"IT": Stephen King's scariest dishes – Italian Cuisine

Between food and horror. Here's how Stephen King's delusions and culinary phobias "interfere" in the writing of his novels

Some would say that to feed the stomach of Stephen King above all fear, the torment that arouses in the hearts of its readers. In fact, ever since he achieved international success by becoming one of the most sold and appreciated authors in the world, the thrill is undoubtedly the main dish of his existence: awakening the deepest nightmares and finding the right weapon to face them becomes a subject of study, predominant subject of his novels. It is no exception it, what has been hailed by many as his masterpiece and that, after the box office success achieved in 2017, returns to the cinema with a second chapter starting on September 5th. To embody the fears of the protagonists is Pennywise, the dancing clown who gives shape to all the anxieties of the "Club dei Perdenti" by Derry, those kids who for one reason or another feel they are misunderstood and who, thanks to their union, will be able to be stronger than any else. Among them there is also Ben Hanscom, who Henry Bowers, the school bully, will enjoy hounding to the point of trying to engrave his name on his belly with a cutter. Ben's fault is, in fact, that of being too fat: a distinctive trait of many of the characters of Stephen King, a connotation that can take on a positive value, as in the case of it, or negative, as for the Annie Wilkes of Misery, the woman suffering from mental disorders who keeps her favorite writer against her will in her home.

Pleasures at the table of the king of fear

Many figures in the writer's universe appear greedy, needing to store fats and sugars not so much for a physiological need as for the habit, for a private ritual that is celebrated day after day, hour after hour. And to think that Stephen King, 350 million books sold in the world, at the table prefers simple things, not at all elaborate. His favorite dish is, in fact, the baked salmon, fish that his wife Tabitha prepared for him in the first months of their marriage, before success reached them and they could afford a comfortable life. If we really had to find Stephen King the sin, that would be a dessert, one cheesecake to be precise. Sweet that the novelist admits to taste to give a sprint to writing, to the creative process that leads him, from time to time, to create more and more extraordinary stories. In an interview with Bon Appétit a few years ago Stephen King also revealed that he often tried making and baking bread: "It makes the house smell wonderful", he confessed, transporting those aromas to the places of his imagination.

His food phobias are an inspiration

And yet, especially at the table, even Stephen King has his weaknesses, his fears to fight. According to his words, he carefully avoids all those foods that seem to him "slimy or slippery". First of all, the oysters, the most delicious food for which the writer has a certain repulsion: "The way in which they slip into your throat is horrible". And yet, due to the law of retaliation that leads us to insist on our fears in order to exorcise them, Stephen King often slips things that appear slippery in his novels. Just as Peter Jackson undertook to make Shelob, the giant spider of the last chapter of The Lord of the Rings, as true as possible due to its arachnophobia, so Stephen King plays on what disgusts and exasperates him to the nth degree. This characteristic leads him to be one of the greatest living novelists.

Restaurants at home: "the proven for you" – Italian Cuisine

A test of who cooks to deliver at home: often without even having a physical restaurant. From star-rated sushi to dark kitchens that make healthy meals, a state of the art of the business of the future

Food delivery is often talked about, but little is said about the quality of the food that ends up on the plate, the service and the customer experience. But the riders finally get a revenge: if food at home is disappointing it's not their fault. Ordering at home is a science, but it has little to do with that of the IT platform or the chassis. After the cathode-chefs and catering marketers, a new competence arrives: food logistics.

Apps don't cook

The apps and delivery services make it possible for me to be able to dine with a burrito, sushi or pizza from the sofa at home and with the smartphone in hand: they offer restaurateurs a platform to be found, a payment system and even in many cases the rider who picks up and delivers the order to the customer. They can promote a restaurant with discounts and promotions, provide packaging and other logistics services. But on food, as efficient as Deliveroo or Just Eat is, there is no quality control. The most willing customers leave a review, and the market in theory should regulate itself.

Tempus fugit

In a restaurant, a dish waits on the passe a few seconds before being served, but to make us get home it takes minutes, endless minutes, that our dinner spends in thermal bags and on the backs of cyclists who drift traffic. It is easy to imagine that no spaghetti can reach al dente, wave risotto or fried still crunchy. Cooking dishes to eat at home is an art and has little to do with the skill of the cook.

The restaurant of the future has no waiters

From a report by UBS entitled Is The Kitchen Dead? (Is the kitchen dead?), after interviewing over 13 thousand consumers worldwide, it emerged that global food delivery will reach 365 billion dollars by 2030, with a growth of 20% every year compared to the market of 35 billion today. By 2030, according to the report, most of the meals currently cooked at home will be ordered online and delivered to your home. And the specialists will have the better of course. Already today the restaurants that collaborate with Deliveroo increase sales on average by up to 30%. Ignoring the phenomenon is impossible, and restaurateurs should be ready.

Limit freedom of choice?

NASA brought the prawn cocktail into space, so everything is possible. And yet there are dishes that should not be served at home, such as soufflés, pasta, Neapolitan pizza. Even the best version, 10 minutes after being boxed and transported cannot be remotely the same as the original. But pizza is just one of the most ordered dishes at home, although it is much worse than the one eaten in a pizzeria. Customers should know how to choose, but if men always make the best choices for themselves we would live in a much better world. They are restaurateurs having to choose for us.

Knowing how to cook for transport

Traditional restaurants, enticed by the delivery market, should make a selection of their most "transportable" dishes, if not inventing new ones, for use and consumption by home customers. "Eating overcooked pasta" is not a winning strategy, given that a restaurant is a restaurant and would tend to acquire new customers rather than disappoint them; wherever they are. The task of the delivery platforms should be to help them in this choice, because the name is that of the restaurant, but a bad opinion of the service received has a 360 ° impact.

The specialized dark kitchen

The delivery market is in continuous expansion and in recent years many dark kitchens have been created, that is dark kitchens, which work only for customers who order at home. No room, no shop window, only bellhops instead of waiters. And (in theory) dishes designed to be transported. Logistics becomes one of the parameters and one of the competitive grounds in the catering sector. The one who is better at cooking does not win, but the one who is better at making me eat well, after half an hour, at my house. After the catering specialists, delivery specialists are born.

In the gallery, the tested for you by a group of journalists from different newspapers who ordered, ate, paid and commented

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Neapolitan Ragù Recipe – Italian Cuisine – Italian Cuisine

Ingredients

500 g Beef pulp
150 g Tomato purée
70 g Tomato conserve
50 g Lard in one piece
50 g Lard
Onion
Basil
Red wine
salt

Duration: 3 h

Level: Middle

Dose: 6 people

Larded the meat (a piece of shoulder fesone, or under-foil or beef spinach) with the lard reduced to strips. Melt the lard in a pot, preferably in an earthenware pot (you can substitute half the lard with the same amount of oil, but don't use only oil).

Add a few leaves of basil and the meat. Add salt, then pour in a glass of water, place on the heat, bring to the boil and cover. Check often and, when the water has been absorbed, wet the meat with half a glass of red wine. Heat the tomato purée separately with the preserve, all diluted with two glasses of water.

When the wine has evaporated, cover the meat with part of this sauce and the chopped onion; salt, then continue cooking over low heat, adding more sauce, until you have consumed it all.

Overall, the slow cooking of the meat sauce must last at least 3 hours. Season with the sauce of the large macaroni or zite and serve the meat separately.