If Wilhelm Van Berkel never invented the meat slicer, would we still have prosciutto?

Berkel invented the meat slicer in Holland in 1898, and its design was so revolutionary that it quickly carried across the globe. The invention of the slicer, along with the use of refrigeration for transportation and storage, helped create a new demand for ‘store-bought’ products like deli meats and cheeses. These items were considered luxury items, and in the beginning were only available to those of a higher social class.

Prosciutto crudo di Parma, or Parma ham comes from the Parma region of Italy and is best known for its buttery texture that melts in your mouth. This region is also known for its Parmesan cheese, and the pigs that are raised here are often fed Parmigiano-Reggiano, giving the meat a slightly nutty flavor. (more…)

No one knows for sure just how long Italians have been making pasta. There are a hundred different names for every shape, and almost as many ways of producing them. Busiata, an early form of spaghetti, was made by rolling dough around a reed. Knitting needles have been used to pierce a hole through the middle of long pasta, and some Albanian communities in the south still use umbrella spokes.

Today, pasta can be easily produced with an extruder and a die. Bronze dies have been produced in Italy for centuries, and are often preferred over the newer Teflon dies. When dough is pushed through a bronze die, the roughness of the metal creates a porous surface, allowing the pasta to cook evenly and absorb the desired amount of sauce. (more…)

Spaghetti is the most popular form of pasta in the world. In 2010 it accounted for two-thirds of global pasta consumption. Made from durum-wheat flour and water, you might consider spaghetti to be the chameleon of pastas, as it’s constantly reinventing itself. This last reinvention came at the end of the Second World War, when America invented canned spaghetti and thus launched the empire of Chef Boyardee.

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In 1996 Vanity Fair began printing the Proust Questionnaire on the last page of its magazine, revealing the often complex personalities of luminaries worldwide. In an effort to better understand Emilio, I asked him to answer the same questions. His responses are detailed below.

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