FOOD FOR THOUGHT
Dispelling 'myths' of Italian food

By Wanda. A Adams
Food Editor

Buca di Beppo is a concept restaurant with the heart of a home cook. That home cook is 82-year old Martino Renda, patriarch of a family of five in the southern Italian province of Calabria, a man who is never happier than when he is cooking for the family or watching them eat. "I am the richest man in the world, because we always eat," he tells his children.

One of those children, Vittorio, brought his father's philosophy with him to America 22 years ago, to a career in the restaurant business. "Chef Vito" is co-founder and executive chef of Buca di Beppo, 69 restaurants nationwide featuring what he and partner Joe Micatrotto call "southern Italian immigrant" food. Honolulu's first Buca opened Friday at Ward Entertainment Center.

Chef Vito is a compact, excitable man who talks like someone who has had a few too many shots of espresso. And he wants to talk food, specifically, what Americans don't know about southern Italian cooking.

Marinara, for example. It does not mean stewing dried herbs and hamburger all day until they're bitter and thin. It means sauteing lots of garlic and sweet onions gently in olive oil, adding the ripest tomatoes you can find (canned are better than unripe fresh), then cooking away the liquid and throwing in fresh basil by the handful, until you have a chunky, intensely flavored sauce.

Cacciatora. It does not mean chicken cooked in tomato sauce until it's stringy and unidentifiable. Marinate the chicken in olive oil, garlic and herbs, roast it, then top it with a sauce made from sauteed onions, capers, mushrooms and herbs blended with marinara.

Eggplant. You have to "kill it" first, his father always said, meaning to slice the eggplant thin, layer it with salt, let it sit for a couple of hours, then squeeze out the bitter juices before making a sauce. The eggplant falls apart, releasing its flavors.

Meatballs. Don't dry them out by precooking. Instead, form them from finely ground beef, egg and Parmesan and bake them right in the marinara.

Pasta sauce. The pasta should not be swimming; make the sauce thick and chunky, and toss the pasta with just enough to coat it.

Vito creates dozens of specials a year for the restaurants, training regional chefs how to make them, who in turn teach the individual restaurant chefs. "Everything we do here is like our families would do," he says.