The joy of travelling includes culinary delight. We would be that much poorer without the pleasure of eating. Nature has provided us with taste buds on the tongue’s upper surface, soft palate, upper oesophagus, cheek, and epiglottis. These structures make food (and drinks) taste great, detecting the five taste perceptions: saltiness, sourness, bitterness, sweetness, and savoury (umami). Umami is a complex taste, often described as “meaty” or “deliciousness.”
The joy of food reminds me of the song “Food, glorious food” in the musical Oliver! (Based on the novel Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens, 1838.) The opening lines are worth reflecting on: “Is it worth the waiting for? If we live ’til eighty-four, All we ever get is gruel!” How sad! I am grateful that I can still enjoy the culinary delights of Italy. Wouldn’t it be great if I could continue to do so till I am 84?
I thought my first dinner on our Bay of Naples trip should be pizza! It is sacrilegious not to because Naples gave the world this delicious invention. There are similar flatbreads in other parts of the world, such as bing (饼, a disk-shaped Chinese bread), the Indian paratha, or naan, but they never took on the world like pizzas. My wife picked her favourite, seafood pasta, and we shared a salad plate.
I selected a traditional form of pizza – with a topping of tomato, oregano, garlic, and extra virgin olive oil (pizza marinara). This was the type of pizza the seaman’s wife, ‘la marinara”, prepared for her seafaring husband when he returned from fishing trips in the Bay of Naples. In Singapore (and elsewhere), we usually have pizzas that come loaded with different types of meat, cheese, and vegetables, for example, “meat lovers”). A simple traditional pizza made a refreshing change.
Pizza as we know it today took off because of the introduction of tomatoes from South America. Italy was a poor country, and the people began experimenting with tomatoes as a substitute for expensive spices. This innovation placed tomatoes in a prominent place in Italian cooking. Italy produces some of the best fruits in the world, be they canned, sun-dried, or fresh.
Ordinarily, my favourite is pepperoni pizza. No, this is not an Italian innovation! You will not find any pepperoni pizzas on the menu – Italians will frown if you ask for them. However, you can discover salami as a topping. Pepperoni pizzas are an American invention and remain a favourite, where pepperoni as a topping appears on nearly 50 per cent of pizzas nationwide. However, my children love Hawaiian pizzas (typically topped with canned pineapple and ham, peppers, bacon, and mushrooms.) This variety neither comes from Italy nor Hawaii. Claims have been made that it came from Canada (disputed).
As in almost all restaurants, the waiter handed us a wine list and menu. We did not select any wines, as we are not wine drinkers. There was no wine, just sparkling water. We did not have any desserts, although the idea of having a traditional Italian dessert such as panna cotta (“cooked cream”) crossed my mind. If they offered us Omm Ali, I would most likely accept it delightfully!
Now, what on earth is Omm Ali?
To be continued in Part II
Vince
Dr Vincent Chong is a retired Professor of Radiology at Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine, National University of Singapore.
