There is No Such Thing as Italian Cuisine

Angelo is a veteran among Dinehome host families, and his belief that there is no such thing as a single Italian cuisine takes shape in the story of his own family, whose roots run across the peninsula far beyond the stereotypes of local Italian identity. His story shows how culture is a living body of knowledge, with home cooking at its heart.

Why did you decide to be part of Dinehome?

After reading an article on Repubblica.it/Bologna, my wife and I were excited by the idea of reliving what we had experienced as young university students with foreign friends and roommates on Erasmus or visiting our beautiful city, with dinners filled with satisfied expressions from our guests, good wine, and excellent conversations spiced with different accents and languages.

What does cooking mean to you?

My wife is a talented cook and our regional origins stretch across Italy from Sicily to Trentino South Tyrol, passing through Puglia, Abruzzo, and Lombardy.

We have a very large terrace where we grow vegetables and herbs almost all year round. For us, Mediterranean cuisine is all about fresh flavors and simple ingredients.

One of the dishes we like to serve our guests, at least on the first evening, is the much-maligned meatballs with spaghetti. My wife has a recipe from Puglia handed down from her grandmother which, once tasted, would dispel any doubts about the existence and goodness of the dish, even among purists of Italian cuisine who write so much on social media and know so little about the countless traditions of our regions, which change and enrich the official recipes from town to town and door to door, in proportion to the biodiversity of ingredients that the peninsula has to offer.

What is the best thing a family can gain from the Dinehome experience?

Surely welcoming a stranger into your home, especially when you have children, is not something you do without fear. But when you welcome a guest from far away, curiously seeking a meal and the typical warmth of an Italian family environment, courtesy is never lacking, and suddenly you feel enriched by the feeling of having adopted a person into your family. You listen to their stories, fascinated by the distant realities in which you each live.

Would you like to share the most embarrassing moment with us?

The only awkward moment was during a discussion one evening about Italian coffee and how much we miss it when we are abroad, and why they insist on drinking dark sludge instead of finally adopting espresso (after all, we are forty years old, approaching the orthodoxy of the buongiornissimo). With my inhibitions loosened by an excellent beer, I added fuel to the fire by reproaching our German guest for the fact that in Germany they have not yet realized that what we consider an essential accessory for personal hygiene should be installed in the bathroom… Fortunately, she is an intelligent girl and did not point out my lapse in style :)

What was the best dinner you had with your host student?

Every evening was enjoyable, the children had a lot of fun and always asked our guest to stay and play a German board game we had bought in South Tyrol, which we call Non t’incacchiare (Mensch ärgere dich nicht!) in our family.

Best regards to all,

Angelo and family