Fulham vs Aston Villa vs Bologna Pre-Match Thread

[Sexual Ealing]

Gelato and ice cream are different to be fair, so people saying you haven't had 'proper ice cream' till you had it in Italy are literally wrong.

However, Bolognese sauce isn't tomatoey and carbonara is an egg sauce, it's just getting the name wrong, it's like making pepper steak without pepper or something, it's just the wrong name. Have cream if you like it and it's not carbonara and who cares about that? It's not pesto either, whatever.

(Should be noted Italians obviously do this too. They can't pronounce the word 'curry', which they think is the name of a spice powder, and call croissants 'brioches' when they obviously aren't. Scemi.)

The cappuccino thing though, there's some evidence that Italians and other southern types don't actually digest milk very well, so they don't feel well if they have a lot of it too close to a meal (they definitely have it in the afternoon - it's just not with or after a meal, makes them poorly). You're a hardy, heart-of-oak Germano-Celt though, so have as much milk as you want.

It's just language though. In Italy carbonara means an egg and pancetta concoction, in the UK it means cream and fucking mushrooms or whatever (I hate mushrooms). Surely we can all live with that?!

[Monty]

It's a fair point, but I don't know. Recipes have international names, have done for 150 years. A Caesar salad is a certain thing, tonkotsu ramen is a certain thing, Beef Wellington is a certain thing.

Italians get pissed off with it because they feel like the French get all the respect but that people can do whatever they like with their stuff. Northern vaguely-racist contempt for the south of Europe and so on. You can see the grievance.

Edit: I mean, there is such a thing as the Italian food-bore, usually some bloke with big opinions on onion in amatriciana and a deeply sexually frustrated wife. But there's not nothing in there in general.

[pauliewalnuts]

A Caesar salad is a certain thing, tonkotsu ramen is a certain thing, Beef Wellington is a certain thing.

"I think we just ran out of Waldorfs"

[Sexual Ealing]

We don't have a cuisine in this country, which is a shame, but one of the upsides is being able to spot the pomposity of our (admittedly, better) neighbours when it comes to shit like this. NONE OF THIS MATTERS LADS!

[Monty]

Meh, I think it's quite pompous the other way too tbh.

[Sexual Ealing]

If you want a fight, Monty, just say so and I'll hurt you in the soul (I've just been to a gypsy wedding so I feel hard but I've never had a fight so please don't say yes. It was a gay gypsy wedding, not that there's anything wrong with that).

[pauliewalnuts]

I dunno what it is like now, I am sure it must be better, but I lived just outside Milan for 4 years in the late 90s and in terms of food options, Italy was incredibly uninteresting.

Even somewhere like Milan, the choices if you wanted not-Italian were hundreds of really shit quality chinese places, or one or two TGI Friday style hell holes in the city centre and that was about it.

I remember thinking back then, and this was before Birmingham's regeneration was anything like in full swing, that Brum had way, way more impressive food options than Milan did. I am sure it has changed massively since then, but back then, it was all very stereotypically Italian. Even the restaurants were all the same. Yellow / white table cloths, austere interiors* and the usual thing of entire families being there with children running around screaming uninhibited.


*

"And that was Austere Interiors with their new 45, 'Screaming Children'"

[Sexual Ealing]

Ha!

[Monty]

If you want a fight, Monty, just say so and I'll hurt you in the soul (I've just been to a gypsy wedding so I feel hard but I've never had a fight so please don't say yes. It was a gay gypsy wedding, not that there's anything wrong with that).

Ha let's not fight, no. Obviously there are food wankers who insist that if you even like something else you're 'wrong', and they all vote for Meloni. And on Paulie's point, there are people who object to how it has changed and that there are too many 'ethnic' restaurants, and they all vote for Lega. But it should be pointed out that the kind of person in Italy who thinks like this (food culture is all made up, variety = globalised food etc) is almost exclusively like someone I know who loves Berlusconi and keeps saying that 'Italy needs a Thatcher'.

[eye digress]

True that the culinary “options” are limited. And you can probably make the same case for wine. In Britain, it’s relatively easy to find wine from all over the world. Far harder in Italy (and neighbouring countries), where the influential position of the local offering and its codification tends to stymie diversity.

[Monty]

True that the culinary “options” are limited. And you can probably make the same case for wine. In Britain, it’s relatively easy to find wine from all over the world. Far harder in Italy (and neighbouring countries), where the influential position of the local offering and its codification tends to stymie diversity.

It's also Italy having a massively lesser colonial history.

[eye digress]

Sure yes, that explains some of it. Although the same relative lack of diversity can be observed in France, for example (more diverse than Italy food wise, but far less than Britain; very homogenous on the wine front), despite having been among the most extensive colonisers.
I’d add Britain forming an island and the relative speed of the Industrial Revolution as other factors. Lots of choice, but not much that is nostrano (or even grasp of what that might be).

[Beard82]

I love italian food, and wine.  I dont know why not having non-italian options would be an issue. Did you know in italy, a Caborona use cream. 

[Monty]

Sure yes, that explains some of it. Although the same relative lack of diversity can be observed in France, for example (more diverse than Italy food wise, but far less than Britain; very homogenous on the wine front), despite having been among the most extensive colonisers.
I’d add Britain forming an island and the relative speed of the Industrial Revolution as other factors. Lots of choice, but not much that is nostrano (or even grasp of what that might be).

Sure there's a lot of sense in that, though the wine thing is really about incompatible customs laws on alcohol between about 1900 and the 1970s making people in wine countries just used to their own stuff.

[Beard82]

Sure yes, that explains some of it. Although the same relative lack of diversity can be observed in France, for example (more diverse than Italy food wise, but far less than Britain; very homogenous on the wine front), despite having been among the most extensive colonisers.
I’d add Britain forming an island and the relative speed of the Industrial Revolution as other factors. Lots of choice, but not much that is nostrano (or even grasp of what that might be).

But isnt the UK unique in that a lot of the food we produce, we dont really appericate? We dont seem to have much pride over our food.  For example - we dont eat a lot of fish - despite being surrounded by it.  We produce a lot of cheese but it doesnt feature heavily in our meals (beyond cheddar).  We almost have a reverse snobbery about food - in terms of everyone elses is better.