I have heard that Italians insist that parmesan/romano/etc. cheese does not belong on pasta with fish. In fact, once on Chopped, a judge gave a low rating to someone who dared do this, which I thought was really funny – I mean, Chopped is a show where the contestants are supposed to make a dish with such disparate items as liver and licorice, and this judge was losing his shit over fish and cheese. “You never use both fish and cheese!” he screeched.
Of course, I’m thinking he was overstating the supposed rule. After all, if cooks never used fish and cheese in the same dish we wouldn’t have tuna melt sandwiches or caesar salad. But I’ve always put parmesan on my linguine with anchovy or spaghetti with white clam sauce and I think it tastes good.
So what’s the big deal about combining fish and cheese?
I think it’s mostly just a thing with traditional Italian cuisine. Something about the cheese overpowering the delicate taste of the fish…which makes no sense because the Italians use some really strong tasting fish (anchovies and sardines) and some really mild cheese (mozzarella). But someone of great authority in the world of Italian cooking must have declared that prohibition loud enough to make it some kind of rule not only in Italy, but anywhere Italian food is prepared.
There is a local place that will leave a dish of parmasagn cheese on the table unless someone orders a seafood pasta. They will offer paramasagn to the non-seafood pasta people and then take the dish away.
Yeah, this is a rule that’s made to be broken. Pasta with white clam sauce needs plenty of Parmesan, And, as mentioned, anchovies go great with Parmesan or a nice pecorino Romano. It’s like peanut butter and jelly.
ETA: a nice cheesy lobster risotto! So many examples of cheese and fish coexisting in italianate cuisine.
Mixtures of milk and meat (Hebrew: בשר בחלב, basar bechalav , literally “meat in milk”) are forbidden according to Jewish law . This dietary law, basic to kashrut, is based on two verses in the Book of Exodus, which forbid “boiling a (goat) kid in its mother’s milk”[1] and a third repetition of this prohibition in Deuteronomy.[2]
Another source:
Nevertheless, since Rabbi Yosef Karo wrote that milk and fish should not be mixed, there are those who do not mix them. The Chabad custom is that we do not eat fish together with milk, but we do eat fish with milk products . Even adding a touch of butter or cream to the milk is sufficient to permit mixing it with fish.[6](javascript:doFootnote(‘6a815625’) Certainly then, lox and cream cheese can come together onto any Chabad table. SOURCE
Regionalism, perhaps? Italian cuisine is very regional depending on what is locally produced. Seaports are famous for their fish. Cheese producers like Parma are as inland as you can get on a peninsula. Anything that draws attention away from your signature ingredient can not be allowed. This is why a relatively bland element like pasta is universal in Italy. Think of a chef from Portofino and a chef from Parma as the disgusted chocolate guy and repulsed peanut butter guy from an old Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup commercial, except they’re too grossed out to try the delicious combination.
Is it only when it’s fish and pasta together or also when it’s fish alone?
There is an Italian restaurant here that serves a Sicilian fish that’s loaded with cheese. The pasta is served on the side, not mixed with the fish. It’s very tasty.
You won’t find pasta ever served as a side dish in Italy, it will always be mixed in as it’s a course in its own right.
There will always be exceptions to the rule, but in general, italian cuisine likes to pay homage to good ingredients, so recipes are brief and simple, and flavours are designed to enhance not fight. Hence, cheese fights with the delicate flavours of most fish (anchovies excepted), so they tend not to mix them. It’s like the ‘rule’ of not mixing onions and garlic, which the rest of the world finds absurd.
Then you have regionalism. The poor south traditionally uses a lot of fish and very little dairy, and visa versa. So some of these ‘rules’ may simply be a matter of ingredient availability and tradition.
Um, yeah, I know. Not only have I been to Italy a couple of times, both my in-laws came here from Sicily and Northern Italy respectfully, and my Sicilian fucker-in-law owned 3 restaurants in the 70’s and 80’s.
But when he went on and on about this stuff I never listened because he was irritating.
I’m pretty much past the point of even eye-rolling when someone insists that a genre of food has to be prepared a certain “traditional” or “authentic”.way, or else it’s a crime against nature.
I’ve only had lobster mac n’ cheese once, but it was pretty good. And you will take my canister of grated cheese off the table over my pasta-encrusted body.
Another “rule” that many Americans are surprised by is that often in Italian regional cooking you do not mix garlic and onions together. It’s one or the other. It’s not a universal rule; it’s region-dependent, but it is observed in many regions of Italian cookery. That said, I believe it is common in Sicily and Southern Italian regions to mix the two, and much of Italian-American cuisine is informed by that region, hence it being surprising to Americans that in many parts of Italy the two are not used together in dishes. (For example, the one bought-in-Italy Italian cookbook I have does not have any sauces with both garlic and onions in them.)
I had a gruyere covered halibut dish that was like eating a wonderful pillow of flavor. It was amazing. The delicate fish with the creamy, nutty gruyere. It had a light feel from the fish, but the richness of a dish with a good melting cheese.
Certainly then, lox and cream cheese can come together onto any