Executive summary
In this paper, I seek to establish the fact that gastronomy is indeed an art and a science. Gastronomy is not just a matter of culinary arts and foods but it involves many other things like music and tourism which are all interconnected. The paper further goes to discuss the history of tiramisu about gastronomy and how the tiramisu has impacted the development of gastronomy. I answer the key question of where tiramisu originated from.
I also seek to demystify some lies about the gastronomy of tiramisu. This includes the notion that tiramisu is not a healthy dessert. The paper also observes the impacts of the gastronomy of the tiramisu on tourism both locally and internationally. To put the icing on the cake, I describe the original recipe for making this world’s most famous dessert.
History of Tiramisu
The tiramisu is widely thought to have originated in the prehistoric renaissance age of Europe. This was the age when cultural flowering took a toll on society in early Europe. It was a time around the fourteenth century and it is suggested that the tiramisu originated around the same time. It was an era characterized by an unprecedented avalanche in the arts and sciences. Perhaps the newfound way of social life and flamboyant approach around this time must have made the chefs of the day want to come up with an exciting dessert to march the time.
Other people suggest that this dessert originated in Italy somewhere around 1971. The baker who is it is attributed to hailed from Trevito. Perhaps what makes this theory more credible than the former is the fact that tiramisu is an Italian term that is translated to the English equivalent, pick-me-up. Tiramisu is an Italian word which when translated to its English equivalent would mean pick-me-up. It, therefore, follows without saying that tiramisu is an Italian delicacy.
The baker that has been widely accepted to be the one that invented the tiramisu is a man by the name of Carminantonio Lannaccone (Ellis, 2003). When asked about the recipe, he shrugged and said it was not a huge invention that could be juxtaposed to other ones like the telephone. It was just a mere dessert. But maybe he didn’t realize at that point that he had come up with what would be a recipe that would be the world’s most famous dessert. He probably had no idea that comes the millennium, it would get an unprecedented 4.7 million Google hits in 2007.
So how did he come up with such a wonderful recipe? A very interesting answer he gave! He was not trying to come up with something. He had just moved to a new town, Milan where he set up his restaurant. He was simply making do with the ingredients that were readily available to him in the new place to try to realize something edible for his restaurant clientele. He used the same ingredients over and over again trying to make something until one day, he didn’t just make a cake but he made history. Two years down the line, it had become a hit. Chefs from far and wide had heard of this great recipe and came to drink from his fountain of wisdom. He was one eager man to quench their thirst and within a short time, these chefs were also making the dessert. Some had even come up with their versions while some ordered them direct from the expert for reselling in their joints.
The concept of gastronomy was probably first realized in 1842. The first thought was that enjoying food at a table is actually more than a feeling but is rather a science (Harris, 2003). This has led to the further development of the theory over the years. The development of gastronomy has been impacted or influenced by some salient factors which I describe below.
Environmental Influences
The green revolution is indeed taking the world by storm. People are being admonished to reduce their carbon footprints and this has led to an impact on gastronomy development. People are more careful about the food crops they grow, how they grow them and how the food is processed. Campaigns against junk food have been on the increase as more green foods are thought to be not only healthier to the consumers but friendly to the environment (Vidar and Jens, 2001).
Climate change and different weather patterns have also adversely affected gastronomy. For instance, the dry pasta was developed to fit the lifestyle of nomadic Arabs. It was a matter of convenience as they wanted to have the food they can carry along and one that could be taken to very dry places without going bad. Even today, climatic changes affect the choice of food for people. Eskimos for instance will appreciate hot foods more than the Khoisan people who hail from Africans largest dessert. It comes with little wonder therefore that there are different ways of preparing tiramisu as people in different places prefer it in different tastes and at different temperatures.
Technical Influences on Gastronomy
Technical gastronomy is an art and science in gastronomy. It deals with the development of the modern food development process (Bronwyn, 2003). It seeks to create a gap between the former methods and the newly re-engineered methods. Chefs have located at this phase I gastronomy and they answer very important salient questions like, how appropriate or relevant is the given food for the given organization? (Anthelme, 1826). The science of menu engineering and development also falls here. This phase has a bird’ eye view of anything that needs any kind of review (Cailein and Cousins, 2001).
Social Cultural Influences on Gastronomy
Culinary art is a field that is dependent on the social-cultural structures of a given society. Pasta that is dry for instance was introduced to help the nomadic lifestyles of the Arabs in the deserts. It is today a common delicacy (Cailen, et al., 2001). A good example of how social-cultural trends have affected gastronomy development is the diet of the early monks in the Christian faith. They observed that from scripture, man sinned and was separated from God because of eating. Spirituality was thus equated to abstinence from food.
They continued with religious faith to survive only on bread and on pulses until the year 1000 when the Catholic Church permitted them to eat other foods. Social-cultural trends have therefore from time immemorial affected positively and negatively the development of gastronomy. Today, we have large tourist hotels in major cities that specialize in different cuisines. It is easy to spot a hotel serving Indian cuisine adjacent to one that specializes in Italian foods. This began as a way of attracting tourists who savored their home delicacies in a new country. Over the years, however, the locals embraced foreign foods and adjusted their eating habits to occasionally try out other tastes (Cibe, 2007).
Historical Influences on Gastronomy
People tend to cook food the way it has always been done traditionally. While improvements can and have been made, it largely changes only the spices involved, the way of serving but usually, the cooking mode remains the same (Cibe, 2007). Different people have different ways of coking that are representative of their historical background. If immigrants came from a land that had plenty of garlic, for instance, their gastronomy will include a lot of garlic even in a place where getting it is hard (Vidar and Jens, 2001).
Little has changed from the time cooking was invented. What keeps changing is the recipes and the ingredients but the procedures have over the years remained more or less the same. Studying a people’s history will therefore not be complete until reference has been made to their gastronomy. For instance, America is a country with no original dwellers. Immigrants from different parts of the earth settled there. This different person came with their gastronomy to the country. The Indians had their way of cooking; the Africans had their way of cooking the Spaniard’s etcetera.
Just studying people’s culinary art and gastronomy reveals a lot about where they came from. For instance, spices used by different people will be in most cases the spices that were readily available in their original home. For example, garlic has been associated with the Egyptians for hundreds of years now with major writings of olden times including the Bible referring to the Egyptians using garlic.
Agricultural Influences on Gastronomy
Agriculture tends to impact culinary art due to the availability of food. For instance, a community that grows wheat will most probably have a lot of wheat products on its tables. The bigger population of Sri Lanka for instance has rice in all the meals they take on a given day. This is probably because they have the agricultural advantage of producing rice en masse. Evolving trends in farming due to the advance in science is also a major factor in the development of gastronomy.
Agricultural research and engineering have resulted in the production of different kinds of crops today. For instance, we now have genetically modified foods. Green farming has also led to an increase in horticultural produce. This means that now because of these advances, food that was not readily available can now be home grown.People traditionally used to travel long distances to get certain foods but now science is increasingly making that unnecessary.
Impacts of Gastronomy on Tourist Markets
Researchers have established that destinations gastronomy is a very great contributor to the visitor’s satisfaction. This is so much to the extent that most tourists will revisit a place again just because of the excellent culinary arts of the destination. This connection between gastronomy and tourism has led to a new form of tourism which is called culinary tourism (Kivelal and Crotts, 2009).
Of importance is the case of tiramisu. When Lannaccone began making it in his Milan restaurant, he immediately caused a buzz in the culinary field in his town. Soon, people were visiting from other towns just to savor his invention. Decades later, tourists have continued to flock to destinations that are well known for their delicious tiramisu alongside other courses. Gastronomy is with no doubt one of the greatest reasons why visitors to a certain destination keep returning (Mason, 2003).
Preparation of Tiramisu
Making tiramisu is fairly easy. For the ingredients, you will need ladyfingers, coffee or rum, chocolate, mustard and cheese (Tricia, 2003). You can choose to substitute some of the ingredients as well as complement some. For instance, instead of using chocolate you can use cocoa, instead of coffee you can use wine and so on and so forth (Good Cooking Inc, 2005). The beauty of this recipe is that the ingredients will seldom vary. To prepare your tiramisu, all you need to do is to soak your ladyfingers in your espresso coffee mixture for a while. The idea is to allow your ladyfingers to soak but not to put them for too long until they become too soggy. Once this has been accomplished, you now layer your lady fingers with cheese (Fabiovestin, 2010).
A traditional and good way of preparing the cheese is mixing it with custard. Now you will place your ladyfingers on your serving platter and layer it with cheese one by one until you have a tiered cake of different layers. You then top this up with chocolate. You can also use coco and thick cream. Once this is done, allow it to cool then put it under refrigeration for 5 hours for proper chilling.
But why eat tiramisu? Well, for starters it is the world’s most famous desserts. And it’s not for nothing! This is one delicious dessert. Also, unlike the other American desserts, tiramisu has very little sugar used in its preparation. Actually, Italian desserts are seldom too sweet. This is good for your health as too much sugar is poisonous (Dal, et al., 2009).
Contribution of Tiramisu to Gastronomy
Tiramisu emerged around the renaissance age in Europe. This was a time when the cultural flowering caught up with Europeans (Niikamp, et al., 2009). Etiquette was invented and social eating and drinking was also realized. Since tiramisu came around the same time, it became the generally accepted dessert by many. The other reason is that its origin was not clear so no one felt inferior as far as inventing it was concerned (This, 2006).
Tiramisu’s origin has never been definite. No one has ever copyrighted the recipe. This meant that people were free to alter it and reproduce and even rebrand it with no legal implications whatsoever (Vidar and Jens 2001). This led to there being so many variants of the same recipe. This opened a new window in gastronomy of experimenting with original recipes to reengineer others (Greg, et al., 2002).
References
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