A lot of apartments and villas when you rent in Italy do not have the same kitchen utensils as in other countries. I am currently visiting and staying in an apartment where the kitchen is how do I say – not well supplied and does not even have – what is it called – the utensil you use to serve pasta. I don’t know the formal name of this in English or Italian – “Pasta Server” perhaps?. Is this Italy or what!! – the country where every single person has pasta for lunch in every region?!! And a sharp cooking knife well – “buonanotte”!! as they say… I guess the owners must have the idea that people on holidays do not want to do much cooking or are they just plain ole ‘too tight to buy these things for their guests’? (more likely!)
I find one of the most frustrating things when travelling and staying in holiday apartments all over Italy and other countries, that the most essential thing in the kitchen is the sharp knife – no matter where you are!!. In holiday apartments there is never a knife sharpener so the knives are always blunt!! Maybe people would secretly steal a good sharp knife because they are such a rare thing unless one is a chef of course and know the inside secrets of how to sharpen a knife well!!. It is an art and an art that needs to be taught to everyone who has to cook a meal.
Some of my good friends who are home chefs, when they go on holidays to a holiday house, take their stash of good kitchen knives wrapped carefully in tea towels in a suitcase (in case one gets pulled over by the police on the road!!). However one is not allowed to take these on aeroplanes any more otherwise you could end up in solitary confinement in the terrorist cell.!! Imagine the state of nerves as your bag went through the Xray machine!! What a sad state for the travelling kitchen chef – no knife no cook!!
Don’t get me wrong - I am no chef but one gets attached to one’s own knives in the home and hearth. I think the best wedding present is always a very good expensive cutting knive that won’t chip and that can be hand sharpened with a good old fashioned stone. One that will last all the marriage years without rusting and not go missing up in the compost heap thrown out with the vegtables and hopefully not be used for other purposes like ending the marriage etc. I must ask my Italian friends here what they use to sharpen their knives as it seems everyone has a different method.
Back home I have asked a thousand people what is the best knife sharpener that they use and they always look at me blankly!! What happened to that good old fashioned thing call “The stone”!! Where can you buy one? Does anyone even exist anymore who knows about knife sharpening methods? I don’t like those self sharpening containers or those wooden knive storage containers as one scientific study I read, said that over the years of usage they become a fountain of bacteria and gather dust as they can never be cleaned inside. I prefer a magnetic holder for knives so they are readily accessible and you know they are clean (and blunt). I want that little knife sharpening man in Roma back. He has sadly disappeared – I do not see him any more. Come back, Come back!!
I finally found a new version of a stone made with modern materials of course in a kitchen shop in Australia but it was far different to the real proper knife sharpening stone I used to have, given to me by my inlaws and it magically disappeared one day and of course you only miss it when one comes to use it!! Having four sons I have a dark suspicion that it was taken out into the far blue yonder to sharpen pocket knives to carve initials in the trees and is still lying there embedded there under years of foliage in my garden or maybe the neighbour’s garden!!
Now that my sons are grown, I recently quizzed them all if they remembered taking it when young as I still miss my stone – all blank stares – hey does that twitch of the eyebrow mean a little memory of guilt from many years ago – if so fess up and tell me where my stone is!! If found after many years, all I would have to do is clean it and bobs your uncle. On it will go making many a kitchen cook happy after I am gone. One day it might turn up if I ever decide to hack back my overgrown garden!! Now that would make my pasta!!
Ask Passion for Italy which apartments and villas have the sharp knives – we know!!
