Why Italians Love to Talk About Food (54 page)

People can find something to eat in restaurants, trattorias, after-theater clubs, pubs, pizzerias, taverns, inns, bars, dairies, bakeries, pastry shops, cafés, tearooms, wine bars, workplace cafeterias, roadside stands and autogrills, fried food shops, rotisseries and delicatessens, wineshops, sandwich shops, kiosks, market stalls . . . and even behind a counter, in the back of some shops and stores. The “gastronaut” Davide Paolini writes:

 

The back of a shop, with a large table, has become a must for refined palates. Light fried gnocchi, increasingly rare to sample, with
culatello
, to be enjoyed while standing in front of the counter of a historic
salumeria
; later savoring, in a sitting room that was once an ancient slaughterhouse, a soup of white beans, fried polenta with creamed baccalà, veal
guanciale
, sour cherry tart, and the house
fiordilatte
ice cream.
¹

 

People come to the bar, first of all, to have breakfast.

Tourists expect that having breakfast will be the simplest thing in the world and do not expect any particular hassles. So the foreigner who comes up against breakfast
all'italiana
for the first time (not the international breakfast served at hotels) usually experiences culture shock. The majority of this trauma assails the newly arrived visitor on the morning of his very first day. Breakfast, in Italy, is a terribly meager meal. Indeed, it isn't a meal at all. Often the visitor is taken out on an empty stomach, then brought to a bar where he isn't even invited to sit down, but is made to swallow a sip of very black coffee with a rather insubstantial brioche: and so the day has begun.
²
And if, in reply to the question “What would you like for breakfast?,” the guest should stammer, “Something simple is fine, a cheese sandwich,” then it's his hosts who experience culture shock. Italians are capable of eating cheese only at lunch, or at the end of dinner.

During breakfast (barely a thimbleful of boiling aromatic coffee and a croissant, often with no filling, whose only salient features are its fragrance, its appearance, and its softness), which is eaten standing up at the counter, leafing through the newspaper, the foreigner nevertheless has a way out that may not even occur to him. He can always order a cappuccino. Anyone in his situation should do just that. And if the ingenuous soul postpones the pleasure till afterward (“Later in the day, there will still be time”), it shows he has no idea how inappropriate it is to order a cappuccino in the afternoon or evening.

Cappuccino is a symbol of the Italian way of life, so much so that in the European Union it was given the designation STG (Specialità Tradizionale Garantita, or Traditional Guaranteed Specialty). Cappuccino is made with a first-class espresso: the best quality coffee, just roasted, and high-quality fresh milk, never preserved. It is heated “by ear” until it begins to simmer, definitely never reaching the boiling point. After heating the cup at room temperature, a drop of cold milk is poured into it. One should not be in a hurry when making cappuccino. There is a special ritual that consists of tapping the milk pitcher, allowing the foam to be deposited, setting it aside, then shaking it again. And you must drink it slowly, with no rushing. This is why real Italians don't drink cappuccino as often as they would like. In the morning, in the two free moments he has at the bar counter, an Italian sips his tiny dose of espresso and is ready to go to work.

Italians are aware that German breakfasts—bread, jam, salami—exist in the world, and even the British breakfast of eggs, bacon, and porridge. But these meals are incredible to them: every time they hear somebody mention this, their gestures and words express unspeakable wonder.

 

After breakfast, the industrious, hardworking, busy people disappear from the bars, and the space belongs entirely to those who have nothing to do: ladies out for a walk, or tourists who are unfamiliar with the local rhythms and order the wrong thing. For clerks and managers, who are always in a rush, the bar in mid-morning offers a five-minute break to enjoy orange juice and peanuts. The same enthusiasts of productive work and business
affairs return for two minutes after lunch to drink, while standing, the prescribed sip of coffee. It is a widely held conviction that the restaurant where one has had lunch, even if excellent, will hardly ever serve coffee equal to that at the bar: there the espresso machine, well heated, produces many more servings, and is better able to preserve the fluids and aroma of the coffee's essence as they pass through the crucible of the great machine to settle on the bottom of the cup in the form of a darkish dew. Even after having lunch at home, it is reasonable to go downstairs and have coffee at the bar. Who can prepare a decent coffee at home? Ridiculous to attempt it.

According to an adage, the ideal coffee can only be achieved when all five magical m's (mixture, milling, machine, maintenance, and mastery) are at the maximum level.

 

After three in the afternoon, the bars, according to a ubiquitous and obligatory evolutionary cycle, are decidedly deserted, but new faces appear around six, during happy hour (happy for the office employees, who are finally liberated). The customers pay only for the aperitifs (a beer or a bitter: Campari, Aperol, etc.) at this time, which is what they really came for. Peanuts, snacks, and various goodies (
sfiziosità
) are offered on the house.

Later on, the bars empty again, and people reappear around ten, to have coffee after dinner at a restaurant, a family meal, or an evening with friends. Sometimes, in the evening, people come to have a
caffè corretto
(a “corrected” coffee, laced with a liqueur) or even an
ammazzacaffè
(coffee killer), that is, a bitter, grappa, or Sambuca, to remove the taste of coffee from the mouth, so inappropriate in the evening hours.

 

Restaurants were created to feed pilgrims and other wayfarers. This is evident from the word itself:
ristorante
, namely, a place of
ristoro
, of refreshment and restoration. Here the body is restored. In Italy, there is very little stage or film decor in restaurants: it is not Moscow or Hollywood. And yet, there are restaurants whose fame is owed mainly to a certain theatrical formalism that is quite attractive to tourists: the Ambasciata in Quistello, near Mantua; Il Ristorante del Cambio in Turin; Villa Beccaris in Monforte d'Alba; Meo Patacca in Rome; Gualtiero Marchesi in Erbusco, near Brescia. Serious, ultra-traditional restaurants follow the canons—indications in books and historical chronicles—sometimes quite tediously and to the letter. In Pellegrino Artusi's hometown of Forlimpopoli (Romagna), the menu in his restaurant, Al Maneggio, includes specific references to the pages of his famous book of recipes. The reputation of a restaurant can be
based on the fact that it is described in a famous novel, or that a very popular film was shot there. A Sicilian chef writes in the menu that in his preparation the pear and Bronte pistachios recall Tchaikovsky's “Arabian Dance,” the baroque caponata a Hungarian song by Bartók, chocolate the notes of Brahms . . . it's like being in a conservatory.

Not to mention the restaurants in tourist areas, where people come to admire the monuments, castles, and museums. The food, in many of these restaurants, is a secondary matter. In recompense, however, they offer views of phenomenal beauty: terraces, balconies, wisteria, lake scenes.

Of course, even in Italy there are exceptionally chic premises, programmatically devoted to nouvelle cuisine, which are tiring and give the feeling of being a waste of time. Some menu items (egg yolk marinated with honey mushrooms and rape; basil pesto—a normal recipe but, for some reason, with sultana raisins; creamed corn topped with a layer of foie gras; rice custard with sea urchins and coffee sauce; breast of pigeon in puréed Chinese dates; purée of honey with goat cheese mousse and a sprinkling of white Alba truffle . . .) sound like counts of an indictment.

In which restaurant is one safe from foolish snobbery and tiresome solemnity, yet simultaneously protected from mistreatment or incompetence? How to choose the right place? Not to worry; the best restaurant critics who publish their weekly columns in the major national newspapers suggest ways. Above all, it is advisable to follow the promptings of friends and acquaintances, the suggestions of hotel staff and taxi drivers. Gastronomic guides, as a rule, are imperfect (the list of inns that are part of the Slow Food Association is, in a sense, an exception). In general, the restaurants recommended by Michelin and other similar guides are in the French model: white tablecloths, staggering bills. Such elegant, urbane cuisine may be successful in Italy, but only in a limited social circle: across from the Stock Exchange, at the Senate, and in the more exclusive tourist locales. In these restaurants the dining rooms are separated from the kitchen by a transparent wall. Dozens of chefs and assistant chefs flash before your eyes, wearing trendy aprons and caps. At the table, the sommelier approaches twenty times, in addition to the waiter, with his recommendations. In short, insane operating costs and little sense of humor.

Salvation lies in observation. Carefully study the situation in the city's streets, on the main roads, along the traffic flow. If a pair of elderly women come out of a modest trattoria smiling, this is a good sign: elderly women are demanding and do not like to throw money away. On any highway in the immediate vicinity, you will find food stops for truck drivers. See which has the greatest number of trucks parked in front of it at lunchtime,
and enter without fear. As a rule, these places are not bad: truck drivers, serious people, do not let themselves be taken for a ride.