The Italian Flag

Food can be a reflection of so many different things—emotions, personalities, geographical locations, and…a country’s flag? Yes, it’s true. For example, the Italian flag is quite symbolic of the food found within its borders. While I am happy to concede that this is not true of every national flag (otherwise, England’s flag should be brown with a fish), it is certainly true of the Italian flag. Perhaps this is a coincidence, or maybe it's truly symbolic of Italians' love affair with particular foods.

Think about all the different foods Italy is known for. Now, how many of those dishes incorporate the colors of the Italian flag?

There are four major sauces enjoyed around Italy—pest, alfredo, ragu, and marinara (notice the green, white, and red?). All of these I’ve mentioned before, but these are the sauce staples of the country. Sure, you can find other sauces, but several use those same colors—think of a pepper sauce with red and orange peppers or a sage and butter sauce. Even a mushroom sauce takes on an off-white color when paired with pasta.

Ravioli and other stuffed pastas can be filled with many different filling combinations. It becomes a matter of taste preference or creativity. And while there are endless filling possibilities, it’s very common to stuff ravioli with a spinach and ricotta mixture and then add a ragu or marinara sauce on top. I have yet to meet someone who doesn’t love this. Also, when we make stuffed shells or stuffed cannelloni, we fill them with a spinach and ricotta mixture before adding the ragu sauce on top.

I’ve mentioned caprese before as one of my favorite things to eat, especially on a summer day. This combination of basil, fresh mozzarella, and tomato is extremely easy to make and very tasty. And it even shows the Italian flag in the correct colored order: green, white, and red.

Who doesn’t love the Margherita pizza found in Italy? With its thin crust, slight layer of pizza sauce, just enough mozzarella cheese to cover the sauce, and a sprinkling of julienned basil, it’s the perfect afternoon meal. And because they don’t overdo any part of the perfect combination that is the Margherita pizza, you can eat the equivalent to an American large pizza without having to be rolled home! And again, it is the Italian flag with the basil, then the mozzarella, then the sauce.

The region that my family is from tends to make a spinach pasta lasagna. This means that spinach is added to the pasta dough before it is rolled out into the paper-thin sheets that get assembled into a mouth-watering dish of lasagna. So, each layer of the lasagna gets the spinach pasta, a combination of the ragu sauce and the béchamel sauce (a rich white sauce), and a little bit of mozzarella and parmigiano. I actually believe that the spinach lasagna tastes better than the regular lasagna, but I doubt this has anything to do with the color of the Italian flag.

Gelato is another thing Italy is known for, and no one can seem to get enough of it, as evidenced by the mass-produced copycats found in any supermarket (but let’s admit, the gelato you get here in the U.S. in no way compares to the real thing). Until recently, I didn’t think gelato really would work in this example; although I suppose I could argue that with the vanilla gelato, the pistachio gelato and the raspberry or strawberry gelato, you get the Italian flag. Just a couple weeks ago, I was reading the restaurant edition of Bon Appetit Magazine when I saw an article about a chef who created the Italian flag combination in gelato with a basil gelato, a tomato gelato, and ricotta. To be perfectly honest, I’m a little wary of basil and tomato gelato, since gelato is supposed to be sweet, almost like eating candy, and while I love basil and tomato, I don’t feel the same about them that I do about chocolate gelato. But I should probably give it a try before completely writing it off. I will let you know how it goes.

Isn’t it interesting that so many Italian dishes resemble the Italian flag (and I've only mentioned a few here!)? Can you think of any that I didn't include?