Posted by Mario Batali, October 16, 2007 at 4:15 AM
Editor's note: When we thought of who we wanted to star in Serious Eats' first regular video series, Mario Batali's name kept coming up over and over again. Why? He's funny, passionate, generously spirited, smart as hell, and a great cook. So we hope you'll enjoy Unclogged, Mario Batali as you've never seen him before. —Ed Levine
The Takeaway
Mario says:
- "What you want to eat when you eat a bowl of pasta ... is pasta."
- "The way that they refer to their sauce in Italy is condimento—condiment—and when you think about a hot dog or hamburger, the condiment is something that kind of greases it up, but it never overtakes the main event of the hot dog or the hamburger."
- "Americans overdress their pasta 99.9 percent of the time. It should never be a bowl of soup. It should be noodles, with a little stuff."
About Mario: Mario Batali has created a thriving restaurant empire and has established himself as a top restaurateur. Together with his partner, Joe Bastianich, he operates seven New York City hotspots. Mario splits his time between New York City's Greenwich Village and northern Michigan with his wife, Susan Cahn, of Coach Dairy Goat Farm, and their two sons. More Mario: mariobatali.com.
Posted by Mario Batali, October 9, 2007 at 2:45 PM
Ah, prosciutto di Parma, prosciutto di San Daniele, and prosciutto di Carpegna: three hams from three places, each with its distinct flavor and yet similar technique. In each locale, the hams are salted for 30 to 45 days and then hung in the vaulted rooms and halls to cure for as little as 400 days and as much as 3 years to achieve the delicate balance of pure porcine pleasure and the fragrance of the wind and the dew of the specific geography.
I have always found the sweetest hams to come from Friuli, (prosciutto di San Daniele), where I think that the cooler climate allows them the use of a little less salt (in fact, the only ingredient other than the pig's leg).
Parma (and its Langhirano hills) is the home of those eponymous hams that are perhaps the most famous in the world. Their specific flavors are a result of their exposure to winds blown down the valleys off the Tyrrhenian Sea from Liguria, and they help create a complex perfume unique to prosciutto di Parma.
Carpegna hams from the Pesaro Urbino region of Le Marche are perhaps the most rich and porky in flavor, a tad drier in younger ages (not a bad thing), and hard to find—legally—in the U.S.
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