Yes, sure, I have tasted divine Lasagne made by a housewife, but because she used so much expensive and varied cheeses, there was not much of it.
Just curious. I like tasty food, and lots of it.
This has always puzzled me - why are they considered the best? Pasta is just a flour mixture. Eating intricately designed stodge, with a minimal sauce for flavour?
I didn't say the best, I said one of the best (my favorite cuisine happens to be Thai). But to answer your question....when you compare to...say...British food....it is not too difficult to see why the foods of certain other countries come out on top.
Smoky, it looks like you haven't had much exposure to the delights of real Italian cooking. Come to my house in Bern. I'll be happy to cook for you and show you, what Italian food is all about (hint: it is not just the food....it is everything AROUND the food....and in terms of knowing how to party at the table...we Italians invented the 7 course meal, just look at the accounts of old Roman times!)
I guess what I'm trying to say is that one of the reasons Italian cooking/food is the best is because Italians make eating a PLEASURE...so a lot of thought, attention to detail, and...yes....this is the word I'm looking for....LOVE goes into preparing and consuming a meal.
Once you grasp that....the reason why it is among the best in the world should be intuitively obvious. (shrug).
The absolutely best pasta I've had was some hole in the field restaurant in Italy. Don't ask me the name or exactly where. On the way back from Cinque Terre after going through La Spezia we pulled off of the A12(?) somewhere just looking for grub.
I can't remember the name of the dish. The pasta was cooked JUST past al dente. It was one of those meals that you just knew it had to be eaten just as it was served. No extra salt and no cutting of the pasta.
And after eating real Italia pizza, I've only eaten I've only eaten American (thick style) pizza a handful of times in 7 years.
I totally agree with Conundrum, Italy get's it on like Donkey Kong when it comes to celebrating their food and the time spent with family and friends during it. Glad now I'm in driving distance.
Where we go once a year in Italy, in southern Tuscany peasant country, far away for touristy sites, the pasta is handmade, thick and short - called picci- no fork, no spoons and cheap
i have eaten in private homes of Italians and in Italian restaurants. Any difference ? Yes, only people in Italian restaurants OUTSIDE Italy eat pizza
I by this of course only speak about Toscana, Emilia Romagna, Liguria, Lombardia, Piemonte --- five minor provinces of the Italian Republic
Very entertaining thread! I think the poster who wrote about the story of the queen is spot on.
We go with what we've been taught to do, perhaps not always the best/most polite, but so be it - while of course maintaining a minimum of table manners and common sense (no food fights, etc.). I would never dream of eating spaghetti with a spoon, not because I am Italian, but because I was never taught to eat it that way, it is innatural to me to eat it with anything other than a fork. When my OH compliments me on my "heavenly spaghetti" as he calls them, do you think it bothers me one bit that he is eating with fork and spoon? I don't think so!
Aside from that, I always try to see what the host is doing. For example, I love eating the sauce with a piece of bread at the end - big no-no in restaurants or when having guests in Italy, but in the privacy of our family table we all do it (because, let's face it, that's the best part of the dish!). However, I noticed that it doesn't seem to be taboo here in Zurich, so I happily go with the flow and do it even in public!
My favorite cuisine is Japanese - when dining with Japanese people on multiple occasions, I learned for example that it is very bad manner to cut noodles with your teeth while eating them out of a soup. Apparently, once you picked up the noodles and you've brought them to your mouth, they should be eaten whole. Now, for me this is not only hilarious, but extremely impractical, and more than once it resulted in half the noodles splashing back into the soup with a consequent splash of soup on my shirt. Not pretty, I tell you. Result? I try to do my best, hoping that my fellow Japanese diners will excuse me if I don't get it 100% right, but I'd rather impolitely cut the noodles with my teeth than having the whole hot soup on my shirt!
At the end, what matters is a pleasant (for all) dining experience, and enjoying the food, no?
I won't pretend this statement didn't hurt a bit...
Which Queen? Are we talking about Elizabeth 2, taking tea with a bunch of 70-80 year olds after she became queen, or Viktoria after the 1st Boer war?
I went to a ball last night, and out of curiousity, after having read earlier posts on this thread. I did a little study of the people at my table to see where hands were positioned during the meal. Results: both hands resting on the table; both hands in the lap, left hand in the lap, forearms resting on the table, elbows resting on the table with hands on chin, elbows on the table with hands clasped in front.
Some ate from the back of the fork, some from the front, some stabbed the meat on the end of the fork prongs, some cut the meat up, then put the knife down before eating, and some kept both tools in hand, cutting and eating one mouthful at a time. Noodles were twirled, cut or left. The only consistency I was aware of, was that noone dunked their bread into the soup apart from me.
And you know what? It didn't matter at all. We all had a lovely evening of food, company and dancing.
Ive read this before but it was with some american politician not the queen
It was just a story I was told by my old Mama. Probably it was used as a "teaching" of being gracious to guests at the table?
Whether it was Queen Elizabeth, or Victoria ....... or President Eisenhower .... or King Kong of the Congo (nah couldn`t have been him, he ate with his hands and drank out of a communal bowl), or whoever, it`s about not making guests feel uncomfortable, whatever their habits.
If one does not like their habits, one need not eat with them again, or else accept them as they are.
But the topic here was actually about a grandmother criticising her d-i-law about her children`s eating of spaghetti? In my experience most kids seem to eat spaghetti with their fingers and slurp the long pieces - which I`m sure they`ll grow out of before they`re adults?
Trust the Americans to ursurp a good story!
Welcome to the EF, by the way If remark pointing your bad manners comes from busybodies, just tell them that you are not ambidexterous
My wife told me funny story once. One time they played in the other club as guests, after Interclub the host was serving chicken at the table set for 20-some people all female. All "well mannered ladies" started using fork and knife to separate meat from bones. Apparently they struggled to enjoy their chicken eating this way. My wife grabbed a chicken leg or wings and started eating it KFC's style. As soon as they saw it, they chucked the cutlery aside and all as a one team with big smiles on their faces, they rigorously followed her. What a revelation it was to them all
Tipping The soup bowl is a big NO NO. But seriously, who could be bothered?? As you long as you don't fart around the dinner table (as some Swiss do, quote: i cannot go to the toilet anytime i want to let air out) you should be safe!
If people would pay same attention for all other more important "social manners" as they do to table manner then it would be truly a great society...
Table manners comes down to common sense...and it is absolutely nobody's business if I eat with sticks, a spoon etc and less my child...
Where I come from there is no manner correcting people for minor anal issues...
Exaggerate a bit?
Luckily we are not in Italy I mean you laugh at people using a spoon? are you for real...?
If I eat with a spoon or cut my pasta, why do you care? I don't care about your semi-erotic relationship with food...
If Italians would pay the same attention to food as e.g. getting their society to work then they would do great...
Only for German speakers, as they don't know how to eat Italian food properly.
Tom
I do think people know, but if it is easier to use a spoon why not? Same goes with sticks in a chinese restaurant, why use sticks when it is easier (for me) to use a fork? Doesn't make any sense...
"you should eat to live & not live to eat..."
When Tom posts about food, it is like Pope writing about God......utterly infallible and you may not even contemplate arguing.
Gosh, I really hate smacking (when eating or chewing gum). Some say it's misophonia and I say it's bad manners.
I forgot I blah blah'd in this thread. We were just talking the other day about Italian food and the last trip I was there. For some reason Italian dressing came up...
Ok, I understand tradition. When in Rome (pun intended), etc... But after a week of having Italian Dressing with my salad, UGH. Was getting too many days in a row tired of it. I'd ask if there was any other dressing available. Yeah, plain vinegar or plain olive oil. oooook. The waitress looked at me like I was nuts and said, "You're in Italy, this is what we have." I passed on it that night.
Is it wrong for me to even think that ONE Italian in all of Italy would never think to changing it up now and then? If I go to France, do you think all they ever serve is French dressing? If I go to Catalina or one of the 1000 Islands... How I longed to eat at Newman's house.
We were lucky the last place we ate at (near the Swiss border) had Caesar.
Next time I'll take my own bottle of something just to watch the waitress's head explode from the audacity. Ehh, I'll probably chicken-out on that last one.
end of rant.