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MY
ROUSES
EVERYDAY
MARCH | APRIL 2018
the
Authentic Italian
issue
F
ar too often, many of us treat eating
like an afterthought: Wolfing down
a subpar sandwich between teaching
classes, or hitting the dreaded drive-through
line on a long commute home. Italians,
though? Italians know that eating is an art
form and a ritual unto itself, on par with any
operatic performance or sculpture-adoring
museum visit. You don’t eat to live in Italian
culture; you live to eat.
This means that most meals have a sort of
theatre to their structure, ensuring that each
step of the dinner waltz is well coordinated.
There’s the
aperitif
: a light drink intended
to whet the appetite for the meal ahead.The
ruby-hued liqueur Campari, a dry prosecco
or a glass of vermouth (red or white fortified
wine) are popular options, and are often
served with
salatini
, a small breadstick or
bar mix-style snack. (After all, no one wants
to get ahead of themselves with one too
many glasses before the main course.)
Then there’s dinner, where wine leads the
way, playing a supporting role to what’s on
the plate. But after dinner? That’s when the
fun really begins.
Digestifs
, in my estimation, are the most
exhilarating and complex category of Italian
spirit, reflecting the nature of their home
region and some of the most compelling
liquor-tinged histories around. Crafted
to aid in digestion, the range in flavor,
mouthfeel and hue of these drinks — from
dark and bitter to buoyant and vegetative —
is like an artist’s palette — or palate! —of
fine Italian drinking.
There’s Genepì, from the Piedmont region,
which is made from variants of wormwood
and not only helps after a meal, but is said
to be a cure for motion sickness. Amaros are
a rangy family of herbal liquors that cast a
wide net, reflecting both a wealth of flavors
and their point of origin: Sicily’s Amaro
Averna with its citrus notes; Fernet Branca
with its spearmint-heavy taste from Milan;
Cynar with just a hint of artichoke in its
makeup of 13 herbs. And let’s not forget
grappa, a grape distillate that can trace its
role as a digestif back to the Romans.
But many of these heavier drinks can,
occasionally, feel a little Mary Poppins-like
on a warm spring day: These spoonfuls of
sugar (read: glasses of liquor) to make the
medicine (read: meals) go down might
prove to be too cloying for the heat, or too
heavy after a long meal.
That’s where limoncello comes in.
Sure, you could sip a glass of saffron-colored
Strega, a liqueur from Campania with a
name that means “witch” in translation,
reflecting the region’s long-held association
with those potent spell casters. But my
cup will always be filled with limoncello: a
LIMONCELLO
by
Sarah Baird