By BILL ST. JOHN | Special to The Denver Post – I’m forever fascinated how different people talk about the way they cook and eat. To express satiety, for instance, an American will push away from the table and say, “I’m stuffed.” The pleasure of eating is somatic, belly-bursting. It’s about corporeal real estate.
The French, on the other hand, consider such body talk rude. A French person invariably will cut off further servings of food with a comment on quality, not quantity, and say something such as, “That was very good, thank you.”
Surprisingly, the French at table do not discuss food the way we might assume. (It is we who go on about French food more than they do.) For the French, meal-speak is about wit, turns of phrase on subjects that Americans consider table taboos: sex, politics, religion.
Yet, for some funny reason, the French use food talk to refer to most everything off the table. A loved one is a “petit chou” (a little cabbage). A heavy hitter is “un grand fromage” (a big cheese). When all hope is lost, “Les carottes sont cuites.” (“The carrots are cooked.”) Those who have the shakes “sucrer les fraises” (sugar the strawberries). There are many more French sayings that use food and eating to talk about much else beyond food and eating.
Like French, Spanish eat-speaks when it doesn’t. The main way to express liking most anything — sunsets, a sweater, a sweetheart — is the verb “gustar,” via the Latin, the base of our English “gustatory.”
Spaniards have at their disposal all sorts of proverbs about daily life that relate to food: for example, “Al pan pan y al vino vino” (Bread is bread and wine is wine) or “Call a spade a spade.”
However, in the years that I’ve been paying attention to people speak about food and cooking, it is the Italians who, um, take the cake.
I have listened to a group of six Italians — all men — converse with each other for more than an hour about whether polenta is best as a freestanding meal or prepared as a leftover for the next day’s meals; about whether the great cheese Parmigiano-Reggiano is more properly eaten grated on other foods or eaten whole, after a meal chunked into small bites; and about which type of rice to use for which sort of rice preparation (i.e., risotto, cool rice salad, soup).
It’s said that Italians (especially Italian men) talk about three things only: what they ate at their last meal, what they are eating now, and what they will eat next.
So many Italian proverbs pass down wisdom in the form of food-talk. “A tavola no si invecchia.” (“You don’t get old at the table,” meaning that eating and drinking at the table is life at its finest, so slow down and enjoy it, everything you need in life is right there.) “La cucina piccola fa la casa grande.” (“The small kitchen makes the house big,” meaning that the kitchen and what comes from it is the true center and foundation of the home and family.)
Italian food sayings are legion and use everything in the pantry to talk about everything in life. A good example is “Tutto fa brodo.” (“Everything makes soup,” or the little things are important, too.).
Because the Italian culture is so centered on foodways of all forms — growing and shopping for only the best, preparing food carefully and lovingly, dining at the table with gusto and much conviviality — it’s no surprise that eat-speak even describes Italian history or politics.
