Delicious Italian Pastry
A typical morning in Italy is sometimes punctuated with a visit to a local coffee bar. In fact, bar, is synonymous with coffee. We have some favorites, depending on each day’s tasks. When we head east, we stop in Sieci for a coffee and una pasta, a pastry. In Sieci, they bring out trays of beautiful pastries to fill their cases. Some are full of custardy cream, or cioccolato, chocolate, or Nutella (sort of like chocolate peanut butter, but with hazelnuts instead) or mela, apple, marmellatta, marmalade, or even senza niente, literally, without nothing, empty. My personal favorite is mela, Em’s is senza niente. A cappucciniaccompanies the pastry, but only until about 10:30 am. Then a “big coffee” is considered too much and so we switch to a macchiato, which literally means “stained,” because the coffee is stained with milk. It’s really a smaller version of the cappuccino. The bar that we frequent most often is Riccardo‘s in Fiesole, staffed by Riccardo and his sister, Maria. After we’ve ordered, we’re handed a napkin-wrapped pastry, because Italians typically don’t touch food with their bare fingers—it’s considered bad form.
Cappuccino
When we are in California, we sometimes go to Starbucks, or The Great Bear, or The Blue Rock Shoot. Coffee in the U.S. is completely different. People sit down and sip their beverages, which seem gigantic, by Italian standards. A “venti,” which is a SB medium, really means that you’re getting 20 ounces of coffee. Ounces don’t exist in Italy, so aventi size is a blend of 2 cultural understandings. But we accept that SB has created its own lingo. The thought of over half a liter of drink would leave an Italian scratching his head. A normal, and acceptable-until-10:30 cappuccino is probably 6 ounces or so. A macchiato is only 2-3 ounces. Italians line up at the bar, maybe leaning on an elbow, but they rarely sit down. The whole coffee experience takes around 7-10 minutes, while I’ve taken my laptop and lounged away a couple of hours at Starbucks, The Bear, or The Rock.
And here’s the kicker: at Riccardo‘s or in Sieci we spend around $5 for 2 coffees and 2 pastries. At Starbucks, I think we’d get half of that for the same price. So what is it that we are really buying in the U.S.—or what is it we’ve been sold?
July 18, 2010
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