Taxi Cheat Slapdown: Rome vs. New York · 1 day ago by James Martin
It’s interesting how many people are just terrified at the thought of getting ripped off by a Rome taxi driver. I’m not saying it doesn’t happen. It does. Frequently. I’ve even written about Rome Taxis and have gifted you with a widget that tells you what a taxi should cost in the Eternal City so you can “know before you go” or something.
But enough about Rome. I gleefully read the article about New York Cabbies on Gladdling this morn, New York cabbies caught overcharging passengers – 1.8 million times
That’s a lot.
It also shows how the world is much the same. It’s amazing to me that many rural-based American folks who wouldn’t dare set a tootsie in New York for fear of getting mugged (or ripped off by a taxi driver) will head off for a visit to Rome without a care in the world.
What I’m sayin’ is that street smarts is street smarts, wherever you go. Big cities everywhere are are full of people who make a better living than their peers by relying on their cleverness to extract more money from a client who is not paying attention.
So pay attention. Don’t just watch—see!
That said, I have chosen a house in a rural area of Italy. Taxi drivers have so far been wonderfully civil in the Lunigiana. You might consider getting out in the country if you’re afraid of cities—or unwilling to pay attention to your surroundings.
On the other hand, Rome is a wonderfully diverse city of surprises, art, and Roman ruins. If you pay 20 Euro too much for a taxi, what’s it matter in the grand scheme of things? You can get mad, you can huff and puff, the veins can stand out grandly on your forehead and still, it won’t make a bit of difference. Trust me, you’ll have a great story to tell which will leave folks clucking and shaking their heads over how superior their country is.
Filed in: Italy Travel Tips The Lunigiana
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Il Coperto, The Italian Cover Charge · 2 days ago by James Martin
It must be time for another tome from Frances Mayes. Media is loaded with interviews with her. I’ve just read ‘Tuscan Sun’ author on Italy’s pleasures
It’s a good interview. And there are comments below the text. Like lots of what passes for “discourse” in the US, the comments soon degenerate into xenophobic idiocy.
I’ve never been to the area of Tuscany that is described in this story. I’m sure the land is pretty, however, it’s the people that many disagree with. What other country in Europe (or the entire world) charges a “cover charge” to eat in their restaurants. Absolutely pathetic… ~ MarcoP
I always love the idea of arbitrary hate. Where does that come from? You hate the people of a place because the restaurant charges a cover charge just like clubs in the US? Why is that?
But nevermind, Marco probably isn’t going to read this. But I’m going to talk about cover charge anyway.
Coperto is a small fee, usually a couple of Euros or so, tacked on to an ala carte meal you eat in a ristorante. Usually, the coperto is included in the price fixed meals, as in the “pronzo di lavoro” or “worker’s lunch” served in my corner of Tuscany, the Lunigiana, so you don’t see it on the bill.
This cover charge was implemented years ago, and was called at the time a “bread and cover” charge. It is explained as the cost of washing the linens and providing the free stuff—like pane or, as we say, “bread”.
How folks think they’re getting ripped off when they get charged the coperto is troubling to me. It’s written on the menu, usually at the bottom, so it shouldn’t be a surprise. It is a way of breaking cost out that is different, I suppose, than the way we do it in America. So what?
When restaurateurs were allowed to add this charge to menus by the crack Italian government they all did, of course. So, in a sense, this got equalized by its ubiquity. The free market tells you that if you are willing to pay $15 for a meal, then it doesn’t matter if the charge is $5 for cover and $10 for food, or if the cost of cleaning the linens is included in the all inclusive charge of $15. Its the same goddam thing. You’re not getting ripped off, you’re just getting charged in a different manner.
It’s different in the US, where the charges might come as a complete surprise to the uninitiated. We’re told by the restaurant owners, “Hey, we don’t wanna pay our help, so you’ll have to do that yourselves.” So we leave an obligatory “tip.” This is what makes the American experience less “pathetic” I’m thinking, to guys like MarcoP. It’s just so darn logical (if you’ve lived with it all your life and haven’t traveled to see how other people might do it that is).
On top of all this added crap, of course, there’s the tax. So when we decide that we just have $15 in our wallets and the meal is gonna cost us $15 we have to say, “Hey, wait a minute! I can expect to be charged much more than that!” Imagine what foreigners think after eating a $15 meal that costs them over $20. It’s nuts.
(Even nuttier in San Francisco, where the employee health insurance is added to your bill in many cases!)
So should Italy please us by eliminating those troublesome tablecloths? (remember that in the US, restaurants are charged over $1 per napkin and $4 to wash a tablecloth, and if you think you’re not getting charged for that, stop reading now—you’re certifiably nuts! Get help!) The answer to the eliminate tablecloths question is not only “no!” but “hell no!” And here’s why: The Cultural Anthropology of Tablecloths
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Did you know you can volunteer to do so hot archaeology inside Rome’s Monte Testaccio? It’s on the Wandering Italy Facebook page. Become a fan. It’s, ahem, a select group.
Filed in: Food Italy Travel Tips
Talk to Me of Italy · 3 days ago by James Martin
Fun times. Our new Canon EOS 7D come yesterday (The price has finally come down off suggested retail at Amazon: Canon EOS 7D 18 MP CMOS Digital SLR Camera with 3-inch LCD (Body Only)
Nice piece of kit. Blazing fast focus. I’m still playing with the High Def Movie mode.
At the same time I’m playing with this camera, I’ve been busy at work on the Wandering Italy Facebook Page. I figure since I travel a lot and have comments turned off in the blog, the facebook thing would be for a way for me to interact with you. So head on over if you want to tell me to write more about attending the 2010 Giro d’Italia or you’d like to see more videos of Italy or something. Or you can just say “Hi” and ask me about my new toy.
I’ll also be posting some shorter comments on things I see on the net that I like, or I’ll talk about the weather in the Lunigiana when I’m there (less than a month, stay tuned).
Let’s have some fun with this.
Filed in: General Italy Travel
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Experience Growth on Your Italian Vacation · 5 days ago by James Martin
Spring has sprung here in California. It’s a bit of a cold spring, but stuff is popping out of the ground at an alarming rate. If weeds were good to eat, we could feed half of California.
That’s a new Calla Lilly we’ll sink into the soil as soon as the morning temperatures stabilize below freezing.
But you’re not interested in gardening in California, are you? No, you’d rather be sinking a shovel into the ancient soils of Umbria or learning to sort the wild edibles of Italy wouldn’t you?
Well, you can. In fact, for the money, if you’re interested in gardening and are going to be in Umbria, I’d venture to say you’d be nuts not to take a Spring Garden Workshop at the Art Monastery at Casale Santa Bridita. A more beautiful place to garden would be difficult to find, I’m guessing.
I actually don’t have to guess. I’ve been there. The picture on the right shows the little cafe (you know, called a bar in Italy) with some great views of the surrounding rural countryside.
The good news is that the workshop doesn’t cost a lot. Where are you going to get a week of experiential travel for a mere €390? With limoncello tasting. Check it out.
Filed in: Experiential Travel Food
(Not) Digging Pompeii: Pompeii Food and Drink · 7 days ago by James Martin
I like the direction archaeology is heading. It used to be that folks looked only for treasure. You found treasure in the vast palaces of the ruler. Maybe also where they buried the sucker. It was fun to dig there. Gold! Grants! Exhibits worldwide!
I’m one of those people for whom the powerful and wealthy hold no particular interest. I mean, can you name even one of those overcompensated Goldman Sachs wonks who brought down the entire economy last time by making gambling instruments out of poor people’s mortgages? I doubt it. They are not interesting people in the least (except to the government, who rewards them with sacks of money so they can try again.)
Archaeologists are wising up to this view. They’re starting to bring alive the more interesting parts of the city; the brothels, the slaughterhouses, the little shops and cafes that fed the people who maintained the fabric of the village core.
And now, for a price, you can join the scholars and learn about the real folk while they do.
Yes, this morning in a flurry of twitterings, I learned from Napoli Unplugged of the Pompeii Food and Drink Project in which you pay “to explore the ancient Roman city of Pompeii, Italy, as a research participant in an ongoing noninvasive (that means no digging) study with a staff of historians, architects, and classicists.”
These kinds of experiences are quite enlightening—with prices commensurate with the degree of potential enlightenment. Expensive, yet you won’t likely get the opportunity to do this kind of thing again in your life without spending four years in school—and you’ll have tales to tell your friends that will make you the envy of your social group, even if it is only made up of people on facebook you haven’t actually met.
Anyway, check out Pompeii Food and Drink Project
I’ve decided to illustrate this post with a picture of nearby Naples, where food is an art practiced not by the elite, but by your ordinary folk who talk mostly with their hands. This is Russortaggi. Who in his right mind would rather shop at Safeway?
Filed in: Food Italy Travel Tips
Delta of Italy Exotica · 9 days ago by James Martin
Martha and I have just celebrated the wondrously arcane task of cobbling together her Italy Travel Fan Page by spending an evening listening to a cd of Italian music called Putumayo Presents: Italian Café
Yes, the era spawned paparazzi, men who took snaps of celebrities from the shadows, mostly women attached to the arms of handsome and nouveau-wealthy men. It was a time of machismo. Men were in.
But something changed, maybe around the time Italy had its “economic miracle” in the 80s. The edge seems to have suddenly come off the machismo, as if we noticed all of a sudden that the prosciutto was pink and feminine, unlike the ruddy redness of the cured hams of Spain, for example.
I got thinking about the people I follow on twitter who talk about Italy with passion. Mostly women. Then, too, there are women writing books about travel in Italy for women, like Susan Van Allen in her 100 Places in Italy Every Woman Should Go (Travelers’ Tales)
Why, there’s even special parking now in the autostrada rest stops. Lady park. Nice.
Get yourself gussied up and head over to the Lady Park some day. Change is good, isn’t it? (But paper money is worth more.)
I wish they hadn’t changed the music though.
Filed in: Italy Travel General
Blogs About Italy · 11 days ago by James Martin
Information. Isn’t there a ton of it online? What information do I like best? Cultural information. What are people around the world doing right now? Who’s making pasta? Who’s gutting a wild bore? Who’s stuck in the subway with a live lobster making odd noises in a paper bag?
For all this, these days, we have blogs. When Martha decided to create a list of Italian blogs for Italy Travel, she didn’t want to make one of those “Top Ten Italian Blogs!” lists that people fight and whine over but create constantly, as if there was a cosmic force behind the urge.
There are just too many good blogs out there. So, she let everyone submit a blog, and then weeded out the ones that consisted of only one blog post or had pictures of naked people handling snakes. There were some surprising entries among the old favorites of mine.
For example, there’s a whole blog devoted to Artichokes in Italy. It is called, oddly enough, The Artichoke Blog. It cracks me up how they get these names. Anyway, the blog has great pictures, and is a tribute to writers who can pick a narrow topic and wow you with what they can do with it.
Anyway, if you love things Italian, you will want to check out the compilation Blogs About Italy
Did you know there’s a blog done by researchers Blogging Pompeii? You can get right down in the trenches with them, in three languages yet.
Well done.
Filed in: Italy Travel Tips Living in Italy
Italian Food | Italian American Food · 12 days ago by James Martin
Last Sunday night we headed over to Joe and Eddies in San Francisco. Joe and Eddies offers “Italian Cuisine” like they used to serve in the ’70s. Maybe the ’60s, too.
The thing is, we didn’t expect great, traditional “Italian” food; the draw was the rat pack impersonators, especially Matt Helm as Dean Martin (warning, “Italian” music).
Ok, so the crowd was mostly old farts our age, people who remember Dean Martin, Frank Sinatra, Joey Bishop, and Sammy Davis Junior with particular (or perhaps peculiar) fondness. We sat in rapt attention as “Dean” crooned the old songs, his “cigarette” glowing with LED redness while the two olives in his “Martini” seemed glued to the glass.
(I likely have used up my quota of quotation marks. When you bring back the dead, expect some virtuosity in manufacturing the “props” (oops).)
So there we were in front of some of what folks used to call Italian food. You know, huge, heaping platters of all manner of meats troweled with tomato sauce so thick you could use what’s left over for Spackle, providing your walls didn’t mind the phosphorescent redness of it.
To be sure what was in front of us was Italian-American food. Now, there’s the rub. How do you review something which, like the performers, was brought back from the dead in an interesting way?
Surely you’d never find a thick, unctuous tomato sauce redolent—NO! REEKING of—garlic in Italy. (If you’ve never been, don’t be disappointed if your taste buds don’t get assaulted by the over-concentrated fumes of such a sauce; this kinda thing is virtually unknown these days in Italy).
On the other hand, we’re not reviewing “real” or “traditional” Italian food here. We’re looking at a reproduction of what Americans did to the thought of Italian food. They jazzed it up. They boosted the flavors to “heights unknown” as some tarnished TV chef might say. It’s the characteristic that sets America apart, this idea of cramming all manner of food ingredients together until the whole shebang doesn’t just sit placidly on your tongue while you contemplate its honesty and freshness; we feel compelled to transform most food into a goddam buzzbomb going off and rattling your senses. It’s not food, it’s an experience: you can’t taste the pork ribs under that sauce, or differentiate them from the hunk of pork shoulder; blanketed by all that sauce there are simply lumps of different texture, some still with bones. But you know you’ve eaten when you’re done. So does every one else. There’s that raw garlic we love and think the Italians do, too.
So, you know what? I sorta liked it. I wouldn’t want to eat it every day. It would mangle my taste buds into a useless clot within the month. But it was honest, authentic and true to its roots. The concept was clear, unlike places like the Olive Garden, where the food advertises itself as authentic while it’s almost pure American or at least badly tarted-up Italian.
But that’s the thing, isn’t it? In Italy, the cuisine is codified through social controls that allow only for the minuscule modification of traditional recipes. What I’m sayin’ is this: Italians will refuse to eat food you’ve cooked for them if you haven’t salted it right or you’ve let the gnocchi cook a half a millisecond too long. Don’t try this at home if your feelings are easily hurt.
In America, however, the sky is the limit. You can cook just about any damn thing with just about any number of other odd ingredients and folks will say, “golly, that’s, well, interesting!” They will even have a second course if you force it on them. Folks are easy.
Which is why we don’t have a national, codified cuisine. At least we don’t have one not put on our platters by immigrants anyway.
Or maybe the 70s were just a superior time when minimum wage was enough to live on and we went out in our cars with their 400 cubic inch engines just waiting to burn the tread clear offa the tires because tires were cheap and so was gas.
Those were the days, eh? No candy-ass buckling up of them seat belt thingies either.
Which reminds me of Dean Martin:
When I die I want to die peacefully in my sleep just like my father did. I don’t want to go kicking and screaming at the top of my lungs like those other people in the car he was driving.
(There are other ideas of Authenticity in Italian cuisine floating about in the web-o-sphere these days. Try: Food For Thought: Evolving Ideas About Italian Cuisine)