What is it About Italians?

[smokeymo]

I’m always talking about food. That’s why I make homemade pasta.

Some of the best food I ever had was in Italy. And some of the best service as well. Power went out in one of the little hole in the wall places we were having dinner in, and they gave us gelato on the house. It was an excellent time;.

 

[Laurent]

Some of the best food I ever had was in Italy. And some of the best service as well. Power went out in one of the little hole in the wall places we were having dinner in, and they gave us gelato on the house. It was an excellent time;.

I’m looking to visit there one day and get fat on all the food and limoncello I can take in!

 

[karam]

As with any of these generalizations, there are outliers. If in conversations about Italian foods, someone brings up the Olive Garden, then I have to laugh, as it is the worst food you could serve me. Chinese food... I've been to Korea, and what we have in the US is American Chinese lookalikes. I imagine Italians laugh at the Olive Garden, and the Chinese laugh at any US Chinese places.

French, we have several places in B'ham that serves French foods, but they are owned by Greeks, ha ha. Even the best Barbeque here is made by Greeks. when people come to visit, I take them to the Bright Star, the oldest restaurant in Alabama, and very classy place, and they serve Southern cuisine, but it is Greek, and was the first Greek Restaurant. It will make you slap your mama. Soooooo good. The Greek Orthodox Church in downtown B'ham has a Greek food festival every year. It is the one time I can actually get those Greek families rendition of actual Greek dishes... the entire city turns out for it, and WOW, brother that food is awesome. Funny though, none of their restaurants seem to serve Greek food, just their "take" on other genres, but they do an awesome job of it. It is actually a local phenomena. Why the hell did a Greek family entrench themselves in Southern Culture going back to the Civil War? But, I am glad they did.

I don't doubt, I actually really like Greek food, and especially how each little region, island, or village has its own specialty - most variations on local themes - and utilization of everything available, from mountain to sea. However I find that unlike French for example we lack finesse, and tend to keep things basic. Same goes for drinks, and even tobacco. It's only now for example that barrel-aged Raki is becoming a thing, and a lot of old-time drinkers find it heretical (they prefer raki stored in glass which does not age, or pick anything up like whiskey does for example). Good ingredients which stand on their own merits but not taken to the next level by preparation.

@smokeymo best food I ever had was also in Italy, in Milan specifically.

 

[Morrison Jeremiah]

Hundreds of years ago the Italians made great art.
These days they are very charming people.
A Bugatti Veyron I could go for. Anything else, no

 

[Streeper541]

Dammit., you caught me... now, my ploy to take over the pinky and cock ring industry is fouled. Interestingly enough, most here use them interchangeably.

Sitting here LMAO while boiling water & peeling potatoes for my bland Irish food.

 

[beargreasediet]

I’ll take the Italian pipes (and food), the German pistols and the British tobaccos.

 

[NC TX ID pipeman]

My Italian pipes are the driest smoking pipes I have.Another great italian was Aldo Uberti and his old west replica guns..Love them...

 

[mso489]

I dunno. The government issue German Luger was renown for jamming ... or so I heard.

 

[cosmicfolklore]

Sitting here LMAO while boiling water & peeling potatoes for my bland Irish food.
View attachment 119810

Add some onions and garlic to that pot!!! And a pinch of cinnamon!

 

[Laurent]

Sitting here LMAO while boiling water & peeling potatoes for my bland Irish food.
View attachment 119810

That pic reminds of a story. My uncle terry decided to get into raising his own beef. I bought a white cow, named it and started raising it. That cow and my uncle grew close. Come time to butcher it, he couldn’t do it. One day, when my uncle was at work, my aunt drew the meat chart on the side of the cow to persuade him to butcher it. He sold the cow.

 

[mingc]

This confuses me. Chilis are peppers. I am guessing that you mean peppercorn.

Yes, peppercorns.

 

[sablebrush52]

I like it all. French cuisine was initially derived from Italian cuisine and a few centuries brought it to a very different place. The different cuisines evolved from different philosophies, with the Italian to support and present the flavors of its fresh ingredients while the French aristocracy fostered a haute cuisine which sought to mask the often rotten ingredients under heavy sauces. You can keep the haute cuisine. I like French countryside and "rustic" foods, simpler and closer to their roots with fresh ingredients, a good potage, bread, and cheese. Italian food is amongst my favorite, not so much American/Italian as the real thing.
And just as I like Britwood, I like British foods, bangers and mash, faggots and peas, fish and chips, shepherd's pie, a ploughman's lunch, etc. Haggas, not so much.
There's good and horrible stuff everywhere.

 

[simong]

The best English foods... are French.

You must be confused sir, we live off fish & chips in my country, not frogs legs!!

 

[karam]

And Spotted Dick, don’t forget that classic!

 

[simong]

Hundreds of years ago the Italians made great art.
These days they are very charming people.
A Bugatti Veyron I could go for. Anything else, no

A Bugatti no less? I'd settle for a Fiat 500 as long as Sophia was in the back.

 

[sablebrush52]

And Spotted Dick, don’t forget that classic!

It's hard to beat a spotted dick!

 

[cosmicfolklore]

Aren't shepherd's pie and Haggas, Scottish? Gimme Creole sausages over English any day. When I was there, I just remember our host making a few boiled chicken dishes and possibly that faggot dish... I had to google it, but I remember it was hunks of pork fat. Fish and fries are good, despite Britain totally not grasping the English language, ha ha. If it weren't for them, we probably would have starved. And, I was told in advance to bring our own sauces, as the food would be similar to hospital food. My buddy brought a small thing of Tabasco, and I just relied on stuff I could find to make it palatable. I'm sorry, but I am very picky about my foods.

I have since acquired a taste for Dunhills, as I have slowly come to appreciate a billiard. I think of it as being similar to developing a taste for different types of salt. mmmmm.... But, I still haven't grasped the missionary position as a mainstay. I like them to buck back a bit to keep it interesting. I would make a lousy Englishman.

 

[Servant King]

It's hard to beat a spotted dick!

Didn't Confucius say that?

 

[PaulTheScandinavian]

Hey come on, nobody makes more classic looking high-end footwear and pipes in accordance with pure old school classic shapes(have a look at Dunhill white spot classic shapes ) than British
but Yes, I can't deny I have a soft spot for Italian kitchen its truly is splendid art and of course, they really do know something about coffees

 

[anotherbob]

I don't these things are usually very complicated with a lot of ins and outs and a lot of them that aren't even visible to us. And they're more often then not cherry picked nonsense that focuses on ones experience and not the larger reality which always messier then not. That said they always come down to a simple idea though, which is that at one point for whatever reason the situations people faced meant it made sense for people to do things in a certain way and now those things become tradition.