Food and flavors are so ingrained in our lives that most people, when moving abroad, never abandon. Especially in a foreign land, food connects us with happy memories, family traditions, comforting feelings. Food is part of our soul, it’s a piece of who we are.
However, with time, necessity and curiosity first push us to try local dishes, and then introduce new ingredients in our kitchen. This experimentation produces unique results, changing our palate as we widen our range of flavors.
Learning a new culture passes by your plate first. It’s what you pick up at the supermarket when you cannot find your favorite brands, the ingredients for a dish, and you start substituting them with what’s available.
Changing traditions
I was born and raised in Italy. My maternal nonna, who had been in the olive oil and wine business all her life, moved from the South of Italy to the Alps looking for a better life. She opened a trattoria. She cooked what she knew best, Southern Mediterranean cuisine. She brought seaside flavors to the mountains: pasta with moscardini, timballo, rapini, fave. She brought her roots with her. That would be the family business for many years.
Because of this displacement, growing up I could enjoy more variety than the average family in my home town. My childhood was signed by these two very different culinary traditions coming together. Yet, it was still that: tradition. In the kitchen, we stuck to our family recipes: handwritten notes in stained notebooks, adding local recipes to the old ones.
So how do you change tradition? For me, it started with a trip to the UK.
Putting culture in the plate
My first trip abroad was a summer student exchange in the UK. I was 16 and I still remember the profound shock of TV dinners and fast food. Nevertheless, I loved London, and that experience opened the door to my itinerant adult life.
Torn between the desire for economic stability and a more slow-paced life in Italy, I ended up leaving and going back several times. First it was London, then Dublin. Of London I loved the incredible variety of foods and cultures: from the pub to the markets, from the delis to starred restaurants. The world is in London, with its cultures, flavors, colors, and ingredients. In Dublin, I appreciated the incredible Asian markets and the bakeries.
Living in multi-cultural cities was exploration and discovery, and I started to bring that in the kitchen.
The process of adaptation
Trying out a dish at a restaurant is easy. You get struck by new flavors, and everything goes perfectly together. But you wouldn’t try cooking spaghetti with rice noodles.
Not everything can be substituted successfully: recipes are typically as they are because they’re been tested thousands of times and they work. Sometimes it’s just necessity: can you make focaccia without beer yeast? Dry yeast is a compromise. Nonna won’t disown me for that.
However… introducing new flavors and ingredients makes you want to try adding a little something to a dish, or maybe (as it often happened to me) you realize that you don’t really need that one ingredient at all.
But it’s not just a process of tweaking the ingredients. Along the way, you learn different preparation techniques: how to cut vegetables, or a certain type of cookware.
For example, when I discovered Dutch ovens, my way of cooking changed drastically. And that 15$ rice steamer? A life changer.
From adaptation to evolution
The magic happens through trial and error. I’ve had my share of ugly meals and horrible slobs.
But over the years, I incorporated, eliminated, adapted, and slowly shifted away from just Italian cuisine. Dijon mustard? Yes please. Maple syrup? Can’t live without. Fresh ginger? Give me more!
It’s not that I don’t love Italian traditional dishes anymore: I do, always. I value genuine, healthy ingredients. And I still get personally insulted by the various Chef Boyardee, SpaghettiO’s, Campbell soups, or the Olive Garden. And don’t get me started on Alfredo sauce, chicken-whatever-pasta or spaghetti and meatballs…
However, there’s a lot to love when living abroad and embracing local dishes and international influences. As you adopt new habits, new traditions start co-existing with the old ones. And that’s how we evolve, in the kitchen and as humans.
