I Thought Italians Were Just Better Cooks
A simple tomato and burrata salad in Italy tasted completely different from the one I make at home—and helped me realize what makes Italian food so special.
Adam Rachiele
8/10/20262 min read
I Thought Italians Were Just Better Cooks
Growing up in an Italian family, I always had a pretty simple explanation for why Italian food was so good.
Italians just knew how to cook.
Maybe I was a little biased. 😂
But when Jamie and I started traveling through Italy, I began to realize there was more to it than that.
And oddly enough, one of the dishes that really drove that home wasn't some elaborate pasta or a pizza from a famous restaurant.
It was a tomato and burrata salad.
The funny thing is, I make tomato and burrata salad at home.
I know what it tastes like. I know how simple it is. There really isn't much to it.
But this was different.
The burrata was incredibly fresh and creamy. The second I cut into it, the soft center spilled out and coated the tomatoes underneath.
And those tomatoes...
They were firm but perfectly ripe, naturally sweet and actually tasted like tomatoes. They were lightly herbed and seasoned, but nothing overpowered them. Then you got that cool, creamy burrata coating each bite.
It was rich, fresh, sweet and ridiculously simple.
And I remember thinking:
Why doesn't the one I make at home taste like this?
I wasn't doing anything dramatically different.
That's when it started to click.
Maybe the difference wasn't just how Italians were cooking.
Maybe it was what they were starting with.
Fresh ingredients. Local ingredients. And ingredients being used when they're actually in season.
If you start with a tomato that's perfectly ripe and full of flavor and pair it with incredibly fresh burrata, you really don't need to do much.
A few herbs. A little seasoning.
And get out of the way. 😂
That's something traveling through Italy changed about the way I look at Italian food.
I still think Italians are pretty damn good cooks. Growing up in an Italian family, I'm certainly not giving us that title up completely.
But now I realize they have another pretty big advantage.
When you start with ingredients that good, sometimes the hardest part of cooking is knowing not to mess with them.
And somehow, years later, one of the dishes I remember most isn't some complicated pasta or extravagant meal.
It's a plate of tomatoes and burrata.
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