Homo (in)Felix

I was out to lunch today and I decided that something had to be done.
I know this battle is lost since the beginning. But I like to fight battles which are lost since the beginning. What’s the point to fight those ones you know already you are going to win?
It’s the reverse loser psychology. Knowing you are going to lose, makes you look brave in other people eyes. Or crazy.
When the lady at the usual basement café in Radisson Blu hotel offered ketchup to dress my pasta I told myself: ‘enough is enough!’ Luckily she didn’t have the deadly tool in her hand, otherwise I would have showed my face covered with disgust.
I just walked away ignoring her invitation knowing that today I was rather going to start a blog. Logical. You must go round of it sometimes.
Therefore here are 10 start-up golden rules regarding Italian food and eating habits.
Your question will be: but do we have to follow those letter by letter?
Of course yes! Would I melt cheese on verivorstid on Christmas Eve rather than covering them with jam (moos, marmellata) and hapukoor (sauercream, panna acida)?
Of course not, therefore some rules must be followed by non-Italians when approaching our food.
I know this make Italians sound like ‘food fascists’* but we have no choice. If we would let everything go, in 50 years time tourists coming to Italy won’t have any more any delicacy to taste and rules to stick with to preserve those delicacies.
Here we go:

1. Ketchup was invented for hamburgers, sausages and meat in general: pasta is not under its rule.

2. Pasta must be cooked within the cooking time showed on the package. Usually the cooking time is reported with international signs like: 11 min. = eleven minutes.
If cooked within this time, pasta will be ‘al dente’, which means edible. Over this time, it’s a meal for your dog.

3. Pasta can be dressed with ready-made sauces available nowadays in all major supermarkets of the European Union (Estonia joined EU in 2004) where the main trademark (Barilla) offers a variety of solutions alternative to the ‘ketchup-up-and-go’ crime. The author advices: Ricotta sauce and Bolognese.

4. Pasta is a main dish, no companions needed.
Compared to music, you wouldn’t give a choir to a soloist: he’s the one-man show.
As a corollary of this rule, pasta itself is not a side dish for anything else (meat, fish etc.)

5. There’s no macaroni. There’s only pasta.
And its over 100 regional/local types. Macaroni is the deformation of ‘maccheroni’ a type of pasta.

6. If you are in a bar, it is not allowed to order a cappuccino after 11 o’clock. What you are allowed to ask is an espresso. In Italy you do not need to specify that, just saying ‘caffe’’ it’s enough. Italians do not drink anything else than espresso.

7. Cappuccino after a meal is a crime against humanity. Restaurants all over the world bowing their heads to such request are mere collaborators of the perpetrators.

8. Pineapple is a fruit. Pineapple pizza is a disgrace.

9. Be suspicious if a great Estonian chef offers Italian food in his restaurant with Italian name. Probably you are going to pay a lot of money for eating a pizza that breaks like a pirukas when you cut it (if you want to know the name of the place, contact me in private).

10. Do not order Italian food in a basement café of the city center.

Today I have personally violated the 10th rule, therefore I decided to write the other 9.

The current advertisement seen on TV from Felix (producing ketchup) is fragrantly violating rule 1. I will personally boycott the trademark until the commercial is removed and apologies presented to our local embassy.


*the lovely definition belongs to a foreign lady and is reported by Italian journalist, writer and commentator Beppe Severgnini on his book ‘La bella figura’ available in English and Finnish besides Italian, the Russian version is not adviced by the author himself due to a bad adaptation to the Cyrillic fonted language.