Timing Is Everything. So Is Parmesan.

My first week in Italy was well spent in a town named Paderno del Grappa, in the Montegrappa region. I was excited because I was told that eating was approached differently in this country, however, I could not have been more pleasantly surprised by the differences I experienced in my meals here. What surprised me wasn’t the food itself, which to be honest, I was more excited for, but the habits that came with eating. I didn’t just consume food - I observed, I listened, and I reflected throughout the meals. Whether it was making pasta with Luca, eating Carbonara with an Italian family, or sitting in a fancy restaurant with a plate of baccalà, I realized something deeper was going on. Eating in Italy doesn’t move quickly; rather, it moves meaningfully.

Italy’s approach to food, as I experienced, is a culinary philosophy that reflects a certain temporal and cultural worldview that mirrors that Renaissance world view. In the Renaissance view, time was oriented towards the human, the material, and the rational, which was a shift from the divine, cyclical view of time. Similarly, the approach to food in this country is done with care, contrasting with the Western, postmodern fast fast-paced way of eating in order for turnover. It is a human craft that is expressive, significant, and grounded in the environment and the person.

On the first day, I was privileged to witness Luca make gnocchi and pasta by hand at the Locanda Montegrappa. It was amazing - the speed at which his hands worked and the way he added materials to the pasta showed his expertise and the experience that was required. This showed heavily in the food - it was the best pasta I've ever had. The pasta felt gentle in my mouth, and the sauce clung intentionally to the pasta, coating it with a perfect balance of ragù and the noodle. The gnocchi was light, fluffy, and not chewy, a unique experience that was heaven in my mouth. Dessert was similar to an apple fritter, slightly imperfect but warm and personal, proving to exist a touch is not possible by a machine. The fact that I could not find it on the menu when I was doing research for this post shows the personality and the care of the chef. Compare this to a microwave meal in the US, popularized by speed, but also due to COVID, where people did not really leave their homes due to fear of the virus. This product of speed and dislocation treats time as a currency, where efficiency replaces experience, where the waitress prefers you to leave quickly to make more tips, or where one sits by himself at home, itching to watch someone else play video games on his 6.1-inch phone screen which eating and trying to finish eating as to do his work before he goes to bed. As Paul Virilio argues, “the fleet in being creates a new dromocratic idea: the notion of displacement without destination in space and time... it rushes non-stop toward the beyond” (64). Luca’s cooking, by contrast, was the opposite of displacement without destination - rather, it was fully present. As he noted, handmaking pasta became less popular due to the time mothers and grandmothers had to put into it, a seemingly unworthy trade for the quality of food. Yet Luca chose to preserve that quality in his restaurant. The human presence and patience of creation were evident in his food.

Food at Locanda Montegrappa: Pasta, Gnocchi, Fritter then Riley and I cutting Gnocchi

On the second day at Pizzeria Bar Cornaro, I was able to see Saverio meticulously shape and place ingredients on dough for a pizza, and then do it myself, where I put arugula, cherry tomatoes, mozzarella, and prosciutto on my pizza. I watched Saverio put the pizza into a wood fire oven that was heated up to around 800 degrees Fahrenheit without a thermometer, but by hand and feel, and take the pizza out perfectly made with the best crust that I had ever had. Contrast this food in the US, where a company such as Papa Murphy’s uses the slogan “Love at 425 degrees,” or Little Caesars uses the phrase “Hot-N-Ready” to emphasize the machine like creation of food for you to take home right when you get to the restaurant, or order to your home, brought by someone who drops on your front porch to reduce face to face contact, so you can eat by yourself without ever getting up from your laptop or phone.

Riley and I making pizza after Saverio helped us stretch out the dough

Then on day 3, I had dinner with a family: a couple named Matteo and Arianna with their three children aged 8, 6, and 6, as well as Arianna’s sister Francesca and her fiancé Ivan. Ivan, being proud that he was from Rome, started from 6 am to make an amazing carbonara - egg, cheese, pepper, and guanciale - from scratch. While we got there at around 6 or 7, Natalia and I sat at the table well past 11 pm, hours after the kids had even gone to bed. I didn’t feel a need to leave the table. It wasn’t because I still needed to eat or that I was too lazy to get up, like my usual reasons, but it was because the whole meal had a story. These was a beginning, middle, and end to the time I spent with the family, where we started outside, enjoying an antipasto of olives and cheese and bread, then came inside to talk and eat and sit around the table as a family, and then had dessert while laughter softened the room, with conversations stretching into reflection of the differences in our lives.

From left to right: Natalia, Isaac, Francesca, Matteo, Arianna, Ivan

I wasn’t just full - I was completely engulfed and present, a result of the intentionality and structure of the meal. In American meals, families are often too busy to even eat together, and individuals are just trying to finish the eating process, which is completely stripped of sequence and meaning. As Michel Foucault writes, “we are in the epoch of simultaneity, the epoch of juxtaposition”, where our experiences unfold and coexist in fragments rather than in a structured time (22). American eating reflects this reality of the detached, where many coexist and float in the same world, however, never cross paths. Meals are often consumed alone, in cars, with a video, or in between appointments due purely to the drive for efficiency. Foucault also explains it best when he states that “Today the site has been substituted for extension which itself had replaced emplacement” (23). We start with the Medieval concept of emplacement, with the home and sacred spaces, moving into the extension of abstract, geometric maps that Leonardo dreamed of, and lastly to the postmodern world of sites or relational space without intrinsic meaning. Instead of gathering at a restaurant, the site Doordash is used to connect the kitchen, the driver, and the customer, making its meaning in a network; however, ironically, it disconnects people physically. In contrast, Italian meals create space to connect with one another; with Matteo, Ivan, Arianna, and Francesca, the whole family came together to eat. Dinner followed a sequential ordering of enjoyment and community. I think a good analogy is like a book. In America, people are trying to fit time to read into their schedule, or just skip it altogether. The difference is that in Italy, people sit long enough to read it.

On Day 4, I dined in Bassano del Grappa at Ristorante Ottone, a restaurant recommended by Arianna and Ivan. The baccalà alla vicentina and white asparagus risotto weren’t just some of the best food I’d had, but they were regional. The waitress explained to us that the asparagus was grown in Veneto, in the Montegrappa region, and the cod was dried and fished in a way only done in Northern Italy. On day 5, the Italian barbecue at Agriturismo Da Memi e Maria in Catelcucco included smoky meats and polenta. The food was simple, intense, smoky, and grounded. Nothing was hidden, in contrast to American food, where people tend to slather ketchup, BBQ, or Chick-fil-A sauce on everything to taste artificial flavors. The plating of the food was simple, seemingly unintentional. But there was no need to present it in a way as if the food was disguised. The ingredients, the smoking process, and the purity were the presentation of the food.

Ristorante Ottone: Baccalà alla vicentina and White Asparagus Risotto topped with yolk and licorice powder

The Italian approach embraces transparency. You’re supposed to taste the meat that was freshly butchered at the restaurant. You’re supposed to know that the asparagus was grown locally. And you’re supposed to recognize where you are on the plate. As Alain de Botton puts it, “True possession of a scene is a matter of making a conscious effort to notice elements and understand their construction.” Italian food demands that while eating, one is to be present long enough to be in community with one another and understand what the food is, where it came from, and why it matters.

This week has reoriented my mindset towards eating. In the US, we are often very critical of the way we eat, but never really reorient ourselves. Italian culture emphasizes food as a structure, however, and a form of control over time. It reflects a philosophy of eating rooted in Renaissance logic, with order, meticulous intention, locality, and sequence to every bite. A meal isn’t a required routine item forcing you away from your desired activities, but it is literally the day. In the US, the food is isolated, rushed, and seen as an annoying part of the day. It seems that we have somehow lost the meaning and narrative of the meal.

Virilio was right - speed has disintegrated social connection with one another. In Italy, however, the table still holds true to its roots.