11312 Festive Feasts Adds On An Extra Two Kilos

(Note the spelling - "zucchini" lol. It should of course be zucchine)

Festive feasts add on an extra two kilos

(ANSA) - Rome, January 2 - Italians put on an extra two kilos over the holiday period and must now mend their nutritional ways in order to get back into form, according to the Coldiretti farmers' union.

The union estimated that over the holidays Italians consumed an average of between 15,000 and 20,000 extra calories each, mostly from sweets, cold cuts and alcohol, while shunning more beneficial foods like fruits and vegetables.

Coldiretti calculated that over the holidays Italians put away over 100 million kilos of pandoro and panettone Christmas cakes, 60 million bottles of sparkling wine, 20,000 tonnes of pasta and eight million tonnes of Christmas sausage and dried fruits, along with tonnes of meat, cold cuts, cheese and sweets for a value of over five billion euros.

This ''nutritional disorder,'' observed Coldiretti, was aggravated by the fact that people moved about less, spending more time at the table or sitting and chatting with family and friends, and thus had little occasion to work off the extra calories consumed.

In order to get back into shape, Coldiretti has drawn up a list of foods which should feature in all post-holiday diets, especially fruit - oranges, apples, pears and kiwi - and vegetables - spinach and other greens, radishes, squash, zucchini, salad, fennel and carrots.

Salad and other fresh vegetables, Coldiretti said, should be dressed with olive oil and plenty of squeezed lemon juice, which helps rid the body of toxins, cleans the blood and helps settle the stomach.

Category

Food & Drink

[quote]By Sally: ".........(Note the spelling - "zucchini" lol. It should of course be zucchine)"
[/quote]

Don't know who told you that Sal.... It looks OK to me as it's used in the text.

This from De Mauro:
[B]zuc|chì|no, zuc|chì|no[/B]
s.m.
Frutto immaturo di una varietà di zucca (Cucurbita pepo italica) ampiamente usato come ortaggio e cucinato in vari modi:raccogliere gli [I]zucchini[/I], [I]zucchini[/I] fritti, lessi, frittata di [I]zucchini[/I]

Ooooops!!! Actually I had thought so, until my Italian lawyer friend told me courgette singular in Italian was feminine. I'll kill him!!! lol

Wot a laugh - Signora Typo teaching Italian spelling! :bigergrin:

Good advice to get back into shape, not that I need it as I was sick during most of the festivities so I did not have chance to indulge. But it is a good idea to get rid of toxins, etc. through eating more fruit and vegetables. Common sense!

So sorry that you were unwell Gala, a mixed blessing. For me it's back to the village ladies gym classes because I did put on exactly 2 chili and I enjoyed every single thing I ate over the holiday!

I don't think that it is a problem to put on that extra weight during the festivities, providing you get rid of those pounds through a sensible diet and exercise. The dangerous thing is when you keep on accumulating pounds and as you get older they do not help at all. I am now researching my recipe files and I will start soon a thread on "Healthy Italian Cooking", tasty but with less calories and I am sure that we can all share some recipes.

Just returning to "zucchini"for a minute I've just looked up "zucchine" on google.it There are plenty of results.

Also I have now looked up "zucchini" It seems merely to be peoples' surname.

But you see Sally, this is where a little knowledge is dangerous.

What would you do with zucchino and zucchina? Which term is more commonly used throughout Italy? What are the reasons why the masculine or feminine version is used? When you know this - then you can decide on how to pluralise the word with any confidence.

As for "Zucchini" merely being used as a surname - have you never heard of Jasper Carrott? :bigergrin:

I'm with Sally on this one - I didn't think 'zucchini' looked right. My dictionary agrees with Carole B - the singular is masculine, but all of the recipe books I could lay my hands on (Italian published) have 'le zucchine' - feminine plural.

So - either it is one of those words which change sex when they enter the kitchen (like il tavolo from the office becomes la tavola when it is put in the dining room), or it is one of thoe words which change sex depending on what use they are put to (la stecca straight from the tree becomes lo stecco when it is fashioned into a pointer or billiard cue), or it has an irregular sex change when it gets plural (il mano, le mani).

I favour the stecca or tavolo scenario (only on the basis that I assume ANSA get the Italian right!), so when they are in the field they are zucchini, but I assure you that the instant they get near a cooking pan they become zucchine, which is all I have ever seen on a restaurant menu!

Also - they are clearly undergrown marrows, and marrows are indisputably feminine, le zucche, so it is a bit odd that they start off masculine when they are underdeveloped........(did I really say that!!)

Just to confuse things a bit further, according to the Italian/English dictionary I have at hand (Collins) you can either say "zucchina" (feminine noun) or "zucchino" (masculine noun) both meaning "courgette"... which is a French feminine noun used in English (no gender, please, you are British).....
So everybody is right.
Charles, I just loved your definition of gender combined with sex changes!!!! Hilarious!!!!!

We too we sick over Christmas so missed out on the thousands of calories!I'm doing my best to make up though!

For New Year we had a big Chinese meal with loads of chilli, ginger and garlic.It did seem to clear up a few coughs and sniffles! Pasta with a ginger and chilli sauce would do the trick too I'd imagine.

Chilli and ginger help to clear up congestion. Garlic is the best natural antibiotic. They are natural remedies that work.