Every year, I get invited to a function that I try to avoid. My cousin, who loves big booze-filled parties, gathers her extended family for a convivial lunch at an Italian restaurant. As my list of excuses — “bad back,” “gout,” “baptism in Scotland,” “last-minute undercover journalism assignment” — thins out, I dread having to show up this year.
No sane person would like a dish where the main dish, pizza, cannot be eaten with a spoon.
It's not my relatives that I hate, it's the food on my plate. No sane person would ever love pizza if they couldn't eat it with a spoon. The finest foods appeal to our animal instincts because they can be scooped directly from the container into our mouths: honey, caviar, baked beans, Nutella. Using cutlery is like wearing sunglasses in the Prado: you leave out a small but important part of the experience.
Italian cuisine has no taste, of course, but chefs and financiers have hidden this from the world for centuries. What Italians call “materials” are just building materials. Anyone who's ever had to scrape hard gnocchi from the bottom of a burnt pan knows this. A regular plate of warm carbonara looks exactly like wallpaper glue, but that's because it is wallpaper glue. And wallpaper glue perfectly plays the same role as wallpaper. A flap of peeling wallpaper hangs in the hallway, which I recently fixed while boiling vermicelli on the stove. My housemate watched as I dipped a paintbrush into the bubbling pot, dipped the glue bristles in the starchy sludge, and spread it over the peeling paper. He then replaced the damp, tattered wallpaper in its original position, and the wallpaper remained intact. Well, work done.
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The Italians, with their delicate and inventive personalities, captivated the whole world by carving tasteless national ingredients into replicas of household items. Different pastas sound appealing in Italian heavenly music, but in English they quickly lose their appeal. Spaghetti is basically boiled twine. Farfalle is a bow tie. Conchiglie looks like a snail, a shell that once housed snails and sea maggots. Cappellini looks like a chunk of mattress stuffing. Linguine is a tapeworm. Bucatini is similar to a power cable (penne is a sliced power cable). Ditalini looks like a napkin ring. Fettuccini is gaffer tape. A fusilli is a knot in a rope. Gnocchi is a raincoat toggle. And lasagna is a dish made by steaming wedding invitations. So much for pasta.
When it comes to pizza, let's be honest, it's like chewing on a trampoline or a seatbelt. If it's flavorful, you don't need toppings like garlic, bell peppers, onions, mushrooms, fish shavings, pineapple chunks, or lamb or octopus bits. Sheer lack of taste is why Italian waiters always try to throw condiments on everything they serve. They either douse the dish with the pungent cinders from the pepperpot, or smother the dish with a pile of devil's dander, or “grated Parmesan.”
And you won't find them eating Italian food. At least, that's my hunch. I'm convinced that real Italians avoid their country's cuisine when no one is looking. If I want pizza, I'll order Turkish lahmacun (the delicate, challenging street food from which pizza is derived). Instead of eating pasta, I opt for more flavorful dishes like falafel, hummus, or moussaka. In Rome, I ordered a slice of oven-baked pizza only to be served a beige, spongy thing with no sauce or toppings. It was like eating a moist flan base that had been sun-baked. I quickly learned that no Roman would ever buy such a monstrosity of food; it exists only to extract money from spendthrifts like me.
Fettuccine is duct tape. A fusilli is a rope knot. Gnocchi is a fastener for a raincoat.That's all for the pasta
Historians still debate the impact of Italian cuisine on their era. Maps of the Mediterranean Sea from 100 AD suggest that the Romans expanded rapidly throughout the known world, annexing numerous territories far from their homeland. We call this the “Roman Empire.” But I have doubts. To me, it looks like the Romans fleeing the cuisine of their homeland and settling abroad to enjoy tasty local produce properly cooked.
I look forward to discussing these important issues with my cousin, who always books a table for 20 at Ciao Bella (Hiya, Gorgeous) or Villa Vespa (Where the Wasp Lives). My favorite place for Italian food in London is Bocca di Lupo (Wolf's Gob), because the name is so inappropriate. I wouldn't order anything from the menu, of course, but I'd probably leave with a doggy bag full of floury leftovers. Have you noticed that? Nobody who eats Italian food can eat even a third of what they order. I believe the rats enjoy it, and we have a thriving pest community to support. Then again, I might donate the leftovers to the guy across the road who has the necessary expertise. He's a builder.
