The REAL Bolognese: the (overrated) tradition, transmission or betrayal? (part 2)

It is always pretty delicate to define tradition. This word so simple to pronounce keeps in its chest a number of incredible nuances. It derives from the latin tradere to transmit, so it is something you may offer as a legacy to your offspring even if you just worked that out by yourself. Yet, tradition it is also a something you inherit by your ancestors, by your country, by your culture in a wider sense: it is an agreement on a shared value. Is it something you should keep in a shrine as a relic? Or is something we are allowed to innovate and implement? My view is that tradition should be taken as a general spirit, especially because it shares it philological root with tradire as well, which means to betray: you actually cannot manipulate it too much, otherwise it loses its nature, but likewise you aren't obliged to follow it in an dogmatic way. To say the truth, it doesn't hold water to label something too different from its origin with a tag that does not correspond anymore to that mark: an homo sapiens is not a primate anymore, right?

I would suggest reading this interesting analysis on tradition

[http://ebisinspirations.blogspot.co.uk/2012/05/why-tradition-in-schools.html]

In Italy, we have the word ragù, which is surprisingly the equivalent of bolognase sauce as known abroad: on the contrary, ragù alla bolognese is the proper bolognese sauce and its recipe is something that varies in each area of Bologna and in each Bolognese family, but it mainly shares a mutual range of ingredients (vegetables, pork, beef, pancetta, tomato, milk, butter, nutmeg, salt and black pepper). The kind of ragù prepared in Naples, in Foggia, or in Palerermo is DIAMETRICALLY different for the bolognese variety. To make a dangerous comparison: making bolognese suace detaching too much from the accepted recipe is like using horse to make sheppard pie! (only a provocation!) So what?
I reached two conclusions: too often there are contaminations that are taken as traditionally stated, such as in the american outcome of Italian cuisine, because people excessively relay on their family memories and often they involuntarily fell into stereotypical attitudes. Secondly, Italian cuisine is fashionable in some restaurants during some occasions, but also every-day based in normal situations! To sum up, curiosity, knowledge and good taste here are indispensable skills one has to develop to understand when, how, and why she/he is eating that sort of aliment. Misplacing it would damage its essence, as a painting in the wrong light.

Chop even more finely than this:

1 carrot;

1 celery rib;

1 medium onion

What you are looking at, dear reader, is called soffritto: these three gently fried vegetables are the base of bolognese sauce. Do not overdo them, but fry them gently for five minutes, and browning them.

Add 60 gr of smoked pancetta, chopped finely 

in little squares (avoid diced pancetta)

The meat (prefer a meat breed locally and traceable):

250 gr of minced Scotch beef;

250 gr of minced Scottish pork.

The meat will cook for 10 mins, stir it often, 

until it changes uniformly colour, 

then add a glass preferably of red wine 

(Sangiovese superiore, for instance)

Sangiovese is the same kind of grape used of Chianti

[http://www.designwine.co.uk/Search_Wine]

When the wine is absorbed add three peeled tomatoes,

and approximately 300 ml of water 

(many people recur to tomato concentrate and meat stock)

LET IT COOK REALLY GENTLY FOR 1 HOUR AND A HALF

add then a glass of whole milk and let it go for another half an hour

Lastly, to conclude this post, I wish to report a sophistical dispute that took place on the magazine Waitrose kitchen, March 2012, p. 42-42. Two food critics Marina O'Loughlin (for the London Metro) and Oliver Payton (judge on BBC Two's Great British Menu) had to answer the thorny question: is Italian food overrated? Oliver states that yes we are so stuck to tradition and people do not wish to experiment, whereas in the UK the afflux of different worldly foods broadened the eating approach ("Brirtain has really woken up to [quality] food"). What he pretends to fail to understand is that if you are aware of how good food should taste, you scarcely will go to a brand new restaurant, where you spend a fortune to eat the smell of something you dream. ITALIANS STILL THINK IN LIRAS AND ARE PAIED IN LIRAS, this is for sure!

Oliver's website

http://www.peytonandbyrne.co.uk/profile/index.html

Yes, we are conservatives, both in fashion, in politics and in cuisine. It would be better to say we are cautious, because we have been diddled for centuries since the fallen of the Roman Republic in 30 B.C.

Marina's blog:

http://marinaoloughlin.tumblr.com/

Marina admits we "resist innovation", but she understand that our chauvinism is implicit in the food variety and quality we actually posses. Why would you necessary change something that is working very well? Each region strikes for something irreplaceable, the innovation there is keeping it as it is, protecting those foods that risk to be badly copied by the irresponsible food industry (especially in Germany, China and America). We do not suffer of a real luck of creativity, in terms of preparations and implementations: instead, in my opinion, we are behind in terms of how to promote our food culture whit a unique voice, how to fight against forgery, how to teach tourists to eat well avoiding gips, and finally how to sensitize people involved in the business to strive for an artistic approach to cuisine.