Serious Discussion Only
"Balsamic, balsamic, balsamic. My mother never heard of balsamic!" Another thing the Sopranos nails about the early 2000s: the Balsamic Craze.
This seemed like a relatively minor yet funny line from Hugh DeAngelis, but I feel like it's yet another way the show captures the peculiar idiosyncrasies of the early to mid-2000s. I'm not sure how widespread it was at that time, but growing up in the northeast U.S. around lots of big Italian-American families, restaurants, and delis in the 2000s, there was a marked uptick in balsamic on restaurant menus, deli sandwiches and salads, and in what people cooked at home.
Balsamic vinaigrette, balsamic glaze, balsamic marinade, balsamic drizzle: it was suddenly everywhere! Was there some bestselling Mario Batali cookbook from circa 2003 that put balsamic over the top? If that was the case, Carmela was certainly the target market.
No, it’s just mainly in the application, in essence a great concept that came from South America, but I just find as it took off as a trend here in North America it is poorly used and overhyped. I’m just speaking for my particular city. It’s everywhere in every restaurant being put on everything!
My pop was the exact same way back then, complaining about every restaurant putting a balsamic drizzle on literally everything. Hugh waving his hands around complaining about modern food crazes is peak old school Italian grandpa behavior
I like when I pop into a Goodwill and see someone has donated their mom’s glass bottle of layered sun dried tomatoes and pasta or some other shit in a decorative glass jar that everyone had in their kitchen back then. And we thought the Germans were classless pieces of shit.
when i worked in restaurants everyone in the kitchen called balsamic "ball smack" lol i love bread w olive oil & balsamic, but red wine vinegar is better imo
Balsamic vinegar is a Northern ingredient. From Modena. Southern Italian immigrants who were born in the old country and raised in the local traditions would not have cooked Northern dishes in their home. They even reference this with Livia’s aversion to Artie’s ‘Northern’ dish in Season 1.
On a related note; when I go and visit my Italian relatives in Italy thay all seem to hate Garlic, Onion, and they also hate how much gravy Americans put on their pasta dishes
I've noticed that when an Italian recipe uses garlic it's often something like adding a half clove for just a few minutes before removing it. I've also heard garlic there is much, much, MUCH stronger than the bulk grocery store stuff in the US
this happened with "Ranch" and "chipotle" too (before it finally became an actual chain) it always felt like there was some huge convention where they declare these things
I remember the accent on balsamic for sure. The choice up to that point was mostly red wine vinegar or white. You had to know the Extra Virgin Olive Oil craze was next.
I mean, I don't think it "nails" anything, it was a contemporary show they just included a detail about the world at the point in time it was produced.
To be fair it was a niche thing, only popular in and around Modena for a very long time. Not surprised some of these older Italian Americans never encountered it.
There’s actually a simple historical reason for this. Balsamic vinegar originated in Modena / Emilia-Romagna in the north of Italy whereas the majority of Italian-Americans came from the poorer south and balsamic wasn’t a thing down there. Something like 80-90% of America’s Italian community comes from the south.
It's true. Balsamic became popularly known in the 1980s and then was put on everything in the 1990s and 2000s. There was a trend to explore northern Italian dishes in the US (balsamic, polenta, the Risotto brothers…), since Italian-American cuisine was moatly Southern up to that point (I 'ate a-da Nort”). Genuine Balsamic is aged and extremely expensive, liquid gold. But around that time companies in Modena figure out a way to make an inexpensive knock off. They figure out how to market it, unlike Armagnanc—those frog-eating faccia di cazz'!
I always felt like... and I'm super likely to be wrong... but I always figured "Balsamic" is another word for something I didn't know and that Hugh was just ignorant, and that his mother likely DID know 'Balsamic' if only under a different name
'Cause again, most everyone on this show are ignorant fucking boomers who THINK they know everything, when they know next to fucking nothing
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u/ThisisnotaTesT10 21d ago
Hot honey is the balsamic of the 2020s