Faux Pas
What are Faux Pas? Better still, what are Faux Pas to The Artisan. Generally speaking, Faux Pas are mistakes, or as defined in Webster's..."False remark; A social blunder; error in etiquette: Tactless act or remark..." For us, they are recipes which purport to be Italian, but are so in name only and not execution. These recipes are misleading, do not hold true to the origins of the dish in question, and provide a "false step" to those of you who want to make and eat authentic Italian foods and breads.
We see so many erroneous offerings of foods each week that we are now gathering the most egregious for commentary here. Two which come readily to mind are the recent spate of "Panzanella" recipes which are not Panzanella ever eaten in Tuscany, and round Ciabatta...yes round, even though ciabatta in Italian means slipper. The only round slipper we can envisage is one which might be worn by an elephant!
We shall post descriptions of the Faux Pas and then offer an authentic variation obtained from our library. We do this not to discourage creativity or the development of new dishes but to emphasize that one must learn to make a dish the way it was meant to be made before one can vary it. For example, Catherine Cora, the chef of of Postino in Lafayette California makes a Panzanella like salad which she has named in a whimsical fashion. She does not call it Panzanella because it is not Panzanella. It is very good...but not an authentic Tuscan salad. That is what we want to accomplish in this section, i.e. we want to correct errors or misconceptions, while at the same time encourage creative cooking and baking.
Please come here regularly as we add to this section on a regular basis. Future notes will be more detailed than this one as they will provide specific recipes and their sources. In all of them, we will try not to be like our friends at the top of the Menu page...See no evil, Hear no evil and Do no evil....
Last updated on: 06/03/99 12:50:39 AM