Epi-Log offers up a semi-interesting post on The Secrets Behind the Food of ‘Eat, Pray, Love’
I sorta barfed at the bit about prosciutto:
We checked out the cafe the day beforehand and made sure we could use their prosciutto. It was a lovely cafe, but their prosciutto wasn’t very pretty. So my Roman assistant was zipping around the streets of the city on his Vespa to get us prosciutto for the scene. He had to make the trip twice!
One wonders if there is a universal criteria for ham beauty. Obviously, authenticity isn’t the thing, or they would have used the prosciutto from the cafe.
But the real question is, do we have to apply the American idea of ham beauty to a film about Italy? I hate that. I suspect that the ham had ugly fat, fat that Italians love; fat that Italians would not only eat but require in their prosciutto; fat that makes obese Americans wince in painful recollection.
As I think about all the cured ham I’ve eaten across Europe, I remember best the hand-carved ones presented to me in Madrid and in Sardinia (hand carving creates less heat than a mechanical slicer, thus providing a better “user experience”). Both hams were brick-red, not the feminine pink of most Italian prosciutti. I remember watching the waiter in Spain expertly cutting uniformly thin slices of jamon for me. I remember the crudely cut slices of mountain prosciutto in Sardinia. They were both memorable, both fabulous. Beautiful in their own way.
But pretty? I dunno. Fact is, I don’t care. If you love your prosciutto, I wouldn’t think you would either.