This week we have a very special guest on Mammaprada! Italian born Paolo Rigiroli. Paolo runs the blog ‘Disgraces on the Menu’ and a brilliant podcast ‘Thoughts on the Table’. In his own words, he is “Fixing Italian food around the world”. He is helping all of us understand the difference between what is known as Italian food and the actual food you will find in Italy.

Paolo and I recently recorded an episode on his podcast together. We discussed Italian food abroad, the differences we’ve found between Italian food culture and others. We also touched on the topic of raising children with two cultures and languages. You can listen to the episode here, but let’s find out more about Paolo!

Risotto with asparagus, Parmigiano rind and Parmigiano crisp

So Paolo, tell us, where are you from and how did you go from Italy, to Canada and now the UK?

I was born in Legnano, 30 Km from Milan, well before the Internet. Growing up, I developed a passion for electronics, which led me to becoming an engineer. However, I soon realized that electronics was a bit too theoretical for me, so I decided to specialize in biomedics.

As it turns out, sports medicine makes use of motion-capture, which is also used to make videogames and thanks to a stroke of luck I found myself freelancing for a big videogames company based in Vancouver, Canada. The short-term contract became indefinite and so was the move to Canada! I loved Vancouver so much, but after nearly 18 years I felt a pull back to Europe. Since my wife had always wanted to live in England, I managed to obtain a transfer to my company’s UK office, and here we are 2.5 years later!

What’s the focus of your blog Disgraces on the Menu?

It was born out of my frustration after ten years of living in Canada. As blogs became popular, I began voicing out my thoughts on the so-called Italian Food that I was regularly coming across in North America. During those years, I had also started to miss Italian food and had gone back to cooking the food I was familiar with from growing up in Italy. I started adding my recipes to the blog as well to sort of say: “Here! This is how it's supposed to be made and look like!” Over time, though, I came to terms with the fact that Italian-American food is a cuisine of its own, which has all rights to be, so I shifted my focus to understanding the reason of the differences, starting from the ingredients (e.g. eggs, milk).

Potato gnocchi with Gorgonzola and walnuts

Why are you so passionate about educating people on authentic Italian food?

I value traditions as cultural heritage and think that traditional recipes and techniques should be recognized as the foundations of every culinary identity. I am well aware that cuisines continue to evolve, but I believe they do so while honoring a set of intrinsic rules, like a new harmony written on a given key, or a novel design based on the same color palette.

With my work, I would like to help non-native Italians recognize whether an Italian dish can truly be labeled as such, while going after horrible aberrations (those ‘disgraces on the menu!’) like those where the name of traditional preparations are used to create non-traditional hybrids, like Chicken Parmigiana, Mushroom Bolognese, or Shrimp Scampi.

Which dishes do you miss from home?

Now that I live in the UK, I’m able to find most Italian ingredients as well as authentic Italian restaurants. As a result, I don’t really miss any dishes from home. When I was living in Vancouver, however, especially during the first few years, I was absolutely unable to find decent pizza anywhere - so that would have been my answer then!

Do you mainly eat Italian food in the UK?

Not at all, actually, but still about 50% of the time. Living in multicultural Vancouver exposed us to many different kinds of cuisines which we learned to love and stayed with us, such as: Indian, Chinese, Japanese, Mexican, Lebanese, just to name a few. Before the pandemic, we did try to find those cuisines in the UK, with limited success and mainly in London.

Now, instead, we try to master making some of these dishes at home, thanks to my wife, really, who is always researching authentic recipes and sourcing the proper ingredients. We can’t say that we can fully recreate them, but we can now get closer to the flavors that we remember and satisfy our cravings for a good Dal Makhani, or Dan Dan Noodles, or Huevos Rancheros, or Mjadra.

Tell us about your podcast ‘Thoughts on the Table’?

This is really where I have been focusing the most, lately. It started from a collaboration with an ex-coworker, Jason, who you can hear with me in the first few episodes of the podcast, back in 2013. We were looking for a more direct, colloquial way to share what we had learned about food and food culture with each other and with “the world.” I was and still am an avid listener of podcasts, and I had an experience working in an amateur radio station in Italy when I was younger, so the idea of producing my own podcast was always very exciting.

Over time, I switched the format over to interviews, involving at first my blogger friends and then expanding to other podcasters and new collaborators. I’m now approaching my first 90 episodes and I’m proud of where the show has got to, both from a technical standpoint (the recording itself but also the editing) and in terms of production value. I think it has also improved my public speaking and my spoken English, so that alone is invaluable to me.

What interests you about other people’s food experiences/cultures?

They are all aspects of humanity. And the ability to communicate directly to one another through the Internet is the hallmark of our times and one of the biggest gifts technology has brought to us, in my opinion. I think that talking about food and food culture brings us closer and connects us deeply.

Which Italian dish do you think Brits would love if they tried it but is not available in the UK?

There are many regional Italian dishes that are hardly known outside of Italy and that I think would appeal to a broader audience. Out of those, I’ve started to promote a few of my favorite comfort foods such as Pasta e Fagioli, Pizzoccheri, gnocchi, and risotti to my British friends, and they seem to appreciate them!

What does your Mamma cook for you when you go back to Italy?

Oh, gnocchi - for sure! It’s a dish from my childhood, and also from my mom’s. She knows I love it, and when I used to go back before the pandemic it was always the first dish she would make me find ready, no matter the time of the day I would get there or my jet-lag state!

What plans do you have for your blog and podcast in the future?

Lots of plans, but also realistic expectations of a modest production volume since these are still leisure activities for me. Slow but steady, it’s my motto! But by lowering my production expectations, I allow myself to focus on quality and only publish material that is meaningful to me.

In terms of collaborations, I would like to broaden my horizon to include more language & history references, and also make more use of storytelling and the accompaniment of music.