Can Food Really Be Authentic?
What makes for some authentic Genoese ravioli? It’s not cheese and tomatoes. Pulitzer Prize-winning L.A. Weekly food critic Jonathan Gold told the full house at the Skirball Cultural Center the key ingredients. “There’s a little brain, there’s a little liver, and what’s thought to be the essential part of it,” he said, “is a little scrap of cow’s udder.” Audience groans notwithstanding, the “chewy uddery goodness” was a matter of necessity more than authenticity – it tends to be a cheap, easily found item in Genoa. In Los Angeles, it’s …
