The Italian food culture concerns not only what we see at Italian tables or in a rich Italian bistro menu.
It is something much deeper in Italians' Dna.
Food And Drink
Italians have some beliefs that go beyond education or tradition.
Concerning pasta
An easy example could be the pasta shapes and their seasonings. Inspecting that among dry pasta (the ones you regularly buy inside paper or plastic bags that last for long) the discrepancy is only the shape of it, nothing else, the shape itself is something very foremost for Italians.
There's a primary pasta sauce method from Roma region called Pasta all'amatriciana (it's a tasty sauce made with tomatoes and bacon). regularly it's served using the bucatini pasta (kind of huge spaghetti with a hole in its middle). An Italian woman was disgusted hearing her hairdress telling her colleague that preferred it with short pasta. She said: "Don't ask me why. It just is as it is. Amatriciana must go with long pasta. How can one fantasize of cooking it with short pasta?" The same goes for pasta with oil and garlic (aglio e olio), you probably will never see it served using any other pasta that isn't spaghetti.
Cappuccino
A lot of people nearby the world drink coffee and milk. In Italy, people use to drink cappuccino - a coffee and milk with expanding of milk foam.
All nearby the world people drink coffee and milk whenever feels like doing it. Italians will never ask for a cappuccino in the evening! Why? It is just as it is. It's not time to have a cappuccino. Cappuccino is for breakfast!
Italians do not accept someone who asks a cappuccino after, or even worse, together with dinner. They undoubtedly twist their nose when they see someone doing it.
Drinking
In Italy there are bars everywhere. There are many small cities, having about 1,500 inhabitants that have about 20 bars.
It happens because drinking in Italy is linked with greetings. When an Italian meet a friend, it's natural to "drink something together".
If it happens to serve a drink to someone seat also you, never turn the jar or the bottle against the natural way of your hand. For example, if you have the jar in your right hand, the glass must be on the left side, never behind, on the right side of your right hand. Otherwise it may not bring good luck.
Meals
In many countries it's base to eat a salad as entrance.
Not in Italy.
Italians eat salad as a side plate for the second dish. Now you can find some traveler restaurants in main cities that recommend rich salads for the tourists...but Italians never ask for them!
Italians respects lunch time. If you come to visit Italy and want to have lunch, pay attention to restaurants' windup times. regularly after 2:30pm the kitchens are all terminated and you'll have to eat a sandwich. If an Italian is traveling exterior Italy, he will probably look for a bistro during lunch time. If he doesn't or cannot find one, and finds one at 3:00pm, he'll probably say that is not hungry anymore, that he uses to eat at that time otherwise he loses his hunger.
Italians trust their food. While most of the tourists look for local food, Inspecting it part of the vacation, it's very base to see Italians seeing for Italian restaurants while abroad. They seem to be afraid of new and different food.
They begin to open themselves to new food when go exterior Italy more often and learn to appreciate and trust foreign cuisines.
Other than trusting and loving their own food, Italians hate when people try to mix other food cultures with Italian ones. An example? Never add ketchup to a pasta dish! You cannot fantasize how your Italian friend will stare at you if you try to do so.
The enchanting in all these is that they don't do it for being presumptuous, but they undoubtedly believe you're wasting your taste. Italian culture still has a lot of "musts" that go with generations that just effect it without knowing why it is done in this or that way.
Italian Food Culture
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