Yes! This is an itchy topic!!!! The usage of cream made abroad on Italian dishes make all Italians go mad!
On tv every chef puts cream galore everywhere! E V E R Y W H E R E!!!
They put cream on bloody Alfredo, which is NOT ITALIAN as I always tell you. They put cream with fish!!! CREAM AND FISH DON’T MATCH! It’s as fish with parmesan! Never! The only fish that is acceptable with cream is smoked salmon, but with just a few! Not a ton as false Italian chefs do!
My skin crawl when I think about pasta with cream and chicken! Chicken is not an ingredient that an Italian would put on pasta! And with an ocean of cream…bleah!
Look at these shrimps full of cream… NO NO NO NO! DON’T SAY WOW!!! it means ruining a precious raw material!
I’m quite astonished that also Jamie Oliver puts cream on tomato and shrimps pasta delivering it as an Italian pasta. It isn’t. If you use pasta, it doesn’t mean you are cooking Italian. Look at this:
It’s like saying that if you put curry somewhere you are cooking Indian food. Would you? I wouldn’t….
The concept is that if you use good ingredients, you must enhance their taste and not cover it with cream, spices and garlic! It’s not that we don’t use cream at all, but we use it in just a few recipes, and in small quantities!
Always remember that simple is better! Or less is more… The one you prefer! 🙂
The taste of fresh ingredients is what we must feel. If we put too many things in the plate, you’ll obtain an undefined mix and not a valorization of the main ingredient!
Last night on a tv show, in this Italian restaurant the customer asked a plate of pasta with asparagus. Pasta with asparagus doesn’t require cream at all! In this case pasta and asparaguses were litterally swimming in cream.
Well, I can already hear somebody say while looking at this picture: ooooh! Delicious! Smooth!
SHAME ON YOU! DON’T! In Italy we don’t cook this way!
And one of the things that make Italians feel a huge pain, is when we see cream in carbonara sauce! This is an authentic crime.
Nobody can call the dish in the picture carbonara for several reasons: cream and parsley, for instance, shouldn’t exist!
I always try to forget that also Gordon Ramsay puts cream in carbonara, but I can’t. Maybe because he also puts onion, garlic and all these ingredients that horrify me (and many Italians) in this recipe!
I figure many (should I call them??)“chefs” that, when they must cook Italian, run and buy garlic and cream because they give “that authentic Italian taste”. They just give the NOT Italian taste to food! Don’t listen to those who cook for you using tons of cream (and garlic). They are cheating you! They don’t give you Italian food.
Note: Obviously, my posts haven’t any intention of offending anybody or of criticizing the goodness, quality and tastes of any dish or recipe. What I write is just a personal consideration concerning the adherence of the recipe to the Italian ones, considering local habits, usages and traditions. The mood of the blog can be ironic and sometimes sarcastic, but with no aim of disappointing anybody. If somebody feels offended or struck by my words, please don’t. Moreover feel free to write me and explain your point of view (public channels like this blog are best welcome). It would be a pleasure for me. My intention is a constructive and sincere exchange of opinions.
thank you for the article. being my birthday today, i have been invited to celebrate at a friend`s Italian restaurant. unfortunately i just read the menu and nothing appeals to me. most of the dishes include the use of cream and, having lived in northern Italy most of my life, i feel quite angered. difficult now to explain to my English friend that this expensive restaurant is not Italian at all. regards Donna from Sheffield UK
Ciao Donna! I totally agree with you. There is this idea of cream in Itlian dishes anywhere out of Italy, but it’s really not correct. As you well know, in Italy we don’t use cream as much as people abroad think. It’s more used in sweet dishes. I support you in your mission of sharing real Italian food culture with your friends! You can share this link with them…. 😉
I enjoy your content and always appreciate sarcasm. I am American (my heritage is Sicilian) I can’t speak for all us in the US but I grew up in the Bronx NYC and most people don’t cook these cream slop dishes or a lot of other ones that are in US restaurants at home. I suppose they do it to cater to other Americans . But even as an American a lot of these chefs make us cringe too haha. Sadly I guess people here are picky. I remember my parents cooked a pasta with anchovies in it (no sauce just olive oil garlic red pepper flakes and maybe breadcrumbs-not sure if that’s a thing in Sicily?) but my friend from school did not want to eat it . Lol Oh well 😅
As someone from Scandinavia and interested in italian cookery, i know not to use cream in pasta dishes. But i wanted to solve this mystery, hope you can help, is there any italian pastas, where the use of cream is authentic?
Dear Jürgensen,
Goood good comment! Yes, sure there is! It was more used in the’80s!
I’ll post some recipe right for you in the next days! One for instance is tortellini with cream and ham, or pasta with cream, mushrooms and speck!
I really appreciated what you wrote because it gave me the opportunity of explaining this thing. It is not a forbidden ingredient! It just must not be used out anywhere without criteria…
I mean, go ahead fill your pasta with cream and milk a d mix it with cheese, then call it Mac n’ Cheese, not Italian food 😉 done.