Last night we had dinner at our favourite trattoria. Lovely meal but I couldn't help being horrified by this overheard exchange from the table next to us which was occupied by a large party of international tourists and a guy who appeared to be their tour guide:
Tour guide: "Now this is your typical Roman trattoria so they have all the traditional Roman dishes..." [he then explained the usual Roman pasta dishes: carbonara, amatriciana, cacio e pepe, griscia, ravioli etc. and the whole first course, second course thing]
Australian girl: "that sounds great. I think I'll have the amatriciana [traditional pasta dish from Amatrice involving bucatini, pancetta, tomato, chilli and pecorino cheese] but I'd like mushrooms in it."
Tour guide [looking uncomfortable]: "well, they take their food very seriously here. You can't put things together which aren't traditional. For example, one time someone in my group ordered a pasta dish with seafood and wanted parmesan cheese on it [a BIG no-no in Italy]. The cook stormed out of the kitchen and said "it would be an insult to my cooking to put parmesan cheese on a seafood dish!"
Australian girl: "well if it isn't INSULTING, ha ha, I'd like you to ask them to put mushrooms in my amatriciana."
I was just cringing as I listened to this. I guess it is true that back in Australia (I've seriusly repressed the memory) you can have whatever you want in whatever combination on your pasta. But this is the most genuine of old-fashioned traditional Roman trattorias. Oh, the culture clash!
Since the baby was getting grizzly we made a quick exist so I never got to see the cook storm out of the kitchen to tell the Australian girl that mushrooms in amatriciana would be an abomination and to get the hell out of her trattoria but I was inwardly seething at the thought of their beautiful amatriciana being ruined in this way.
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4 comments:
Gosh! I am ashamed about the request our fellow country(wo)man made...I thought it was only the Americans who did silly things like that! HAHAHA Joking :)
Haha I know exactly what you mean!
I'm experiencing the same, just the other way around! But luckily I dont feel insulted... ;-)
This dumb old man from the US asked for some Romano to spice up a rather bland macs and seafood. The waiter informed me that the Good Lord put enough salt in the sea that the seafood came from and therefore it didn't need salt from cheese. He did bring the hot pepper oil to jazz up the dish!!!
The biggest insult to Italian food here by a foreigner (Brit) is pineapple on pizza.
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