More Things Italian

All Things Italian

This morning in my coffee bar, I spent a few hours on an art project and did my usual people watching. 7 Men came in for a coffee, and 8 women of which half were a group on over 80’s who meet twice a week there. Only one of the men was retirement age, he is a regular who speaks loudly in Veneto to the barista. She always speaks loudly, so they get along fine. I don’t know what it is about baristas, they must have a hearing problem as they are almost yelling at the customers, greeting them with a buongiorno and then asking them which type of brioche they want, and then running through the whole list of what is inside the brioches. One can find chocolate, cream, vuoto (empty), pistacchio (pronounced Kee, not chee) nutty, and more. One other thing about all baristas, they all love to make noise when putting the coffee cups and saucers in the sink. I think that they must be cymbal players in the local town band. When I first went into the bar, my phone told me it was 52 degrees outside. There are tables outside but I elected to sit inside, far from the door. My coffee Americano was served and I got set up to do some ink drawings, everything neatly in its place, pens on the left near the phone, paper in front and ipad set up for viewing further away. Everything was quite comfortable for about 10 minutes until the barista went out through the front door to have a smoke, leaving the front door propped open. Immediately the 52 degree air came wafting in and the 70 degree ambiance took a hit. When she came back inside she left the door open. When I left at 10:45 it was still open. I have always wondered why baristas leave the door open when it is cold outside, this seems to be an Italian thing. Which is strange because Italians, as a whole wear scarfs to protect their necks from feeling cold, believe that cold and humidity cause painful joints and don’t even like ice in their soft drinks.

There are some other quirky things about Italians that I find interesting. I think that Italians drive far too close to the car ahead. Which makes for a few chllls as Italians do not stop for stop signs. They take a quick look and hardly slow down at the intersection. 

 More quirky things:  Did you know that many Italian men wear purses when they leave the home? These purses are not large, but they are apparent with a shoulder strap. Italians love tomato sauces, mostly used with pasta, but you will be hard pressed to find tomato juice in the supermarkets. Maybe this is why I saw the price of a bloody mary was 2 euros more than a margarita in a restaurant a few weeks ago. When Italians drive their cars for a vacation, most think that a 3 hour drive is fairly long, 6 hours way too long. When I mention to my friends that I drove many times from Salt Lake City to San Francisco in one day they find it hard to believe that Americans do that sort of thing. Google tells me it is 11 hours, but when you stop for meals and pit stops, I always found it much longer. .

In many restaurants, if you ask for ketchup, they might not have it, or sometimes they will bring out a saucer with one tiny package of ketchup. Mc Donalds charges for those baby packages. Many Italians eat mayonnaise with their fries, and fried fish. I have seen french fries served on a pizza. I have seen fried egg served on a pizza. They think that pineapple on a pizza is strange (we will take a vote on that later).

Italians don’t like more than one type of food on their dinner plate, something like mashed potatoes, green beans and carrots next to a main course is not seen here. You want a steak, you will get a steak with a few slice mushrooms to dress the plate. If you want a vegetable, you get it separately in its own dish. Spinach is served here a lot, green beans, and pinto beans are also on the menu. I cannot recall seeing cauliflower, broccoli or brussel sprouts on a menu here. 

 Dessert? I joke with my wife about dessert as it seems like most offerings are come sort of a creamy, soft item. Something like chocolate or vanilla cake won’t be found. You have to go north and cross the border to find that. Italians know their geography. They know where countries are located and will probably know the capitols, too. They must do a good job of teaching this in school. When I mention to them that I will fly to Lanzarote for my short vacation, they know that it is one of the Canary Islands belonging to Spain, but looks like it should belong to an African country.    I would bet a hundred bucks that you could ask 10 Americans where Lanzarote is and NONE of them would even know the region to begin looking for Lanzarote. The younger Italians get around much more than the older citizens. They all have a bucket list of places and dream of visiting them.

I want to finish off this blog post mentioning wine. Right now they have just finished harvesting the grapes and wine making has restarted for this year. If you go into a supermarket, they will have a large selection of wines. Almost all will be from Italy. Prices will astound Americans as a bottle of table wine can be found for 3 dollars. The medium cost of table wine is 5 or 6 dollars. One can find a more expensive wine from say, Montalcino, costing 20 dollars or more. I never see what we called in America splits, which is a half bottle size. A wine shop here is called an enoteca, and the wine found there should be a much better vintage.

I have found, on average, that the table wine restaurants offer, is a good value. However, one might expect that the house red arrives cold to your table. The reason being that it was pumped from the cellar using CO2. Italians do not find this strange. They also do not lift their glass and do a lot of swirling and viewing. They drink slowly and they are aware of drinking too much and losing their driver’s license if stopped or involved in an accident. Rules are strict here. And now I will stop and post this, and wish you all a happy week with sunny weather. Until next time, Ciao!