You can dip the sauce, but never use the spoon to screw the spaghetti
Not that I consider myself an expert on italian Protocol, but the truth is more than once I have been told that my 'Famiglia' usually stages the typical matriarchal food in which twenty diners, who do not chat but shout, wait in the shade of a cherry tree for plates and more plates to arrive incessantly at the table. For this reason, I believe I am qualified enough to endorse the theses that I Beppe Severgnini breaks it down in La Bella Figura. A book that came into my hands recently and in which the author makes an insightful anthropological study of his compatriots, the Italians.
Once a friend told me not to doubt it, that if anywhere in the world I saw someone with a toothpick in their mouth for a long time and with no purpose other than being pure props or an oral toy, that person I'm sure it was Leon. Provincial jokes aside, the truth is that unwritten rules of etiquette go quite unnoticed until some foreigner comes to remind us of them or, much worse, to skip them to the bullfighter.
Parmesan is a privilege, not a right
With this book, Severgnini intends to teach travellers, especially those who speak English, how to behave in a country that, depending on what, neither is it so Mediterranean nor is it so tolerant. Although the Italian author recommends style rules regarding appropriate looks or warns drivers about how in Italy sometimes using the brakes can be, more than safe, catastrophic, I have preferred to focus on a series of 'Italian' guidelines that adduces as essential to share a table correctly with the family:
- The extra of parmesan is a privilege, not a right. Never add it to anything that has fish in it (no, not even Fruti di Mare pizza). If you still have doubts, Locatelli gives a very simple advice: "If it doesn't come, don't order it."
- Do not mix their pasta and their sauces. There are types of pasta that is specifically served with a type of sauce and not another. They will throw you out of Emilia Romagna if you happen to order spaghetti with ragu' alla bolognese. This well-known traditional sauce is always paired with pasta that is consistent enough to accompany meat, such as tagliatelle.
An example of how to order pasta bolognese correctly
- Do not even think of using a spoon to roll pasta, if anything it is allowed to use the edge of the plate. And you can dip the rest of the sauce with bread, what we call here 'making a boat', for them it is fare the scarpetta. Not only is it not rude but it will be like a tribute to the chef.
- Children eat what their parents eat: "You will never find a children's menu in an Italian restaurant, says Locatelli, except maybe in a stupid place, like Venice".
- Have an espresso at the end of the meal, after dessert. " A cappuccino after ten in the morning is immoral and illegal –says the author–. This is a dogma; It doesn't need an explanation, you just have to accept it. In the middle of winter in Trieste, it's fine, it can be until eleven."
Dogma: don't order a cappuccino after 10 am
- This advice can attack some other patriotic love, but the author, as a good Italian, knows that you have to trust the restaurateur's advice and in the qualities of his food, never "what it says on the bill".
- Master the nonverbal language of italian it is quite complicated, so use its gestures only if it is strictly necessary and you are completely sure of its meaning. Otherwise you may find yourself threatening to kick someone in the ass if you make a circle with both hands or accusing another of being probably gay if you raise your finger in an ok sign.
- Finally, ice (and sometimes water) are an extra that is charged separately, same as him bread with tomato that sometimes serve as an appetizer. He invites the Yankees to subtract their price from the tip they will leave at the end of the service, alluding to the fact that the tip in Italy is usually considerably lower than the one they are 'forced' to leave in the US. You will simply have to give up. Of course, you will surely pay it reluctantly by squeezing that toothpick with which you will play throughout the table.
*You may also be interested...
- Eat like in Italy in Madrid and Barcelona
- All gastronomy items
- Italy Guide
There is nothing more Italian than Carmela Soprano's tables