The north and the south of Italian cooking

The division of Italian cooking into a northern and a southern manner rests on geography before it rests on taste: the Alps and the Po plain lie in a temperate zone, while the peninsula below Rome and the islands run into a warmer, drier Mediterranean climate. Marcella Hazan, writing in Essentials of Classic Italian Cooking, treats this contrast as one of the organising facts of the national table, and she does so without pretending that Italy ever possessed a single cuisine. Italy was a country of separate states for most of its history, and each kept its own habits of cultivation, fat and grain.

Hazan's account sets the cooking of the north against that of the south chiefly by the fat and the starch on which each relies. In the north, and above all in Emilia-Romagna, butter is the characteristic cooking fat, and it is used beside lard and the rich dairy of the plain. In the south, olive oil serves for nearly everything. She is careful to say that the rule has exceptions: olive oil is central to Liguria and to parts of Tuscany in the north, and Emilia-Romagna, which she regards as the finest table in Italy, uses it as well as butter. The same division is drawn for pasta. The north is the home of fresh egg pasta, made with soft wheat flour and eggs, rolled into sheets and cut or filled, as in the tagliatelle and tortellini of Emilia. The south is the home of dried pasta made from hard wheat and water, extruded and dried in many shapes, such as spaghetti and maccheroni. Hazan insists that the two are not rivals in quality but different things, each suited to its own sauces: egg pasta to butter, cream and meat sauces, and dried pasta to olive oil, tomato, garlic and vegetables. Starch follows the same line. Rice and polenta occupy the northern plain, where the Po valley grows rice and maize, while wheat in the form of dried pasta and bread belongs to the south. The northern kitchen leans on meat, cheese and cream, and the southern one on vegetables, legumes and fish, with tomato, garlic, capers and olives giving its sharper, more direct flavours. These contrasts reflect what the land and sea of each region supplied, and, in the south, a long habit of making a little go far. For the cook, the value of the distinction is practical. It explains why a ragù from Bologna is built on soffritto, butter and milk, and why a sauce from Naples or Sicily begins with oil and tomato. It also guards against substitution: replacing butter with oil, or fresh egg pasta with dried, changes a dish into another one. Hazan's own recipes respect the regional grain of each preparation, and the reader is advised to cook within one tradition at a time rather than to blend them.

At table the northern kitchen tastes of butter, cream, stock and slow-cooked meat, with a rounded and mild richness. The southern kitchen tastes of olive oil, tomato, garlic and the sea, with brighter and more pungent notes. Hazan's recipes show that each flavour belongs to its own region and is best served within it.