[extropy-chat] Melanzane alla Parmigiana (Eggplant Parmigiana) (was: The Extropy of Cooking)

[Amara Graps]

J. Andrew Rogers andrew at ceruleansystems.com :
>My crop of all the plant ingredients came in and I tried this recipe,
>plus a little experimentation as well.  In short, Amara's basic recipe
>is an *excellent* baseline, and the best rendition of this classic dish
>that I have ever had.

Wow! I feel honored my recipe is tried again, and with such attention to
detail. My next recipe that I'll post here will be a specialty of Rome.
(Still iterating with my friends on a couple of different recipes, so
I'm not ready yet to post it.)

>Out of curiosity, do Europeans cook in Celsius?  While I know 
>everything is metric for the weights and measures, I don't recall 
>ever seeing many cooking temperatures in anything but Fahrenheit.

Oh yes, all my nonUS cookbooks are in Celsius, I keep a piece of paper
written for quick help with the basic temperature conversions near my
stove. And inside of my oven showing through the window is the necessary
temperature gauge -- it is a special gauge I bought in the US to help,
giving me both C and F.

I can tell a story about differences in Italian stove-ovens, however.
It was quite a surprise when I moved into my rental flat 3 years ago;
cooking with my stove-oven was a challenge.


In the Cucina: My Stove-Oven
-----------------------------

I have to give the Italians a lot of credit for their skill in the
kitchen. Not only do they produce an enormous variety of delicate,
delicious meals with a minimum of high quality yet very inexpensive
ingredients, they seem to do it with no effort given their archaic
technology stove-ovens.

I think that this large appliance must be the natural by-product of
their special government which recognized that cooking is important to
this culture, and therefore seized upon an obvious opportunity for
collecting revenue. My *new* stove-oven that came with my flat has
all of the following features described below.

First, all stoves are powered by gas, which is run by one of the
government-owned utility: Italgas (which unfortunately doesn't know
how to read meters. They've been billing me for my neighbor's meter
usage for last three years.)

Second, the stove burner is not self-igniting, it must be lit each time
by a match or lighter, and lighter fluid and matches are controlled and
taxed by the government. If you are a newcomer, you will likely do what
I did, and that is, wander for some hour or so in the supermarket
looking for matches. Eventually, after some pointed questions, you will
find yourself at the tabaccheria, the tobaconnist's shop. This actually
makes sense, once you understand that cigarettes are a controlled
commodity too. Strangely, electronic-igniters are untaxed and easy to
find at the hardware store!

Third, your oven is also likely fueled by gas, often not self-igniting,
[Since I haven't found a skinny electronic-igniter for the oven part
yet, I stock up on long matches every time I travel abroad], and with no
indicator for temperature. That's where my C-F temperature gauge
demonstrates its necessity. With no numbers on the dial to indicate
temperature, I must move the dial up or down to control the flame,
checking the gauge periodically, to set and control the temperature.

And just so you don't think that I'm a rocket scientist, I did not
figure out the oven-lighting-temperature-setting procedure on my own -
I got help, from friends of friends who were patient enough to
demonstrate to me how it works.

I've discovered many Italian cooks here are not only comfortable
with this large appliance in the form I've described above, they actually
_prefer_ it to the more technically advanced stove-ovens that one can
find around at the expensive appliance shops. Therefore, I can only
marvel at the products that they produce!


Amara

-- 

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Amara Graps, PhD          email: amara at amara.com
Computational Physics     vita:  ftp://ftp.amara.com/pub/resume.txt
Multiplex Answers         URL:   http://www.amara.com/
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"Sipping coffee on a sunbaked terrace can be surprisingly productive."
  ---Michael Metcalf [on the origin of NUMERICAL RECIPES IN FORTRAN 90]