza, with pineapple, always have parmesan on my prawn linguine.  No Italian can say sh*t to me.

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