L'Italo-Americano

www.italoamericano.org 10 THURSDAY, MAY 3, 2018 L'Italo-Americano F or over forty years, I have been living in both Italy and the US. I feel Italian and Ameri- can, Italiana and Americana, sounds almost like a Starbucks drink! The difference with being Italian-American is that I feel the two cultures live together in me without mixing and keep their own individuality. Belonging to two cultures allows me to notice likenesses and dif- ferences, as well as misconcep- tions. Today it is the turn of table manners, scarpetta, bread, doggy bag, and cappuccino. There is a story of an American pilot who fell in Austria during WW2 and dressed as a peasant not to be detected. However, by unlucky chance, a Gestapo officer sat at a table next to him at a restaurant, noticed he was zig zag eating and immediately thought he had to be American. What ensued is obvi- ous! The way forks and knives are used distinguishes Americans from Italians and most Euro- peans. Zig-zag eating consists in cutting a piece of food with the knife held by the dominant hand and the fork, with the tines down, in the other hand; after the knife is placed on the side of the plate, the fork, with the tines facing up, is transferred to the dominant hand and the bite-size piece is either speared or scooped onto the tines and then eaten. The fork is then transferred back to the non-dominant hand and the process is repeated. The reason for this difference is to be found in history. The British, who were very scornful of the use of forks and used a split end spoon, charged Americans a 20% to 60% price premium on forks because of the Navigation Acts. Thus many Americans began to use their spoons to hold food while cutting it. Then they had to switch their split-end spoon to the dominant hand to scoop the food as they had no fork to spear it. According to history, in 1630, the Governor of the Massachu- setts Bay Colony, Winthrop, owned the only fork in the coun- try. Italians' relationship with forks, on the contrary, dates back to the 11 th century and it was an Italian, Catherine de Medici who, in 1533, brought forks to France when she married Henry II. Americans had to wait until the 19 th century to have a wide- spread use of forks, but the old habit was already formed and set for the future. Even though Emily Post condemned this eat- ing style in 1928 – " to zig-zag the fork from left hand to right at nearly every mouthful is a ridicu- lous practice of the would-be ele- gant that is never seen in best society" - most Americans still zig-zag. Tied to this habit is that about the place held by the non-domi- nant hand. Americans, during this time consuming zigzagging, keep their hand resting under the table while Italians keep it on the table. It could be considered Americans' love for being com- fortable at all times, but it is frowned upon by Italians who have traditionally kept both hands on the table to show they had no hidden weapons or that, considering Italy was home to the Borgia family, they were not making an attempt to poisoning their neighbor by taking some lethal powder hidden in a ring. The origin of this habit was rein- forced by the French at the time of Louis the 14 th who uncovered a conspiracy to poison his drinks and food with the succession powder, a mixture of arsenic and toad dribble. It has happened quite often to hear an Italian wonder whether the hand was on DONATELLA POLIZZI Little, tasty nuggets of Italy Zigzag eating, scarpetta, bread, doggy bag, and cappuccino with meals the lap because the person had suffered a shoulder surgery and could not lift the arm or if the person was doing something inappropriate. Talking about table manners, there is an Italian habit, con- demned by etiquette, which allows it only during informal meals and with the use of a fork, which Americans don't know and makes them miss a world of flavor and food pleasure. I am talking about what is called scar- petta, literally "little shoe," and consists of using some bread to pick up food and, when the plate is empty, to "brush" the plate and pick up sauces and gravies to the last drop. Its origin is not certain and there are three more accredit- ed possibilities: either a concave pasta shape, called scarpetta, that resembled a shoe and would remain filled with sauces, or that bread, like a shoe on a foot, would move similarly, or still that scarpetta sounds like "scarsetta", quite scarce, and would stand for poverty and the habit of not leaving anything on one's plate. No matter the origin, Americans, who never eat bread as accompaniment of an entrée, are missing one of the most deli- cious and pleasant table experi- ence. If it is true that Americans do not pick up food to the last bit, they are smart to bring home what they have not eaten creating the custom of the "doggy bag," experience that only recently and very limitedly, has been starting in Italy. Italians, who pay a lot of attention to formality, have always been shameful and afraid of appearing stingy or poor if asking for a doggy bag. So in 2016, the Ministry for the Envi- ronment, in cooperation with the Veneto region Chambers of Commerce and CONAI (Nation- al Packaging Consortium), have invented the Family Bag, an ele- gant container entirely made with recycled materials boasting a coat of arms with FB written on the middle! Barbara Degani, the 2015 Undersecretary for the Environment, declared: "It is our duty to act for the improvement of our relationship with the sur- rounding environment. The intro- duction of the Family Bag in restaurant is an important cultur- al step. Family Bag is the seman- tic upgrade of the Doggy Bag which makes the concept more modern and at the same time helps us overcome our modesty while removing the concept from the ghetto where it was. No- waste must be the new lifestyle and thus asking for a Family Bag will be a virtuous behavior." Why are Italians always so complicated? Just like what hap- pens with the time when cappuc- cino can be had. Cappuccino, unlike in the US, is a morning beverage associated with break- fast, at the latest, if you woke up really late, it can be had at noon but it never ever accompanies a meal. At lunch or dinner there is water, soda, beer or wine. Period. Barilla Academy lists ten rules of Italian cuisine. One of them is that a cappuccino cannot be had with meals, it is allowed at the end of a meal but, it adds, an Ital- ian would never do this. The rea- son is that cappuccino is a very rich drink made mostly of whole milk because it foams better, so you have a good serving of pro- tein, fat, and sugar, and so it is very similar to ice cream, the big difference is the association of milk and coffee which give place to substances which need a long time to be digested (the tannic acid in the coffee tends to bind with milk casein, thus forming casein tannate). The foam increases this characteristic mak- ing this an unsuitable after-meal beverage. I just caught my daughter ordering cappuccino with her lunch sandwich, at that point I realized she has spent more time in the US than in Italy! Fare la scarpetta: if you want to really enjoy your food in Italy, you have to polish that plate with bread LA VITA ITALIANA TRADITIONS HISTORY CULTURE

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