WTI Magazine #80 2016 June 17
Author : Elda Buonanno Foley Translation by:
In one of my last lessons of the school year, I encountered a very interesting dilemma: is "Pasta Asciutta" better than "Risotto"? While discussing with my students the qualities of one dish compared to the other, I realized that there were a lot of misunderstandings and false perceptions of what a "risotto" is and why it is an important example of the local Italian diversity and national identity. Thus, let me share what I told my students: as I keep indicating in my articles, Italy is an example of strong, vital, vibrant and local traditions within a broader national landscape. Each region has an inner series of social, economic, political dynamics that make the whole country so diverse and so appealing to visit, understand and ultimately love.
Let me give you some data about rice first. 90% of the world's production of rice comes from Asia. Even if rice is a very common component in the Asian cuisine, it is very common in other countries also, such as Africa and South America.
Europe, also, is importing rice as the rice production that occurs mainly in Italy is not sufficient to cover the local need. However, even if Italy only produces about 1% of the global rice production, it is the leading European country in producing and exporting rice in Europe (Italy exports about 6.686 tons of rice to USA), followed by Spain, Greece, Portugal and France. According to a recent poll by the National Organization of Rice Producers, Italian exports of rice in 2015 registered a huge rise of 44% which was accounted for, in the main, to Asia.
However, even if the rice does not play the vital role it does in poor countries, it does play an important part in the European diet and in Italian cuisine. The Italian production of rice is mainly located in the northern regions of Piedmont and Lombardy to which, recently, have been added some important areas in Veneto, Emilia Romagna and Sardinia.
The Piedmont is the main rice producer in Italy with a concentration of the production in the areas of Vercelli, Novara and Biella. As a matter of fact, there are at least seven different varieties of grains (Arborio, Baldo, Balilla, Carnaroli, S.Andrea, Loto e Gladio) that make the production even more peculiar.
However, these varieties are only a sample of a total of about 89 types of grains that are produced in the Italian valleys. Most of these varieties are mainly used in our "risotto" and it does not surprise the layman if most of the "risotto" dishes are mainly located in the northern (regions) recipes rather than in the Southern ones (where there is a predominance of pasta dishes). If you scroll over the main dishes in regions such as Piedmont, Lombardy, Veneto, Emilia Romagna, it is common to find examples of "primi piatti" with rice as the main ingredient: risotto with cheese, vegetables (roasted, fried, steamed and so forth), meat and fish. The list is too long to be included in this page, but it is enough to indicate how big the role of risotto is in our Italian cuisine and in our regional dishes. However, when it comes with Pasta Asciutta, the noble ingredient, the "sophisticated" grain loses the battle.
According to a very recent research on a sample of young adults between the age of 15 and 35, it is evident that "pasta" is the most appealing dish for Italians with 63% of them putting it on top of the most preferred dishes. 8 out of 10 of the young adults interviewed indicate that they eat pasta almost every day at lunch and at dinner with a preference for lasagna and baked ziti (22%), carbonara (18%) and spaghetti with clams (12%). What does this mean for the noble risotto? That it is, and remains, one of the most popular dishes in our cuisine and a distinctive ingredient of regional variety and a significant factor in a growing niche economy.
So, buon appetito!!
