Wednesday, 5 August 2015

Marinara Ontology

Here, from the BBC News website (where would we be without it?), is an account of a bracing encounter with a curious ontological conundrum - a pizza that can indeed be made, if the right ingredients are put together, but doesn't exist. My sympathies are entirely with the pizzaiola, and I only wish UK baristas would follow her example and insist that, by the same principle, there is no such thing as an Americano with milk. Instead of which, an order for an Americano is invariably met with 'Do you want milk with that?' No - because such a drink does not exist.
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5 comments:

  1. Joey Joe Joe Jr.5 August 2015 at 10:56

    A friend once (quietly) encouraged me to tell her Italian colleague that my favourite pizza is spicy Cajun chicken pizza. (It's not, but I played along.) The effect this has on him was spectacular. "Emotionally destabilising" is an understatement. It turns out that a pizza with chicken on top, let alone spicy Cajun chicken, is not a pizza.

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  2. Recusant5 August 2015 at 12:13

    Italian food rules demonstrate a nation that takes its gustatory pleasures seriously. I remember being in Rome some thirty odd years ago and ordering, in the afternoon and from a seated position, a cappuccino. Bateman should have been there to draw the cartoon. In my uncouth ignorance I had not realised that it is not possible to consume a cappuccino after 11am or anywhere else other than standing at the counter. My Anglo ways mitigated their horror, but only a little.

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  3. malty5 August 2015 at 21:01

    Proof indeed that tribalism exists and is thriving, even outwith the shores of Alba. Our favourite Tuscan eatery had a pizza guy who was Walter Mattau's double, he recently decamped, stating excess heat as the reason. He has been replaced by an Albanian called Sabrina, her speciality is Tuscan sausage pizza, accompanied by an excellent vernaccia san gimignano, unlike Wally she speaks excellent Italian.

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  4. Waldonymous5 August 2015 at 22:08

    But is an Americano over ice an "iced Americano" or some other being entirely?

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  5. Peter8 August 2015 at 11:38

    Only the Italians could get away with this kind of culinary totalitarianism and leave us northerners believing it represents a higher gastronomic sensibility. Years ago, as a backpacking student in Austria, I ordered salamibrot (open faced salami sandwich) and asked for patates frites to go with it. The request was not greeted with a sexy semi-scold from the alluring Emanuela, but rather with terrifying shrieks from Helga the SS she-wolf.

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