Blogger and photographer David Scott Allen from Cocoa and Lavender is back on the podcast to discuss a guest article I wrote in collaboration with Diana Zahuranec and other bloggers on “The Basic Rules of Italian Food.” For instance, among the various topics, we talk about the fact that no Italian would dare to cut spaghetti with a knife, to have a cappuccino after a meal, or to cook pasta other than in plenty of salted water at a full boil.
To conclude the episode, David introduces his latest recipe which is dedicated to the traditional Ligurian pasta shape called “Corzetti.”
Join me to meet restaurant owner, and Italian food ambassador, Simon Pagotto. During the episode, Simon talks about his Italian roots, his deeply Australian upbringing, and how his discovery of traditional Italian food led him to embrace authenticity in his trattoria, even against the general expectations of his patrons.
In our exchange, we touch on several hot topics including:
Join me and Nick Zingale for another of his fascinating stories as he continues to recount his visit to Molise, his maternal ancestors’ homeland.
As depicted in Nick’s original blog post, during his day-trip to San Giovanni in Galdo he goes through a series of encounters that make him closer to his roots and that he will remember forever.
In the episode, Nick mentions the characteristic regional pasta called cavatelli (please check it out on Manu’s Menu!) This pasta shape also happens to be most commonly found in Cleveland’s Little Italy, as further evidence of the strong influx of Molisan immigrants in the area.
I came to Vancouver in 2001, right after getting my Electronic Engineering degree. I had a six-month contract as a software engineer, joining an Italo-Canadian development team. Naturally, I was very excited for the professional experience that awaited me, but I was even more excited for the opportunity to discover a big new city in an enormous new continent – along with its language, its culture, and its food!
During my first few weeks, I trusted my Italian coworkers for food recommendations. They had been living in Vancouver for over a year already and had developed a liking for a pool of Asian and south Asian restaurants, but also for some Ethiopian and Greek establishments. I always loved discovering new cuisines, so I was happy to follow my coworkers around (also because I didn’t quite miss Italian food yet). During those days I learned how to use chopsticks and got to try a whole range of new dishes, including sushi – still one of my favorites.
When on my own, despite trying to expand my horizons to North American food, I kept going back to foreign food. Thinking of it, this is probably because “ethnic” restaurants were meant for foreigners – there, I could order my meal simply by pointing at a picture on the menu, or by reading the number next to it. In North American restaurants, instead, my Caucasian physiognomy was probably deceiving with regards to my language challenges – people expected me to speak English and therefore adjusted my words to their closest logical interpretation. This sometimes resulted in a different dish being brought to me instead of the one I ordered, like that time I was served a Caesar salad instead of a sesame salad, simply because I didn’t know the final ‘e’ in sesame is not silent.
Eventually, through trial and error, I learned how to order food. But I wasn’t totally immune to misadventure. One day, being quite desperate for something a bit more familiar, I stumbled into a McDonald’s and I distractedly ordered: “One cheeseburger and a beer.” In Italy every McDonald’s sells beer, so I mechanically assumed it would be an option in Vancouver as well. The guy at the till probably thought I skipped a word and gave me a burger and some kind of pop. Even though I realized quickly that it wasn’t beer (the fact that it came with a straw gave it away), I wasn’t really in a position to complain, as you can imagine. As I was eating my burger, I gulped down this strange soda. At first, I didn’t mind it, then I started experiencing the horrible feeling of having swallowed a cup of mouthwash! It took me months to realize that that day I had my first root beer. As of today, that root beer was my last!
I then moved from the hotel where I was staying into a small apartment. The kitchen wasn’t fully operative, but it had a microwave oven, so I thought I could try to cook some food for myself. Wandering around in a Superstore, I came across these large frozen “ravioli” filled with potatoes and cheese (the bag probably had the word ‘perogies’ written on it, but it didn’t register with me). The instructions on the package said that these dumplings could be cooked in the microwave, so I was hopeful they would be OK. I was completely wrong! These big, puffy semicircles were made of a thick, chewy dough which, despite having followed the cooking instructions, was definitely way undercooked and tasted quite funny. I ended up squeezing out the filling and eating it like mashed potatoes*.
“I was especially fascinated by the “marbled” one in which bright orange and pale orange cheese are twirled together.”
While at the Superstore, something else caught my attention. I noticed some big blocks of orange cheese, which I recognized as the same cheese that McDonald’s puts in its cheeseburgers. I had never seen the “real thing” in block-form before, and I was especially fascinated by the “marbled” one in which bright orange and pale orange cheese are twirled together. So, after the perogies disaster, I went to the fridge hoping to improve my meal by finishing it with a piece of cheese. Well, that night I realized that this crustless, rubbery orange product is not something you want to just eat with bread like you would for a piece of Fontina or Scamorza… it’s so dry that it’s almost impossible to swallow, and it really tastes quite bland.
After a few months of sushi, dim sum, moussaka, chicken korma, and unsatisfying cheese, my excitement for new foods was starting to wear off. One day, I suddenly craved pasta. Luckily, I happened to walk past a restaurant chain called: The Old Spaghetti Factory. Of course, I didn’t expect to find my mom’s pasta there, but I also didn’t expect it to be too different from it. After all, a pasta dish is a pasta dish, right? Not at all. I had found a completely different kind of Italian food. I was outraged! Spaghetti and Meatballs, Chicken Pesto Penne, Linguini Alfredo… I had never heard of any of these dishes when I was living in Italy. I had discovered a parallel universe!
“A pretty unappetizing one […] the portions were too big, the pasta was either drowning in sauce or looked pale and overcooked, and the sauces looked overly rich.” A pretty unappetizing one as well… the portions were too big, the pasta was either drowning in sauce or looked pale and overcooked, and the sauces looked overly rich. I ordered something which seemed a bit more familiar to me, clam linguini, but even that dish didn’t compare at all with the one I knew. I thought that maybe I had ended up in a strange “fusion” restaurant, but the more I looked around for other Italian restaurants, the more I became aware that they all served the same kind of unfamiliar dishes. “Don’t they know that Italians very rarely make spelling mistakes? It’s a phonetic language!”
Looking more closely at some of these self-proclaimed Italian restaurants, I was particularly surprised to find a slew of spelling mistakes printed on their menus, which I actually found quite offensive. Don’t they know that we have spell checkers in Italy? Don’t they know that Italians very rarely make spelling mistakes? It’s a phonetic language! In a few cases, I almost offered to correct the menus myself, but then I realized that maybe these errors were for the best after all, since they acted like unintentional warnings to native Italians, hopefully sending them off to the Chinese restaurant next door, perhaps with an equally misspelled menu, but that they would have never been able to call out.
Meanwhile, my first work contract had ended and I was offered a full-time job, which I actually still hold now, 15 years later. During the following years I kept running into distorted Italian food, and somehow Italian food was becoming even more popular in Vancouver. In 2010, I decided to have some fun and start a pretentious blog aimed at fixing Italian food in North America. In my opening post, I wrote: “I will say the proper ways to write the names of Italian dishes. And, from what I know, I will also try to say how the dish should look and taste… for sure I will say how the dish most definitely *shouldn’t* look or taste!”
This was just the beginning, though, and as I continued blogging my initial rant turned into something a bit more useful. I started investigating the root differences between the food of Italy and the food of North America, which are as much in the ingredients as in the culinary culture. I also learned that Italian-American food is a cuisine in its own right, historically rooted and not less authentic than the cuisine of Milan. However, I think that Italian-American food should be labeled as such, and I hope that going forward more restaurants and chefs will celebrate it by calling it out on their menus instead of labeling it as generically “Italian.”
Since I started the blog, however, things have begun to change. I am not sure I can take credit for it, but it’s indisputable that thanks to YouTube and true Italian food blogs people can get accurate descriptions of all kinds of cuisines directly from the people who grew up eating them. In this changing landscape, more and more Italian restaurateurs are discovering that they can be successful outside of Italy without compromising by adapting their menus to local expectations. As a result, the Italians abroad can more easily find the Italian food they’re familiar with.
I think that the new global awareness is also reflected in an increased availability of ingredients. Naturally, North America’s produce is still very different from the Italian because of climate and composition of the soil, but, at least in big cities, it is now easier to find Italian grocery stores and to cook traditional continental Italian without having to substitute any key ingredients. Overall, I don’t see this as globalization, but quite as the opposite – it’s a phenomenon which validates local realities and traditional cuisines, ultimately preserving them in their immense richness and protecting them from accidentally merging into one another. Cross pollination and fusion cuisine will of course still happen, but, hopefully, they will become more deliberate than they have been in the past. _____ * It took me years, but I eventually came across properly cooked east European perogies and discovered that they are actually delicious.↑
Another year has elapsed – this blog just turned six!! As usual, I’d like to stop for a moment and look back at the last twelve months of blogging and podcasting. Before I do that, I would like to thank all who have been supporting me by reading, by listening, and especially by sharing their thoughts via personal messages and comments. It means a lot to me, please keep sending your feedback!
Finally, I’d like to add a note on a technical detail. Last October, this blog was migrated to WordPress! I can’t say it was a trivial task, but the process was much smoother than I initially thought – a testament to the platform and its amazing community. I hope you are enjoying the new layout and functionality.
All in all, year six has been a great year, with lots of new connections and ideas. I am very much looking forward to year seven with the same enthusiasm as when I started in 2010!
Thoughts on the Table is back with an entertaining episode with Alida from My Little Italian Kitchen. I’ve known Alida’s work for quite some time, and it was great to finally meet face to face via Skype and have a nice long chat! Join us to hear Alida’s story as a blogger and the stories behind some of her articles. Among the various topics we touched on, Alida talks about her fascination for the weekly Italian street markets, the experience of meeting an artisan butter and cheese maker in an Italian latteria, and her fantastic achievements as a blogger to attend a pasta-making workshop personally held by Giovanni Rana and to be part of a TV show with top chef Jamie Oliver. I would like to thank Alida for taking the time of being interviewed and wish her all the best for her fantastic blogging career!
I chose this recipe because I wanted to recreate the gnudi I tasted in a restaurant in Florence during a recent Italian trip, which also happen to have been the first gnudi I ever tasted! Florence is a mere 300 kilometres from my hometown, but regional specialties often remain confined to their native areas.
As pointed out by Domenica, “nudi” (or “gnudi” in Tuscan dialect) means naked. This is because essentially they are “naked” ravioli, i.e. ravioli filling without the pasta wrapper. The use of ricotta makes them light and fluffy, unlike potato gnocchi, which are much denser. It’s important to note that gnudi are used in first courses instead of pasta or gnocchi, they’re not meant to be served with pasta like some kind of vegetarian meatballs!
Gnudi can be prepared in several different ways. The version chosen by Domenica (and which I recreated) sees the addition of spinach and chard (“bietola” in Italian) for a “green” dough that is delicate and smooth, and which pairs well with plain tomato sauce (described here). The process of rolling the gnudi into shape is relatively easy, but it requires time and some patience. The result is spectacular – gnudi are a great first course which can set the tone for a very special meal.
Chard and Spinach Gnudi, the Naked Ravioli
Yield: 2-3 servings
Total Time: 1 hour
Prep Time: 40 minutes
Cook Time: 20 minutes
Ingredients
8 oz (225 g) green chard* leaves, ripped (*a.k.a. Swiss chard)
4 oz (115 g) fresh spinach leaves
6 oz (170 g) cow ricotta, well drained
1 yolk
1/2 cup (50 g) Parmigiano, grated
1/8 cup (15 g) white flour, plus 1/4 cup (30 g) to coat the gnudi
Wash the green chard, coarsely rip the leaves and place them, still damp, into a large pot. Cover with a lid and cook for 10 minutes at a medium heat until wilted, stirring occasionally. They will reduce their volume considerably.
Meanwhile, wash the spinach leaves and cook them in the same way as the chard, but only for 5 minutes.
Remove the greens from the heat and place them in a colander to cool. When cold enough to handle, squeeze them vigorously with your hands or by wrapping them into a clean tea towel. As Domenica predicted, these quantities yielded about ½ cup of squeezed, cooked greens. Place the greens on a cutting board and chop them finely.
In a mixing bowl, combine the chopped greens, the ricotta, the yolk, Parmigiano (keeping 1 tablespoon aside), flour, nutmeg, salt, and pepper. Mix thoroughly.
As you bring a large pot of salted water to a gentle boil, start forming the gnudi. Prepare one bowl filled with flour, next to a plate coated in parchment paper. Using your hands, make balls of dough of about 1 inch (2.5 cm) in diameter. Roll them in the flour until uniformly coated, then place them on the parchment paper.
Boil the gnudi a batch at a time making sure not to overcrowd them (so that they don’t stick to one another, and to ensure the water remains boiling). Gently place them into the simmering water and allow them to cook undisturbed for 6-8 minutes. About half-way through the cooking, they will start floating.
Gently remove the gnudi from the water using a perforated ladle, and place them into a colander. Keep them warm as you cook the next batch.
Have the tomato sauce ready and kept warm in a skillet. Place 2-3 tablespoons of tomato sauce in preheated bowls. Roll the gnudi into the skillet with the sauce until coated, then gently place them into the bowls. Sprinkle with grated Parmigiano, serve immediately.
I’m from northern Italy – only been to Sicily once – and I only had heard about this dish before moving to Canada. Thanks to my friends food-bloggers, however, this dish tickled my attention, I starting making it, and I think it has already become part of my repertoire! What I love about Pesto alla Trapanese is how fresh it tastes, and that it can be prepared quickly (as the pasta cooks) and pretty much all year-round (unlike Pesto alla Genovese which requires large amounts of fresh basil, which is best in the summer).
Since I’m far from an authority on this dish, I’m presenting a variation over Frank Fariello‘s rendition. Similarly, it makes use of uncooked cherry tomatoes that are mixed in with other ingredients in a blender – a method quite common these days, as opposed to using mortar and pestle (which is traditional and at the origins of the name “pesto”). Aside from the blending technique, I substituted Pecorino for the milder (though geographically incorrect!) Parmigiano, and increased the amount of almonds for a grittier and drier sauce.
Pesto alla Trapanese, with almonds and fresh tomatoes
Yield: 2 servings
Total Time: 15 minutes
Prep Time: 5 minutes
Cook Time: 10 minutes
Ingredients
6-8 (140 g, 5 oz in weight) cherry or strawberry tomatoes
1 garlic clove, minced
8 basil leaves
40 g (1 ½ oz) almonds, blanched (chopped or whole)
40 g (1 ½ oz) Parmigiano, coarsely grated
3 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
140 g (5 oz) spaghetti, linguine, or even short pasta like farfalle or fusilli
coarse salt (1/2 Tbsp per liter, 2 Tbsp per gallon of boiling water)
Preparation
Bring a big pot of water to a boil.
Toast the almonds in a pan at high heat for a couple of minutes until they get some color, but before they turn dark.
Core the tomatoes and score their skin (see illustration on the side).
Boil the tomatoes for 20 seconds, then dip them in cold water to stop the cooking. Keep the water boiling, you’re going to use it to cook the pasta.
Salt the water and cook the pasta according to the instructions on the box.
As the pasta cooks, peel the tomatoes and squeeze them to remove seeds and excessive liquid.
In a blender, mix all ingredients so that they turn creamy, but still a bit coarse. I used an immersion blender and it worked very well.
When the pasta is cooked, drain it and put it back in the pot along with the pesto. Mix gently and serve immediately.
Continuing on the series of transcripts, up next is the textual form of an old episode with my friend, writer Gino De Blasio. In this podcast, Gino applies his amazing storytelling to describe the origins of the Slow Food Movement, in response to the fast-food orientated mentality that was spreading in Italy in the ‘80s.
Hello and welcome to the audio blog, Paolo here for another episode of Thoughts on the Table with Gino De Blasio. Hi Gino, good morning, good afternoon actually today. How are you?
Gino De Blasio
Not too bad. Good morning to you Paolo. How are you?
Paolo Rigiroli
Good. Today we connected in the afternoon for Gino and morning for me. Much better, I have to say. Today, a-
Gino De Blasio
Everybody feels more polite.
Paolo Rigiroli
Yes, it’s more ourselves, I think, I hope. We’ll see. Anyway, yeah, today a different topic, today we’re going to talk about slow food and fast food. Gino, you were saying, you would like to start with some history of the slow food movement.
Gino De Blasio
Yeah, and I think it’s a fantastic area, fantastic moment in food history. You have to go back to, this is me now storytelling, so kids try and keep awake, so you have to go really back to the mid 1980s. It was a time where capitalism, free market economics was rife. You have the Reagan era in the States, the Thatcher era in the UK. It was really at the forefront of thinking. Communism was being broken down from the east slowly and surely.
Gino De Blasio
You have to think of this very wobbling time of what you could regard as really a capitalist machine, a capitalist model. What was behind that really in terms of food was fast food. Now, in 1986, at the height of this capitalism, the golden arches of McDonald’s sent Carlo Petrini into shock.
Paolo Rigiroli
Italy already had some fast food chains. There was in the north, I don’t know if it was widespread all over Italy or not, a chain called “Burghy”.
Gino De Blasio
Yes.
Paolo Rigiroli
A few of us would remember. “Burghy” is Italian pronunciation of “burgy” [from burger]. You were right, fast food was up and coming and a lot of people were interested.
Gino De Blasio
Yeah. There was this fascination because culturally, you just look at the films that were being produced. 1980’s Italy was probably what you would say at its lowest in terms of quality. Foreign films were all the rage. If you look at the 1980s films, they were really highlighted by the Spielberg era, the Back to the Futures. Which it was so popular, I mean it was popular everywhere, but in Italy people were talking about the Delorean because they were so fascinated about the car, all these things.
Gino De Blasio
That’s what it was embodying. That’s what it was trying to capture. I think Italy was trying to capture it through this idea of the food. Basically, Carlo Petrini, he started this movement in 1986 because McDonald’s opened on the Spanish steps.
Paolo Rigiroli
That was his first McDonald, is that right?
Gino De Blasio
I think that was the first McDonald’s in Italy.
Paolo Rigiroli
In Italy, that’s right.
Gino De Blasio
It was in a lot of ways being accepted. This will be the norm, and that was Petrini was against. In fact, he was against this idea that food isn’t being savored, both in the preparation and in the execution and in the tasting. He conjured up this brilliant movement called the slow food movement. Really, the way to think of it is take the recipes from old, from yesteryear, we’ve spoken about it in the previous podcast, La Cucina Povera, those elements, but bring them to the forefront of our imagination again. We spoke last week about the polpette in a sauce. Now, that is slow food. All of these things which are classical home and rustic dishes, that’s what the slow food movement started to bring back to our imaginations. It was moving away from this capitalistic drive, and a lot of people see it as this anti-globalization movement.
Paolo Rigiroli
Yeah, that’s part of it.
Gino De Blasio
In terms of food, it actually is because it’s taking the local ingredients, local chefs, and bringing it altogether. I speak with a smile in my voice because it is a fantastic, fantastic movement, and one which I think can be unique to every nation.
Paolo Rigiroli
Yes, yeah.
Gino De Blasio
It’s absolutely amazing, and I think if you were to look at, for example, there’s a … Can I say his name? The celebrity chef?
Paolo Rigiroli
Yeah, of course you can. Yeah, absolutely.
Gino De Blasio
Jamie Oliver with his Ministry of Food. That is almost going into the slow food movement in some regards. That’s about actually growing your own food, about making things basic in the kitchen, and giving people cooking lessons, which is what the slow food movement has become in Italy with Petrini’s latest Eat Italy.
Paolo Rigiroli
Yes, yeah.
Gino De Blasio
It’s that one world Eat Italy, all is one, Eataly. These are big complexes where people can go to learn about how you grow your food, how you eat your food, where your food chain comes from. It’s all part of this movement which is really, like you said, it’s trying to dig back into the past and say, “This is what it is, fantastic to have it.”
Paolo Rigiroli
It’s also behind the Salone del Gusto, the Salon of Taste that takes place in Turin in October. I think it’s every two years.
Gino De Blasio
Every two years.
Paolo Rigiroli
Yeah.
Gino De Blasio
Yeah, I remember reading something about like how it was they have all these competitions of regional cuisine and some of the things. In your experience, fast food in Italy, apart from the burger of the 80s, how is it regarded? How do you see it as being considered?
Paolo Rigiroli
Well, a lot of Italian food is fast by nature. A pizza takes 90 second to cook. Fast food doesn’t necessarily mean a bad thing. There are a lot of chains that do produce something that can be considered fast food, the Autogrill chain, or Spizzico, Ciao. These are owned by large organizations. Yeah, probably the slow food movement would have a lot against them. However, in my opinion, they do make something that is quite authentic. Overall, they provide a service which is useful when you’re traveling and often you’re driving around Italy, and stopping at the Autogrill is a very refreshing experience, and sometimes, you may even have a good meal. Actually, often you do have a good meal.
Gino De Blasio
Yeah, I mean, this is probably for another podcast about service station meals.
Paolo Rigiroli
Oh yeah, very interesting.
Gino De Blasio
Yeah, there’s a whole podcast in it, but the one thing that I will always get for my friends who travel to Italy, if they’ve ever had to drive a car, there will always be stories, firstly, how they were scared for their lives whilst driving, and the second one is how well they ate.
Paolo Rigiroli
Yeah. It is remarkable.
Gino De Blasio
It is amazing. You get such a variety, and it’s so cheap, which is the complete opposite to, well, in England where you look and get four times a price of what it would normally cost and it taste absolutely awful.
Paolo Rigiroli
Yes. I think Autogrill is relatively cheap compared to a restaurant but is fairly priced. I’ll have to say, it’s not the level of other fast food chains where really the race for the lowest possible price seems to always be there. Frankly, shocks me to see that you can get a burger for 1.75. One eats that not because it’s the best way to use the $1.75, but because it’s the fastest, the easiest way.
Gino De Blasio
I noticed there’s more McDonald’s in Italy.
Paolo Rigiroli
Yeah.
Gino De Blasio
I think people have become more accustomed to it. McDonald’s has had to change its menu for Italy. It’s now offering pasta, which you won’t find in England. I think it’s trying to cater for the local palate.
Paolo Rigiroli
Also, there is a place for a chain, especially in the big cities, when people live a very frenetic life and they need to get from Place A to Place B and grab lunch in-between.
Gino De Blasio
Yeah, and I think as long as the market demands it, there will always be a McDonald’s or a Burger King. I keep on saying McDonald’s but I think-
Paolo Rigiroli
Oh yeah, it’s not just McDonald’s.
Gino De Blasio
A generic fast food equivalent, which is why Spizzico has come about. People want a piece of pizza. It’s great idea. It’s a grab and go. It is what it is. It’s not the pizza which might be which my pizzaiolo makes.
Paolo Rigiroli
No, absolutely.
Gino De Blasio
Admittedly also, I get much better customer service from the Spizzico than I do from my pizzaiolo (laughs).
Paolo Rigiroli
Very good point (laughs).
Gino De Blasio
I’m usually getting a lot and lots and lots, into a lot of trouble with my pizzaiolo…
Paolo Rigiroli
We should be talking sometime about customer service in restaurants-
Gino De Blasio
Oh, that’s even another podcast… Yeah, we got service station, customer service.
Paolo Rigiroli
Yeah, I wrote articles on both my blog. You can read about my view of Autogrill and my view of customer service in restaurants. A lot of interesting considerations, I think, that one can make. A good travel guide for people that want to visit Italy and venture themselves into what customer service is or isn’t.
Gino De Blasio
Yeah (laughs).
Paolo Rigiroli
It’s all relative, I think we’re used to it a little bit too much in Italy. Personally, I think it could be better, but at the same time-
Gino De Blasio
I don’t think it’d be hard to improve.
Paolo Rigiroli
No. It won’t be hard to improve. I am the first to admit it and I am sorry. I apologize to all the people that didn’t get treated the way they do at home. However, people go to restaurants for the food more than for the hospitality. You go to somebody who is the owner. It’s not your host necessarily. It’s the person that owns the place, and you adapt to their customs and their rules, as long as they feed you what you know they can make and make really well. We’re willing to put up with that. Yeah, we should talk about it some other time, so much to say.
Gino De Blasio
So much. We’ve spoken at large about really the slow food movement. We’ve touched upon the fast food moment. Where do you see Italy now? Do you see it turning more towards the slow food or do you feel that we’ll be a cultural shift to more fast food orientated mentality? What do you see happening?
Paolo Rigiroli
I think that the slow food doesn’t need to be a movement in Italy, necessarily. There is a large resistance built-in with the Italians. Fast food would naturally be there and grow, reach its potential, but it won’t takeover slow food. There is no such risk. You may even start to see a Starbucks, just to name some more brands in this episode. I don’t think espresso will ever be lost in there and the many non-chains that make fantastic espresso in every Italian city. There’s no risk because of there’s such a at base palate that is entrenched in the people from Italy. You’ll occupy as much room as the Italian allow it to occupy, and then the rest will still be family dining and traditional restaurants.
Gino De Blasio
I certainly agree. I certainly think coffee, it’s not that I don’t think I’ll ever see a Starbucks, but I don’t ever think I’ll see the fruition of Starbucks or all the large chains. I think one of big thing would be trying to make people queue for their coffee. I can’t see that in Italy. I don’t think it would go down well, because of the culture where you walk in, you stand at the bar, within a minute, you’ve got your espresso.
Paolo Rigiroli
Yeah.
Gino De Blasio
The word espresso means quick. This morning I went to have a coffee in a chain and it took me nearly 8 minutes to get served and there was only one person in front of me. It is like, that just couldn’t happen. It just couldn’t.
Paolo Rigiroli
Yeah, it’s weird. It’s the double-edged sword of good customer service. If they’re too good with the person in front of you, it may get very, very slow. In Italy, it wouldn’t be acceptable. You know what you gain, you know what you lose too, because there’s no way you can have a conversation with your barista because he’s got to move. He’s got to get on the next one really quickly.
Gino De Blasio
As my granddad always say to me I many occasions, most things in Italy are slow, apart from the cars and the coffee. I think that’s different. Coming back to where we see Italian food moving, I think what would might be successful is something which is almost marks it really on a slow food ideology of the produce that we get is from a ten-mile radius from here. Things like that. I think that would see more success.
Paolo Rigiroli
Yeah, the ‘eating local’ idea, I think, would be welcome. It does already happen. In Italy, we’re fairly lucky that we can grow a lot of produce locally, not all of it, but some more than other, more northern countries where it’s harder to produce locally without expensive greenhouses. I think it may become more of a trend to advertise that and enforce it.
Gino De Blasio
Yes, yeah.
Paolo Rigiroli
Gino, I think we got to the end of this episode. It was a very fascinating discussion for me. I’ve learned a lot researching about it and talking about it with you, Gino, this morning. I hope that you people listening have enjoyed it. We’re looking forward to your feedback as usual. Please contact us. There are several ways, on the website, on my blog, disgracesonthemenu.com, on Gino’s blog….
As well as through our Twitter and Facebook handles. You will find them very easily on the websites. Thanks very much for listening. We’ll get back to you with another episode shortly. Bye-bye.
This website uses cookies so that we can provide you with the best user experience possible. Cookie information is stored in your browser and performs functions such as recognising you when you return to our website and helping our team to understand which sections of the website you find most interesting and useful.
Strictly Necessary Cookies
Strictly Necessary Cookie should be enabled at all times so that we can save your preferences for cookie settings.
If you disable this cookie, we will not be able to save your preferences. This means that every time you visit this website you will need to enable or disable cookies again.
![[Thoughts on the Table – 60] The Basic Rules of Italian Food with David Scott Allen](../../../wp-content/uploads/2017/10/david2-tot.jpg)
![[Thoughts on the Table – 59] Introducing Australian Restaurateur Simon Pagotto](../../../wp-content/uploads/2017/07/simon-tot.jpg)
![[Thoughts on the Table – 58] A Morning in San Giovanni in Galdo, with Nick Zingale](../../../wp-content/uploads/2017/07/san-giovanni-tot.jpg)
![[Thoughts on the Table – 46] Introducing Alida from My Little Italian Kitchen](../../../wp-content/uploads/2016/06/alida-tot.jpg)
![[Thoughts on the Table Transcript] Gino De Blasio on Slow Food/Fast Food](../../../wp-content/uploads/2015/12/gino-tott.jpg)
