Italy: all things food and wine-related

[slidergirl]

Host BJ - was the limoncello mixed with cream?  That’s a yummy mixture!!  Or sometimes limoncello is naturally cloudy due to the way it was made.

[Host Bonjour]

21 hours ago, slidergirl said:

Host BJ - was the limoncello mixed with cream?  

 

That must have been it... yep, the home made limoncello, which is the only type I've ever had, is definitely kind of murky, but this was in a class the size of an old fashioned, or the no-stemmed wine glasses. This concoction definitely had a density to it beyond that subtle haze of the limoncello. 

 

Makes sense because it's coming to mind that she described it as a sort of creamsicle, but not orange and looked like it was served in a chilled glass, which must have been refreshing on a very hot June day! And of course, it looked lemony enough so you know there was that 'cello buzz to it for sure 😂

 

Maybe I just never noticed the beverage before, or is it something relatively new-ish happening? Mixology is ever evolving.... sort of how it was with Aperol, which I never saw or noticed much and then years later, it's everywhere...EVERYWHERE. And Peroni come to think of it now too?

 

Not judging, just observations, and interesting how folks discover and try things, which is cool. I wish Badoit would catch on, Vittel too. It's here, but not in many places! Other frizzantes as well, I do not dig Pellegrino...has a dry kind of bite on it. OK no one asked for all of this, sorry. 🤔

 

Hope everyone is doing great! 🍷

[saltshell]

Spending a few days in Trestavere (sp ?). Please reasonable authentic restaurant recommendations.

[cruisemom42]

9 hours ago, saltshell said:

Spending a few days in Trestavere (sp ?). Please reasonable authentic restaurant recommendations.

 

For pizza:  Dar Poeta

 

https://www.spottedbylocals.com/rome/dar-poeta/

 

I stopped by for lunch last time I was in Trastevere. It's totally traditional pizza, nothing really "inventive" (except for a few interesting combinations of ingredients) -- but it is TOTALLY delicious and a real "slice" of Rome.

 

[marazul]

The Gambero Rosso magazine just published this funny and revealing article, "Crimes Against Italian Cuisine:"

https://www.gamberorosso.it/notizie/crimini-contro-la-cucina-italiana-i-peggiori-nei-confronti-dellolio-doliva/

 

If you can't read Italian, open it and use the translate function.

[cruisemom42]

19 minutes ago, marazul said:

The Gambero Rosso magazine just published this funny and revealing article, "Crimes Against Italian Cuisine:"

https://www.gamberorosso.it/notizie/crimini-contro-la-cucina-italiana-i-peggiori-nei-confronti-dellolio-doliva/

 

If you can't read Italian, open it and use the translate function.

 

Funny. My son once sent me a link to a YouTube series where Italian chefs react to the American preparation of various "classic" Italian dishes such as pasta carbonara. (I still recall one of the chefs flinching in horror and repeating "Why? Why with the parsley?")

 

Also funny: I have read reviews of restaurants in Italy given by Americans who state "The restaurant was okay but not very authentic. They didn't even provide olive oil to dip our bread in!"

 

😱🤣🤔

[bennybear]

And if they could only pronounce Bruschetta!  Sigh! No one massacres Chianti! 

[nini]

6 hours ago, bennybear said:

And if they could only pronounce Bruschetta!  Sigh! No one massacres Chianti! 

Exactly! I worked in an Italian restaurant and was taught the correct pronunciation.

[Host Bonjour]

On 5/13/2023 at 8:03 PM, bennybear said:

Bruschetta!

 

Because this is how the letter "h" sounds in Italian:  AH-ka (lean in on the first syllable, drop off on the second), it's a hard sound.

 

So connecting the c+h, there's no getting around that hard sound = broo-sk-etta (bruschetta) KEE-ay-sa (chiesa), and of course, 🍷 KEE-ahn-tee (chianti) (Vowel emphasis is not correct here, I'm just doing phonetics...the vocal inflection is yet another thing. Listen to it up in Florence or other parts of the north..so beautiful!)

 

You can get a hard sounding "c" again with the "s" but not always ....I'll leave it there. (Google Translate works wonders.) 

 

Fun fact: two "cc"s together will sound like there's an "h" somewhere in there, but then so too would a single "c", but with less emphasis (natch 🤣).

 

Many of my Italian friends and neighbors pronounced their own surnames, along with lots of other things, in ways one wouldn't expect in proper Italian, but then most Italian Americans came from the south of Italy, where of course, dialect was most prevalent and I wouldn't try to explain that here. 

Just watch the Godfather, My Brilliant Friend, or Gomorrah, you get the idea. 

 

 

[bennybear]

30 minutes ago, Host Bonjour said:

 

Because this is how the letter "h" sounds in Italian:  AH-ka (lean in on the first syllable, drop off on the second), it's a hard sound.

 

So connecting the c+h, there's no getting around that hard sound = broo-sk-etta (bruschetta) KEE-ay-sa (chiesa), and of course, 🍷 KEE-ahn-tee (chianti) (Vowel emphasis is not correct here, I'm just doing phonetics...the vocal inflection is yet another thing. Listen to it up in Florence or other parts of the north..so beautiful!)

 

You can get a hard sounding "c" again with the "s" but not always ....I'll leave it there. (Google Translate works wonders.) 

 

Fun fact: two "cc"s together will sound like there's an "h" somewhere in there, but then so too would a single "c", but with less emphasis (natch 🤣).

 

Many of my Italian friends and neighbors pronounced their own surnames, along with lots of other things, in ways one wouldn't expect in proper Italian, but then most Italian Americans came from the south of Italy, where of course, dialect was most prevalent and I wouldn't try to explain that here. 

Just watch the Godfather, My Brilliant Friend, or Gomorrah, you get the idea. 

 

 

Love it!  I learned ages ago in the time of lire when we stayed near Chianciano Terme,  the Ch was Kay sound and the Ci Ch, lol.  I always think Chianti is a good reminder as most people pronounce it correctly but the S in bruschetta throws them off.   But very few Italian  restaurants here pronounce it correctly.
 

Ciccheti is another fun one and of course Civitavecchia.  
 

Now then the next battle for me was Pitigliano with the silent g.  And Aglianico😉🤷‍♀️

Edited May 18, 2023 by bennybear

[Host Bonjour]

On 5/18/2023 at 7:12 PM, bennybear said:

Now then the next battle for me was Pitigliano with the silent g.  And Aglianico😉🤷‍♀️

 

Ah yes, I didn't even think of the g's but then we were only talking c's and there are enough oddities with the letter C!! Enough so that I truly recall the first year of Italian studies and so much emphasis being placed (and again and again) on the variations, but I now realize that this is exactly how one really learns a language (exactly how we learned English, learning the alphabet and its sounds).

 

Learning just conversation is fun and wonderful, and greatly appreciate of course, but it probably leaves out understanding rules like this and so that's where one can run into the occasional snafu.

 

The "g" kind of places a flattened "y" sound ahead of whatever letter follows the "g". Just placing the tongue up on the roof of the mouth prior to pronouncing the letter following the g will give that rolling sound in "gnochhi" sounding like "nnnyohkee".. But for the article "gli" I can't figure how to write an equivalent...it is different for sure to mash the "l" with a "y" sound with not quite "g"...it really comes from tightening the back of the throat.

 

For tagliatelle (it IS the food topic!) one would almost get pronunciation correcting ignoring the "g" altogether rather than including the hard "g"...but again, using that push off, tahl-yee-ah-tell...gets that wonderful dish of golden strand goodness to the table, with who knows, maybe an extra few ounces? 😉 (Def gets noticed and sometimes can have beneficial outcomes with service or interactions!)

 

 

[Choozin Croozin]

15 hours ago, Host Bonjour said:

 

Ah yes, I didn't even think of the g's but then we were only talking c's and there are enough oddities with the letter C!! Enough so that I truly recall the first year of Italian studies and so much emphasis being placed (and again and again) on the variations, but I now realize that this is exactly how one really learns a language (exactly how we learned English, learning the alphabet and its sounds).

 

Learning just conversation is fun and wonderful, and greatly appreciate of course, but it probably leaves out understanding rules like this and so that's where one can run into the occasional snafu.

 

The "g" kind of places a flattened "y" sound ahead of whatever letter follows the "g". Just placing the tongue up on the roof of the mouth prior to pronouncing the letter following the g will give that rolling sound in "gnochhi" sounding like "nnnyohkee".. But for the article "gli" I can't figure how to write an equivalent...it is different for sure to mash the "l" with a "y" sound with not quite "g"...it really comes from tightening the back of the throat.

 

For tagliatelle (it IS the food topic!) one would almost get pronunciation correcting ignoring the "g" altogether rather than including the hard "g"...but again, using that push off, tahl-yee-ah-tell...gets that wonderful dish of golden strand goodness to the table, with who knows, maybe an extra few ounces? 😉 (Def gets noticed and sometimes can have beneficial outcomes with service or interactions!)

 

 

So the e at the end of tagliatelle is not pronounced? Trying to learn some Italian for fun and travels but my old brain takes a lot long. Italian is difficult but every so often something sticks. 😆

[marazul]

26 minutes ago, Choozin Croozin said:

So the e at the end of tagliatelle is not pronounced? Trying to learn some Italian for fun and travels but my old brain takes a lot long. Italian is difficult but every so often something sticks. 😆

It is pronounced in Italy. Maybe not in NY. 😁

[marazul]

51 minutes ago, Choozin Croozin said:

So the e at the end of tagliatelle is not pronounced? Trying to learn some Italian for fun and travels but my old brain takes a lot long. Italian is difficult but every so often something sticks. 😆

Have you tried Duolingo? It is a very good and free language learning app. It will really help you with the pronunciation.  Pay attention to the way syllables are divided in the words. It does not follow the same rules as English and it does affect the pronunciation (and accent). For example,  it is ta-glia-tel-le. And the "ia" is pronounced together as "yah," not "ee-ah" as two separate syllables. 

 

Another good app for pronunciation is Reverso Context that translates words as they appear in sentences and that has a pronunciation feature in the search bar.

Edited May 31, 2023 by marazul

[cruisemom42]

3 hours ago, Choozin Croozin said:

So the e at the end of tagliatelle is not pronounced? Trying to learn some Italian for fun and travels but my old brain takes a lot long. Italian is difficult but every so often something sticks. 😆

 

Well -- no and yes.

 

Italy is a nation of many dialects. In what is considered today to be the "textbook" Italian (the one you'll hear used on television news, etc. and that is widely used in Northern Italy) the last syllable of words IS pronounced but usually isn't emphasized, so TAL-ya-TELL-eh would be close to correct.

 

HOWEVER....

 

In a number of southern dialects, including Neapolitan and Sicilian, that last syllable does have a tendency to get dropped (or perhaps a better description would be that it is "swallowed" as the merest hint of it is still there....). So for example, while in Northern Italy you would hear "Buona Notte" (BUON-ah NOTT-eh) for good night, in Naples you might hear "Bona Nott" (BON-ah NOTT-uh) with just the tiniest bit of air at the end.

 

Because so many Italians from Sicily and Naples areas emigrated to the US, there is a tendency in some Italian American communities to carry this to an even greater extreme:  Mozzarall' instead of Mozzarella; Proscuitt' instead of Prosciutto....

 

Through many years of Italian lessons, I've found it's easiest to stick with the "standard" pronunciations because once you learn the sound associated with various groupings of letters, it is remarkably consistent in all words, so any new words are easy to pronounce. (As opposed to English where even the same words can have different pronunciations....!)

 

 

[marazul]

A good rule is that in Italian all vowels are pronounced and that they have one,  and only one  sound. The same applies to consonants with the exception of some combinations like gl, gn, ch and sc that have special rules depending on which vowel follows them.

[bennybear]

What I love is how the Italians will help you.  They’re so kind and care about communicating 

[cruisemom42]

33 minutes ago, bennybear said:

What I love is how the Italians will help you.  They’re so kind and care about communicating 

 

Yes, they are almost always just delighted that you are trying to speak Italian. 

[Choozin Croozin]

6 hours ago, marazul said:

Have you tried Duolingo? It is a very good and free language learning app. It will really help you with the pronunciation.  Pay attention to the way syllables are divided in the words. It does not follow the same rules as English and it does affect the pronunciation (and accent). For example,  it is ta-glia-tel-le. And the "ia" is pronounced together as "yah," not "ee-ah" as two separate syllables. 

 

Another good app for pronunciation is Reverso Context that translates words as they appear in sentences and that has a pronunciation feature in the search bar.

Yes, I am using Duolingo and Busuu which I almost like better. They are both great but my retention at my age is not great. That’s why I started, off and on a year ago. Still have 5 mo to cram some more in. 

[lisiamc]

On 5/31/2023 at 8:50 PM, Choozin Croozin said:

Yes, I am using Duolingo and Busuu which I almost like better. They are both great but my retention at my age is not great. That’s why I started, off and on a year ago. Still have 5 mo to cram some more in. 

I’ve been doing Duolingo for years, but Busuu is a great companion to it. I love learning at least some of “the rules” and Busuu is better at telling me (gently) WHY I need to say something a certain way. They also slip in a few more idiomatic phrases, which are quite handy. 

[Choozin Croozin]

On 6/3/2023 at 3:44 PM, lisiamc said:

I’ve been doing Duolingo for years, but Busuu is a great companion to it. I love learning at least some of “the rules” and Busuu is better at telling me (gently) WHY I need to say something a certain way. They also slip in a few more idiomatic phrases, which are quite handy. 

I totally agree!

[Host Bonjour]

On 5/31/2023 at 7:39 AM, marazul said:

It is pronounced in Italy. Maybe not in NY. 😁

 

Absolutely correct. 😂

 

And again, some of the students in Italian class from families who spoke dialect at home didn't do well, but that could have been down to just... the usual not being into school stuff. But knowing dialect was no leg up on studying proper Italian, which I think drove the teachers who were also Italian (not all were) completely pazzo. 

 

And yes, tagliatelle in Italy would be: tah-ya-tell-ay, whereas, in NY, leave off the ending "ay" and same for most other things like mozzarella (mozzarell) manicotti (manicott) ricotta (ricott) and no, I don't know why. It just is this way. I don't make the rules, but I don't break them either. 🙃 When in Rome...Quando à Roma

 

(Quick tv tip: find if you can, Solo, an undercover police gets deep into the mob (shocker) in Gioia Tauro, Calabria & also Rome, lots of great outdoor scenery, including the beach, and good characters including an actress you might recognize if you've seen Suburra)

 

Ciao!

 

[Host Bonjour]

On 5/31/2023 at 2:50 PM, Choozin Croozin said:

They are both great but my retention at my age is not great.

 

Try watching Italian film and telly. Pump up the volume a bit if you can, keep on the subtitles, listen and start to notice the phrases you recognize again and again. 

 

I know we have a thread on here with recommendations if you're interested. It's tough to learn with dialect, that's for sure...dialect is what you hear, for example when watching The Godfather, or the great series called Gomorrah, set in Naples. Most things, but not all, and not all the time, set south of Rome will include a lot of dialect...depends on who is speaking and why. 

 

There are also some podcasts you could always put on, just for background, on any topic in Italian for listening: they tend to speak proper Italian and cover any range of subjects, as one might imagine. It's another great way to practice listening, which you can do for short stints so it doesn't become overwhelming and to see how you're doing. Many of them also speak with a cadence that tends to be like broadcast news...not too fast, eloquent, and thus comprehensible. 

 

Sometimes I put on a news podcast, or something about film/television, or even a crime podcast, because the storytelling mode isn't too fast. 

 

What slows everyone down is translating in our heads...the more you hear something and recall what it is, the less you have to do the conversion, no matter the age. If you enjoy it, just find fun ways to keep at it. You can do it 🙂 

 

Andiamo 🇮🇹

[saltshell]

Wading through the pizza, wine Gelato discussions, not to mention linguistics   A little foggy. 2 questions:

Will arrive via train jetlaged. Staying near Termini overnight to board cruise next day.

1.is there a reasonable authentic (read not touristy) restaurant in the area that you would recommend?

Staying in Rome (Trastevera) 4 days post cruise.

2. Recommendable grocery stores/ markets?

Thanks

[euro cruiser]

Where in Trastevere?  It's a pretty big neighborhood.