How did America change my cooking?

Over the past couple of weeks I have been very busy moving apartments. The cooking was very limited, but   having to move all the kitchen appliances, tools, the whole pantry, got me thinking about how my time here in the US has changed the way I cook.

Actually, I'd be tempted to say that my cooking has improved, since I moved here three years ago: I am using new cooking methods; I am using ingredients that I had never used before; and I am preparing a lot of new dishes, next to my "old" ones.

Using new ingredients or making new dishes does not equal better quality food, of course. But what I think happened is that I was forced to rethink my approach to what I was cooking. I had to understand how the flavors I wanted to recreate (or that I wanted to create from scratch) could be achieved through the ingredients I had. Results weren't always pretty, but for the most part I think I grew as a home cook.

New cooking methods
In terms of new cooking methods, the slow cooker has been a revelation. From soups to bolognese sauce, from pulled pork to chili con carne, I have embraced this technique (let's call it that), and the results have been pretty good. I have not been able to replicate the results I obtain on the stove for my Italian ragu' yet. But with this exception, the rest of the dishes I have been cooking with the slowcooker come out either on par or better than their sister versions cooked in the oven or on the stove.

Then there are my beloved cast iron skillets. Although it is not really a cooking method, more a cooking tool, I have already mentioned the fascination these pans had on me since I was a little boy watching cow boy movies on tv. Enough has been said about these wonderful things: they cook better (vegetables and meat brown better), they are sturdier than most pans, they don't release nasty chemical stuff while you cook, unlike other "non stick" pans (and yet they a entirely non-stick if you treat them right). And then they are cool, full stop. This is an entirely personal view, obviously, but every time I reach for one of my cast iron skillets (I have too many, I am ashamed to give you a number), I feel a satisfaction than a regular pan just doesn't deliver. I am weird that way.

New ingredients
Hot chiles are undoubtedly the single item that has had the heaviest influence on my cooking since moving here. Not only I am using them for new (to me) US Southern or Mexican dishes, but I often use them in new versions of Italian or French classics. Poblano peppers come up often now in recipes that originally called for bell peppers, and chile de arbol has replaced peperoncino in a lot of my dishes. My poblano / bacon (another new ingredient) risotto has been a winner for some time now...

Butternut squash has almost entirely replaced pumpkin in all my applications. Butternut filled ravioli, butternut and sage risotto, butternut and blue cheese pasta sauce...from Fall to Spring, a couple of butternut squash are always sitting in my pantry, next to a variety of fresh and dry chiles. And let's not forget sweet potatoes and parsnips: they haven't replaced other ingredients, but they have added themselves to the list of my go-to ingredients: soups, roasted in the oven, fried (the sweet potatoes at least), I would miss them a lot if I had to give them up now.

New dishes/cuisines
The natural result of all this is that I am cooking a lot of new things. Sometimes I limit myself to changing recipes I used to cook before, adding/replacing new ingredients. But more often than not I have embarked in the cooking of entirely new things, alien to my original culture: American classics like chili con carne (red or green), pulled pork, barbecued baby back ribs, but also Italian American things like...(brace for it...) braciole or meatballs, that I had never cooked in my life. I mentioned often that what goes for Italian cuisine here in the US actually originates from a very limited (geographically speaking) region of Italy, so a lot of these dishes were as American to me as chili con carne...I have even started toying with some Asian recipes, for the first time.

Since moving here I have also embraced baking: breads, focaccia, croissants, cakes, biscuits, cookies, cupcakes, pizzas...that's an entirely new dimension that I have added to my repertoire.

So this will sound bizarre to all American food haters and to my some of my European food snob friends, but I have to thank America for becoming a better cook.
s

My week in the kitchen

On my Facebook page I often publish photos of some of the food I cook at home, with brief explanations on what it is and how it is made. Unless you visit my page often, you miss this food porn. So I decided I will publish every week a recap of the most interesting things here on my blog. Here you go.

Home made polenta with home made mushroom ragu (porcini, morels, white mushroom). The mushroom sauce works perfectly with pasta too. 

The mushroom ragu, while simmering in my beloved cast iron skillet

The polenta: this is not precooked, so you have to stir it continuously for 1 hour. 

Slow cooker red curry coconut curry beef: roast chuck cooked for 3 hours in a thai red curry coconut milk. The sauce was delicious, but I think chicken or prawns would have worked better. 

FAILURE. I think home cooks should share more of their failures. Here is mine: my fried carnival sweets from Italian region Marche failed. The error was in figure No. 1: I divided the dough. That meant that the rolls filled with the lemon and sugar mixture (2) were too small and they opened up while frying (3). They should have looked like two rolls connected at the bottom: basically like the two things in photo 4, combined. They instead look like sad sticks (5).

How easy is it to make pasta, really? My two cents on Top Chef

I am reading many comments on food blogs about how unfair it is for Chef Sarah Grueneberg, of Chicago's Restaurant Spiaggia, to have made it to the finale of Top Chef. The criticism is twofold: they accuse her 1) of being a total bitch and of having bullied fellow Chicagoan Beverly Kim (from restaurant Aria) and 2) of always making pasta, and that making pasta is very easy, hence she is not a good chef.

I don't care about point 1. The couple of times I've had the chance of meeting and briefly talking to Chef Grueneberg, I have found her a very nice person, down to Earth, funny and amicable. Is she a total bitch in real life? I don't know, I am not friends with her. But honestly I don't care: all I care if I go to a restaurant is if the food is good. And her food for me is the best Italian I have ever eaten outside of Italy, full stop. 

Also: TV programs are made to dramatize things, to generate audience. If I were to be on a TV show and say "When they behave like scumbags, I hate journalists", a TV program would probably edit it all and make me say "I hate journalists", and then show me with a gun, and then they would show a journalist. This is how TV works. So, honestly, I don't care. 

But let's come to the second criticism, which I find peculiar. Did Sarah Grueneberg often cook pasta on the show? Yes, she did. So what? She is the executive chef of a Michelin-rated Italian restaurant. She is known for - among other things - her pasta. What should she be making? Stir-fries? (Incidentally, Beverly Kim, the chef that Grueneberg is accused of bullying, always cooked the same style of Asian cooking. I didn't have a problem with that, yet I would expect that people criticizing Grueneberg for making pasta would also criticize Kim for using always the same ingredients? Nope, that didn't happen...)

But the final argument is the most stupid I have ever heard: people think that it is unfair for chef Grueneberg to make it to the finale cooking pasta, because anybody can cook pasta, how difficult is that? 

Well, now: if cooking pasta was so darn easy, how come that the pasta I have eaten in 99.9% of Italian restaurants in my 15 years abroad has always been disgusting? Seriously people: I make home made pasta, at times with some success. But can I make it excellent every time? Is it Michelin worthy? Nope, it ain't.  Pasta is one of those things that people assume can me made to taste delicious very easily. This is so stupid: you can make pasta taste good, at times very good. But can you make it delicious every time? Not unless you are a very gifted chef. 

And that's all there is to it, really. You may not like her, you may prefer other chefs, and frankly, I don't care. But when I hear "cooking pasta is so easy anybody can do it" my BS detector goes crazy. 

The right ingredients with endless choice

I have already mentioned that the variety of food on offer in US supermarkets is outstanding. Whereas in my Belgian or Italian years I have memories of a couple of racks with "International food", where you could find some Indian, Mexican and Asian products or Italian pesto, US supermarkets' offer is limitless. There are two reasons: first and foremost the fact that American cuisine is a collage of different cuisines and different ethnic groups. So, the "international" products are not confined to a couple of racks, but they actually are the entire supermarket. This results in an orgy of products that - if you are crazy like me - is a feast for your senses. I mean, who had ever heard of Kabocha squash while living in Belgium or Italy? I most certainly hadn't.

The second reason has - again - to do with the concept of personal  choice that Americans built their Nation upon. They want to be able to choose. And the customer service is outstanding.

My wife disagree with me on the quality of produce on display here. She says that Belgian supermarkets had better vegetables. I say she is crazy (and Belgian): Belgian produce suffered from the lack of sun, so it was almost always tasteless. In spite of our disagreement on the quality of the produce, we agree on the fact that we are eating vegetables that we had never heard before. Parsnips? I had to go and look in a dictionary what the Italian name for this white, sweet carrot was (pastinaca, if you are wondering). It turned out that they used to be famous in Italy and in the rest of Europe until the 18th century, when they started to be used as animal food. Apparently over the past five years they started to become trendy again in certain parts of Italy as part of a rediscovery of cucina povera to the use of turists: so now restaurant owners can charge you 10 Euros for a parsnip soup made with scrap (tasty scrap at that) that were fed to pigs and sows.

And greens (collard greens, mustard greens), greens, and greens everywhere you go during Fall and Winter.  I like to take these greens and use them in traditional Italian recipes, modifying the flavors. Recently I made a collard green, bacon and butternut squash risotto that came out fantastic, if I do say so myself.

Of course there are times when I have issues with the ingredients. For instance the clams that are sold in Chicago supermarkets are the gigantic variety that dwarfs the little clams we use in the Mediterranean for our linguine alle vongole or soups. I mean, look at this photo: the clam is twice as big as the mussel. It is a monster! The texture is also very different. So I was really happy when I stumbled into Japanese clams, in a Japanese-only big supermarket, that looked identical to the Italian clams. I bought them (cheap) and made spaghetti alle vongole that were identical to the ones I used to eat in Italy.

This is why I love this place, foodwise. The choice is gigantic, and the limits are set by your capabilities and interest. Now go and try and make a chili con carne in Italy or Belgium. Good luck finding the right ingredients.

Top 5 things that piss me off in a restaurant

Las Saturday my wife and I went to eat out in a restaurant called Vermillion, in Chicago. It is an Indian/Latin American fusion restaurant. Aside from the lackluster food (an alternative name for the restaurant might be" Salt: we don't know what it is"), what really pissed me off was that there was absolutely no light in the restaurant. To the point that we had to use the lights of our mobile phones to read the menus. When we got our food delivered, we had to take a candle nearby, and use it to see what we were eating. I swear I am not joking.

I understand the need to create a nice atmosphere in a restaurant, playing with the lights. I do, I swear. I wouldn't want to eat in a restaurant with the same lights of a Walmart. But - as the ancient Romans used to say - in media stat virtus, virtus is in the middle.

Inspired by this last experience, here is my top five things that really piss me off in a restaurant:

1. Total absence of light, because it is very cool and hip. As mentioned above, obliging your paying guests to guess what the hell they are eating (will it be a potato? Will it be a piece of fish? Will it be a hot chile? Oh, the thrill of guessing...) is stupid. Many restaurants are guilty of this. 
2. Ear drum breaking music. I understand that if the theme of your restaurant is heavy metal music, you will be playing loud heavy metal music, so if I come and dine at your place I will gladly put up with this (even if I am a not a fan of heavy metal). But if the theme of your restaurant is NOT heavy metal music, then I would like to be able to have a nice conversation with the people I am having dinner with. Well, guess what? In many restaurants, even very good and/or expensive, Michelin-rated restaurants, not only is this impossible, but they look at you as if you were an idiot for even thinking that. Some even write it on their menu "don't ask us to reduce the volume of our music". Well, then don't ask me to give you money for a headache inducing experience in which the pleasure of food will be ruined by stupidly loud music. 
3. Not respecting reservations. Honestly people: if I make a reservation for 7pm, and I show up at 6.55, I want to be seated at 7pm. I don't want you to sit me down at 7,30 every freaking time. It doesn't matter how good your food is: I, the customer, want to be able to decide how to spend my evening. If I want to stand up and talk to friends before eating dinner, I will go to a restaurant with no reservations, and gladly wait my turn. If I make a reservation is because I want to sit and eat at that time. I understand that it is difficult for a restaurant to asses times and all: but it is not my problem. 
4. Pretentious waiters. Hey, guess what? No, I don't know what "alajar infused sbiruli" is. Thus, if I ask you nicely what it is, there is no reason to go all French on me and treating me like if I had just taken a huge dump on your shoes. Be nice, answer back, and put a smile on that hippy face. Because, guess what again, it is your freaking job to explain what the food is.
5. Overcrowded dining rooms in fancy restaurants. Either I am getting old, and my infamously low level of BS tolerance are getting even lower, or this is something that is happening increasingly often: you go to a "fancy" restaurant (those where the cheapest main course is priced at $35) and you are basically sitting on top of the next guest. The distance between the tables is maximum 5 inches, so that to get in and out you actually need to move the entire table. I don't often go to this type of fancy places, but when I do, I would like to be able to listen to the person I am having dinner with, and not to the (closer) lady who is sitting next to me. 

What about you: what are your pet peeves? 

Cowboy bison and beer pie

This is my take on shepherd's pie. I made it with ground bison and used a dark beer and brandy to develop a thick, sweet and sour sauce that complements well the bison's flavor. If you have time, I recommend you let the bison simmer as long as you can. Treat it like a chili con carne, and it will reward you with complex flavors. But you can speed things up, if need be. It will still be good.

This recipe is perfect if you have a cast iron skillet: you can cook the bison on the stove, and then put it in the oven directly.

Cowboy bison and beer pie
(PRINT OR DOWNLOAD THIS RECIPE)

Ingredients (for 6 people, in a 10in skillet)

• 1 pound (450g) of ground bison
• 2 tsp of chili powder
• 1 tsp of cayenne pepper
• 3 slices of bacon, chopped in ⅓ inch (1cm) pieces
• 1 tbsp of olive oil
• 3 peeled and chopped carrots
• 2 peeled and chopped parsnips
• 1 celery rib, chopped
• 2 garlic cloves, chopped finely
• ½ onion, chopped
• ⅓ cup canned crushed tomatoes or a few tbsp of tomato paste
• 1 tsp chopped fresh thyme
• 1 tsp chopped sage
• 1 laurel leaf
• 1 can of dark beer (I used an Imperial stout)
• 1/4 cup of brandy
• ½ cup beef broth or water
• salt & pepper

For the mashed potatoes

• ¾ pound of russet potatoes, or other baking quality, peeled and cut in four
• ¼ cup milk
• 1 tbsp butter
• 2 tbsp heavy whipping cream
• 1 egg, beaten
• salt and pepper

How to make it

• Heat your heavy skillet (I love cast iron) on low fire. Add the bacon and let it cook, stirring it occasionally, until it becomes crisp. This will take 10-15’. Don’t rush it. Take the bacon out of the pan and lay it on paper towel to dry.
• In the same pan with the bacon fat, add the oil. Add the carrots, the parsnips, the onions, the celery and cook, stirring for 5 minutes.
• Add the bison meat, the chili powder, a pinch of salt. Stir and make sure to brown the meat evenly, 10 minutes. 
• Add the brandy, let it evaporate 2 minutes. 
• Add the beer, thyme, sage and laurel. Scrape the bottom of the pan with a wooden spoon, so as to make sure to get all that flavorful bits. Let the beer reach the boiling point, then reduce the heat, add the broth and let it simmer for a 1-2 hours, until the sauce has thickened to a thick gravy. You can speed up this part by slightly increasing the heat, but the flavors will not be the same. It will still be good though (treat it like a chili con carne: the more it cooks, slowly, the better).
• Check for salt and pepper and adjust to your taste.

• For the potatoes: cook them in lightly salty boiling water for 20 minutes, or until they are soft. Drain them and rice them into a large bowl.
• Heat milk, butter and cream in a saucepan until they are hot and almost boiling. Add the milk mixture to the riced potatoes and stir. Once the potato mixture is cool enough, add salt and pepper and add the beaten egg, stirring.

• If you have used a skillet that can go into the oven, simply spread the potato mixture on the flattened bison and vegetable mixture. If not, you need to transfer the bison to a baking pan. Cross hatch the potatoes with a fork, and bake in oven at 400F/200C degrees for 20-30 minutes, until the potatoes are browning (see photo). If you are in hurry, use the broiler in your oven, and it will brown your potatoes in 10’.

• Let the pie rest 5-10 minutes: serve!

We have a winner (almost): Green chili

A couple of weeks ago, I submitted my green chili recipe and a revised version of my red chili - which for the revamp I christened as "Four fresh chiles and a ghost" chili - to a chili contest organized by Food 52. Food52 is the culinary and recipe blog by Amanda Hesser and Merrill Stubbs that I recommend you regularly take a look at, because they have pretty interesting contests (Ms. Hesser is also the author of The Essential New York Times Cookbook: Classic Recipes for a New Century, an awesome book, if you ask me). 

My green chili didn't win, but it was among the four community picks chosen by the editors. In the words of the tester:  "We were won over by the gorgeous aroma of cumin and peppers filling the kitchen. Browning the pork in bacon fat is a nice touch. The end result is a seemingly mild chili with a good spicy kick at the end". 

This is the third time that one of my recipes is selected as editors/community picks: the first time it was my butternut squash and amaretto cookies tortelli, and more recently it had been the turn of my spaghetti with cherry tomatoes and pecorino cheese. 


I wonder: will I ever win?

Flemish beer beef stew (Carbonnade flamande)

The first time I ate Carbonnade Flamande, in a little cave-like restaurant in Brussels' Grande Place, I hate it. I found the texture repelling, and the beer flavor put me off. Now I would eat it every single day. What happened in the meantime? I guess 11 years of living in Belgium, a Flemish wife, and a lot of beer ingested: that's what happened.

Every Belgian family has its own perfect recipe of this beef Flemish stew. My wife's makes no exception. This is her family's recipe: the secret weapon is the bread smeared with mustard, which is added to the stew and let to dissolve slowly: it adds a flavor dimension that I haven't found in any recipes. The bread you use is important: there is no need to go fancy on the bread, even stale bread will work, but please: do not use the spongy, packaged disgusting thing that US supermarkets call bread: use real bread.

Since we are in the US, we have also made this in the slow cooker and it works perfectly. So I am giving you that option in the cooking notes.

A word about the beer to use: traditionally you should be using a red Flemish beer. What we use at home here in Chicago is a beer called Duchesse de Bourgogne, which - in spite of its French name - is Flemish. You can find it at Whole Foods or at Binny's. Let me warn you: it is expensive. But this is a beer flavored stew, and if you are saving money on the beer, I suggest you go and cook something else. I am serious: the beer gives 70% of the stew's flavor.

If you can't find it, ask your beer vendor if he/she can suggest a red Flemish ale for a Belgian stew. If he/she is any good, he/she should pick one for you that is sweet enough to help the caramelization that needs to take place in the stew, but not sweet enough to turn this dish into a dessert. If any Belgian reader is reading this and wants to chip in with advice on the best beer to use, by all means please do.

Tuscan Foodie's wife's Carbonnade Flamande
(PRINT OR DOWNLOAD THIS RECIPE)

Ingredients:

• 4 tbsp unsalted butter (2oz/60g)
• 4 slices of good quality bacon (about 4-5oz/100-150gr), roughly chopped
• 2 yellow onions, thinly chopped
• 2 teaspoons of dark brown sugar
• 2 minced gloves of garlic
• 3 tbsp of all purpose flour
• 3 lb (1.5 kg) of beef, chuck steak or round steak, fat removed, cut into pieces 2-3 inches/4-7cm wide
• 2 tbsp olive oil
• 16 oz / 500ml of red Flemish beer (see notes above: Duchesse de Bourgogne would be perfect)
• 2 slices of bread (see notes above)
• 2 tbsp of yellow mustard 
• salt and pepper

How to make it

• Melt 2 tbsp of butter in a large heavy skillet over medium heat. Throw in the bacon and cook until crisp, but not burnt. Turn the bacon often. This should take 5-10 minutes. 
• Add the onions to the bacon in the skillet, add the sugar and cook until the onions caramelize, turning into a deep brown color. This will take 30-40 minutes, and you will need to stir now and then. This process is key: you are creating the sweet/caramelized flavor which will be a key component of the stew. Be patient: certain onions take longer than others to caramelize. 
• When the onions are brown, add the garlic, cook for 2 minutes and set the whole mixture aside on a plate. 
• While the onions cook, mix flour, salt and pepper in a plate or in a zip-lock bag: add the beef pieces and coat in flour (in a zip-lock it is easier). 
• Using the same skillet in which you cooked the onions and the bacon, melt the remaining 2 tbsp of butter. Add the beef pieces, making sure not to overcrowd the pan. Brown the meat on all sides. This will take 10-20 minutes: depending on the size of your pan, you may need to work in batches, adding butter as necessary. Browning the meat is also key, because it locks in the flavors. 
• When the beef is browned, remove it from the pan, and set it on a plate. 
• Add the beer to the skillet, and deglaze it, scraping its bottom with a wooden spoon: you want to make sure that all the brown pieces of meat that are stuck to the pan get loose: they are flavorful and you want them in your stew. Cook and stir until the beer boils. 
• Put the meat, the onion/bacon mixture, the beer in a large Dutch oven on the stove top, or in a slow cooker. Add the two slices of bread smeared with the mustard to the stew: the bread will dissolve while the stew cooks. 
• Dutch oven on the stove-top: cook covered for two hours, on very low fire. Stir now and then, to make sure to dissolve the bread.
• Slow cooker: cook covered 6-7 hours on low. Stir towards the end to make sure to dissolve the bread.  

How to serve it

Serve this with french fries or roasted potatoes or even roasted sweet potatoes. A beer - better if the one you have used for cooking the stew - is a must!

Cooking Ratios: table and charts

Ratio - the simple code behind the craft of everyday cooking is a book that will change the life of anyone interested in cooking. The idea behind it is the classic egg of Columbus: super simple, and yet I hadn't thought of it. Rather than giving you another book of recipes, author Michael Ruhlman gives you the ratios behind a whole list of them: for bread, you need 5 parts of flour for every 3 parts of liquids; for cookies, you need 3 parts of flour for 2 parts of liquids and 1 part of fat... 

The idea behind this book is that when you know the basic ratio (in weight), you have a working basis from which the sky (and your capabilities) is the limit : you can add whatever variation you fancy. Still, the basic ratio will remain the same.

Ruhlman is candid about not having invented anything. In the introduction, he explains that the idea of this book came to him when Uwe Hestnar, a chef at the Culinary Institute of America, gave him a piece of paper with a list of basic ratios, telling him that "this is all one truly needs". No fancy books. No detailed explanations. Just ratios. Because - Mr. Hestnar says -  the fundamentals of cooking don't change.

The book is really fantastic, and I really recommend you buy it. It is simple, and super usable: on top of the basic ratios, he explains how to obtain several variations from the same ratios, and gives you also a list of quick to try recipes. Alas, it has a big flow: it doesn't have charts. Actually, it does have a couple of charts, but they are small and unusable. And this is a pity, because I think everybody should have a summary table of this stuff hanging in their kitchen. After all, even Ruhlman admits that he made a chart and framed it...so why not his readers?

Ratios summary table with notes - inspired by Ruhlman's book - click to access a high-def image

Ruhlman used to sell a pdf on his site, but now it is not available. He actually has an iPhone app which he charges $4.99 for it. (Not bad: charging $4.99 for something you haven't invented, and that was given to you for free by another chef. Hat off to you).

So I made my own table (above) and my own charts (below). I don't think I am infringing on anyone's copyright in passing them to you: after all, Ruhlman has NOT invented these ratios, which are well known among professional chefs. So consider this my valentine to you.

For downloading, you have two options:

• You can click on the photos that I have inserted in this post (the table above and the charts below), and access high definition images of the pie charts I made. (The three photos with the pie charts are the same in content, but with a different layout, so you can choose which one you like best. 
• Or you can click here, and download a presentation with these four slides. Up to you. 

And yes, you are welcome.

Ratios for doughs and batters - inspired by Ruhlman's book - click for a high-def image

American fads

The lack of a strong, centuries-lasting food tradition is what makes the US such an interesting country in which to eat food at the moment. Alas, it is also the main reason why Americans seem to be so prone to fads, including diet fads.

French and Italians cuisines have all formed during centuries, assimilating traditions coming from different influences. On the bad side of things, this means they are now less open to new things, and they may be described as stiff. (Spanish cuisine is probably the exception here, with its capability to innovate itself profoundly at the moment). Because "American cuisine" is so new, Americans are more eager to try new things: some of them work, some don't, but at least this process of trial and error can generate new things.

The problem is that this lack of a stable dietary history also generates diet fads. The level at which the average American person seems to be influenced by diet fads is incredible. Up until 2002 the official government's guidelines invited Americans to eat grains and carbs and to reduce the level of animal fat. At the same time though, the Atkins diet was all the rage with a vast sector of the population, advocating exactly the opposite: cut the carbs, increase the fat (including animal fat) and eat as much of that as you want.

The low carb histeria exploded thanks to a famous article from the New York Times, appeared in July 2002. It  cast a doubt over whether fat was really the culprit for the overweight pandemic that had struck America since the mid-70s. Overnight, a country which had been taught to eat pasta like Italians do, because it was supposed to be good for you, started to obsess with low-carbs options. I distinctively remember spending New Year's Eve in New York in 2002, and every waiter was offering low-carb options. I didn't even know what it meant at the time.

Now there is a new fad coming along: the so called paleo diet, which actually originated in Europe. It advocates for a regimen based on what we think paleolithic men were eating, from 2.5 million to 10,000 years ago, before agriculture came into the picture: lots of meat, no pasta, no bread, no grains (all agricultural products or byproducts). The theory behind this actually doesn't sound too wacky as you might think: their point is that from an evolutionary point of view, man evolved to consume meat, roots and berries. Agriculture appeared too late in the game to have had any impact on our evolution as a species yet. To imitate the paleolithic lifestyle, there are even those who fast for 36 hours, exercise with an empty stomach, and then eat an entire buffalo. And I am not even joking, people. 

As for me, I simply don't trust nutritionists. As the fat/carb issue well proves, nutritionists are always ready to crucify you for something, and then the day after they will be on your back for something else.

And tonight I am eating pie.