spooning

Between the appetizers and main course, the waiter in a restaurant in Castelfranco reset our place settings. He naturally provided me with a spoon to go with my pasta dish. However, while others also order pasta, he only laid forks next to their plates. This begs the question: to spoon or not to spoon one's pasta?

As it turns out, he singled me out as the American, who must have learned to eat pasta with a fork and spoon. I personally never used a spoon to eat pasta, and had mistakenly viewed myself as uncouth for doing so. When I was younger, I slurped, and as I got older, I just bit off the hanging parts that did not easily twirl around my fork.

In most of Italy though, it is considered low class to eat pasta with a spoon, and is only acceptable for children. Rarely would an Italian ask for a spoon, especially at a fine dining establishment. Another un-Italian activity is drowning one's meal with parmesan cheese. Similar to dashing a lot of salt on one's dish without tasting it first, a lot of cheese takes away the true flavor of the dish.

As I spent the last leg of my Italian journey with my friend's Italian in-laws, it also occurred to me that they eat their pasta before their salad, rather than the other way around as is the case in the US. Antipasti is usually served first with dishes like prosciutto and melon while the family gathers around the kitchen as the chef and sous-chefs are preparing the primi (first) and secondi (second) dishes. A small bowl of pasta is usually served as the first course with salad and/or meat dishes as the second.

On the last day before my flight, the family made chicken cutlets for the second dish for lunch. I soon learned that chicken (and veal) parmigiana is not Italian. While eggplant parmigiana exists, the meat variety is purely an American fabrication. Other dishes that are not authentic Italian are pepperoni pizza and spaghetti & meatballs, which are usually served separately. In fact, 'peperoni' means peppers. The only salad dressing available in Italy is olive oil and vinegar.

There must be some secret formula to how the Italians dine, as I felt that with all the pasta, risotto, pizza and cheese, I developed a 'pasta pancha'; yet, it would seem as if the weight distributed itself differently as my weight seemed to be the same before and after all the gastro culinary delights of Italy.