It will come as no surprise to anyone that food takes a central role in day-to-day life in Italy. It’s always amusing to hear friends making fun of each other for the way they cook pasta - “you put onion in your carbonara?!” - and slightly less amusing when they make fun of me for eating dinner at 8pm - “you’re going to eat at 8 like a nonna*?!”. I’ve sat through hours of unbelievably in-depth discussions of meals, ingredients, cooking methods and restaurant comparisons: making sure to learn as much as I can while also trying very very hard to not say anything that would be met with a similar comment. I, of course, would never dream of putting onion in my carbonara.
I’m slowly learning the tricks to a perfect plate of pasta, although the one time I was left unsupervised to cook dinner, I could barely eat from the pressure and stress I felt for the fear of an Italian person critiquing my Italian dish. I can count the days on one hand that I haven’t seen pasta since I’ve been here and the question on everyone’s lips is - how on earth do Italians not gain weight?? I think I’ve cracked it. Italians spend a disproportionate amount of time standing up. Coffee and a croissant, aka breakfast, are often taken standing up at the bar. A lunchtime slice of pizza or an afternoon tramezzino** (a triangular sandwich normally white bread with crusts cut off) are often consumed standing up. And meeting friends for drinks in the evening normally involves grabbing a drink in a cheap bar and standing in the piazza or surrounding area to chat, joke and have the odd in-depth discussion - probably food-related. It is not uncommon to be “standing around” for a few hours before going off to squeeze in a couple hours of dancing. So, I have come to the conclusion that all this standing must counterbalance the daily pizza and pasta. Surely. Or the hourly espresso - burning off all the calories from the constant caffeine buzz.
Apart from the ordering at the bar and consuming your drink there or outside, another aspect of Italian life that might take getting used to is getting your scontrino (receipt/proof of payment) at the cashier separately from where you order your drink. In busy or touristic places you are normally asked to pay first, but in the majority of places you pay just before you leave and, as my brother remarked on his recent trip with me to Rome, “it’s absolutely genius” as it saves time with baristas trying to take payments as well as take orders and make drinks. Not that I brought this up to remark on this “revolutionary” payment system - I understand that restaurants work like this all over the world, but I’m talking café’s and bars. The thing that strikes me here is the amount of TRUST this system requires - I cannot imagine so much trust in any other place I have lived. [Well, perhaps apart from Hornby Island.***] One wonderful Italian characteristic. Trust. Italians speak their mind and are sincere. There’s no games, reading between the lines or trying to second guess. Candour - accompanied by a flourish of gestures and dramatic expressions, which should generally be taken with a pinch of salt. But don’t put too much on your pasta, or you will be the next joke at the dinner table.
Alla prossima,
A xx
*grandma
**the word is composed of tra-mezz-ino: tra - meaning between, mezzo - meaning middle, ino - the suffix used to denote something small in size. So all the signs pointing to something small to be consumed between meals in the middle of the afternoon.
***i will leave you to google this one
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| roof top cacio e pepe con carciofi |
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| the eastern boarder |
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| 1st may bbq vibes |
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| 1st may fresh mozzarella vibes |
