Heresy!, in Argentina, which is like Italy but better, this would never fly!
(Actually there has been pineapple pizza here for decades now)
(Actually we may not be better than Italy, opinions differ)
(But in the things that Matter, IE: Football, we definitively are)
(Well, right now, they have more world cups than we do)
(But 2 of those were won with argentinians playing on their team)
(I may be exaggerating with this clarification parentheses thing…)
Of course de gustibus and all that, and the last thing I want to do is disrupt the collegial atmosphere or badmouth half of Italy but ricotta in lasagne is at best some sort of ill-judged practical joke.
I personally don’t feel ricotta contributes anything positive to lasagna. At best, it’s just filler, and at worst, it resembles a layer of styrofoam beads. As a Cajun, however, I am wary of béchamel. Too often undercooked, bland and floury by my standards, it more often brings a dish down than elevates it. When I make lasagna, I sometimes substitute a blend of asiago and provolone where recipes would call for ricotta–I prefer the flavor and texture.
I just saw a YouTube short on a place called Marks Off Madison in NYC that does it with bechamel, but they layer the bechamel on top of the bolognese in each layer instead of having it between its own sheets of lasagna. So it can be found in NYC. But, yes, in the US it’s definitely the exception. I only make the bechamel version in my family. I didn’t realize I liked lasagna until I had that version, though these days I’m fine with either. Just don’t give me the cottage cheese substitute version. (For the non-US crowd, cottage cheese is sorta like ricotta with much larger curds, almost like gravel sized.)
And IMHO, cottage cheese is only like ricotta is in that it is white in color.
Yes, Southern Italy for ricotta.
My understanding is that spaghetti-as-main course was an innovation in the US during the Depression. I imagine in Italy, too, but they went back and we didn’t. Certainly it was Italians that did it (who else was eating spaghetti in the 30s?), but I guess once you leave Italy your entire culture evaporates and you don’t count anymore.
Non-Americans also eat cottage cheese; the difference is, ours tastes good.
So this is the snooty looking-down-your-nose at other people’s food tastes thread now?
Of course!, everybody knows that we consume is haute cuisine and what they gobble is uncultured swill.
Pineapple on pizza in Italy?! Now we know why the rest of the world hates us.
Never heard of that brand there’s gotta be a hundred or more cc makers here.
I’ve been buying Good Culture brand. No fillers or artificial anything. Tasty curds!
I like their business model.
Either there are different kinds/qualities of ricotta or, more likely, we have different taste preferences. My impression of plain ricotta – as when snorking up a spoonful of it – is that it uniquely has two tastes, a subtle initial taste, and then a pleasantly mellow aftertaste. The distinction seems to disappear once it’s cooked in lasagna, but I always thought of authentic ricotta as an important ingredient in lasagna.
Agreed—I like the taste of ricotta. I also like the taste of steamed white rice, which plenty of people have told me has no taste, and of potatoes with no seasoning, which same. All of these are improved in combination with other flavours, but they’re not just filler to me.
i’ve never come across anything quite like American cottage cheese abroad. Not that it doesn’t exist, but I’m guessing what you call cottage cheese is a bit different than American cottage cheese. In Hungary, they had túró, which is somewhat similar; in Poland they have twaróg (as well as some variation in the surrounding Slavic countries, and you have German quark, which I believe derives from the same root), but that’s still a bit different. American cottage cheese is just wetter and a different texture than that stuff. That stuff I call “farmer’s cheese” here in the US, but even “farmer’s cheese” has a lot of variations, from fairly dry stuff to fairly wet stuff. But I assume you know this, as you sound like you’ve had American cottage cheese. They’re all some time of fresh, unaged white curd cheese.
At any rate, true ricotta is not made like those cheeses, either. It’s traditionally made with the leftover whey from making another cheese (hence its name, which means “recooked”) and you get really fine curds when made that way (I’ve made it at home, myself. It’s very low yield if doing the main cheese on a personal scale.) But these days, I think most American commercial ricotta is made as a primary cheese, as you see whole milk ricotta and stuff like that on American grocery shelves.
Ricotta definitely has a flavor, but I find it–for lack of a less synesthetic descriptor–to be a flat flavor. My taste buds are running full speed through the gauntlet of flavors in the lasagna, then slam full tilt into a wall of ricotta and give up. It can be fine in combination with other flavors, but to me, it clashes with lasagna, and I’d rather have something else in its place.
Aside: I’m also partial to plain white rice. The flavor is subtle, but comfortable. And I prefer potatoes raw, perhaps with just a sprinkling of salt and pepper.
- The traditional thinking favours:
- tubular shapes with hearty meat sauces
- wide flat noodles for heavy cream sauces
- long round pastas for tomato or olive oil base
- short creviced shapes for chunky vegetables
-
Argentinian pizza might have more mozzarella than crust. They really don’t skimp on the cheese.
-
Although many Italians may eat moderate pasta portions before a main course, it seems rare for Canadian Italian restaurants to do this. Admittedly, this is not a great barometer, but I wonder how common the idea of “pasta is not a main course” is in practice, since it is the point of Sunday Gravy, etc. Is this a dated idea?
Italian: You are putting too much cheese on that pizza
Argentinian: I understand each word you just said on its own but together they make no sense
I’m inclined to side with the Argentinians on this one.
As for the original topic of the thread, I’m personally not a fan of mixing sweet and savory, so would rather not have pineapple on my pizza, but I don’t care if someone else (such as my husband) chooses to eat that combo. I do object to bell peppers in my vicinity because I hate the smell.
If you’re calling a treasured member of the Holy Trinity a looney, I shall have to ask you to step outside!
And honestly, there isn’t much I don’t like on a pizza (although not all at once, of course). I do generally prefer that stronger flavors (sweet, salty, or savory) be balanced with a stronger cheese than mozzarella.
The trinity is very odd. I like bell peppers and unions, but detest celery…
As for pineapple: I can eat it by itself as a fruit, but I don’t think it really works very well as an ingredient in other things. No accounting for tastes, of course…