Food: the AOC Pasta

It’s been a while that I want to talk about food. I mean, how can I write about Italy without mentioning food !

I decided to start with the most representing dish, no I don’t talk about pizza, but PASTA.

I come from a country where pasta is eaten as worst case scenario i.e. when there is nothing left in the cupboard, you’re broke or you’re starving. The lucky days we get them “bolognaise” or “carbonara” but usually we get them plain with a nut of butter.

In Italy, Pasta is an institution and I learned quickly that you don’t joke with pasta.

The first time an Italian cooked pasta for me, he weighted the pasta to get the right quantity for 2. Actually  it’s been really difficult not to laugh,  for me, it was simply incredible to grant such care to an aliment that you can find at 50cents the 500gr.

The second time an Italian cooked pasta and I was there, he TASTED the boiling water. I mean, can you imagine tasting the water ! Well, he explained me really seriously that  when the water boils, the water goes and maybe  it remains too much salt for the water left so you have to pour water again and make it boil again…

Once I entered the car of a friend, he lighted on his GPS and as background he had put a picture of pasta al ragù.

I understood quickly that my 5min ready to eat pasta should not be granted  “AOC “* pasta for an Italian.

Each time I was going to aperitivo, I was wondering how pasta, even cold, could be so good. Well, still the same night I saw the guy weighting the pasta, I saw him adding an incredible amount of cheese and oil, and I suddenly understood… I was working as well in a studio where everyday my colleagues were preparing their pasta. When I was seeing them putting half a pot of pesto or a full cheese inside, I was always flabbergasted but thanks to them I started understanding  that the more fat you put the tastier it is. Unfortunately, each time I was cooking my pasta to bring to the office, I was suddenly scared of the oil or the cheese I could put inside, like if I was about to  pour a lethal poison and consequently I was eating, each time, dry tasteless pasta.

Another tradition that I discovered is that all the youngs go to their parents house on Sunday to eat the “lasagna” of the mum. The first time I hear a guy telling me about that fact our mum was cooking the best lasagna in the world and consequently he was going there for Sundays, I smiled. The second time I heard another guy telling me the same ,I smiled again. The third time, I was thinking “shit, in Milan they must have the most amazing lasagna in the world”, I was already considering inviting myself to one of this best unofficial restaurant and taste lasagna to reach Sunday heaven (meaning probably 6 hours of digestion). And last Sunday, I was eating at a friend’s place (pizza), when  she told me “next time we go to my parents to have Sunday lasagna”… I can’t believe it, my dream is going to finally come true! I only hope they did not set wrong expectations due to a biased  chauvinist opinion…

*Apellation d’origine Controllé as for wine

My daily cultural shock

This morning I got up, prepared myself and went out. Daily routine you could say. In fact, it’s been almost 2 years I’m  in Italy now, but I still get amazed by Italian  lifestyle every morning I go out.

Not standing the metro, I go to work by walk, this grants me the possibility to see the city in action, to see how it moves. Each time I stop to a traffic light, waiting, I realize suddenly that I’m in Italy (and no longer in France), that  the roads are full of well dressed ladies riding their bike or guys wearing suit on their vespa. What is awesome is that they look so chic. OK, I understand they go to work and have to dress well, but still, they have usually  the helmet (and even the jacket) matching the color of the vespa. This is really amazing, because it’s not touching only a small elitist percentage, nope, this is an entire culture. I remember a teacher at school saying once : “I’m Italian so I have good taste in my DNA”, well he was definitely right.

But walking in the streets , is not only a nice positive experience, it’s also about experimenting the Italian urban jungle where no rules stands (and I know Milan is nothing compared to Sud). Italians have really low awareness of the space they need to move and consequently push and bump into you on a regular basis. Sometimes, when I’m not awake and it’s the third time I got pushed in 5 minutes, I’d like simply to yell at one of them “MALEDUCATI ! Go get a training in the USA.” But unfortunately, my education tells me to keep it for myself.

One of the other thing unbelievable is the behavior of cars, or should I say people in cars… They drive like hell in narrow streets having no consideration for the people walking. I mean they don’t even break when they see you. I work in a small street and seeing those cars too big for the Italian streets, driving fast, each time, I have the feeling they’re going to bump into you, a bit as in Miami Vice City game where you drive on the guys just for the fun… So I regularly close my eyes and wonder what are the statistics in term of car accidents…

If ever you have to take the bus or the tram, you will understand that they drive the same. Basically they put hand handles so high that 95% of the Italian population can’t pick them, so the driver keeps braking in an aggressive mode and  people keep falling. I don’t remember experimenting something similar while taking the bus or the tram in France, I think they were driving more smoothly and you didn’t get the impression that you will crash into a car or someone every two seconds. The other amazing thing is that driver insults pedestrians, and pedestrians insult drivers. The first time I was really shocked and actually I keep being, cause it’s happening almost each time I’m taking a transport which is not the metro…

I tried to figure out why people who have such an attention to details in term of design and fashion could not see that they’re not paying attention to others or even their environment ? How can you notice the nice fabrics of the collar of the shirt of your friend, but be blind when it comes to respect other s’space or pollute the seaside with garbage ?  I have the feeling that at the bottom of their heart they know they’re rude, cause when you throw them a nasty look or make them notice you were first in a line, they tend to apologize or pretend they hadn’t seen. Really, I don’t know, is it only a matter of education and culture ? The only thing I know is that it’s not going to change.

People : the Italian male (the once over look & the Ciao Bella)

Since the Italian Male stands for 90% of my decision of blogging about Italy, lets stay with him for a while…

I remember reading once, I think in a Sophie Kinsella book, what they called in NYC the once over look. Basically it consists of a person A  scanning a person B in less than 2 seconds to see if that person is acceptable or not. In that case, the main criteria for acceptance were: being a size 0 and wearing Pret a Porter clothes from the year. Actually, I have to admit it's something I already experimented in Paris... 

But in Italy, the dimension is different, I can’t say it’s all about sex, but it’s definitely a matter of attraction…

I’ve been talking with some Italian friends, and they did confirm what I thought: basically, wherever you are, whatever the context is, if you see somebody watching you or  you see somebody that you find cute,  you just watch the person deeply in the eyes. Meanwhile its like if your brain was making a smart calculation to decide if there is possible match… or not. The thing is that it becomes like an automatism for them, it's like part of their DNA. Guys will do it,  I mean watching you in the eyes even when holding the hand of their girlfriend… 

Some mornings, I get up not really awake and feel suddenly  aggressed. That’s why probably I became a pro sunglasses including indoor… With them I feel less aggressed and it' s not even a problem of being rude, since Italians were them everywhere. Was so funny, cause when I went to Sweden, my friend was wearing some, the evening around 8pm and a guy came to tell her “I think you don’t need them now, apart for the moon...”

The attitude of guy towards girl does not stop only to the once over look, which is by the way dangerous, cause now each time I go back to France I do it, I’m watching people I don’t know deeply in the eyes and they think I’m flirting with them ... Ooops. 

I remember that time in France when I was able to screen the male population without having anybody noticing it. Here its over, it' s like if guys had radar, they feel a nanosecond look on them and watch you immediately… 

Anyway as I was saying that' s not the only thing you can experiment when you' re a girl in Italy. Being a girl means, walking in the street and hear potentially 50 ciao bella per day, longer is the period you walk, bigger is the “risk” to hear them. I always thought it was a stereotype, well apparently not. Regularly, I just go out, haven’t done 3 steps yet and I already feel the once over look and/or the ciao bella. This is simply crazy, the guy can be old, young, in a car, on a terrace, that does not change. Honestly, I'm not sure I spend a day without hearing something of that type.

But, the good part is, once you understood they will never ask you for more, they're not stalkers, that it’s just an attitude, it suddenly makes your day and boosts your ego. Actually since I’ve been in Italy, I do feel more attractive. Thank you guys...

PEOPLE: the italian male (metrosexual or... freak ?)

I think most of foreigner girls will tell you, at first glance, Italians are physically attractive. One of the first reasons that pos into my mind is that they are simply not scared of following fashion or wearing something different. I remember my French friend when she arrived, she was keep telling me, shit they re all gay, well I can tell you, it’s not because they dress well or care about themselves they re ALL gay. Italy is not France. In Italy, I already noticed a man checking the fabrics of the collar of another guy without being scared of being considered gay. Whereas, the other day, my bro told me that when he arrived at work with a pink polo, he works in a french construction company, they all made fun of him. France is a bit boring for that, it’s like if for a man wearing something too special was a risk of getting noticed whereas you should not. Like if, only the gays had the guts to do it...

In brief, for a French girl, Italy is not only a shoes paradise, it's also a men paradise... 

Just do the experience : take someone, quite common, make him wear nice clothes, expensive sunglasses, spend some hours in palestra to be gonfiato (work out), give him the confidence of the Italian male, and he will turn into an attractive man even if I admit it’ s completely artificial. 

I bet the challenge for Italians, stands only in the proportion: what makes a metrosexual Italian turn into a freak; cause at the end there is a real risk of having more freaks than chics… When the guy reaches the threshold of having the legs shaved, being orange cause of the tanning lotion, and having his eyebrows done better than a girl, stupidity pops into your mind… If you add the fact most of them are small and walk showing off their pecs... then watching them becomes a pleasure of everyday and a joke to tell to your French friends when you’re going back home.

Like the other day, I went to Mc Donalds. A guy arrived, business man look, but really young. He arrived, and started standing just 10 cm behind me, cause, it’s a fact, Italians don’t know anything about PROXEMICS RULES, the closest you are, the best is it !!! Well guy, you need to understand that us, foreigner girls, we would prefer if we don’t feel your dick on our butt, so please step back. Anyway, so basically that guy, was keep looking for my eyes, but he was such a joke that I was not  even daring giving him a look back. Well he was so craving for an eye contact that he was starting to be hyper,  the most hilarious thing being, he was constantly stretching his arm in a Tourette disease manner so he could have his sleeves going up leaving me the possibility to admire his "bling" golden watch. At one point, I could not do anything else than laugh at his face, the situation was completely ridiculous…

PEOPLE: the Italian male stereotype

This week, I met the perfect Italian stereotype. I went into my new office and immediately noticed that guy around 40's, you could not not notice him as he was so loud. Everything in his attitude was loud and big, he was like an aggression for the eyes. After one day, I got the opportunity to take a coffee with him and the team. He told me, watching me deeply in the eyes: “ME, I’M THE MOST BEAUTIFUL GUY EVER”. Then he continued with : “ME I' M THE BEST SALESMAN EVER”, he’s the sales director of the new studio I’m working for.  Even if I’m sure he was joking in the way of saying it, he was truly convinced.

He asked me then: “Do you have a boyfriend?" In another country he would have been probably already accused of sexual harassment.  He’s attitude was a bit naughty even if I’m sure it’s a style he was giving to himself. Anyway, when I replied yes, he told me: "OK, so tell me, the most important : is he Italian or French ?" When I said he was French, he fixed me with his big blue eyes and told me : “leave him immediately, Italians are better and more “coinvolgenti” . He had such a serious face, I could imagine him pulling out a gun in a cowboy movie or a cartoon and I just wanted to laugh. 

And when at the end he paid the coffee for the full team and I tried to refund him, he told me: “The man is meant to be  a man, he has to pay for the woman”. Well it was a bit like being in Stone Age, I could not think more about the image foreigners usually have of Italians, including the role of women in the society, the Berlusconi scandals and the velline on TV show.  I would say I was quite surprised cause until now, even if Italians have definitely their own style and I will talk about it later in that blog, the ones from my generation were quite modern and respectful. 

Advertising campaign from Sisley during Berlusconi scandal

MESS IS STILL MORE ? The public transportation experience

This weekend I decided to go outside Milan for a day. Let’s say after a nice month of vacations, I was kind of refusing to stay in the city, above all knowing the sea is so close.  It was a bit like being on a rehab program, last swim before winter time. Well, it turned I took 5 trains in a day and it left me at the end a not so nice “souvenir”. Recently, after my trip in Sicily and my constant search for a job in a country where you don’t get contract and paid, it’s true I get a bit nervous about all the gridlocks of the italian system. Going to the post office or buying a train ticket are always a “potential” ordeal/nightmare. Well taking a train is a good illustration.

So today, I left Milan for Genova, quite easy, Milan being known to be organized for public transportation compared to Rome. I prefer not to imagine the tram system in Roma knowing that in Milan, you have to guess where are the bus stop and when it’s written 4 minutes wait, it can turn into 45 minutes, anyway that’s not the point of the discussion. When I arrived to Genova, I had to change station to pick a friend, we checked the time tables (a poster) and went to a hidden underground “binario”. There the time indicated was wrong and the bill board was changing the binario every second due to an electric problem. No need to say the train never arrived… The beauty of those kind of things in Italy is that everyone is looking at each other and asking to the other if he knows what to do. Basically, you always start a conversation and end hearing Italians complaining about their non organized country….  Still, I finally managed to get to the sea and even enjoyed some foccacia.

When  it’s been time to go back to Milan, I was happy to be with an Italian that knew that you had to buy the ticket in a special office in the town and not in the station as you would expect. Once in the station, we tried to check which binario to pick. The funny thing was that the tv screen was indicating binario 1, the paper time table binario 2, an A4 sheet was stick on some random walls and it was written in Italian that "all the trains should leave from binario 2". In this kind of scenario, you’re more prone to trust the tv screen but in that case, it was contradicting 2 other indications. We wanted to ask, but the station was simply desert, no office there to confirm. So basically, we just kept wondering where the train will arrive and observing people going from one binario to the other one, not knowing where they should go, creating a perfect mess. The speakers were kept saying “please do not cross the rails”, but honestly I could understand if, at one point, some people would have crossed the rails instead of taking the tunnel. We finally reached a group agreement that, the persons on the right side will block the train in order to have the people on the wrong side time to get in. I had the feeling of being in a game theory experience when analyzing the people following other people depending on who suddenly was taking a decision and consequently the leadership...

I just came back home and honestly, I have the feeling of having spent 10 days on the roads, those kind of experience without mentioning the train with no seats left, the fine I had to pay, still not sure why, makes you seriously consider moving to a country like Germany… This morning, after experiencing once again  rudeness of Italians, it came to my mind that God granted them so many nice things that he could not give them everything, otherwise it will turn into perfection. I think I was quite right… I wish one day, when I' ll have to go back to France, I wont have to spend 2 hours in a queue to take a ticket but get the upfront opportunity to order it online  and get it refunded if they ever decided to go on strike (thing they usually don’t do).

SCENDERE GIU or the Sicilian Experience

I think going to Sicily has just been one of the most interesting idea I got recently.

All my Sicilian friends always told me that Sicily is the best location in the world and one author, I don’t remember which one though, said: “we can die once we saw Sicily”. I know that Italians from the South “suffer” from chauvinism but still, I have to admit I started to be really curious… Having one month vacation in August, plenty of time to spend and the low cost  airlines to Sicily being at the end the less expensive option, I finally decided to go there and check.

After long discussions with myself to know if I should start with the Eolian Islands and the North East Side, probably the most visited area, I finally decided to go for the West side.

Before deciding to go there, I didn’t have a lot of culture about Sicily excluding cannolo and Sicilian boyfriends…  I had no stereotypes in mind and honestly no idea of what to expect, probably because I hadn’t seen any movies about Mafia, including the Godfather... I was just wondering what a location that has been invaded by so many people (French, Normands, Spanish, Arabic, Greek and so on) could look like. Well the truth is that, if you consider the richness of the architecture and the landscapes, in 5 days I had the feeling of visiting something like 10 different countries. One minute I was imagining me in Lake powell, the other one in the Carribeans, without mentioning Greece, Cuba or even Morocco. This is simply incredible to see how each civilization left a mark and how you can feel the various influences everywhere. Knowing that, it’s really funny to think that Sicilians have such a strong identity; at the end they’re a salad bowl/melting pot as we used to learn kid during American history class. Sicilians pastries is one of the best illustration, everybody talks about the Sicilian cookies with mandorle or pistachio, but I’m sorry to inform you, when you eat them, as good as there are, you simply have the feeling of eating north African cookies, exception made for the ricotta ones …

During this trip, I experimented another cultural shock:  we had decided to rent a car and make a loop. I was planning to buy a roadmap at the airport but I kind of forgot it. Probably linked to the dog looking for drugs in our luggage when we arrived, the guardia di finanza guys with non smily face and big guns… It was a bit like being in Cuba airport or in a bank in Santo Domingo. So we kind of got out of the airport quickly and forgot the map. Immediately, we’ve been focused on finding our way up to the renting area, not a simple task. Actually we didn’t know that this quest would illustrate our constant objective of finding our way in this country during the next 5 days… Once outside the airport, it had nothing compared to pick a renting car in Germany. Finding the small board with the inscription autonoleggio was already a blessing, without mentioning the 20 minutes walk trying to guess where could be the place. This is what is amazing in this country, you have a road sign and suddenly nothing, or a succession of contradicting indications. It s a bit like if a Mafioso had paid for having his signs put on the roads but had not enough money to produce convenient ones. A bit like if they have an excess stock of white arrows with blue background and they had decided to put them everywhere… Basically, we’ve been simply driving using the sun and the sea during 5 days even if the one way roads everywhere were putting some barriers to our strategy. Honestly I still don’t understand how we managed to find the center of Palermo without a GPS or a roadmap. I don’t understand how it’s possible for a city of 600 000 something inhabitants not to have decent road signs indicating the center…

One of the other funny thing about driving in Sicily, it’s that you don’t feel like in a European developed countries. They don’t have road lines even on the access to bigger cities. I guess putting road lines is putting a limit and a risk of blocking the traffic whereas if you don’t put them, you decide which way has 2 or 3 lines and you pass wherever you want. We understood quickly that it’s a bit like the magicobus in Harry Potter: whatever the number of cars lines created on the road, you'll always pass, or like in a James Dean movie: the one that is scared is the one that will let the other one pass. This works for everything, just put your car in front of another one and they will let you pass. Never stop to a STOP or the guy behind will bump into your car…

Besides, we’ve been experimenting that everything is about invisible rules that you have to guess in order to respect them otherwise you ll get a fine. Being a foreigner is being ready to be screwed just cause you’re not Italian, but as soon as you guess those invisible rules and start negotiating them, you can go everywhere and have discount everywhere. The rule: ASK, if you don’t ask you’re SCREWED. There is always someone that knows someone that will give you a tip, make you find a parking lot or something similar… Honestly talking the language was a blessing, I cant imagine how you manage when you don’t speak italian… well yes, you pay and loose your car, lol.

I remember as well some moments where the  rented fiat panda was drifting in the laces while the fire was on… Because this is something else we need to mention about Sicily, everywhere you look it’s burning, you always have 4 or 5 smoke areas in the landscape. At the beginning you re really impressed, at the end you don’t even pay attention, except when the flames are on the road… I assume the access to the mountain is so complicated and the risk of having a dangerous fire with the non luxurious vegetation is so low, at the end they don’t  stop the fires.  

During this trip, I often wonder how many couples turned their honey moon into a nightmare after their roadtour in Sicily… When you have centro indicated on the left but as well on the right or the flames are on, the misunderstanding in the car is simply awesome :-)

Talking about couple, I remember the author of Odissea Siciliana mentioning that men were kind of bored when she was talking to them instead of her husband (that didn’t speak so well Italian). I guess, I can say I did experiment it as well, each time I asked for gas, parking, checkin or food, I had the feeling the guys would have preferred talking to my friend. Even the girls have this behaviour, I remember asking my way to the lady of the B&B and her trying to catch the eyes of my friend as if it was impossible for a woman to understand road indications…

Being in Sicily, is also about seeing newspapers talking about Mafia. As foreigners, we don’t really understand the impact it has on the local economy, but seeing highway bridges never finished or skeletons of buildings on the beautiful seaside, you understand that the bribing system is still active. Seeing those brand new constructions never achieved is really impressive.  Even more impressive when you see aside buildings not occupied anymore, giving you the feeling everybody tend to leave Sicily. Yet, I was quite surprised to see that towns in Sicily were so big, I definitely had a different image where you would arrive in small villages and see only 2-3 persons. In fact, there are a lot of cities of 50-80k inhabitants and you need to know that all the tourists areas are made to make the tourists pay. But, between those areas, it’s a bit like the desert. I remember watching the landscapes and wondering what kind of job people living in Sicily were doing, and, when between Trapani and Agrigente, we've been trying desperately to find some food (grocery store, bakery, anything), I suddenly had the feeling to be back to Utah where you only have a tacobell in 100km area or in Morocco Atlas during Ramadan. Ending on a touristic beach in Siculiana Marina to eat a sausage and french-fries sandwich at 4pm was simply unexpected...