![]() If you say the food is bad in a restaurant in Italy, you get kicked out. In USA they make it twice this thick,” he says, flipping another serving on top, “and they fill it with mozzarella.” Then he says, “There is no mozzarella in lasagna.”Īfter a swig of wine, Manfredo continues, “If you go to an American restaurant and say the food is bad, you get a coupon for a free meal. What is good is what sells.” He sticks his knife through two steamy inches of lasagna. “In America, a restaurant is not looking for what is good food. ![]() Manfredo picks up his knife, eyeing the lasagna on the big plate in front of him. “You cook and always stir together beans, cabbage, carrots, onions, old bread, and olive oil for at least two hours. “Ribollita is for the poor,” Manfredo explains. In unison, they labor through a short list as if it were long: “Minestrone di pane, ribollita, pappa al pomodoro.” Hard like rock tomorrow.”ĭiana explains that, as Tuscans have long had to make do with little means, and the local bread gets old quickly, many regional dishes are made with yesterday’s bread. “This is made with only flour, water, and yeast. “Real bruschetta needs real Tuscan bread,” Manfredo says. Ripping off a mast and rubbing the sail on the crusty deck, I tell them, “My family eats bruschetta at home. Each slice of toast looks like a little brown ship, with a toothpick mast flying a garlic clove, as it sails over its oily deck. She sets a big plate of bruschetta in front of me. In Florence, I join my friend Manfredo and his girlfriend Diana for dinner. ![]() My Tuscan friends laud the virtues of their regional cuisine. When I try to defend the fancy dishes as complex, she says, “Perhaps ‘jumbled’ is a better word.” “If your lettuce and tomato are good, why cover it up with a heavy dressing? We use only oil and vinegar,” she says. And she can’t understand our heavily flavoured salad dressings. She points out that the average number of ingredients in an American restaurant salad or pasta is eight or ten-double the ingredients in the typical Italian salad or pasta. Her favourites include BLT sandwiches and “chili soup.” She’s charmed by our breakfast culture and that we “meet for breakfast.” She says you would never see families going out for breakfast in Italy.īut she notes that in the U.S., size matters more than quality, and says that some dishes try too hard. And it seems every Italian has an opinion about American food.ĭuring one long Italian meal, my friend Claudia says she loves American food. Food is a favourite topic of conversation. When Italians sit down together for dinner, a special joy combusts from their mutual love of good eating: the flavors, the steam, the memories, the dreams…the edible heritage.
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