a secret home

24th February is the Estonian Independence Day. It counts up from 1918, its first ever declaration of independence. Usually what happens is that everyone stays home from school/work, relaxes, watches the military parade from TV with one eye, and then the President's reception ("the penguin parade") in the evening. A casual type of patriotism.

In Italy I didn't do much anything apart from a few long phonecalls home. I guess I could have made my friends eat mashed potatoes and mince-meat sauce with me, but didn't feel the date to be too pressing. Will do later. Independence day is such a casual thing after all.

Then one of the Estonian newspapers published an article claiming that people who spend a longer amount of time abroad will become more patriotic and start to regard their home country as the best place in the world. I found it from Emigrant's blog who had found it from Oudekki's blog. My first thought was to snub the whole thing as just another of the bluntly one-sided claims one comes across in the media. I'm absolutely not going to say that the Estonian rudeness, tiny-country mentality, the President's speech or national sports will start to bring tears to my eyes just because I haven't set foot to the country for the last 5 months. It's two years that I'm in and out of the country for shorter or longer periods. The only pride that I've felt during this time for what one could call the "Estonian mentality" was in Lithuania: there the people were even ruder.

Then I started to think about it a bit more. So what is it really that would make me want to live in Estonia again? Staying abroad does give one an ability to compare and appreciate things for what they're worth; it dissolves the defaults and makes it (sometimes painfully) clear that there are other ways of living than the habitual one. This is how I understood that the sulky waitress that bangs your food on the table after having you wait for 40 minutes is only normal in Eastern Europe; but that being able to use free wireless all those 40 minutes is a rare and wonderful luck. That it's actually possible to go out in the evening without sitting in endless cigarette smoke and having endless beers. And all that.

Of course national identity jumps all the way up on the priority list the moment the person leaves the country. It's no longer obvious where they're from. Every introduction brings up an affirmation to the heritage and becomes a part of: a) how the person perceives herself;
b) how others perceive the person.

Someone who has tried not mentioning their precise country of origin will know what I mean.
A: So, where are you from?
B: Northeast Europe.
(That's never enough, ever, even if A failed geography in elementary school.)
A: Aha, which country then?
B: Estonia.
A: Ee...
B: It's in the northeast of Europe.
A: Aha...
If I decide not to reply, or be vague ("you know, around there, near Sweden"), I'll certainly feel guilty for not admitting to my nationality, and A will feel uncomfortable for not being able to tag a stereotype to me (strangely, this uncomfort doesn't extend to tags that say "country x" or "Estonia" - as long as there is a tag, A will be happy because he'll feel that he knows who he's dealing with).

Repeating this dance every few days will definitely affirm, affirm and keep re-affirming my national identity, even if I eventually might forget the taste of black bread and lose interest in Estonian news. This way, being Estonian has turned into something very personal. Not secret - here I am, tagging "Estonia" to my name with every new acquaintance - but personal in the sense that there are only a few who know more about the country than the name. Who could come close to understanding what makes the place special after all.

There's just no explaining it. If I try to describe what spring is in Tartu, I end up in an incomprehensible rant, substituting missing words with bland clichés. I try to put to words the mid-exam-session feeling of staying up until the wee hours; roaming the streets by night; feeling, rather than seeing, the sun rising at 3:30 am; the feverish energy of not having slept enough; the fresh grass under tired feet; the liberation of yet another exam passing; the blinding sunlight; feeling the city getting ready for summer and sleep.

If someone asks me what I miss, I usually turn it all into a joke and say something small. Good bread. Convenient prices. The culture media. I avoid lapsing into what I really miss. But if I return, it will be for the friends and family. Family and friends. And, charged deep into a known city or landscape, the secure feeling of memory and continuity.

fora febraro

It's since noon that my windows rattle every two minutes from an explosion somewhere to the north. There is a low thud in the glass and I hear the sound rolling around the valley, bouncing off the mountains on each side. As the evening progresses, the explosions become more frequent. February is ending.

Fuori febbraio (out February) is an obscure mountain-people North-Veneto-and-Trentino festivity, hardly heard of down in the cities. It is said to originate from ancient Greeks who celebrated the birth of Aphrodite at this time. In Roman and Venetian calendars March was the first month of the year. This particular custom, "throwing out" February and "calling in" March, probably originates from the Germanic people colonising the Dolomite mountains area since medieval times. The songs and traditions differ from one village to the other. In some the custom is to burn the figure of an old lady (old year) as a part of the festivity (Befana!).

In Valdagno people go out on the streets with pots and pans, bang them together and sing:

fóra febraro
che márso l'è qua
se non l'è márso
mar-si-rá

[fuori febbraio / che marzo è qua / se non'è marcio / marcirá]
[February get out / 'cos March is here / if it isn't rotten yet / it will be soon]

This way of making mayhem will apparently wake up the nature and remind the year to get a move on.

Every other year a "chiamata di marzo" (March-call) is organised in nearby Recoaro where, instead of banging pots, people are dressing up like a hundred years ago and march through the town, accompanied by wagons of model old-style smithies, bakeries, pasta- and laundrymaking, and such. And some drinks, too, considering the cold. Well, this historical workday demonstration doesn't seem to have much to do with the coming spring, but at least everyone has fun and the children will learn that the pasta didn't always use to come in blue Barilla packages.

...

By the way, the comments are now open to anyone, not only blogger users. I just discovered it and am hereby apologising for anyone who has been itching to discuss but hasn't been able to.

Vicenza: baxi si

The time for carnivals and other general mayhem when "everything goes" was almost over when Italy came to show open signs of a party-mood and finally threw a sizeable manifestation on the Dal Molin issue. For the past weeks, "Vicenza" has become the synonym of the leftist-pacifist event that took place on the 17th of February.

So what's the deal? Well, it's been going on for a bit of time already. Very simply said, the mayor sold the city's airport to the Americans who were planning to double the already existing military base in Vicenza. At first, noone knew about it. When the government changed, the issue came up along with the first doubting voices - the airport is remarkably close to the city centre and having F16-s depart from behind their houses didn't go down too well with people who don't approve of the US foreign policy. People started to manifest - there was one public protest after another in December, but the information didn't reach many. Vicenza voted yes on the political level, but few of your usual people-on-the-street would admit to approving the base-enlargement. The potential economical benefit and good relations to the US weighed up other arguments and the government, though carefully, said yes too. This simplified version is what I've gathered from the scattered opinions around here. Valdagno is situated 32 km north of Vicenza.

It wasn't until all the big newspapers had gone on about it for a while when Vicenza started to get real attention from all over Italy. Thus, coaches and reservation trains from Milano, Rome and Torino were organised; information blasted around the streets and websites; and the media did their bit of confusion. Three completely unconnected events taking place within a week of each other were all mixed into one: 1) the pacifist manifestation in Vicenza; 2) the arrest of 15 extreme-left terrorists; 3) the death of a police officer in the hands of Sicilian football-hooligans. The simple conclusion from all this would be that pacifism is almost as bad as terrorism, or that there will certainly be someone of this opinion ruining the whole thing. This scared a considerable amount of people off attending.

This was the reason why our small company arrived as late as 5 o'clock. We had spent the day relaxing, checking on the news and hesitating whether the whole din was worth it or not. Well, all in all it was much like your usual student day party where all kinds of leftsy* people come out to the fresh air - hippies, woollies (est: kampsikud), tree-huggers, punks, students, young political/ pacifist/ intellectual idealists and all others. (I do believe that only this kind of societal labelling will pass on the impression of it.) It was as peaceful an event as anyone could hope for and we saw nor heard of anything violent. That said, in my humble opinion the manifestation was rather an assurance of emotion than a political voice - coming out on the streets only after all the decisions had been made was never going to make a practical difference, though obviously it was worth something to show how 150 000 people feel about the base at Dal Molin.

But it was fun. In addition to providing a good picture of all kinds of political activists in the area, the event demonstrated some true playfulness. For example, in the photo on the left the sign reads: "BAXI SI ma co la lèngoa. no militari!" It's a play on words: baxi [read: ba:zi] in venetian dialect sounds similar to basi, (military) bases; but means baci, kisses. So - "OK to the bases/kisses, but only with the tongue! no soldiers!" My flatmates are illustrating how it goes.


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*leftsy - anyone not voting to the political right. In generalised stereotyped terms anyone who: doesn't devote their lives to earning money, and/or thinks about third countries, and/or wears colourful scarves, and/or relaxes, and/or doesn't mind reading Marx, and/or gives out communist leaflets, and/or is pro-choice, etc etc etc. This division is something new to me, as my life in Estonia has been blissfully apolitical (being certain that politics will corrupt any good ideas in no time and that in the end they're all the same and so on). By these Italian standards I'd categorise to the left -- all the more strange as I usually don't even know who to vote for, and regard the blue-eyed Italian communists as people who should reform their offensive flag and take a field trip to the nearest Eastern-European country.

m'illumino di meno

16 February was the all-Italian (international?) day of risparmio energetico - energy saving. A popular radio show, Caterpillar (pronunced Cat-eR-pi:ll-aR) on Radio Due, has done a good job talking of hybrid cars and simple everyday energy saving techniques; come up with a beaty little song; and created a strong slogan that is likely to come up every now and again. The name of the campaign, M'illumino di meno, literally means "I light up of less" and refers to Giuseppe Ungaretti's famous poem Morning (1933):

M'illumino
d'immenso.

In translation it says: "I flood myself with light of the immense". Caterpillar's adaption of it is witty, easy to remember and utter, and most importantly of all - strikes some note in any Italian that ever went to school.

From 6 pm to 6:05 pm, ENEL - the Italian electricity network - registered the decrease of energy use by the amount of 300 megawatt (approx. 5 million light-bulbs) as cities switched off the lighting on their main squares, people shut down their computers and our own humble flat was cooking in the light of a tiny IKEA saving-bulb.

We organised a candle-light dinner for our closest friends for the occasion. It had to be Friday, though the usual party-night is Saturday. (Due to long lunch-breaks, people leave work no earlier than 6 or 7 and bearing in mind to visit someone after a week of these evenings might not be easy.) We sent out the invitations and sat down waiting. By Friday afternoon only one person had excused himself, as his way home would be half the length of Italy. Another left the country in a flurry of fresh love and he was excused too. The others made no sign because:
a) they didn't check emails;
b) they did, but thought our invitation was a Caterpillar announcement;
c) knew there was something, but preferred to have their usual Friday-evening relaxation instead.
It often happens here in Veneto, but it still baffles me: it is the exact opposite of my first stereotype of the Italians. I was delighted to think that they value their friends and the time spent together much more than the Estonians do (not that the Estonians don't love their friends - they do - but the habitual everyday goings-on, studying, and work generally tend to take the first seat). In fact, I might have been mistaken due to the holiday-like nature of my first encounters. Or then again, I might have mistaken the Italians for the Portuguese.

Regardless of our company being the usual 4 instead of a merry 12, we enjoyed ourselves immensely over the food and the ceremonial feeling of candle-light, three courses of dinner and two kinds of wine. It was so good that it took us two days to do all the dishes.

What comes to saving energy, I don't think that 5 minutes of darkness on Piazza San Marco will change much; but if there were people who spent all the evening being fussy about turning on the TV, I guess it will have at least some kind of an impact for the next weeks. Then, of course, we'll go on using the tumble-dry, the lift and leaving lights on in the interest of atmosphere.

lezioni d'italiano per stranieri

Every Tuesday and Thursday morning I spend one and a half hours studying Italian. But it's not a mere session of grammar or vocabulary. The language class is much more than that. In fact, it is not too far from a kind of a zoo.

I owe a lot of thanks to Vides, an NGO that coordinates (among their other activities) the twice-weekly classes made specially for the numerous local foreigners. The differences from your average training-firm sessions are considerable. First of all, it's free. The teachers are volunteers - retired Italians that don't mind explaining alphabets, grammar rules or catholic traditions to immigrants of all shapes and sizes. The students are almost all women (the men, if there are any, go to work and can't spare mornings in classes). The didactic materials are anything that comes up - improvised conversation, photocopied grammar exercises, fiction books, Italian textbooks from Asian countries, and - always - world maps. Usually a study-group will involve as many nationalities as there are students and the cultural, geographical, linguistic and what-not differences give the teachers an inexhaustible amount of conversation material. This is what I mean by a zoo: making a usual introduction round can, and usually will, resemble a ride around the world.

Ciao, I'm Maris, I come from Estonia. Ess-too-nii-aa. It's in the northeast of Europe. (Pointing on the map) here, near Finland. No, not Latvia. Estonia. I live on this island here (interested nods and smiles at the mention of an island; luckily Saaremaa is big enough to be visible). And so it goes on. I'm unique in not having moved for work, and in coming from an EU member country (with the new exception of the numerous Romanians).

There is usually someone from India, someone from Moldova, one or two Romanians, a Russian, someone from South America, someone from Morocco, someone from Ghana or other parts of Africa. Africans tend to be quite advanced, though the accent can be quite strong. Indians and the Ghanese speak good English - this usually makes the teacher a little uneasy, because the opportunity to explain things in their language seems to be in reach, but is yet too far (few local Italians older than 40 will know English). Some of the women speaking only languages that use alphabets other than the Latin one are in for a difficult stretch of learning the letters the toddler-way: having the alphabets spelled out to them in a high voice accompanied by a mimic normally used to keep babies from crying (but then again - how else could it be done?). The Brazilians and also, Romanians, are greatly advantaged as their own languages work in much the same way as Italian does; they move along fast, but often retain the melody of their native language. Great numbers of Muslim women have only come to Italy to tend to the family while the husbands work, and usually don't interact with Italians (the same is true for many of the Indians I see) and this slows down their learning process considerably. I've always seen them as intriguing puzzles - you never know what's inside.

Then there are the Eastern-European women who have come to work as nurses to the elderly or housekeepers; not because this is their calling, but because ironing bedsheets pays so much more in Italy than being a lecturer, teacher, or even a dentist does in Russia. Often their families back at home have no other source of income, sometimes the husband is ill (or worse, likes to drink), and the teenage children need a lot of support without being able give much input of their own yet. These women (badanti they call them here) tend to live alone, devote themselves entirely to work and send as much money as possible back home. This is not very difficult to understand for Estonians. Despite all the economic growth and the pretense of being a developed "Western" country, the same amount of money still buys three times more food in Estonia than here in Italy; the difference in salaries compared to Finland not too many kilometres away is quite striking; and all the time more people leave for a shorter or longer period abroad. But seeing the other side of this migration is a very stark contrast to what I've gotten used to thinking when I hear "work abroad".

One of these badanti from Moldova - let's call her Ana - is 42, has lived in Italy for 10 years already and calls home every day to her pride and joy: her 17-year-old son. She learned to use the email to see the photos he sends her. I hear how much she pays for his education, all the necessary books and materials (it's an appalling amount of money), how long she hasn't seen him and how well he does in school. It's enough to make any woman feel a little sad.

Then there is the 6-year old Indian girl - an unbelievably sweet little being - who used to come to the class with her mother for a while and speaks better Italian than she does. I wonder who, or of which culture, she will consider herself to be in 10 years' time?

This exciting and mysterious carousel of colourful saris definitely makes up half of the reasons why I go. The second (or should I say the first?) is my own learning process. After spending some time in a fun, but too simple group, I'm now the single student of a former lawyer who knows Latin and French, is fluent in Esperanto and considers English to be a wacky language where people say "apple" and write "banana". I insist on translating random pieces of text to start getting a grip on how Italian could sound nice when written down; on going through explanations of the passato remoto (a scary grammar dinosaur that is yet alive and well in the South of Italy); and discussing the grammatical aspects of the dialects. He insists on explaining the Latin roots of important words (sometimes ones that exist in English and I learned when I was 10); describing how the grammar used to look a long time ago; and dismissing the dialect-issue. I think we both appreciate ending up together though. People who go to the language classes are generally practical and busy (why else did they move?) and I'm likely to be the most bookish one. Or at least the one with most time to muse over passato remoto.

Even if I miss out on a number of lessons for various reasons (the silliest one was last time when I missed a plane and didn't make it back from abroad on time), it's comforting to know that there is a way to follow what my language does. Before I discovered the classes, I was quite lazy with learning, as most people around me spoke English. By now I've switched to Italian as an everyday communication language, but talking to friends doesn't help me remember the gender exceptions (la foto; il problema) or get the hang of the subjunctive properly. Without the classes I'd most likely end up in an embarrassing situation where I talk as a local, but am completely illiterate. Well, to some degree this is already the case. But I'll keep trying. More delightful info on the passato remoto to come!

Friday

Valdagno is a quiet town of 30'000 inhabitants, situated at the foot of the Southern Alps. It's a midway between the industries, highways and pollution of the bassa Padana (the foggy northeast part of the Po valley) and the peace of the tiny mountain villages. Even the mornings are moderate - though the streets will see groups of elderly ladies entering the cafés for their morning cappuccini and pastries, though there will be young mothers walking their dogs and an occasional office worker dashing across the street - the place will still be at it's own measured pace compared to the bustle of, say, Padova. But all of this changes on Fridays.

Friday is the market day. Indeed, as Veneto is an area of few big cities and many small ones, the market is economically divided between the number of towns in the neighbourhood and travels to a different place every weekday. The market arrives early in the morning - trucks after trucks of clothes, fruit, shoes, cheese, kitchen utensils, carpets, fish. (Even the beggars arrive with the market, always the same ones. Do they hitchhike?) The cars pack out tables, a roof, and an unimaginable number of various articles, and the day can begin. Suddenly each open space in the centre is packed with people eyeing the goods, bumping into each other, seeing everyone they know, trying on sweaters, counting out coins, choosing between various types of oranges. The town is unrecogniseable. Streets around the centre buzz with cars: little old ladies driving their twice-a-week round in their tiny Fiat 500-s; irritable drivers finding the usual streets closed and traffic slowed down by the little old ladies; cargo trucks stopping at all imagineable places to unload; streams of people crossing the road apologetically...

Someone making a proper market round should start at the north end, near the statue of Marzotto (the legendary creator of the local textile industry and with it, Valdagno) and browse through the tables of yarn, buttons and endless shoes before crossing the road to the clothes section. The clothes section holds an array of inexpensive more or less fashionable items, quite enough for people not looking for famous trademarks, or with children that grow out of their new pants in a matter of days. The clothes are set conveniently next to the drills, saws and other tools to give a chance for the men to entertain themselves while the women shop for socks. The movement between the tables is slow, giving the people a chance to get a good look at the merchandise, but also passers-by, the weather, their companions, and the like.

The passers-by are indeed something to look at. One can rarely appreciate just how multicultural Valdagno is, but the market is one of these occasions. There are the locals, talking to each other in broad dialect, but then there are the colourful Indian and Bangladeshi women in small groups, dragging their pretty children along from one table to another; the relaxed Ghanese; the serious Russian women chatting in low voices; the Chinese, selling scarves at 3-8 euros apiece.

Moving along from one table to another, buying a little bit of this or that, one arrives to the underwear (finally something frill-free!), the belts and bags of dubious origin, the baby clothes, the carpets. Passing from the Piazza del Comune to the last part of the market, the tone of selling and buying changes completely. It's the food. The atmosphere changes from a multicultural bustle into clearly Italian, and differences between the shopping Italians and others are increasingly visible. The pace of the walkers, so tranquil and dreamy before, goes through an abrupt change. It's not a question of mildly planning to or not to buy something. The routes are clear and habitual - which of the three fruit-stands to go to, how many oranges, how many paprikas, what kind of salad. Olive oil should be extra virgin. The yoghurt should be local. Orders pour out, the saleswomen pick, weigh and pack the vegetables in an instant. Anything else? Hands fill with heavy bags. Finding the wallet and the correct sum becomes increasingly difficult. But we're still missing the cheese.

The cheese! Going to a market can be a ritual, but nothing can compare to the full process of buying a week's cheese. There are two cheese-trucks. In time one learns to prefer certain kinds of cheese from one and others from the other one (because there is a difference). First, approach the cheese stand. It will already have a number of people in front of it, so one can get a good look at everything. But it's always the same. Italians love their stability in food. (The only seasonal change are the fresh malga-cheeses from the dairy houses in the mountains at the end of the summer.) Thus, on a usual Friday, one would order some mozzarella or stracchino - very fresh, almost not even cheese; then something generally light, maybe 200 grams of Asiago latte intero? Or cacciotta... Some of both, then. Asiago is a highlands barely an hour north of Valdagno that produces all levels of Asiago cheese. The maturing process makes all the difference, so it means a true variety. So, for something mid-aged it will be Asiago again, for mezzano dolce is the best. (An adventurous-feeling Valdagnese might try Provolone or something instead, but this would be something rare.) Moving along - how's about something stronger-tasting? Gorgonzola makes a perfect addition to all kinds of cheese-sauces. And most of the pasta dishes don't go anywhere without an addition of grated parmesan. Cheeses as old as this (aged 2 years as a rule) should be ceremonially tasted before decided on. If it goes (and it always goes), the clerk will pry a chunk off the stone-hard cheese wheel with a short knife. By this time the pile of cheese on the counter will be considerable, but usual. Paying will leave a hole in one's budget, but it's worth it.

Gradually the crowd disperses - from half past 12 onwards it's lunch-time. The mothers hurry to cook and the rest of the families hurry to be on time for the food. It takes some time for the market to pack itself neatly into the cars again, but they will soon be on their way, leaving behind only a pile of cardboard boxes. At early afternoon Valdagno is again as sleepy a place as can be: everyone will be at home, quietly digesting their lunch, and the town centre is left empty for a random wanderer observing the shadows on the walls.

280m

It's snowing!!

venessián

In a way, Veneto is an unlucky place for foreigners, especially the areas outside the cities.
What I mean is the linguistic variety so typical to Italy. Veneto is one of the regions where the local dialect is still in booming everyday use. As the standard Italian is the one once used by Dante, more or less the Tuscan way of talking (without the particular "h" that they like to pronunce in every word), your average Venetian will speak something only remotely recogniseable. True, most of them will switch to Italian when they understand they're not talking to a local. But not all of them, and most of what is said will have passed already.

Among locals, Italian is used only as a written language and in highly official situations. Everywhere else from the marketplace to the bank, the things will be done in venessián. It's not political, though it might seem so. Simply, the people will use their first language by default unless something suggests otherwise. Italian connotes a distance, and thus will seem strange to speak in one's kitchen. Then, regardless of the education system and the media being all in Italian, without a regular speaking practice this average Venetian (if aged over 40), won't be able to speak the official language even if they tried.

I'm sharing a flat with two Italians. As cosmopolitan as they are, speaking Italian to each other merely due to my presence is too strange to do. Thus, even though everything spoken directly to me will be in Italian, I get a lot of passive venessián practice from day to day - from my flatmates, their families and friends. By now I understand almost all of it, am able to pretend to speak it to some extent, and have started to mix some words into my Italian without noticing. It was only a matter of hearing it enough - what at first sounded like a smooth babble broke into understandable words and phrases at one point with no effort whatsoever. I do think of this as my greatest linguistic achievement to date. And I've come to appreciate that a local talking to me in dialect is his/her way of introducing familiarity into the conversation, and to be taken as a compliment - it means I'm not acting the part of the stranger in the situation.

So what is the difference? Linguistically, venessián is closer to French (of 200 years ago) and Spanish than Italian. Obviously, with the influences of the media and everything else, the differences are smaller nowadays. But the heritage is still visible in a Venetian that speaks English with a hint of Spanish pronunciation and understands much more of spoken Portuguese than a Milanese would. Mainly, what happens to the official Italian in Veneto is that everything is softened down - ch (k) turns into ci (ch), z (ts) turns into ss; o is dropped off the end of the nouns (veneziano - venessia:n), the l and r is pronunced only halfway, the sharp past participle ending "-to" disappears in elongated vowels. I guess one has to hear it to know what I mean. By other Italians this is considered as one of the ugliest dialects of the whole country. I think of it as a sign of diversity and authenticity.

Then, apart from mere regional or linguistic differences, there is the half-political pride of the 1000 years of the Serenissima - Republic of Venice that still lives on in the Veneto. After all, once upon a time the Venetians controlled the market, a large part of the Mediterranean coast and the international communication of the time (venessián!). But this is something else.

The main possible practical value of the venessián is visible in the tourist-ridden money-making Venice. A ride in a gondola negotiated in English will cost x euros (depending on the mood, weather, season etc). The same ride negotiated in Italian will cost 2/3 of it. But if you know how to approach the gondoliere, and say in a stretched intonation, half-rolled r-s and with an air of not really caring about the response: "ció... mi porti to a San Marco?", you'll probably end up paying only a third of the tourist price.

Why would I mind learning a language that allows me to roam a place like Venice without the mark of a foreigner?

cheesecake!

During my time spent in Italy I've understood something interesting - even though it can be acceptable to be late anywhere to some extent, it is intolerable to be late for lunch. Food is what one should be on time for, no matter what.

Well Italians are famous for their food. The simplicity, the taste. It's wonderful, and everyone can understand why it's being copied everywhere - even a copied version of Italian food will be good. (This is excluding the pastas boiled for 20-minutes and pizzas made with ketchup, which is another category - una bestemmia, and will be described later.) The way to keep this standard all through the country is a complicated set of rules and categories that any self-respecting Italian will cling to. For example, the strict rhythm of dishes in a meal - pasta first, meat later, and not together, but separately. The all-around ban to capuccino after 10:30 in the morning. The necessity to keep the salty and the sweet strictly apart - milk is sweet, rice is salty, so no milk soups, no rice desserts. Obviously this will become an obstacle while tasting some foreign foods (the Portuguese sweet rice, the Norwegian caramel cheese, etc) and turn to seem stubborn.

Once an American friend of a friend of mine taught me to make the cheesecake. It was the way she was used to making it and it was exquisite. So I've never taken to change the recipe, as it was perfect the way it was. When I took to making it in Italy, it was nothing more than an attempt to make a nice cake for the others to try.

As I mentioned that I want to make a cheesecake, the first reply I got was - but let's make tiramisù, it's much better! When I was looking for Philadelphia cheese in the supermarket, my friend said - but why should you use Philadelphia? Use mascarpone, it's much better. And you know, people won't want to taste the cake if they know it's made with Philadelphia. It's strange, because Philadelphia is salty.

Obviously I was convinced that the sour Philadelphia is what makes cheesecake proper (because mascarpone is rather a texture than taste, and the cream they use here, panna, is rather sweet though used with salty food) and that otherwise it would simply be just an oversweet cake with no special qualities at all. Thus I entered in a series of discussions over what a 'cheese' means (because ricotta is a cheese too, and not salty, and used in cakes), what 'a recipe' means (under which conditions should it be changed), and most of all - what Italians feel about their food.

What Italians feel about their food is most of all security. Things are done in a certain way because this is how they have been for centuries. It is allowed to try strange things, but in any case black bread or other foreign elements will never integrate with a real Italian. Try it - find an Italian that has never lived abroad and had to put up with strange food on a daily basis. Offer this Italian something coming from another country, but something that doesn't have international prestige - nothing like Swiss or Belgian chocolate, that is. Take cookies from the Netherlands (classifies as 'the north', hence means 'bad food'), or candy from an obscure Eastern-European country, and offer these to your Italian as something you seriously consider worth trying. The Italian, being a polite person, will have to accept. He will nibble a little bit off the edge of the cookie or candy, with an expression not unlike one tasting wine, decide on something, and then remark (if it's good): 'ah, si, we have something similar...' or (if it's not good) 'well, hm, it's particular / strange / we're not usually putting these things together this way... Is it typical to your country?'

This trying-session will undoubtedly be the last time this particular thing will be eaten by the Italian. It's obvious. Italy already has everything one needs to eat.

edit: I added the recipe too - Lindy's cheesecake.