The following is a short essay I wrote in response to the prompt: "How have you integrated yourself into Italian society?" Note the title. Pretty much sums up the extent of my integration.
An Italian Meal
Sitting alone in the trattoria, I scrutinize the menu, seeking out whatever sounds the least foreign. I spot il girello arrosto con le patate. I had forgotten Rick Steves’ pocket menu translator, so this was basically going to be a shot in the dark. Il girello arrosto con le patate, sounds good. I think.
After a few minutes of intense concentration on making eye contact, I get the waiter to come over, and I order my il girello arrosto con le patate with a big glass of vino rosso della casa, trying to remember that it’s vorrei, not varrei. A moment later, a gentleman walks in, also dining alone, and so the waiter places him at the same table, right next to me. These Italians are clearly not clued up on the idea of personal space. He says buonasera; I mumble it back to him. With my hands in my lap, I twiddle my thumbs – then I remember I probably shouldn’t do that.
Insight time: most of the differences between Italian and American culture, I believe, can be observed at the dinner table. Starting with where you put your hands. I’m still reeling from the rigidity of keeping your hands resting on the table and not in your lap, a concept developed because, as my host mother explains it, “Your hands can do all kinds of things down there.” And then there’s the whole “eating dinner in three courses” thing, which probably relates to the idea of il dolce far niente. Il dolce far niente, a phrase I first came across in the aforementioned Rick Steves’ pocket menu translator, refers to the quasi-mythical Italian art of doing nothing. A daily three-course dinner simply allows Italians time to de-stress after a long day of riding Vespas and talking emphatically with their hands. For me, however, these three-course dinners are anything but il dolce far niente; I have a fear of choking on my spaghetti and dying a slow and painful death by asphyxia. Thus, I chew each bite 22 times before I swallow, turning any three-course dinner into a very time consuming ordeal. Too time consuming even for the Italians; I’m always the last to finish every course, chewing those final bites frantically in the face of certain death. No, not il dolce far niente at all.
I take a sip of my vino rosso, and in my head I pronounce it, “pretty good.” The gentleman next to me also pronounces the wine to be pretty good (he does so out loud of course; mind-reading was not something we’ve covered yet in Italian 101). Pretty good, he says, but a bit too cold. Not a particularly thrilling proclamation from the mouth of a gentleman, but what’s important to note is that this gentleman said it in Italian – and I understood it. I understood it! I translated it all without the help of an online translator. I take another sip of wine in silent celebration.
I’m on a constant quest for authenticity, something to write home about, but I usually chicken out whenever I find a way to experience it. The Italian Way is just too different, too cloaked in foreign ritual. Do I order a caffè at the bar and then pay? Or do I pay first and then order? Unsure, I often end up ordering no caffè at all. So, sitting here alone in a trattoria, with no amici to aid me in butchering the Italian Way, is a big and scary step. So far I’m handling it pretty well. But then the gentleman’s meal comes out; it looks like a steaming, sweating pile of tapeworms, and smells even worse. It must be tripe. Oh god, I hope I didn’t order tripe. I’m pretty sure vomiting in my napkin is not the Italian Way. Just bring out my meal and let’s get it over with already.
My anticipation builds. The gentleman eats some more tripe. My anticipation builds some more.
At last, the waiter comes over to my table with a steaming, foreign plate of … roast beef and potatoes. I love roast beef and potatoes. Sometimes the Italian Way can be surprising – not because it’s different, but because it’s strikingly familiar. The gentleman looks at my plate of hearty beef and potatoes. Buon appetito, he says.
Grazie, I say.
