{"id":6557,"date":"2023-08-14T11:07:39","date_gmt":"2023-08-14T15:07:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/panoramitalia.com\/?p=6557"},"modified":"2023-08-14T11:07:41","modified_gmt":"2023-08-14T15:07:41","slug":"get-cooking-italians-take-the-cake-when-talking-about-cooking-and-eating","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/panoramitalia.com\/index.php\/2023\/08\/14\/get-cooking-italians-take-the-cake-when-talking-about-cooking-and-eating\/","title":{"rendered":"Get Cooking: Italians take the cake when talking about cooking and eating"},"content":{"rendered":"
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By\u00a0BILL ST. JOHN<\/a>\u00a0| Special to The Denver Post –<\/em><\/strong> I\u2019m 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, \u201cI\u2019m stuffed.\u201d The pleasure of eating is somatic, belly-bursting. It\u2019s about corporeal real estate.<\/p>

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, \u201cThat was very good, thank you.\u201d<\/p>

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.<\/p>

Yet, for some funny reason, the French use food talk to refer to most everything off the table. A loved one is a \u201cpetit chou\u201d<\/em> (a little cabbage). A heavy hitter is \u201cun grand fromage\u201d<\/em> (a big cheese). When all hope is lost, \u201cLes carottes sont cuites.\u201d<\/em> (\u201cThe carrots are cooked.\u201d) Those who have the shakes \u201csucrer les fraises\u201d<\/em> (sugar the strawberries). There are many more French sayings that use food and eating to talk about much else beyond food and eating.<\/p>

Like French, Spanish eat-speaks when it doesn\u2019t. The main way to express liking most anything \u2014 sunsets, a sweater, a sweetheart \u2014 is the verb \u201cgustar,\u201d<\/em> via the Latin, the base of our English \u201cgustatory.\u201d<\/p>

Spaniards have at their disposal all sorts of proverbs about daily life that relate to food: for example,\u00a0\u201cAl pan pan y al vino vino\u201d<\/em>\u00a0(Bread is bread and wine is wine) or \u201cCall a spade a spade.\u201d<\/p>

However, in the years that I\u2019ve been paying attention to people speak about food and cooking, it is the Italians who, um, take the cake.<\/p>

I have listened to a group of six Italians \u2014 all men \u2014 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\u2019s 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).<\/p>

It\u2019s 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.<\/p><\/blockquote><\/figure>

So many Italian proverbs pass down wisdom in the form of food-talk. \u201cA tavola no si invecchia.\u201d<\/em> (\u201cYou don\u2019t get old at the table,\u201d 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.) \u201cLa cucina piccola fa la casa grande.\u201d<\/em> (\u201cThe small kitchen makes the house big,\u201d meaning that the kitchen and what comes from it is the true center and foundation of the home and family.)<\/p>

Italian food sayings are legion and use everything in the pantry to talk about everything in life. A good example is\u00a0\u201cTutto fa brodo.\u201d<\/em>\u00a0(\u201cEverything makes soup,\u201d or the little things are important, too.).<\/p>

Because the Italian culture is so centered on foodways of all forms \u2014 growing and shopping for only the best, preparing food carefully and lovingly, dining at the table with gusto and much conviviality \u2014 it\u2019s no surprise that eat-speak even describes Italian history or politics.<\/p>

Read more here<\/a><\/div><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By\u00a0BILL ST. JOHN\u00a0| Special to The Denver Post – I\u2019m forever fascinated how different people talk about the way they cook and eat. To express satiety, for instance, an American…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":6559,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[1467,1468,1465,1466],"class_list":{"0":"post-6557","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-uncategorized","8":"tag-cooking-and-eating","9":"tag-italian-meals","10":"tag-talking-about-cooking-and-eating","11":"tag-talking-food"},"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/panoramitalia.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/08\/Italians-eating-2.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/panoramitalia.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6557","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/panoramitalia.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/panoramitalia.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/panoramitalia.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/panoramitalia.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6557"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/panoramitalia.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6557\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6561,"href":"https:\/\/panoramitalia.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6557\/revisions\/6561"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/panoramitalia.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6559"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/panoramitalia.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6557"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/panoramitalia.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6557"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/panoramitalia.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6557"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}