Monday, April 4, 2011

10 things we learnt in Italy (in no particular order)

After spending 3 weeks in Italy, here are the Top 10 things we learnt about Italy

1. Bread is not served with olive oil in Italy. Olive oil is meant for dressing salads, not for drowning bread.

2. Italian food is not all about pasta, it's usually just a first course.
In fact, they start with a pasta, followed by a meat or seafood dish and then dessert.

3. Pizza is a main course and Italians can eat a whole 12" pizza individually, regardless of age and gender. We witnessed a young kid almost finishing one big pizza herself.

4. Spaghetti Bolognese isnt't from Bologna and not really from Italy. Spaghetti pasta isn't from this region of Italy and the sauce in Bologna is actually "Al Ragu", which is a similar meat sauce but not a rich tomato sauce.

5. Pasta is only eaten with a fork, no twirling on a spoon.

6. Aglio olio is never cooked with bacon. (The waiters all give a funny look when we requested it, lol)

7. There are dogs everywhere in Italy, and we mean everywhere. In restaurants, shops, hotels, trains, everywhere!

8. Ducati started out with something totally non-automobile related, typewriters and cameras.
They made motorized bicycles after World War II and it then evolved into motorcycles.

9. Marco Polo didn't bring back spaghetti (concept of noodles) from China, though he did bring back a Mongolian wife. Apparently spaghetti was already present in Italy BEFORE he went to China.

10. Nutella is from Italy! And I always thought it was some Asian brand, oops...

7 comments:

  1. No bacon in aglio olio?!! Eeeks! Tell the Italians cats are lots cuter, they don't poop everywhere on the streets haha.

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  2. yeah no bacon!! haha....

    i think we saw more dog poop in italy than in paris, haha

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  3. I was planning to go to Hokkaido in July, but after all that's happened, I'm seriously considering changing to go France in July.

    Will let you know if this is cfm, and let's see if we got chance to meet up in France =)

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  4. oh ok then. yeah remember u mentioned about hokkaido. yeah let me know about france, hehe.... we will be back there for french open, woohoo

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  5. Just confirmed. Will be in Nice on Jul 15-16, Avignon fr Jul 17-19, Paris fr Jul 20-25. Let me know if u plan to swing by any of these spots =)

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  6. I am craving some delicious Italina pasta now... Isn't it fascinating how they can make it in a really simple way like aglio olio and still it tastes so delicious?

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  7. Aglio Olio is my top favorite pasta!
    Simplest ingredients but a really good one is not simple to put together, it all about timing.

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