Italians buy less processed and packaged food than we do, preferring fresh and natural ingredients. They don't sacrifice quality for quantity. After watching Italian waiters toss salads with olive oil and balsamic vinegar, I stopped buying bottled dressings and started to buy cold pressed extra virgin olive oil even if it was more expensive. But I thought any balsamic vinegar was fine.
Then a friend sent me a bottle of better quality balsamic with instructions to use it sparingly. "Use it on strawberries," she said. "Something special."
I first tried it with Al's favorite dish, insalata caprese, buffalo mozzarello with tomatoes and basil. It was delicious. But when this balsamic was gone, I frugally went back to my regular and inexpensive brand.
Then we went to Modena, the Italian home of real balsamic vinegar. We learned that authentic balsamico is made from grapes and aged like wine in barrels and that some specialty varieties sold for over $100 a bottle. And we enjoyed tasting the local version on salads and in sauces.
Back home, I read the label of my standard brand and found it didn't even have grapes in it but a list of other ingredients including caramel coloring. I forgot about bargains and treated us to a $10. bottle of balsamico produced in Modena. According to the label, its single ingredient had been aged in wood casks for ten years.
Sometimes you do get what you pay for. We pour balsamic vinegar sparingly on salads and realize that a little adds plenty of flavor and makes simple ingredients taste special rather than ordinary. I could easily spend equal dollars on a couple of boxes of snack foods that would be gone quickly, but our balsamico lasts many weeks. A seeming luxury has become a necessity for us in bringing Italy home.
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