An escalope with pasta: Italian cooking or a dish created to please us?
On some Belgian menus, an escalope comes with pasta on the same plate. It is generous, familiar and often tasty. But is bringing together two foods associated with Italy enough to make an Italian dish? At Wallonie Gourmande, we do not think so. The real question is not whether meat and pasta can meet: it is the role pasta plays on the plate.
In Italy, pasta does not usually play the role of chips
In the traditional Italian meal, pasta commonly serves as the primo, the first course. Meat or fish follows as the secondo, perhaps with a contorno: vegetables, salad or potatoes. This is not an obligation observed at every lunch, but a way of thinking about a meal and giving each preparation its own place.
When pasta is served beside an escalope on the same plate, it becomes an accompaniment. Here in Belgium, that role is entirely familiar: we might just as naturally put chips or potatoes there. It is precisely this change of role that takes the plate away from traditional Italian practice.
A Milanese cutlet is Italian. Its pairing with pasta, much less so.
Cotoletta alla milanese, the breaded veal cutlet from the Lombard tradition, is indeed an Italian speciality. Potatoes or a salad may accompany it. But placing a portion of pasta beside it as a garnish does not make that the classic way of serving a cotoletta in Milan. Two Italian components, combined in a way designed for another audience, do not automatically become a traditional Italian recipe.
We asked two well-regarded Italian restaurants in Wallonia for their views. Paolo F. and Maurizio D. confirmed that, in their opinion, serving pasta merely as an accompaniment to meat does not reflect traditional Italian cooking. That does not detract from the pleasure the plate may bring, but we should recognise that it caters more closely to Belgian dining habits.
‘But Italians do put meat in pasta!’
Of course. Ragù, sausage sauce and pasta with guanciale show just how well meat belongs in Italian pasta cooking. But in those cases it forms part of the pasta dish, its sauce and its balance. Pasta remains the focus of the plate. That is not the same as an escalope served as the main dish with pasta alongside as a garnish.
So saying ‘Italians never mix pasta and meat’ would be wrong. Saying that pasta served as an accompaniment to an escalope does not reflect the traditional way of composing that meal is much more accurate.
A dish adapted to Belgian habits?
In Belgium, we often like our meat, starch and sauce to arrive on one plate. That is why escalopes are sometimes offered with a choice of chips or pasta. We can enjoy this arrangement without dressing it up as Italian tradition: it is an adaptation that fits our dining habits.
It would be unwise, however, to claim that one particular person ‘invented’ the combination of escalope and pasta in Belgium. We have no evidence of such a clear-cut origin. What we can say is that this presentation exists here and does not represent the traditional way of serving pasta in Italy.
Our view at Wallonie Gourmande
We are Belgian, and we fully understand the pleasure of a generous plate. But when we go out for Italian food, we prefer to eat in the traditional Italian way: a proper pasta course first, then the meat. Not both at once, and not pasta used as we would use chips. To our minds, each dish gains in attention and flavour.
This does not stop any restaurant from creating its own version or anyone from ordering it. Cooking travels, adapts and evolves; Italian chefs themselves sometimes enjoy serving pasta as an accompaniment. But a creative exception is not the traditional rule. It is simply a matter of being clear about what is offered: an Italian-inspired plate adapted to local tastes, rather than an unchanged Italian classic.
And you: when you walk into an Italian restaurant in Belgium, do you prefer escalope and pasta together on one plate, or pasta first and meat afterwards?
