翻翻网评,卫报的一篇文章批评得又客气又中肯,我一边点头一边看作者是谁,哈哈Matthew Fort,人家可是在意大利走了个来回的,难怪。
曾经有人一针见血地说,Nigella Lawson的目标观众群本来就不是我等在厨房操作的中年妇女The essence and attraction of Italian food is in its precision, in picking quality ingredients, at the right moment of each season and cooking them with understanding. (此处我大力点头)Simple, but it's difficult to achieve the explosively flavoured delights without the right raw materials.
Never mind, this isn't a book about real Italian cooking, so we needn't worry. Need we? The very first recipe in the book is Sicilian pasta with tomatoes, garlic and almonds. Nigellissima's recipe is dauntingly similar to busiati al pesto trapanese which you can find in Giorgio Locatelli's majestic Made in Sicily, with certain additions (anchovy fillets, capers, sultanas and basil), certain omissions (mint), and a non-Sicilian pasta – Nigellissima specifies long fusilli or "other pasta of your choice".
As it happens I made the Locatelli version of this dish for a dinner a couple of months back. It was a stunner. The busiati (curlicue pasta, made by hand) had a wonderful delicate softness that carried the sauce with exemplary balance. The mint freshened and sharpened the unlikely, elegant liaison of perfumed almonds and powerful fruitiness of Pachino tomatoes. It's a very simple recipe with just seven ingredients including salt and pepper and olive oil.
Nigellissima's version is more rococo and less satisfying. She bungs in everything. It's Sicilian-effect, in the same way that naugahyde is leather-effect. Don't get me wrong. It creates a just-about acceptable pasta sauce, but it misses the point and magic of the real thing. The result is disconcertingly sweet and the anchovies, capers and sultanas add up to overkill. There's nothing actually wrong about Nigellissima's Sicilian pasta with tomatoes, garlic and almonds, but at the same time I can't think why I would want to cook it again.
This is a problem that crops up again and again. With the need to produce something different, something original, Nigellissima piles Pelion on Ossa when it comes to ingredients. Sultanas and shallots, marsala and smoked mackerel, capers, red wine vinegar, dill (a herb I've never come across in Italy) and toasted pinenuts in one pasta dish. Or dried chilli flakes, dried and fresh oregano, red wine vinegar and cherry tomatoes in tagliata for two. Or condensed milk, double cream and Aperol, Triple Sec, Cointreau, Grand Marnier, orange juice and zest in instant chocolate-orange mousse. Vermouth, red or white wine crops up in recipe after recipe. Raisins, sultanas and capers pop up with baffling regularity. The essential simplicity of Italian cooking gets buried under a welter of unnecessary distractions.