Say It Like You Eat It!

One of my favorite Italian adages is “Say it like you eat it.” I have read a book in which this wise saying plays a key role in the protagonist’s experience, and I was excited to hear this phrase said out loud in real life in Italy. I imagine “Say it like you eat it” is a cousin to “How do you eat an elephant? One bite at time.” This family of axioms entreats you to slow down and accomplish whatever it is you are doing or saying with purpose. For the Italians, what better way to say this than to compare it with good Italian food?

In Italy, a person does not eat food, a person experiences food. Colleen and I wanted to experience as much Italian cuisine as we could, so we established ground rules that governed our dining pleasure.

1. Colleen and Meghan will not eat the same thing twice (unless it’s good Italian pizza)
2.At any restaurant, Colleen will order one type of pasta and Meghan will order another. Then, they will both share.

During our time in Italy, we drank enough red wine to float a battle ship. We consumed enough pasta to satisfy that same ship's entire crew. And I don’t regret a single calorie. We had ravioli, penne pasta, calamari, tortallini, tomato and mozarella insalates, spaghetti, risotto, pizza, lasagna, gnocchio, paninis, calzones, priushiutto ham and one customary cappucino.

I am a fast eater by nature. In fact, my mother is always telling me to taste my food and not just inhale it. But in Italy, even I slowed down.

On what we thought was our last night in Venice, Colleen and I decided to explore the wonderful world of Italian pastries. We had not yet had an Italian dessert – unless you count gelato, which we don’t. (For us, gelato was a breakfast food.) So, we went on a pastry parade. We made five stops at different Italian bakeries and picked pastries at random. It was gluttonous I’ll admit, but pleasure is a minor deity in Italy and I’ve chalked this activity up to “doing like the natives do.”