The secret of the Italian woman

Finally, I've figured them out

Italy. Most beautiful and most fun, but HELL for your diet. It starts the day with cornetti (Italian for croissants), which they, as if it’s not fatty enough, stuff with half a jar of Nutella or 300 milliliters of crema. A coffee with whole milk on the side and so far for breakfast. Long ago, I discovered the macedonia, a bowl of sliced fruit, and that way I avoid the first 1500 calories. But don’t even think about asking for soy or oat milk for your latte, because the barista will first laugh at you loudly and then kick you out of the place.

Lunch is somewhat manageable. You take some fresh fish, pick some antipasti, and share half a liter of wine with your loved one. But then. Dinner. First, divine warm bread is served. Or, even worse, focaccia. With freshly picked rosemary from the garden and crunchy salt crystals. Then someone fills the table with antipasti. “Just some snacks from the region,” they say. After that, you order a primo. Dough then. Thank goodness my loved one and I once decided to order everything ‘in due’, or to share. Then comes the secondo: meat or fish, served with delicious patatine (oven-baked potatoes). Again with that damned rosemary, of course. Even if you say no to the dolce, a plate of homemade cantuccini will still be placed on the table, along with the bottle of Amaro and Limoncello. And then my spine is weaker than a strand of spaghetti.

Last night we dined with an Italian and his English wife, who has lived here for thirteen years. She whispered all her findings to me from the perspective of an Englishwoman. The bureaucracy, of course. And the overstaffing. At an average school, you can find four receptionists behind the desk. And that the children have ridiculously long vacations. Because most schools in the south have no air conditioning, teaching and learning is impossible, so they have off from June to the end of September.

But what she also told me when I sighed and reached for another piece of focaccia was why Italian women remain so slim. It’s not that they eat those four courses. Well, they do, but they spread it out over the day. So in the afternoon pasta (time to burn it off) and in the evening a little fish and some greens.

That I couldn’t have thought of myself. French women smoke and share desserts, Italian women spread the courses throughout the day. So you don’t have to feel provincial if you only order a main course (which I always did), that’s when you are una vera (en magra) Italiana.