Sweet vs. Salty

Breakfast is the first meal of the day, usually consumed in the morning when you wake up. Breakfast meals vary widely in different cultures around the world, but often contain a carbohydrate such as cereal, rice or bread, fruit and/or vegetable, protein, and sometimes dairy with a beverage. Dietitians state that eating breakfast is the most important meal of the day. Studies have found that people who skip breakfast are likely to have problems with their metabolism and weight. I decided to write about breakfast because I used to be someone to not eat breakfast until I went to college. My typical breakfast meal is yogurt with berries, but sometimes a banana with a hot chocolate. On occasion I have a piece of toast as well. Someone would look at my breakfast and think that I do not eat enough, but that is what I like to have at breakfast.

Today, most Americans eat a light breakfast, but will enjoy a traditional hearty breakfast on weekends, holidays, and vacations. Drinking only coffee or skipping breakfast also happens. Eating out for breakfast or brunch at diners or pancake houses is common on weekends and holidays. A typical American hearty breakfast consists of eggs (fried or scrambled), a type of meat, and one or two starchy dishes (hash browns and toast). A lighter breakfast would be a starchy food (such as toast, pastry, cereal, oatmeal, pancakes, or waffles) either alone or served with fruit and yogurt. Restaurants that serve breakfast base their menus around egg dishes and pork meats (sausage, ham and bacon). Pancakes and waffles are also very popular. A typical breakfast at home is instant oatmeal or cereal with milk. People are also eating healthier breakfast items such as yogurt, whole-grain cereal, fresh fruit or egg-white omelets. Coffee is the most common breakfast beverage. Tea, milk, hot chocolate, orange juice, and other fruit juices such as grapefruit and tomato juice are served at breakfast.

A typical Italian breakfast is a cappuccino and brioche. Italians enjoy a light breakfast, usually consisting of coffee (an espresso or a cappuccino) and a pastry, something sweet. In Italy, breakfast is typically an on-the-go meal or eaten at a breakfast bar while standing. The word for breakfast in Italian is colazione. Coffee is an essential part of breakfast in Italy. Espresso is a shot of black coffee in a small cup and a cappuccino is black coffee with milk froth on top. For children, coffee is discouraged and either plain milk or hot chocolate is their beverage until they start to like coffee. The two most common pastries that are eaten in Italy are a brioche or biscotti. Biscotti are a kind of sweet bread that is baked, cut, and then baked again to form slices of hard, sweet biscuit which is then dipped into coffee to soften. Brioche is a soft sweet bread made with eggs and butter which can be dipped into coffee or spread with bread. Cornetto, the Italian version of French croissant is also very popular and can be either unfilled, with cream, or with a fruit jam.

Most Americans take their time to relax and eat their breakfast, while Italians take a shot of espresso at the bar and take their pastry to go and eat while walking to work. Americans consider breakfast their most important meal of the day, while Italians eat a light breakfast because lunch, pranzo, is the heartiest and most important Italian meal. Lunch is eaten between 12-2pm and lasts a long time. Traditional Italian lunches are long meals, which usually have an antipasto, a primo or first course which is usually a non-meat hot food, such as spaghetti, and then a second course, where meat or fish is usually served. A dessert (dolce) and fruit is often served last to finish off the meal with a sweet. As you can see, Italians prefer their lunch meals over breakfast.

On the first day of classes, a few of us decided to go to Seventyniners, a local bar near school, to have a typical Italian breakfast before Italian. I got an espresso shot and a cornetto filled with chocolate. I had never had such a sweet breakfast before, and I loved it! I am not sure how much I prefer this type of breakfast because I would prefer just a piece of fruit and drink, but the coffee I can get used to. Every week or so I get up early before class and run downstairs to a local coffee shop to get a cappuccino. I have sometimes eaten a piece of bread with nutella which is also a great start of my day! Nutella is a hazelnut flavored spread that is commonly eaten in Italy. Although very tasty and sweet, it is the not the best thing for anyone to eat every day, so I try and avoid eating it for breakfast. Maybe this is just me, but it seems as though Italians eat many pastry and carbohydrates for their meals, yet seem to be so skinny. How is that possible?

http://quattrovecchiinamerica.wordpress.com/2009/05/12/italian-breakfast-vs-american-breakfast/

Al Dente: Making Pasta Perfect

Italian cooking is all about fresh ingredients, locally grown and prepared simply. From risotto and polenta, to pasta, gnocchi and of course, pizza, it always seems to taste so much better when in Italy. I love pasta! At home, I always make plain pasta and add marinara sauce, but in Italy, that is not how you eat pasta. There are so many types of pasta dishes to choose from, you could cook pasta every day and never have the same flavor! Pasta can be bought in a dry or fresh form. There are around 350 different shapes and varieties of dried pasta in Italy. Some shapes are: tubes, bow ties, butterfly, fusilli, manicotti, ziti, pene and many more. Typically all pasta starts out as fresh pasta, but some are supposed to be cooked softer. Many northern areas of Italy use all-purpose flour and eggs to make fresh pasta, while southern Italy makes theirs from semolina and water depending on the recipe. Italian law indicates that dried pasta must be made with 100% durum semolina flour and water. Some types of pasta are served only fresh, others only dried and some others can have fresh and dried versions. Typically Americans prefer the typically spaghetti noodle cooked soft with marinara sauce, but that's not a typical pasta dish in Italy. Some popular Italian style pasta dishes are: Spaghetti alla Carbonara, Gnocchi, and Lasagne alla Bolognese.

I have always heard that Italians cook their pasta too al dente, while Americans like their pasta softer, and I questioned why? It did not occur to me until I came to Rome that Italian pasta tastes so much better! "Cooking pasta" actually means to cook the pasta AND the sauce. Italians make their sauce from scratch, while most Americans just add marinara, meat, or alfredo sauce to their cooked pasta. Technically, in Italian cooking, that is the wrong way to "cook" pasta. Each kind of pasta has a cooking time, indicated on the package. If you cook pasta for less than the cooking time, then it will remain hard. If you go over the cooking time, it will become softer and softer. If you cook well beyond the cooking time, you have experienced al dente, how the Italians like to eat their pasta. and congratulations! "Al dente" means a little hard which can be reached by cooking the pasta for exactly the indicated cooking time. Americans prefer their pasta soft, so you may find on the package a cooking time that reflects”soft" pasta and advises you to cook the pasta for much more time than an Italian would. The first pasta dish I made was Spaghetti al Pomodoro e basicilico. We had some Italian students help us with cooking the sauce and pasta, but it was our first hands-on experience cooking Italian style pasta. We made the sauce from scratch, by cutting the tomatoes into halves and boiling them with olive oil and garlic until the right softness. The pasta boiled in a large pot for a period of time, and then I was the one to tell if it was "al dente." We poured the tomato sauce over the al dente spaghetti and then it was ready to be eaten. It was so yummy.

This picture shows the stages of how we made Spaghetti al Pomodoro. The noodles are cooking to "al dente." The tomatoes are cooking in olive oil and garlic. The third picture is the end product! Magnificent!

The term "al dente" comes from Italian and means "to the tooth" or "to the bite” this refers to the need to chew the pasta due to its firmness. If there is slight firmness in the inside of the pasta, you have reached "al dente." I actually prefer to have my pasta "al dente" instead of soft because I like the firmness/hard part of the pasta. It takes longer to chew which means I am enjoying my pasta taste longer. I would rather have my pasta a little harder than mushy and too soft to enjoy. The spaghetti al pomodoro Italian dish was so rich in flavor and I loved how the noodles and homemade sauce worked well together. Adding garlic and salt gave the sauce a kick which I really enjoyed.

Not only do I prefer al dente pasta, but I have also heard that pasta cooked al dente is easier to digest. Pasta that is cooked al dente has a lower glycemic index than pasta that is cooked soft. The glycemic index measures the effects of carbohydrates on blood sugar levels. Carbohydrates that break down quickly during digestion and release glucose rapidly into the bloodstream have a high GI; and carbohydrates that break down more slowly, releasing glucose more gradually into the bloodstream, have a low GI which helps aid in digestion. Pasta made with semolina is made from cracked wheat and not finely ground flour so it has a moderate glycemic index. The reason for its slow digestion and steady release of energy is the entrapment of ungelatinized starch granules in a network of protein molecules in the pasta dough. If you overcook pasta it gets soft which means you have fully "gelatinized" those starch granules and turned pasta into an energy carrier with a higher glycemic index making it harder to digest.

Keep eating pasta, it’s good for you, and there are so many different flavors and textures to try! Lo amo al spaghetti!

http://www.lifeinitaly.com/food/pasta-history.asp
http://www.disabled-world.com/artman/publish/glycemic-index.shtml