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| Italian traditions as explained by Albert Heijn |
In the Netherlands Christmas 2013 was meant to be different
than the others; no stress, just enjoying. A big supermarket (Albert Heijn) published a menu, which was called
(freely translated) christmust
instead of christmiss. Their monthly
magazine was full of ‘building stones’ that helped the client to make delicious
meals without spending hours in the kitchen. The only one suffering was the
waste bin, which had to handle the huge amount of packaging materials that came
with it. Maybe a new tradition?
Though
most of the Italians are (or at least seem) traditional, the same Dutch
supermarket recently used every known cliché for their special ‘Italian weeks’.
Before you continue to read, I advise you to check it out yourself following
this link to their new commercial.
I know
of Italian people that still visit their parents weekly, even though they have
to travel over two hours to arrive there. I know that Italians like their
coffee strong after 11 o’clock. I also know that Italians are proud of their cucina and that they will not hesitate
to fill-up their Ryanair suitcases with litres of olive oil from their hometown
because it is much better than the one you get at the supermarket up north. But I also know that the before mentioned
commercial is just telling a romantic story which we Dutch (and also others
from outside Italy) like to believe in, but which is true only for a tiny bit.
Tradition
seems less obvious in other countries. In the tv program about farmers I talked
about last week one of the potential partners asked
the farmer to go for some typical food of his home country, Canada. I am almost
embarrassed to say they ended up in a KFC like fast-food restaurant! How
romantic. No wonder he could not convince the girl to fall in love with him….
Also
last week I read a post by an
American living in Paris on the disappearance of farmers on the Parisian farmers market. While
in America these markets become bigger as a response to the food scandals,
health situations and changing economy the French ones seem to lose the
competition from the super- or hypermarches making shopping much easier and
less time consuming. Another tradition gone.
But back
to the Italians and the Dutch publicity. Two things need to be addressed. On one hand the Italians really hold on to their
traditions: the constant rhythm of three meals a day, clearly divided in sweet
stuff in the morning, a lot in the afternoon and something light before
bedtime, the delicacies that belong to specific festivities like the chiacchiere for carnival and the
locality of certain dishes like the ragù
from Bologna.
On the
other hand Italians also do enjoy new things. Also Italians like to
travel, explore new countries and cultures and thus also new foods. Last year, Milan ‘suffered’ from a
hype about ‘American’ burger restaurants and this year it seems like every week
a new ‘ramen’ restaurant is opened. The Italians start to appreciate new
flavours but the question is how original these places are.
Then it
is true (now I really come back to the publicity) that there is a big
difference between life in cities and life on the countryside. In the country
people live more slow, grow their own food and have less amenities than in
cities. I am sure it is the people living here that keep the traditions of
Italians truly alive, while the citizens rather leave this behind and act like
real cosmopolitans. Even though sometimes even they love to live thislife as well.
