If there's one thing I learned while living in Florence, it's that I will never truly be satisfied anymore when eating Italian soul food. Although I have a long lineage of great Italian cooks in my family, nothing compares to the real thing. Only a true, born and raised Italian can cook like an Italian; everything else is purely imitation.
I lived in Florence as a part of a study abroad program. I didn't need this experience to graduate nor any of the school credits I was receiving. Therefore, I opted to take a course that would be fun and I'd get something else out of. I thought: "What better place to learn to cook than the Mecca of food and wine?" The instructor of the course, Giancarlo Russo, was a whiz in the kitchen. He's traveled so much in his youth that he's learn to cook all types of dishes.
Despite being a traveled individual, we were in Italy and Italian cooking was his forte. He taught us how to prepare a plethora of different meals. From appetizers like pappa al pomodoro (potato tomato soup), entres like spaghetti alle vongole (spaghetti with clam sauce), or torta di cioccolata (chocolate cake), he knew it all. Learning to cook with an abundance of Italian olive oil, however, was a much harder pill to swallow. If there was one take away from our time together it was that olive oil is healthy oil; besides of course that life is too short to drink cheap wine.
Still having doubts, I decided to investigate further in case he was just a crazy, old, Italian man pouring poison down our throats. According to an article on the Global Healing Center website, titled, "The Benefits of Olive Oil" he wasn't crazy at all. He may have been old and Italian, but he was most definitely not crazy! (At least not in the strictest terms.) Dr. Group addresses many of the benefits of consuming and using Italian olive oil. I found more information still on the Unaprol website, which is an Italian producer of olive oil. Their product contains an abundance of antioxidants and Vitamin E.
I'll never forget the look everyone in class, including myself, gave Giancarlo when he walked around pouring a generous amount of oil into our pappa al pomodoro. He would always say, "trust Tio Giancarlo, trust!" And trust you should.
I lived in Florence as a part of a study abroad program. I didn't need this experience to graduate nor any of the school credits I was receiving. Therefore, I opted to take a course that would be fun and I'd get something else out of. I thought: "What better place to learn to cook than the Mecca of food and wine?" The instructor of the course, Giancarlo Russo, was a whiz in the kitchen. He's traveled so much in his youth that he's learn to cook all types of dishes.
Despite being a traveled individual, we were in Italy and Italian cooking was his forte. He taught us how to prepare a plethora of different meals. From appetizers like pappa al pomodoro (potato tomato soup), entres like spaghetti alle vongole (spaghetti with clam sauce), or torta di cioccolata (chocolate cake), he knew it all. Learning to cook with an abundance of Italian olive oil, however, was a much harder pill to swallow. If there was one take away from our time together it was that olive oil is healthy oil; besides of course that life is too short to drink cheap wine.
Still having doubts, I decided to investigate further in case he was just a crazy, old, Italian man pouring poison down our throats. According to an article on the Global Healing Center website, titled, "The Benefits of Olive Oil" he wasn't crazy at all. He may have been old and Italian, but he was most definitely not crazy! (At least not in the strictest terms.) Dr. Group addresses many of the benefits of consuming and using Italian olive oil. I found more information still on the Unaprol website, which is an Italian producer of olive oil. Their product contains an abundance of antioxidants and Vitamin E.
I'll never forget the look everyone in class, including myself, gave Giancarlo when he walked around pouring a generous amount of oil into our pappa al pomodoro. He would always say, "trust Tio Giancarlo, trust!" And trust you should.
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For further details related to olive oil, for Italian cooking or otherwise, please contact Unaprol.
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