Taste: My Life through Food(14)
Breakfast: Two or three bowls of cereal with milk, Rice Krispies or similar; two pieces of toast with butter and jam or jelly (usually Welch’s grape jelly, which is really like sweet purple aspic); some orange juice.
Lunch: Three peanut butter and jelly sandwiches on white bread, usually Wonder, or half a loaf of Italian bread filled with veal cutlets, eggplant parmigiana, or whatever was left over from the previous night’s dinner; a piece of fruit; a packaged store-bought sweet—Twinkies or the like.
After-school snack: One or two American cheese or Velveeta (is it still made legally?) sandwiches on white bread with mayonnaise, or three or four open-faced peanut butter sandwiches, often layered with sliced banana; a few glasses of milk; another packaged sweet; some fruit.
Dinner: Two or three bowls of pasta and three or four chicken or veal cutlets, or two pork chops, or two helpings of London broil (I have only ever seen this cut of beef in America. Never in London. I must find out where it got its moniker), or a lot of whatever other entrée my mother made; vegetables; green salad; dessert.
Late-night snack: Two of any of the aforementioned sandwiches, or a large bowl of leftover pasta, or any of the leftover entrées, probably sandwiched between two pieces of Italian bread.
If a dietician were to count the number of calories ingested and some of their questionable sources, they would be more than concerned for the person who dared consume them. Were they obese, diabetic, depressed? No. It was I. I was very slim, was athletic, had boundless energy, and was always hungry. I did however suffer with stomach issues ever since birth, and this kind of diet exacerbated them as the years went by.
My Stomach
Finally, at the end of my twenties I discovered I was lactose intolerant and also could not digest sugar very well. I forthwith removed both from my diet and luckily saw some improvement, but still problems persisted. In short, I suffered from constant bloating and IBS-like symptoms.
I know this might seem like TMI, but if you are a food obsessive and, due to allergies or a faulty digestive system, eating becomes a daily struggle, then everything else in life can be a bit of a struggle as well, especially as we age. It is proven that our guts are inextricably linked to our brains and hence our moods. If our guts are not functioning properly, then we cannot function properly. I had made attempts at going gluten-free for periods of time and found it disheartening, something I did not feel with lactose or sugar. I tried countless types of gluten-free pasta, most of which did not even resemble what I knew of as pasta. Others came closer. Rummo, in particular, is for me the one brand of gluten-free pasta that is able to achieve some of the elasticity and depth that we recognize in regular pasta. But otherwise, in place of my favorite addiction (besides exercise, Martinis, and Marx Brothers movies), I ended up making risotto more often than not, or gnocchi, because they are made of mostly potatoes with a minimal amount of flour. Buckwheat pasta was also an alternative, but, as it has no gluten at all, it really needs to be made with about 40 to 50 percent white flour in order for it not to become just brittle, bitter strands that instantly fall apart. (That said, I love thin, pure buckwheat soba noodles, but in an appropriate broth that complements them.) But the really crucial thing is, although they are all viable and tasty options, pasta made from buckwheat, quinoa, corn, rice, lentils, chickpeas, sawdust, or any combination thereof just doesn’t pair up very well at all with most classic Italian sauces. The beauty of pasta made with semolina, soft, or durum wheat flour is that there are myriad sauces that will complement it. Tragically it is indeed the goddamn gluten that makes the pasta taste so good and function so well when served with something so guileless as butter and cheese or as complex as a slow-cooked meat sauce. Unfortunately this is an undeniable truth, an absolute, like “The earth is round,” “I will never grow any taller,” or “We are all going to die someday.” Therefore, I don’t want an imposter! I want pasta! Real, actual wheat pasta! Perhaps someday a pill will be available to cure the scourge of gluten intolerance. Or just intolerance.
* * *
However, after that little tantrum, I feel it must be said that not all wheat flour pasta works with all sauces. The shape of the pasta is as important as the makeup and quality of its ingredients when it comes to the success of pairing it with the appropriate sauce; you might call it a divine coupling.
Italians are very, very, very particular about what pasta goes with what sauce. Only certain “salse” complement certain “paste” and vice versa. This is why in any worthwhile Italian cookbook there will be at most three different types of pasta suggested to accompany a specific sauce. There have been times when someone in my household (no names) made a traditional family sauce and served it with a completely incompatible pasta. I cannot describe the feeling I have when confronted with this. First, I am angry at myself for not being able to cook the meal, most likely because I was doing something annoying like acting (an activity that frankly is beginning to wear a bit thin as the years go by), and second, I am confounded that whoever made the choice (no names) does not innately know that, as per example, the combination of star pasta and a meat ragù is an act of heresy. As far as I am concerned they may as well have just cut out my tongue with a broadsword and danced on the graves of my ancestors. Of course, this reaction is extreme and completely unfair. How could they possibly know the finer points of pasta/sauce pairings unless they were raised by an Italian or a food freak? However, when this happens, I take a deep breath, quietly suggest a more appropriate coupling next time (although I vow to myself that there will be no next time because I will be present to stop it), and try not to pity them because they were raised by philistines.