About 50 years ago, upscale restaurant Chez Panisse shocked diners by serving a peach for dessert. Not a peach cobbler, shortcake, galette, or pudding, just a piece of fruit on a plate, with a knife next to it. It was symbolic of how they wanted diners to focus on the simple and natural. When you have a wonderful piece of ripe fruit, what could improve on it?

I imagine someone in Italy reading a news article about this and being puzzled. Of course there are times when you focus on an unadorned or barely accented ingredient. Could it be that Americans had forgotten this somehow? In the 1970s when that restaurant opened, we had. Part of the California food revolution was to remind us of the way much of the world enjoys their best meats and produce.