New video!

Hi guys,

We are proud to announce our first recipe video in YouTube.   From now on we will be publishing videos of all our recipes so you can see how we prepare them.

You can find us in YouTube by searching for "calabriataste" and all the videos will come up.  

As always you can leave comments they are all welcome, we love to know what you're thinking of our recipes, videos and articles!

Cu you all soon

The Sussex Newspaper participation!

Hey guys,

Would like to inform you that The Taste of Calabria is now participating in The Sussex Newspaper supplying delicious weekly recipes and food articles.  Be sure to check it out!

The Sussex Newspaper

ORGANIC is it really?

I know this is a hot topic and everyone has a different opinion about it “that is good for you”, “that is more nutritious”, “that is natural”, etc, but I have a problem with what is understood of organic food in this country, and the policies around producing and obtaining an “ORGANIC” certificate.


The other day I was doing my regular food shopping, at least the one I do in the supermarket and decided to check out some products certified as “ORGANIC”. Well, I found that the products I checked out had the same amount of enhancers, regulators, flavourings, acid regulators, etc than any other industrially and massive produced product. So my question is:

If we suppose to eat organic because is healthier, natural with no artificial anything or preservatives added to the raw produce (vegetable, fruits, meat, etc) then why add all those artificial things to the product when packing it or bottling it?

Would these not take out the reason for going organic? If I’m suppose to pay a premium price for going “ORGANIC” because is healthy and natural then I want the products to be 100% natural as it suppose to be and with only the pure ingredients in it! Don’t you think?

I’m an importer of Southern Italian foods, specifically from Calabria. The food I import is made with 100% organic produce and/or wild ingredients, with nothing artificial added to them neither when growing or when packed because that’s how we eat in the South of Italy. Vegetables and fruits that have been grown in lands located in mountains at certain altitude where there is no pollution and wild herbs handpicked from these same mountains. Now, I believe these produce are more organic than any of the ingredients found for example in the products I checked out, however, because we do not have an “ORGANIC” certificate we can’t say our products are Organic. For small producers like us obtain this certificate is very expensive, therefore, we have to sell our products like any other cheap, massive produced products although their quality is beyond these.

As the “Organic” laws in this country are so tight, how can they allow for products containing all sorts of non natural ingredients added to them and still be called “ORGANIC”?

And how at the same time ignore and persecute producers that dear to call their products “ORGANIC” without a certificate but that their products are truly 100% organic and natural?

Any thoughts?

Blog update

Hi all,
 
Due to certain space limitations in this blog I am forced to move my blog to the following site

calabriataste.wordpress.com

From now please go to the above address where you will find  all the great posts, articles and updates that were post here, plus much more images, twitter comments, slideshows and much more.   Please note that you will need to subscribe to be able to receive new posts directly on your email address.

Thank you for your support and hope to see you all there.

PS: Please feel free to leave comments on any of the articles, posts and tips so we can all share our thoughts!

Thanks

Morella

Updated website...

Hi guys!

Just to let you know about my website update! Through this update you will have an easier access to my on-line shop and will be able to find in a quicker away all my products....

Just to let you know all the products available...

 Cured meats from £2.50 per 100gr

Pastas from £2.50

Spices bags £2.50

Cheeses from £2.50 per 100gr

Vegetarian and non vegetarian chilli spreads
from £2.80

How to make Gnocchi

Hi guys,

This is my mums gnocchi recipe, very easy, very quick and delicious!

Hope you all like it!

http://www.calabriataste.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=74&Itemid=83

How to recognise good quality pasta!!

I get a lot of people asking me why my pasta is so different from other pastas found in supermarkets and shops. Well my answer has always been because we use the best semolina you can find in Italy, and secondly because we make our pasta like our grandmothers and grand grandmothers use to make it, the old fashion way, our traditional way, using antique methods that allows the pasta to have a consistency than when cooked is like fresh pasta and has a natural taste. Of course no additives, enhancers and massive produced techniques are used.
So then I get the question of, how can we identify when a pasta is of good quality?
Well, unfortunately that can be quite tricky but still there are ways of seeing whether the pasta is of at least a decent quality.
The aspects you should look at are size, colour and thickness of the pasta. Industrially made pasta is quite small in size. Although we can find many types of traditional shapes from the largest to the smallest normally massive produced pasta shapes tend to be smaller than the traditional size for that particular shape. Of course, to be able to recognise this you would have to know what’s the traditional size for that shape, which in most cases is impossible. So the best thing would be if you can actually get a good quality or proper handmade pasta of the shape you are analysing and compare the size of that pasta with the industrially made one, so you can have an idea of the sizes.

The second aspect you should look at is the colour. Massive produced pasta is kind of yellow because the dough which was made from probably had more ingredients added to it than what it should have. Handmade or good quality pasta has a very light yellow or white colour because is the actual colour of the semolina. Of course the quality of the semolina used influences this a great deal. Also, massive produced pasta has a sort of transparency look to it probably because the dough from which it was made of was thinner in consistency than what it should be allowing producers to produce more amount of pasta per kilo of dough. Good handmade pasta will have a solid look, ie it won’t look weak if you know what I mean, it will look heavy.

The third aspect to look for will be thickness. Good handmade pasta will be thick. This gives the pasta the consistency handmade pasta has. If you look massive produced pasta you’ll see that the shape will be very thin, looking at the cut edge. Again, because the dough used was very thin and when squeezed through the machine to form the shape is using the least quantity of dough to produce more amount of pasta per kilo of dough.

The next aspect you can check this time when cooking or after cooked is the consistency. As I said industrially produced pasta is quite light in weight where as handmade pasta or good quality pasta will be heavier making you eat less to feel full. The consistency will be softer than normal dry pasta, the shape would have grown/extended in size more than normally massive produced dry pasta will because the dough would absorbed more water .
So to conclude we can say the best dry pasta you can get would be one that when cooked is like fresh handmade pasta.

Well I hope you guys liked the article and of course that was useful.