[Quincy Lehr]

Janet--

I see your point. It is, indeed, in the cooking. But one doesn't attempt to bake a cake with--I dunno--shitake mushrooms and cheddar cheese. Ingredients should line up with recipes, and the same goes for form and content.

Quincy

[Jim Hayes]

Janet Kenny "And the greatest spaghetti dish of them all is aglio, olio, peperoncino.

With spaghetti, garlic, olive oil, and chili pepper and a hint of parsley you can make a dish that has never been bettered".

Tell me more Janet. I want to know.

[Michael Cantor]

With decent basic ingredients and a bit of taste and talent you can't go wrong, but with great - or at least very good - ingredients, the difference can be spectacular. Good, virgin Italian oil; fresh semolina pasta (sorry, Janet - I'll admit that I rarely use it myself, and you have to watch it carefully or it cooks so quickly you just have a glutenous mass - but it does make a difference); young garlic or, even better, a head that you've brushed with butter and roasted; fresh parsley from the garden; coarsely ground salt and pepper. And a few chopped up anchovies - loose, from a tub in the Italian grocery, not tweezed out of a tin - won't do any harm. (Throw in some capers at that stage, and you've got a simple putanesca.)

(If we've already had some sniping and snarling about something as dweebish as the villanelle, just think of the passions that can be aroused by a genuine food fight!)



[This message has been edited by Michael Cantor (edited November 20, 2006).]

[Quincy Lehr]

Indeed, fresh pasta and fresh ingredients for the sauce does make a great deal of difference--as does having the time to prepare it properly.

Quincy

[David Landrum]

Did anyone see this by X. J. Kennedy in Evansville Review:

A Statement of Preference

I'd hear Bach slaughtered on a concertina
Before I'd read the average sestina.

[Quincy Lehr]

All respect to X.J., but the scansion on the first line is abominable.

[Maryann Corbett]

Well, Quincy, you did start this off by asking--although I think your tongue was in your cheek--that we not write these things.

Permit me another of my hypotheses: Poems in these forms keep getting written because each form dredges up stuff out of the unconscious that the other forms don't.

Quite often, yes, it ends up being dreck. But if you believe that the way to have good ideas is to have a lot of ideas, you can't sit around and wait for the gods to descend. You have to keep fiddling, and a form is a way to fiddle.

Maryann

[David Landrum]

What I found interesting about this whole thread is that it never really turned into a discussion but degenerated into a donnybrook between two or three people who were not even interested in disucssing the topic or making it a real discussion. I posted a couple of comments which were blithely ignored. The main posters were so engaged in an argument that they really did not want to do anything else but that. I thought it was going to be a real, if spirited, discussion of the subject matter. But it turns into a sort of argument resembling an IM exchange and why waste your time trying to contribute if you're outside the little circle of quarrelers.

This is the thing I find frustrating about Eratosphere. I would really like to discuss poetry but just can't seem to break into the magic circle--either for discussion or even for fights. I think I'm not the only one on the list for feels this way.

[Roger Slater]

Actually, fresh pasta and dried pasta are both excellent. The dry stuff is not simply a convenience for those who can't get fresh pasta, but an alternative to fresh pasta that offers a different eating experience. Some might argue it is superior, in fact, since the texture of fresh pasta, even perfectly cooked, is softer and not as satisfyingly al dente.

My favorite way of making aglio olio comes from Lidia, who has a show on the Food Network. Slice the garlic into thin chips -- don't mince it -- and cook it in oil at medium heat until it is lightly golden, but not too dark. Add some pepper flakes to the oil, if you like (I like). When the garlic reaches the perfect color, add a few tablespoons of chicken stock to the pan for flavor, volume, and to stop the garlic from burning. When the pasta is ready, move it with tongs directly from the pot into the pan, letting excess water drip off but not worrying too much if it's still somewhat wet, and then toss it in the pan over low heat along with chopped parsely (added at around the same time, not too early so it doesn't wilt).

But if you're in a big hurry and don't want to dirty a pan, just chop up the garlic real fine and put it in a small cup or bowl with the olive oil. Put it in the microwave and zap it for about a minute, just enough to make it all sizzle and to flavor the oil with the garlic. Then toss it with the cooked pasta, and parsely if you have it. The parsely makes a big difference. (If you don't like strong garlic flavor, you can scoop some of it out of the oil and discard it before you toss it all together).

Yes, Italian forms are much tastier than French forms.

[Janet Kenny]

Michael,
One of the great sauces. But dry pasta (and I do make my own fresh pasta--have done for years) is not inferior. There are different recipes for fresh pasta. Italians revere dry pasta and are very picky about which from where for what. These dishes are for dry pasta.

Spaghetti, aglio, olio,--is basic--then add if wanted peperoncino and finally a smidgin merely of freshly chopped parsley. (You can dissolve a couple of anchovy fillets in the oil with the garlic and chili if wished. Many dishes are built upon it, especially seafood pasta sauces. NEVER cheese with this sauce.

Here's a recipe for spaghetti alla puttanesca (as made by a prostitute) by the great, late Italian chef Luigi Carnacina who ruled Italian food publishing for several decades.
(4 people)
400 grams spaghetti
150 grams pf black olives (stoned and chopped)
50 grams butter (he was corrupted in France-I never use butter)
4 anchovy fillets
2 cloves garlic
1 tablespoon capers (rinsed under tap and wrung dry and chopped)
1 tablespoon of chopped parsley
200 grams of tomato pulp (NOT concentrate)
olive oil, salt
Lightly colour the sliced garlic and chopped anchovy in the olive oil over low heat. Add the stoned chopped olives, chopped capers, tomato pulp (choppped if fresh) and simmer for about 15 minutes.

Cook and drain the spaghetti and dress it with the sauce. Opla.

Jim, I'll send you the recipe. I use a wok because that way a modern neurotic (all of us) can minimise the oil to maxim effect. A fresh green salad afterwards and crusty bread and some good red and you're in business.

I actually put a book together once but life got in the way and I never tried to publish it. I think the market's changed since then but I've chomped my way though a goodish bit of Italy with Italians who knew their stuff. Too good to waste.
My favourite pasta book is by Vincenzo Buonassissi : Piccolo Codice della pasta
Janet

Perhaps another thread. I could rave on for hours and so could Michael. And Roger

Sorry David--poets care about the details of life. That's why they're poets. Hell I WROTE a villanelle for the discussion so you are not Robinson Crusoe. We will take this to another thread.




[This message has been edited by Janet Kenny (edited November 20, 2006).]