I don’t know about others, but I used to be a person who ate for living and I was happy with that. I never ate too much or searched for food in my life. Often I forgot to have dinner and remembered when I was already in bed muttering to myself “Oh shit I forgot to have dinner”. Yes, it is possible and this happened many times to me. Of course living alone and not having the responsibility to cook for anyone doesn’t make your eating style better.
I’ve always found eating to be a waste of time and have wished for some kind of technological improvement to eliminate to need to cook and then eat. Perhaps if there was a kind of pills I could get to supply me with the proper nutrition. With this solution I wouldn’t have to spend time for shopping, cooking, and eating. Still, it is not a bad idea but I changed my mind about food after I visited Italy.
Contrary to some people’s beliefs, I didn’t get married to an Italian for food. I think this is clear enough considering my weight is 50 kg. Honestly I didn’t even know about Italian food. Like many others I used to think that all Italians ever did was eat pasta and pizza. Actually with this logic its no wonder Italians must be the fattest people in the world but they are not. So there must be something else.
I am going to share some important information with you today.
Even though Italian recipes are very complicated and precise, Italian cuisine is based on simplicity and respect for good produce. When I ate first time in Italy, looked at the table to the simply boiled carrots, zucchinis and then I thought “what poor dishes, they really eat like that!”. But I cannot tell you how delicious were these simply boiled carrots and zucchinis. Watch out! The girl who is eating for living is saying this.
What makes these simple dishes that much delicious?
Organic production. Italy is one of the rare countries against the cultivation of GMOs (Genetically Modified Organism). If you’re living in a country that doesn’t restrict their GMO cultivation, then you’re likely eating GMO. After getting used to eat GMO, your food sensitivity gets decrease and you don’t feel the taste of the food. That’s how we hear a lot from our parents how vegetables were delicious once upon a time. I started to feel the real taste of vegetables and that was fantastico.
And the other most important thing that makes dishes delicious is good quality olive oil. Almost all dishes are served with olive oil. Nothing can be more tasty than cooked organic vegetables with sprinkle a bit of olive oil.
People are so much stuck to the food that all the life is turning around food in Italy; wedding, meeting, shopping, chatting etc. In other countries while it can be normal to see two women are talking or interchanging recipes, in italy it doesn’t even matter gender or age to talk about food.
For example I witnessed this dialogue between an Italian mother and her adult son:
Mother: What do you want me make; spaghetti or ravioli?
Son: Hmm, what is inside ravioli?
Mother: Beef and cheese.
Son: How do you make spaghetti?
Mother: With tomato sauce or butter and salvia.
Son: What kind of tomato sauce you use?
Mother: The one yesterday I used.
Son: Okay then, make spaghetti and we eat ravioli tomorrow.
The Turkish version of this dialogue would be:
Mother: What do you want me make; pasta or beans?
Son: Up to you.
And probably the American version would be:
Mother: What do you want me order today; Mexican, Chinese or pizza?
Son: ……
If it is about nutrition, it doesn’t matter how much time it takes to prepare or how difficult to make for Italians. They just make it.
Learning and comprehending of food made me think about a lot of things. It is not random Italians live longer lifetime than other nations. I see everywhere octogenarian and nonagenarian going around, riding bicycle on the street. It was surprising for me to see 86 years old grand mother is jumping around, living alone, driving her car sportively. It was very strange and rare to me coming from a country where people are considered old after 60, they are sitting at home and waiting to die.
Lots of people asked me to give some Italian recipes. As this is not a recipe blog I am not going to do that, but I am going to share one of the recipe of my mother in law’s favorite’s. Here there is, fried salvia:
Food Meditation
I started to enjoy feeling the taste of food. Living more than 30 years without this sensation gave me the opportunity to feel it more and I invented “food meditation”. I don’t know if this phenomenon exist or no, but I mean how to feel the food with all your senses. Without any rush, taking time with your food (better with quality and tasty one) and focus on it with your all senses. Believe me you will enjoy your food more than ever.
BUON APPETITO!
Are you a food lover? Are you eating for living like I used to be? Did you meet with Italian food?
Share your opinions in comment box below.
Hello there 🙂
I really do like your blog (dropped by from a link on CS) and would like to share just a couple of thoughts on italian cuisine. As far as my experience as an italian vegeterian goes, italian cuisine is very rich in meat-less meals, in response to the description of one fo the photos. It is true that they are not the most famous meals around (although you might recall hearing about caponata, ciambotta, spaghetti cacio e pepe, etc…), but some of the humblest dishes represent my (italian) regional cuisine, as pasta with beans or rise soup with potatoes. Just a thought in case you were interested 🙂
One thing I really like about italian food (not disregarding other cuisines) is the variety you may find from one region to the other. I would say you already had the chance to visit different facets of Italy, so I don’t really need to say much more, only that even when I go for tourism in my own country (and even more so in others), I keep being constantly surprised by new tastes and recipes, and I love it.
Love your blog, keep it up!
Ciao Giulio!! Thanks a lot for your comment. I’m very happy that you like the blog 🙂
You have a reason that Italian cuisine is extremely rich in meatless meals. Even I didn’t know radicchio and asparagus before to come Italy. And I love vegetables more than meat. But we cannot deny the most of Italian tables are always presented with some meat traditionally.
You are true, recipes change from village to village and that’s fabulous. Even there are recipes from 500 years ago. I saw what is the culture about food in Italy and definitely have to give its credit where it is due.
There is a lot to say (like Italians), but… Thanks again.
For us Italians food is real important, we consider it a fundamental pleasure of life.
We are proud of our kitchen and we are proud of the remarkable variety and richness of dishes we can find region by region.
As Italy is a Mediterranean country, in its culinary culture carbohydrates have a certain importance (that’s why pasta and pizza are well known worldwide); yet, it is a well balanced and complete kitchen. A traditional Italian meal is composed by: a “primo” (pasta, risotto or soup), a “secondo” (meat, fish or egg dish) together with a “contorno”, a vegetable side dish; then some frutta (fruit) and dolce (dessert), immediately followed by an espresso (we can’t leave the table without it 🙂 ).
In Italy breakfast is not so important, but lunch and dinner are topic moments of the day, no doubt about it; moments when we meet to share tales of our lives, and – of course – delicious tastes.