Keep it simple

Tuscan chef Giuliano Bugialli preaches the gospel of authenticity

by Johnette Rodriguez

Back in the Dark Ages of culinary awareness, when Giuliano Bugialli stopped teaching Italian in his native Florence and started Italy's first cooking school, way back in 1973, Italians were very skeptical that anyone would come to Italy just to eat and learn how to cook their cuisine. Now, after an explosion of interest in cooking and culinary tourism, Bugialli is touring more than 35 US cities, including Providence, over seven months (spurred on by his popular PBS series Bugialli's Italy) and will be lionized with awards when he returns home.

Bugialli has written seven cookbooks and updated two of them: his classic The Fine Art of Italian Cooking (Random House) was revised in 1989, and his definitive Bugialli on Pasta (Stewart, Tabori and Chang) was reissued in May, with 35 new recipes and lush photos by Andy Ryan. In the 20 years since his first cookbook was published, Bugialli has seen enormous changes in the availability of imported ingredients in the US, and in the American public's appreciation for authentic foods from different regions of Italy.

" A lot of professional people relax on the weekends by cooking all day long," Bugialli observes, in a phone conversation from Atlanta. "The people that I teach are getting younger and younger. Now it's a form of entertainment. They cook together. They change recipes. They call each other. Their attitude has changed completely."

The chef's students may learn technique or a specific recipe from his classes, but most of all they are given a large dose of cultural history. "Behind each subject is a philosophy, food as well," he notes. "If they understand what's behind it, they can follow the recipes very well."

Bugialli's love of historical research has made him a stickler about authenticity and an advocate for resurrecting traditional recipes, although he's not averse to changes in ingredients that bring them into line with contemporary health considerations, such as cutting down on butter and oil. He points out that the most difficult thing to reproduce outside of Italy is its desserts, since so many are made with ricotta, itself made from sheep's milk; The cow's milk ricotta made in the US has a completely different texture and taste. However, the idea of restaurants importing Italian desserts (as some in Rhode Island do) is anathema to him.

"That's a form of laziness," the chef states emphatically. "Freezing anything is a compromise. You lose the freshness and the challenge. I prefer something that's maybe not perfect, but you can see the effort, the hands of the people who are making it."

Bugialli views the role of Italian chefs as updating recipes, not just trying to be "nouvelle" or fusion artists. "What I hate is food with an Oriental touch," he says. "That loses the idea of preserving your own traditions. In a few years, you won't recognize your own foods. Why not stay on the idea of simplicity?"

Citing French food as the main competitor of Italian food, Bugialli maintains that it's much more technically difficult to achieve a correct balance with a few ingredients than it is to cook a very elaborate dish with many. "Italian food has the linearity of a Renaissance building, French is very baroque," he observes. "Some like baroque, some like Renaissance, but you can't deny that a building with a few straight lines is something completely different. To prepare such a building, and still give this incredible feeling to it, is much more difficult than to try to garnish one thing on top of another."

Furthermore, Bugialli believes that chefs with French training who think they can jump over and cook Italian are wrong: "Their food will taste French forever."

As an example, he contrasts the fresh broth made in Italy with a long-simmered stock in France. When he visits an Italian restaurant here that makes a marinara sauce from stock that's been on the stove all day, Bugialli doesn't consider it true Italian food. "If they claim that this is `our food,' that's fine," he explains. "I'm very upset if they say, `this is Italian food,' and it's not. I judge restaurants on whether the food is real Italian food or if it's compromised food to please the guests. Most of the time, the food is good, but the authenticity of the food is very, very rare."

If you'd like to get a taste of what Bugialli means, you can sign up for a four-course fresh pasta meal designed by him on Friday, September 8 at Raphael Bar-Risto in Providence. There will be two seatings, at 6 and 8:30 p.m. The $95-per-person price includes four wines and an autographed copy of Bugialli on Pasta. Call 421-4646 for reservations. On Saturday, September 9, Bugialli will sign books at Venda Ravioli on Federal Hill from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m.