M’TUCCI’S TWENTY-FIVE – Albuquerque, New Mexico
“The best ingredient I discovered in America was ‘freedom.’ The freedom to experiment in the kitchen and the freedom to be open to those experiments in the dining room.” ~Massimo Bottura, Osteria Francescana Chef and Owner Adesso basta! I’ve had it with the haughty pedantry of my Air Force comrades-in-arms who were blessed to have been stationed in La Bele Paese and to have dined on its incomparable dishes. They’re oh-so-quick to vilify Italian-American cuisine, calling it an inauthentic parody of the madrepatria‘s sacrosanct and sublime cuisine. They’re even quicker to criticize my devotion to such Italian-American restaurants as Joe’s Pasta House. I know damn well that the Italian-American cuisine millions of us enjoy might not be recognized in all of Lo Stivale’s regions. That doesn’t justify miei amici making it an object of mockery and derision. What my colleagues might not know or care to acknowledge is that Italian-American cuisine long ago stopped trying to be Italian. Sure, when Italian immigrants first landed in the fruited plain, they tried to recreate the foods they enjoyed in the old country. When many of the ingredients they needed weren’t available or weren’t of the quality they desired, they had to improvise…