Fish and cheese: An unbreakable rule?

"Please, I'm not interested in your personal opinion, but I'm trying to understand the rule and the exceptions."

The "rule" probably came into existence because of a lot of peoples' personal opinions that the combination doesn't yield something that tastes good :)

Fish and cheese is fine. There are plenty of recipes that use these two ingredients together e.g. fish taco (cotija cheese and fried snapper in a tortilla), tuna pie (tuna casserole topped with rich cheese sauce baked in a pie crust)

The problem is that many fish have very delicate flavours, and since they are often served hot the cheese tends to melt and then have an overbearing flavour and smell

Strong flavoured oily fish (salmon, tuna) would more likely match with cheese, especially with strong cheeses such as parmesan

Having said that, I suspect any baked or poached fish fillet tastes great with a blue cheese sauce

It's not a personal thing, it's a regional Italian thing. And it's even something like keeping kosher where you don't mix meat and dairy. (although, I'm not sure if fish counts as 'meat' under those rules).

Just the other day I was watching David Rocco's Dulce Vita on Cooking Channel, and he specifically showed someone's recipe that had shrimp and parmesean in it; he even commented on the no mixing fish and cheese 'rule', but mentioned that there were lots of exceptions to the 'rule'.

Personally, my mom's Italian-American, and although she was always concious of the no fish and cheese thing when visiting Italy to not offend people, growing up, we'd have tuna boats topped with cheddar cheese; a touch of parmesean or percorina romano (even more strongly flavored than parmesean) on a shrimp risotto, etc.

It is definitely a regional rule. Growing up in NE Brazil, I often had a typical fish dish called Peixe a Delicia - fish cooked in a cheese sauce with plantains.

Edit: I think the fish most commonly used is snapper or halibut, and mostly mozzarella cheese.

I have never found in food science texts that dairy and fish do not go together for health or other reasons. On the other hand, the rule is a pretty strong on in Italian cuisine. You can find popular exceptions to it, for example there are countless salads served in Italian cafès (in Italy, I mean) that feature tuna fish (always from a can) and mozzarella. An Italian like me might tell you that canned tuna fish is the least fishy of fishes in the Italian worldview: people who don't eat any other fish will eat tuna from a can. In the same vein, mozzarella is barely cheese - no sharp, cheesy taste at all.

But to sum it up, I think that it is simply a widespread habit that then you can codify into a rule to use when generating new Italian dishes.

Another Italian no-no is fish and meat combinations, with few expections - vitello tonnato comes to mind.

It's an umami thing. Both the very "fishy" fishes and the very "cheesy" cheeses, both of which are favoured in Italy, are very umami in flavour. Parmesan and anchovies are two very typical sources of umami in many dishes. It's possible that combining the two would make something that is just too umami, and you get that MSG overdone flavour.

Generally, a good cook will try to balance flavours, perhaps to let one stand out over the others, but not to overdo it, which a combination of fish and cheese would do.

That's probably why tuna and mozzarela is fine, as they are relatively not very umami.

I think that historically, at least in Italy, it is due to the fact that the majority of the regions facing the sea weren't big cheese producers on the first place, hence the fact that cheese wasn't present in their recipes. This might eventually have become a custom, without any particular reason, besides the original lack of the ingredient on the first place.

If you think about it, if you were a fisherman you probably didn't have much time for keeping a herd of cows for milk and dairy products, and buying it wasn't probably all that feasible (and it was expensive, too). This probably led to the search for substitutes such as breadcrumbs, which are sometimes referred to as "poor men's Parmesan".

Italians are generally very tied to their traditions, so the fact that Italians tell you that fish and cheese is a big no-no probably doesn't have a very good reason to exist, apart from the fact that so it was told by their parents, and their parents' parents and so on.

New recipes with fish and cheese do exist, as old ones that were forgotten are rediscovered (I counted about 10 recipes out of 50 with Parmesan and some other sort of fish in my "Artusi" cookbook), it might just take a while to get accustomed.

I remember my aunt telling me how disgusted she was in the early '60s of seeing "tortellini with cream" in a London's restaurant. Now they are widespread, and nobody is complaining anymore, even though at the time it was considered a "heresy". It happened with that. It is happening with fish and cheese. It will change, eventually.

A rule without a reason? The only things that should ever preclude two food items from being eaten together is taste (does it taste bad?) or danger (will it make you sick?). My mother was born in Italy, came from a long line of amazing cooks, and we grew up putting cheese on all types of pasta dishes, including speghetti with clam sauce and fruiti de mare. What about seafood fettuccini alfredo or lobster mac n cheese? This is hogwash and whoever created this ridiculous rule should apologize to the entire food industry!

Parmesan is way to strong to be put on fish dishes. Its taste is too strong and overwhelms the flavour of the fish.

As a pro chef, fresh seafood is one of the most delicate, subtle and wonderful flavors we can eat. To combine that with a hormonal, fermented barnyard animals discharge is heresy of the highest order. Now i’m not talking about smoked salmon and cream cheese on a bagel which I really like.

I’m talking about pristine fresh fish unprocessed and simply prepared.

Kinda makes sense doesn’t it?

Can fish and cheese inhabit the mouth together successfully -- it all depends. An example: Pierre Franey's Shrimp Greek Style with Rigatoni. The briny feta adds earthy salt, sharpening the taste buds and contrasting with the lush shrimp.

In the original question, and in some of the answers I read statements about a no fish and cheese rule in the Italian cuisine.

As an Italian who has traveled a lot in Italy (and abroad), I find that the situation is somewhat more multi-faceted. Probably because there is not a unique Italian cuisine, but many regional Italian cuisines from different regions of Italy (I would count at least a dozen of different cultural areas for the Italian cuisine).

In Sicily, for example, there are extremely popular recipes marrying cheese and fish. The first two examples coming to my mind are Sarde alla beccafico (Sicilian stuffed sardines) and swordfish rolls filled with pecorino cheese.

Also in Veneto (the region where Venice is) we can find another well known recipe, "Baccalà alla vicentina" (stockfish cooked as in Vicenza) where Vicenza is another town of Veneto.

And what about seafood and cheese? A well established recipe in many sea sites in Italy is scallops au gratin, where scallops are covered by parmesan cheese.

Notice that I am speaking about recipes which are traditional in some regions and not about creations of modern chefs.