Tag: Boards

ArizonaDog FriendlyItalianPizzaUnited States

Cibo – Phoenix, Arizona

Gil Garduno12:01 AM

Inasmuch as they’re both Romance languages, there are a lot of similarities between Spanish and Italian.  Because Spanish was my first language, if spoken slowly enough I can probably understand thirty-percent of what is spoken in Italian.  Alas, not all Spanish and Italian terms are lexical cognates.  That is, they don’t have the same etymology or derivation.  For example, the Italian term “mangia” means “eat up” (naturally, it’s one of my favorite Italian words) while perhaps its closest Spanish equivalent is “come.”  Another Italian culinary term every self-respecting gastronome recognizes is “cibo” which translates in English to “food.” In Italy, life revolves around the preparation and enjoyment of good food (cibo buono).   Hmm, maybe I should have been born Italian?   As a gastronomo prolifico (the Italian AND Spanish translation for both words), I feel a profound connection to Elena Davis who writes the fabulous blog Cucina by Elena in which she shares recipes and memories of having grown up in Lo Stivale.  She’s a lady after my own heart.  Take this paragraph:  “In Italy, if we aren’t eating, we are probably talking about eating.  The word Mangia (verb: mangiare), pronounced man-juh, definition: eat-up!!”  Yes, you literally say it…

AlbuquerqueDog FriendlyItalianNew Mexico

M’tucci’s Bar Roma – Albuquerque, New Mexico

Gil Garduno12:52 PM

Just prior to a planned visit to Rome, Saint Monica and her son, Saint Augustine, discovered that Saturday was observed as a day of fasting in Rome.  It was not, however, a fast day in their hometown of Milan. They consulted Saint Ambrose who advised: “When I am here (in Milan) I do not fast. On Saturday, when in Rome I do fast on Saturday.” That reply is believed to have been the genesis of the saying “When in Rome, do as the Romans do.”  It’s a good thing they didn’t ask Saint Gregory the Great for advice–especially if they enjoyed eating.  Saint Gregory believed eating–or more precisely the pleasurable overindulgence in food–was viewed as “an ungodly preoccupation with temporal and corporeal pleasures at the expense of spirituality.”  Those of you who enjoy reading this blog would probably be condemned to an eternity in Hell with me. Church leaders of the Middle Ages didn’t just denounce the derivation of pleasure from eating in a general sense. They listed five specific ways in which gluttony was a sin: eating too soon, eating too expensively, eating too much, eating too eagerly, eating too daintily and eating wildly. By Middle Age standards, many…