Should cheese and seafood mix?

Seafood and cheese shall not mix may be a cardinal rule of cooking, but fortunately, there has been plenty of sinners over the years.

--- Want to know how to maximise your seafood intake? Catch Food Safari Water with Maeve O'Meara 7:30pm Tuesday nights on SBS Food or later on SBS On Demand. Visit the program page for recipes, videos and more ---

No one is really sure where the ‘don't mix seafood and cheese’ rule originated, but most agree that it was somewhere in Italy, way back when. There aren’t many traditional Italian seafood recipes that add cheese, and even today when a cook sneaks a little Parmigiano Reggiano into their capesante gratinate, there’s a guilty pause.

“A little bit enhances the flavour,” Salvatore Pepe, founder of LaCucina, says sheepishly when adding a dash of parmesan to his scallop dish on this week’s Food Safari Water. He admits it’s “unusual” to add cheese to seafood, but he’s clearly not bothered about the seafood and cheese stand-off.

Old traditions are quite young

“Traditions” are a fickle thing and, as Pepe knows, worthy of a challenge from time to time. Italian 'traditions' aren't actually all that old, most having originate from a time after World War II when the country was in disarray. During times of uncertainty, it makes sense that a culture fiercely protects what it knows to be certain. Cook the way Nonna cooked and all will be well. It was a way of life that stuck fast for Italians, whether they stayed in Italy or migrated across the world.

Even today when a cook sneaks a little parmigiano reggiano into their capesante gratinate, there’s a guilty pause.

Exactly why Nonna’s seafood-hates-cheese-hates-seafood theory emerged in the first place is up for debate. Various explanations have been raised, including that both dairy and seafood spoil easily, so in times before refrigeration the combination could have been deadly. Or, you know, each could have been deadly on its own…

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Get the recipe for this crab and haloumi tart here.

Geographical strangers

Another theory suggests that cheese making regions were historically inland and therefore cheese and seafood were geographically separated, which is not even remotely true. For instance, mozzarella di buffala is from Campania, which is famous for its long and dramatic coastline. Pecorino Romano has been made in Lazio for centuries. Lazio is also home to two of Italy’s biggest fishing ports. 

Yet another explanation suggests that the delicate taste of seafood might be overwhelmed by the pungent taste of cheese – a theory that clearly never met an anchovy or Emmental cheese.

Cook the way Nonna cooked and all will be well.

It’s all a bit of a moot point anyway because there are plenty of Italian recipes that pleasantly mix seafood and cheese. Fortunately, the rest of the world never paid attention to the obscure rule either. Here are 10 reasons why we are forever grateful.

Italians do it

Thank you for adding the parmesan to your capesante gratinate, Salvatore. It adds just the right amount of tang to enhance the creaminess of the scallops.

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Italians do it again

Shhh, don’t tell the Italians, but parmesan makes this dish veramente Buono! The combination of velvety scallops, sharp artichoke and salty cheese is simply perfection.

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Just add pumpkin

This inspired Korean dish packs a whole roasted pumpkin full of spicy prawn, calamari and scallop mix and melts mozzarella over the lot.

Steamed seafood in pumpkin Source: Heather Jeong

Sea bass and feta, Turkish-style

Big, plump pieces of fish swim in a tomato-based sauce spiced with cumin, fennel and garlic in this satisfying dish. Salty cubes of feta are added before baking in a hot oven until the cheese turns golden.

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Cheesy French

The French are happy to put cheese in anything at all and this double-baked crab soufflé demonstrates why. The twice-baked crab soufflé is served with a prawn and crab bisque sauce and finished with a cheesy gratin crown.

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Greek wedding

Serving seafood with a side of cheese is a speciality of seaside Greek tavernas. Haloumi, feta and saganaki all feature alongside dishes of fried calamari, baby octopus or scallops. This dish of chargrilled baby calamari and fried saganaki proves that seafood and cheese are the perfect marriage of ocean and earth.

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