A tempting TASTE OF ITALY
Elizabeth McCorquodale sees the difference with the Italian way of growing vegetables - chosen for taste not for yield or looks Walk around any Italian city and cast your gaze upwards and you’ll be presented with the proof, if any were needed, that food – good food, full of scent and flavour - is at the heart of Italian life. Vegetables and herbs jostle for position alongside flowers on balconies and in window boxes, and kale and artichokes are as likely to be planted in municipal gardens as flowering bedding plants. It is an odd fact that so many of the foods that make up our idea of quintessentially Italian fare have only been in cultivation there for a relatively short time. Peppers and tomatoes came originally from South America, as did corn, but stuffed Romenesco peppers and golden polenta are as Italian as you can get; and the ubiquitous tomato is at the very heart of so many Italian regional dishes. That said there are as many variations to ‘Italian’ cuisine as there are regions and climates. From the rich, cream-laden, alpine dishes of the North to the healthy, vegetable-based offerings of the South, there is in fact only one thing that binds them all together and that is an absolute dedication to flavour; full-on, in-your-face flavour.
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Country Gardener
The difference between our choice of veggies and theirs is that they were never tempted to abandon flavour in pursuit of yield, uniformity or shelf-life, so while the Italian kitchen garden (called an Orto) will contain all the veggies that are found in British gardens – Brussels sprouts, beets, potatoes, spinach, broccoli, carrots, turnips, onions and leeks for instance – theirs will be chosen for their flavour and their suitability to the regional variations of climate and soil, a trick that we would do well to emulate. A carrot or leek that will thrive in the Alps may not do so well at the sun-baked foot of Mount Vesuvius or, come to that, in a city garden in the West Midlands. Clearly it is best to select varieties that perform well in your area, so long, of course, as they are packed with flavour. While the soils of Italy are as varied as ours, what they have which we do not is a long growing season and reliable sunshine. Some plants – corn, courgettes and winter squash for instance – need a long growing season, while others – aubergines and peppers for example – need a long, hot growing season to perform their best. But all is not lost as long as we have a