Archive for the year 2011
Fare le Corna Posted by Serena on Oct 26, 2011
Watching a live concert of our favourite Italian heavy metal band, Lacuna Coil, I was struck by the fact that the audience were all facendo le corna (making the horns), a common hand gesture here in Italy, especially in Napoli. I did a bit of research and discovered that the gesture was made popular in…
How to say ‘I love you’ in Italian Posted by Serena on Oct 24, 2011
Apparently one of the most frequently asked questions on internet search engines is ‘how do you say “I love you” in Italian… or Spanish, or German, or Greek, etc. etc. Well, this must be good news for international relations, and it’s certainly a lovely antidote to all the scaremongering perpetrated by politicians and the media…
La Fame di Mimì Posted by Serena on Oct 21, 2011
Povera Mimì la Gatta, ha un po’ di problemi digestivi e l’ho messa a dieta stretta di riso e tonno, ma lei è molto schizzinosa e vuole solo i suoi croccantini. Resiste per quasi un giorno e “poscia, più che ‘l dolor, potè ‘l digiuno”! (Dante) = Poor Mimì the Cat, she has a few…
La Caffettiera Napoletana Posted by Serena on Oct 19, 2011
The other day my friend Annalisa, who is in the middle of moving house, opened one of her packing boxes and found my dear old caffettiera napoletana that I had lent to her sometime ago. La caffettiera napoletana is not very common anymore in Italian households, but until the Fifties it used to be the…
La Polenta Posted by Serena on Oct 17, 2011
La polenta (also known as polenda or pulenda) is an ancient dish made from cereal flour which is the traditional staple diet of the contadino (peasant farmer) especially in the northern Italian regions of Veneto, Lombardia, Trentino, and Friuli-Venezia Giulia. The name polenta comes from the Latin word ‘puls’, a type of polenta di farina…
Una Visita dal Dentista Posted by Serena on Oct 14, 2011
O.K. I know you all like to read my blogs about our wonderful landscapes, delicious food, and deeply rooted traditions, but sometimes we have to deal with some of the less pleasant realities of life. What happens, for example, if you’re on holiday in Italy and you have mal di denti? = tooth ache? Don’t…
La Leggenda del Ponte del Diavolo Posted by Serena on Oct 12, 2011
Travelling north from Lucca along the winding road that follows the river Serchio upstream into the heart of the Garfagnana region, one of the most notable landmarks that you encounter is il Ponte del Diavolo (the Devil’s Bridge) at Borgo a Mozzano. Four beautifully proportioned arches spanning the river, each one a different size, frame…