Toto, I've a Feeling We're Not in Kansas Anymore

I'm afraid I've become one of the people that I never wanted to be.  I'm a foreigner that can't stop talking about how much better everything was back at home.  I knew people like me in Chicago and they always bothered me.  I told people like me to go back home if everything was so much better in their country.  But maybe the real problem is that I never really understood those people. It's not always easy to put yourself in someone else's shoes (and I suppose I never really wanted to because I like MY shoes).   But now that I'm wearing my Italian shoes in Italy instead of Chicago, I have a different perspective.

The differences my foreign friends in Chicago used to point out were just that......differences.  Even if they didn't say something was better in their country, the fact that they'd pointed out the difference made me assume they were unhappy in their new home.  And I have a feeling I'm sending the same signal here.  The truth is, I think a lot of things really were better at home.  But not everything.  I'm sure there's a silver lining in almost all of these things.  

In a small town in northern Italy....
--rush hour is at noon.  The rush is to get home to eat lunch with moms and grandmas.
--waiters ignore you instead of continuing to ask if everything's okay or if you want something else.
--bank hours are even worse than banker's hours.  (8:20am-12:45pm.  And if you're lucky maybe again from 2:35pm to 4:35pm).
--you say "buon giorno" and "arriverderci" to the other customers upon entering and exiting the waiting room at the doctor's office (and the pharmacy and the bank and the bakery).
--drinks don't come with ice and when you ask for it, you only get two cubes.
--no one uses voicemail.  Your phone registers the missed call which indicates that it's your responsibility to call the person back to find out what they wanted.
--it's expected that 20% of the time the scheduled bus won't arrive.
--the salad dressing aisle isn't an aisle....it's half of one shelf with five bottles.
--no one ever says you shouldn't talk about politics, sex and religion.  It's mandatory.
--some married men still have their shirts ironed by their mammas.  Really.
--the only thing you can do on your lunch hour is eat lunch.  Nothing else is open.
--very few people know that the real reason you have helium balloons at a party is to breathe in the helium and talk funny.
--if you get carry-out pizza, sometimes you have to pay for the box.
--not everyone knows how to use the drive-thru at McDonald's.
--the only place Italians have seen a peanut butter and jelly sandwich is in the movies.  Therefore, lessons are required or they try to spread the peanut butter on top of the jelly.  Not easy.
--instead of, "Here's your receipt" (so you can balance your books)  it's "do you want a receipt?" (so they can balance theirs).
--Mexican food is expensive and chic and bad.
--an Italian pepperoni pizza is a pizza with peppers, not pepperoni.
--tall, dark and handsome 30-year old men blow their noses with cotton hankies.  Not just grandpas.
--you can't brag about how many miles you've run until you convert it to kilometers.
--few things are returnable.  Instead of  "you break it, you buy it" it's "you buy it, it's yours."
--your neighbor rushes out to tell you not to cut your hedge because you can only trim hedges when the moon is waxing, not waning.
--many public buildings don't turn on their lights during the day.
--there's an encore at every performance.  In fact, one time there wasn't much applause and the presenter still said, "I imagine you'd probably like an encore."
--moms buy their kids ice cream cones at 6pm.  Before dinner.
--it's okay for a 16-year old boy to call his teacher "dear".  Not as in "Dear Teacher" in a letter.  Just plain old "dear" like a waitress calls her customers in an old American diner.
--you don't see a Starbucks every three minutes.  Not even every three years.  They don't exist in Italy.

Those are just a few of the things I've noticed (or complained about).  It seems there's something new and surprising every day.  The next time this foreigner is ready to point out a difference about something that was better in her country, I'm just going to click the heels of my red Ferragamos (my favorite Italian shoes) and say, "There's no place like home.  But that's okay.  There's no place like this little town in Italy either."

'Tis the Season, 'Twas the Season, 'Twill be the Season

Fortunately another Italian specialty has come and gone and I've survived.   Fritelle season ended last week.  Fittingly, it ends on Fat Tuesday.  Isn't that when Lent starts? I'm not Catholic, but I guess I can finally say I'm giving something up for Lent, albeit much easier to give something up that no longer exists.  I think God must have planned it that way.  They're un-give-upable.

If I were Catholic I think I might go for one of the other options I've heard of recently.  Instead of giving something up, there are those that take on difficult challenges.   For example, wearing a burlap t-shirt under your clothes every day for 40 days and 40 nights (no, maybe that's Noah's Ark, not Lent.  But isn't it about 40 days?).  Anyway, it sounds easier than giving up fritelle.  

I'm sure real Italian food connoisseurs don't spend much time on fritelle.  It's the orecchiette con le cime di rapa (pasta shaped like little ears with broccoli rabe, whatever that is), cannelloni ripieni, and risotto alla milanese that usual make people's mouths water.  And the gelato, of course.  I'm sure my American friends are disappointed that I live in Italy and my world still consists of pizza, pasta pomodoro and parmesan.  But don't forget, it's the best pizza, pasta pomodoro and parmesan on the planet.

However, I'm happy to say I've increased my knowledge in the world of deep-fried delicacies.  That's why I can so confidently talk about fritelle.  They start showing up at the beginning of the year and they're usually around until the end of February.  I always feel a little guilty eating them right after Christmas because they're really a treat for Carnevale.  But the truth is, I can't wait until February so by the end of January I've usually already had a few of these little deep-fried balls of dough.  Which fortunately, aren't always so little.  After they're fried, they're injected (there must be a better foody-word for that which I don't know) with cream and topped with powdered sugar.  There are a few varieties.  For example, the dough might have raisins and the cream might have alcohol.  Or maybe they're filled with Nutella instead of cream.  Or heaven forbid (since we're talking about Lent I thought I could write that)......sometimes they're even vuoto (empty)!  Which reminds me, with Carnevale also come crostoli, another deep-fried dough treat that's empty.  They're just long crispy strips topped with powdered sugar, kind of like elephant ears at your local fair.

Everything about Carnevale is bigger and better in Venice and I thought the fritelle might be too. So I went a couple of weeks ago under the guise of taking a long walk.  I was really in search of fritelle and the long walk was to burn off the calories.  Is it possible to say that something deep-fried and filled with cream could melt in your mouth?  As it was melting, I decided I'd better try another.  I walked another 30 minutes, saw another pasticceria (bakery) and ate another fritelle.  That's when I learned they're not all created equal.  As impossible as it may seem, I was disappointed in fritelle number 2.  I simply ordered a fritelle the same way I'd ordered the first one.  But the second had raisins in the dough and was filled with the normal, yellowish, waxy-looking cream.  Not to say that the normal, yellowish, waxy-looking cream isn't heavenly, it's just not chantilly cream, which is what I later learned was the secret to fritelle number 1.  

I know the guy at the pasticceria in my town and he told me he can't wait until Carnevale ends so he can stop making fritelle.  He says he wears the same clothes in the kitchen for a month and on the last day, he celebrates and throws the clothes away.  But I was hopeful that for the sake of tourists, they might keep them around in Venice a bit longer, so I went back last week looking for one more.  This time when I ordered, the baker tilted her head, raised her eyebrows and laughed a little.  I gathered that meant she'd already thrown her clothes away.  I settled for a chantilly-filled barchetta.  That's a little pastry boat (barca) filled with cream.   Unfortunately, they don't deep fry their boats.  

So as we say arrivederci to fritelle it's benvenuto to the colomba, agnello, focaccia and giant, hollow chocolate eggs.  These are the Easter treats.  All I can remember about the first three is that they're cakey.  Colomba are baked in the shape of a bird.  Agnello, like sheep.  When I asked for help with the differences I was told that colomba are like panettone and focaccia are like pandoro (two Christmas treats I'll get to later) as though I'd know the difference.  Some have more butter and are denser and others more airy.  Some have candied fruit and others have almonds. And some you put in a plastic bag with powdered sugar and shake the bag until it coats the cake.  (Did Italians invent Shake'n' Bake?)  The sad thing is that none of these sheep or birds or cakes have frosting.  In Italian, "It was the frosting on the cake"  is "E' stata la ciliegina sulla torta" (it was the little cherry on the cake).  Who gets excited about a little cherry on a cake?  Being the type that always went for an edge piece, these frostingless cakey things in Italy aren't hard to resist.

As for the giant hollow eggs?   They differ in size, quality of chocolate and value of the prize inside.  They're wrapped loosely with cellophane and tied with a bow.  Kids bash the eggs on the table to break them open and get the prize.  Adults cut the cellophane and eat the chocolate shards.  This is a tradition I embrace.

After Easter comes asparagus which is about as high on my list as little cherries.  In the spring it's everywhere and in everything.  People even get excited about asparagus on their pizza.  I went to an asparagus festival for a special dinner once because that's what Italian country folks do.  What was I thinking?  It was 8 courses of asparagus.  They really thought of 8 different ways to serve it.  And none of them were deep-fried or frosted.

In the summer we go crazy for the porcini mushrooms.  We go crazy searching for them (see blog This is Some Good Weed) and we go crazy eating them.  As in we, I mean they, the Italians.  Fortunately, the mourning period at the end of porcini season doesn't last long because chiodini mushrooms show up in the fall.  Thus, we're blessed with not one, but two seasons in which risotto, tortellini, spaghetti and pizza are all messed up with mushrooms.
 
I don't want to give the impression that I'm "bah humbug" about all Italian food.   There are some things that I really love, like caldarroste (roasted chestnuts).  I always thought it was just the Cratchitts in The Christmas Carol and the guy on State Street in Chicago roasting chestnuts on an open fire.  Here we really do it.  And this time by we, I mean we.  Fall is filled with little towns roasting chestnuts and boiling vin brule' (mulled wine).  The piazzas are decked out with tents and picnic tables with checkered tablecloths covered with wine stains and chestnut skins.  I like roasted chestnuts so much I buy a few kilos, build a fire in my yard and pretend I'm on the beach roasting marshmallows.
   
In my region of northern Italy, winter is the season for radicchio.  I don't live far from Treviso, home of the famous Treviso Radicchio.  There's even a website called Radicchio di Treviso. And every winter the little chalkboards outside the pizzerias have sad little sketches of the red lettuce they're so proudly offering on their pizza.  I'm pretty sure Santa Claus didn't get fat on radicchio.  I have a feeling he preferred my diet.  

Christmas is the season for pandoro and panettone, the two things I described above as cakey.  In December, I'm sure every house in Italy has a couple of these boxed bread loaves in the backroom waiting for unexpected guests.  No lunch, dinner or coffee date is complete without a slice.

Two other Christmas and New Year's favorites that come in a box are cotechino and zampone.  I'm sure I'll slaughter the description a little, but I'll do my best.  They're both ground pig muscle and cartilage.  And maybe some other ground stuff, too.  Cotechino is the ground stuff stuffed into a pig intestine.  You don't eat the intestine, it's just the handy packaging.  Zampone is the same thing (I think) packed in a pig leg, hoof and all.  The intestine bag and the pig leg are then put in a large vacuum- packed pouch and boxed.  No refrigeration necessary.  That's why I sent 3 to the States for Christmas one year.  I thought my more adventurous family and friends would try them, but I have a feeling they all went uneaten.  There are even  instructions in English on the box.  You put the pouch in a pot of water and simmer it for 30 minutes.  Remove the pouch from the water, remove the leg and intestine from the pouch and serve it with lentils or cannellini.  There you have it.  Italian beans and weenies.            
         
That brings us to the end of the culinary calendar in Italy.  All I can do now is wait until next January to don my burlap t-shirt and catch the train to Venice.


Nature's first green is gold,
Her hardest hue to hold,
Her early leaf's a flower,
But only so an hour.
Then leaf subsides to leaf,
So Eden sank to grief,
So dawn goes down to day,
Nothing gold (or yellowish and waxy) can stay.   

---Robert FrostING