#48: Italians Don’t Share Pizza
I hope you are surviving what sounds like a very cold Melbourne winter this week.
Lucca is hot and sunny. But not too hot, which is much appreciated by me. The days of 38 degrees, which greeted us on our arrival at this time last year, have not yet arrived this season.
We have been spending many of our afternoons together in the garden of our apartment building, with the hose and the small wading pool providing cool relief and entertainment for the kids. Our neighbours, all being well into their 80s, are happy with us basically taking over in this way. Our main form of interaction is the odd conversation down to us from their windows. The classic Italian chat!
A few days ago, however, Signora Maria and her husband Ugo ventured down to join us in the garden. We had a lovely time, even if there was plenty lost in translation.
My favourite moment was when la nonna expressed a fear that the children (dressed only in their bathers at this point, and wet from playing in the sprinkler) might get cold. It was 34 degrees. I think they'll be ok, I assured her. No conversation with an Italian nonna is complete without some helpful advice about avoiding sickness or bad luck.
I had a moment last week, when a few experiences in quick succession made me realise that there are some things about Italian life that are maybe a bit needlessly inconvenient.
These are things that are a lot less consequential than the obvious gripes about bureaucracy, and so on.
Pizza.
Can we talk about pizza? Obviously it is an Italian dish, so I recognise that criticising the way Italians eat pizza already has me on rocky ground. But Italians don't order pizze to share. They order a pizza each. Which seems crazy to me, because what better food is there to share? And why lock yourself into a single topping, when you can sample many across a group order? What if someone wants more than one pizza, or less?
And when you ask a waiter if you can share, you get every reaction from confusion, exasperation, all the way through to open contempt.
The flow on effect of this pizza-per-person set up is that, even when you order takeaway, the pizza does not come pre-cut into slices. This causes chaos if you intend to eat the pizza anywhere but in your own home. As you need to remember to bring some form of cutting utensil.
Woe betide the foreigner who asks for the pizza to be sliced at the shop. The shame.
The other source of frustration came last Friday when we were sitting in the aforementioned garden, and decided that we should have a little drink to celebrate surviving another week. David had a beer, and I chose a limonata. Both in glass bottles.
Maybe you can see where this is going? I certainly did not, although this is not the first time this has caught me out...
Italy does not do screw top bottles. Not on beer, or anything else in glass for that matter. This time we managed to break into our refreshments using a wrench from our tool kit, so it was not nearly as heartbreaking as the last time I made this mistake.
In that instance, we were on our way home from Liguria - hot and tired after a big weekend of adventures with the kids. David was driving, and he decided that he really needed a cold Coke. OK, I said. Next time we stop for fuel, I will run into the shop and buy you one. Which I did. In a bottle.
Why would the petrol station only sell Coke in glass bottles that require a bottle opener?! Ridiculous. Maybe I missed the section where they also sold cans, but I don't recall seeing them. Anyway, the bottle sat unopened in the centre console, taunting the tired driver for the remainder of the journey.
I guess that this resistance to modern conveniences and ways of doing things is part of what makes Italy such an amazing place, but honestly sometimes it is a little much.
I don't think civilisation was ever brought down by a twist top bottle cap, but maybe that's the whole point. Slippery slope, etc etc.
With all my love!
