And yet there are similarities. Tuscany province has Roman ruins. Bent County province has Native American petroglyphs. (Though technically Colorado would be the province and I guess Bent County an area within it.)
But I have to admit Ms. Mayes can sound a little pretentious when she arrives at the Trattoria del Leone and is excited to "spot" Olive all'Ascolana on the menu. She notes how the ...uh delicacy is a mixture of textures and flavors.
We're usually a little more subdued out here on the high plains of Norte Americano.
Though, we have our culinary delights too. When they have the annual Santa Fe Trail Day in Las Animas along the...yes,..Santa Fe Trail, the fire department takes delight in attracting a huge crowd to its delicacy...Rocky Mountain Oysters. Nothing pretentious sounding there. Just good indigenous food.
I guess when the Italians make Olive all'Ascolana they remove the nut, or pit, from the olive and stuff it with salami or some other meat and then fry it. Well, when the Coloradoans make Rocky Mountain Oysters they keep the nut of the castrated young bull and toss that into the frying pan. It would seem that women are drawn to the Oyster of the Rocky Mountains as men are drawn to the Olive of Italy. But of course both dishes are androgynous as both men and women actually enjoy both delicacies in probably roughly even numbers.
And if anyone is offended by Americans eating bull nuts, then those same people would be offended by French and Italians eating snails.
It would seem that indigenous cultures everywhere get hungry and they have over time learned what they can eat, and live to tell about it.
And how the cultures tell about it can vary.
Ms. Mayes in her book Everyday Life in Tuscany takes great delight in throwing out the name of everyday food by using a long drawn out flowery title. For example, on page 55 she gleefully passes on the recipe for Giusi's Crespelle ai Procini e Ricotta. She adds that "for variety in the pommarola...try using odori." I am not making that up. She is a former college level teacher in the City by the Bay, so she knows her stuff. Of course, she does explain what odori is, but I won't because that is something you could buy her book and find out about for yourself. And I am not cheating her out of a book sale by revealing what she has copyrighted and protected from appropriation other than for fair use from review or reference, and this is a reference.
Ms Mayes went thousands of miles and across the sea to find the culture she resonates with.
I have found I can stay in my humble home and resonate in my own kitchen. It is not uncommon for me to simmer potato, carrot, onion and zucchini (to throw in a sophisticated Italian word) in broth of the chicken. And I can cook up a chicken Marsella, even if I just pour the flavor out of a bottle rather than simmering the ingredients from scratch for hours.
A few weeks ago I placed a frozen Safeway Select pizza on my perforated pizza pan and roasted it in my electric oven, and the result was good, very good. But I will not be pretentious and say it was as good as a home made pizza that Mayes and her husband baked in an outdoor stone kiln fueled by a roaring wood fire. But my pizza was good for me. And I do not have to throw out any foreign words to describe what I did if I choose not to.
As I said, I will not be pretentious.
After all, I live in a broad river valley on the windswept plains. What is there to brag about?
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