11192 Beware Of Foreign Cooking!

Gala because I am permanently hungry, I do tend to avoid the food threads but read the ANSA piece above. Until we lived in Italy I had supposed that Italians ate healthy foods. Although I have rarely seen them snack, (a child with a piece of pizza or foccacia to keep them quiet), I now know that they do enjoy what I would class as "a heart attck on a plate". Mountains of deep fried food (often bought from frozen). The village girls in their late teens and early twenties who attend our dancing classes, have light feet and huge hips plus several spare tyres. Tragic! I watch them at the pizzeria munch through Cena...chips, pizza and several Cokes. The smell of frying in palazzi kitchens is not uncommon and the smell permeates the building. I would far prefer the smell of meat madras!

I have to agree with you, Noble, Italians are eating lots and lots of junk food, particularly the young ones, as it is the case in many countries all around the world. Fried food is a real problem because it is obvious that is enjoyable but it is dangerous for one's health. Everything in moderation is fine, but if they are eating that kind of diet all the time obesity will be the consequence of those excesses. And it is becoming a world epidemic.

Look, Italians have to fight about something - it's part of life, but I do wonder if they are fighting about this for the right reasons. Is it really because the "exotic aromas" least palatable to Italians really are those from India, Bangladesh and Pakistan - or something else?

Interesting, but what I fail to see is how anyone can take such offense to what I consider to be one of the most underrated of vegetables.

"While [B][U]leaks[/U][/B] are still the biggest source of fights between neighbours, accounting for 27% of all problems, complaints over ''ethnic cooking'' have risen to second place, "

Sorry but it's raining and there's not much to do today.

Ghianda
[URL="http://www.olivopiegato.com"]Tuscany Bed and Breakfast - L'Olivo Piegato, The Crooked Olive[/URL]

Is the proliferation of second kitchens round here anything to do with the general dislike of cooking smells I wonder?

My house has an upstairs kitchen, where the rest of the living accommodation is, and a downstairs kitchen along with cantinas and store rooms. Next door they have three kitchens, one each in the upstairs and downstairs apartments and another outside in what looks like a garage. Nearly all the cooking takes place in the outside kitchen although it is very basic compared to the modern and well equipped indoor kitchens.

I know that in summer life is lived outdoors so it is more convenient to cook there and then serve the food to the outside eating area but they continue to cook outside even in winter. When I asked why, my neighbour said it was so that the house wasn’t full of cooking smells. I thought it was just a personal thing but maybe it is a cultural dislike of cooking smells.

Perhaps they have never heard of extractor fans!!!

I wonder what the Scots and English thought of the smell of grease in the late 1800s, early 1900s when all these Italians flooded in and opened Fish and Chip shops/cafes on many a street corner. My family included! :winki:
Maybe with better sanitation, etc, ones sense of smell has become more sensitive over the years. :bigergrin:

I personally love Indian, Pakistani, etc. food. Spicy, aromatic....; however, I would hate to live next to one of their restaurants. As for deep fried food and garlic.... give me some fresh air, please!!!!

[quote=Gala Placidia;105817]I personally love Indian, Pakistani, etc. food. Spicy, aromatic....; however, I would hate to live next to one of their restaurants. As for deep fried food and garlic.... give me some fresh air, please!!!![/quote]

I love all the above foods but unfortunately am just getting over a bad case of Gastroesophageal Reflux, a common complaint amongst singers, and the doctor has said they are all now forbidden. :frown:

articles with percentages are always pleasing to read as the numbers can be anything from 1 to a million.... ethnic cooking and smells as a point of conflict can usually be investigated to show that much deeper problems of integration and what many Italians see as their neighborhoods being undermined and unsafe as a result of new neighbours and their habits... hence a highly smellable source of conflict comes to the fore...

the same happened in the UK say when the Asian population increased after everyone fled from the idi amine (is that spelt right) regime... things got sorted basically because after a while these ethnic populations grouped together in communities with very few outsiders choosing to live alongside them... ok it took many years but the point in Italy is that people like many UK people of old are reluctant to give up their neighborhoods... of course this will all change as Italy adapts to new ways of life... and minority groups settle in and take over certain areas...

its basically what Italians did when they had to leave Italy and head off for far shores... eventually Italy and the Italians will have a far richer culture of expanded choice... hopefully without many of the troubles say that occurred in the UK and France... maybe just maybe lessons have been learnt... and in a sense the sort of southern mentality of hotter climes i think benefits integration moving ahead more quickly as rows seem to blow up quickly and disappear just as quickly...less chance of resentment boiling up that way and getting further out of hand...

anyway at least here you can have a fight over something still without being taken before the race relations board... yes i agree we need laws but sometimes if people are allowed to express themselves after a while common sense will show that many of their statements are just stupid... and hopefully the Italian approach to these problems will allow a more peaceful introduction of new cultures...

... as many of them say...we are a country of people that all have family that had to move away for economic reasons and have had to cope with prejudice ourselves... surely we should be able to accept other races with the same problems we had in the past.....

i have serious confidence that Italy will one day show the world that new and old can mix without the levels of violence seen in other european countries....

Iritalia, I do hope that with a good diet and medication you will get over your health problems. As for Adriatica, I fully agree on what you say and I also noticed that perhaps it was not the food but the presence of people from other backgrounds which was upsetting some Italians, particularly in larger towns and living in crowded conditions.
I am also confident that the Italian people, with their own experience on migration, will be well prepared to cope with the adjustments that the present situation requires from everybody.