Bologna, Italy (A Family Dining Room)
My Schedule for an Italian Sunday Lunch
UNESCO now protects Italian cooking, Sunday lunches included. I brought a schedule to one. It didn't survive.
This week, UNESCO added Italian cooking, from long Sunday lunches to grandmothers teaching tortellini, to its list of intangible cultural heritage, by a unanimous vote. I went to a Sunday lunch to see why, with a schedule.
My Schedule
1:00 p.m. Arrive. Eat. 1:45 p.m. Leave. Very efficient.
What Actually Happened
1:00 p.m. Bread. I said I was fine. The grandmother gave me more bread.
2:00 p.m. Pasta. Then a second pasta. I asked if the second one was a mistake. Nobody laughed. Pasta is not a joke here.
3:30 p.m. She taught me to fold tortellini. Mine looked like tiny hats. She folded forty while I folded one. I’ve never been outworked before. Very humbling. I didn’t care for it.
5:00 p.m. Meat, cheese, dessert, coffee, another dessert. I loosened my tie.
7:00 p.m. I tried to leave. She handed me leftovers in a box the size of a suitcase.
Lesson Learned
You don’t schedule an Italian lunch. It schedules you. UNESCO got it right, and I’d like it on the record that I agreed with them, around the fourth course.
Frequently Asked Questions
How many courses did you eat?
Nine. Ten if coffee counts. In Italy, coffee counts.
Did you learn to make pasta?
I learned to watch someone make pasta. That's the executive version.