Food talk on a plane…
If you want to learn Italian, you’ll need to learn the FOOD TALK…
And that doesn’t mean culinary skills and techniques. I’m talking about the fact that...
Italians LOVE to talk about food!
Amongst family members, amongst friends, amongst colleagues, even amongst strangers (read on!), in a way or another, eventually a food topic will pop up. It’s inevitable. If it doesn’t, be wary!
Food talk is ubiquitous. Just to give you an example, one day I was flying back home to Italy to visit my family. Sitting in a window seat, I overheard the conversation of the two guys next to me.
They didn’t know each other but they somehow struck up a conversation. I could hear their voices in the background, but I wasn’t paying attention to what they were saying until I heard the word PIZZA.
As Italian pizza is my favourite food of all time, I couldn’t help but eavesdrop.
80% of their conversation during the 90 minutes flight involved food. Pretty ordinary for Italians. If I hadn’t been living in England for so long, I wouldn’t even have noticed how obsessed with food Italians are.
Their conversation was hilarious. On a few occasions, I had to turn towards the window, pretending to admire the view from above and laugh discreetly. I took some notes, I just had to, because I wanted to imprint that moment in my memory.
At the time So To Speak wasn’t even a faint idea, but
I knew that someday those notes would have come in handy. One of the two young men had an Italian friend working in a restaurant and was telling the adventures of his friend grappling with food-illiterate diners.
1.
<One day one customer came in and ordered a rocket salad to take away
<Non ci posso credere
2.
<Another customer ordered a dish of pappardelle al ragù without the pappardelle
<Oddio!>, almost crying.
3.
<There was this other customer who would come in regularly, order a pizza and only eat the toppings>.
<Ma dai!
4.
<One night, this guy ordered fried seafood and a pint of milk to drink>.
<Che shifo!
5.
<And listen to this one, this man ordered a pizza and a glass of red wine. When he got the food,
he poured wine on the pizza>
This time there was no comment.
I still wonder to what extent that last account was true and to what extent it was dramatized… in true
Italian fashion. Nevertheless, that day Food Talk made me laugh, while keeping those two guys entertained.
Food talk on a plane…
If you want to learn Italian, you’ll need to learn the FOOD TALK…
And that doesn’t mean culinary skills and techniques. I’m talking about the fact that...
Italians LOVE to talk about food!
Amongst family members, amongst friends, amongst colleagues, even amongst strangers (read on!), in a way or another, eventually a food topic will pop up. It’s inevitable. If it doesn’t, be wary!
Food talk is ubiquitous. Just to give you an example, one day I was flying back home to Italy to visit my family. Sitting in a window seat, I overheard the conversation of the two guys next to me.
They didn’t know each other but they somehow struck up a conversation. I could hear their voices in the background, but I wasn’t paying attention to what they were saying until I heard the word PIZZA.
As Italian pizza is my favourite food of all time, I couldn’t help but eavesdrop.
80% of their conversation during the 90 minutes flight involved food. Pretty ordinary for Italians. If I hadn’t been living in England for so long, I wouldn’t even have noticed how obsessed with food Italians are.
Their conversation was hilarious. On a few occasions, I had to turn towards the window, pretending to admire the view from above and laugh discreetly. I took some notes, I just had to, because I wanted to imprint that moment in my memory.
At the time So To Speak wasn’t even a faint idea, but
I knew that someday those notes would have come in handy. One of the two young men had an Italian friend working in a restaurant and was telling the adventures of his friend grappling with food-illiterate diners.
1.
<One day one customer came in and ordered a rocket salad to take away
<Non ci posso credere
2.
<Another customer ordered a dish of pappardelle al ragù without the pappardelle
<Oddio!>, almost crying.
3.
<There was this other customer who would come in regularly, order a pizza and only eat the toppings>.
<Ma dai!
4.
<One night, this guy ordered fried seafood and a pint of milk to drink>.
<Che shifo!
5.
<And listen to this one, this man ordered a pizza and a glass of red wine. When he got the food, he poured wine on the pizza>
This time there was no comment.
I still wonder to what extent that last account was true and to what extent it was dramatized… in true Italian fashion. Nevertheless, that day Food Talk made me laugh, while keeping those two guys entertained.
Food was the catalyst to establish a relationship
between two strangers who, by the end of the flight,
had become ‘friends’ talking about pizza and pints of milk
CURIOSITIES…
Pappardelle
These are long, wide, flat stripes of pasta containing eggs, originally from central Italy. Tuscany to be more precise. The name of this type of pasta derives from the verb pappare, a dialectal form, which in informal Italian means mangiare [to eat]. The verb “pappare” is still used today very colloquially, either amongst friends or with children and, sometimes, in a jokey way.
This name has a funny double meaning. In Italian we also use the term pappardella colloquially to indicate something long, repeated or boring, like a talk, a book, a presentation etc. In English, you would say “screed” or “long rigmarole”.
Ragù
Ragù is what people in Anglo-Saxon countries, and probably in other countries too, call Bolognese.
The real name of the famous tomato and minced meat based sauce is in fact “ragù”. Bolognese is only one variation of it, referred to in Italy as Ragù alla bolognese [Bologna-style ragù]. Normally, however, we simply call this sauce “ragù” regardless of its variation.
Pint
When travelling to Italy, you won’t be drinking pints of beers!
The measurements are different. The British pint is 568 ml of liquid, that’s more or less half a litre for Italians. Rather, when you go to a bar or restaurant and order a beer, you’ll be asked if you want a piccola [small-size], media [medium-size] or grande [big/large-size]. A small beer is 200/250 ml; a medium size is 400/500 ml; a large one can be between 500 ml and 1 litre. 500 ml is the closest size to the British pint.
GLOSSARY
Che schifo = How revolting/Yuck/That’s gross
Flight attendant = Assistente di volo
From above = Dall’alto
Guys/kids = Ragazzi
I can’t believe it = Non ci posso credere
Ma dai = Come on
Oddio = Oh, dear/My God
To come in handy = Tornare utile
To struck up a conversation = Attaccare discorso
Window seats = Finestrino
