Hey Presto! We Italycised English [Food]

Part One: Hungry for Italian?

Italian cuisine is the world’s most popular, according to YouGov. It is no surprise that the English language diet includes numerous Italian staples. In fact, some words are so well-integrated that we often forget they have Italian roots. This is a sweet-and-sour situation. Che bello [how wonderful] to see Italian loanwords on our menus and in our kitchens but che schifo [how disgusting] to hear ‘one oatˈ/lɑːteɪ/ and one /ɛksˈprɛsəʊ/, please mate’.

Espresso, whose very name reflects the fast, pressurised method of its making, translates into English, Portuguese and Spanish as ‘express’, expreso and expresso, respectively. But please do expressly drop the ‘x’ in English when any recovering pedant, like me, is within earshot. Be prepared to receive strange looks if you order bruschetta without a hard ‘k’, and even stranger ones if you ask for ‘penis pasta’. That double ‘n’ in penne is there for a reason. I’ll accept the plural panini over panino, though, because it’s always good to have a spare sandwich.

I don’t know what I’d do without pasta of the non-penis variety. Spaghetti Bolognese was probably the first proper meal I learnt to cobble together (setting the kitchen alight by attempting to make an omelette in an oversized wok notwithstanding). I didn’t opt for a quintessentially British cottage pie or toad-in-the-hole. Pasta is simple yet profound and has blessed us with a pantry full of quirkily-named carbs. From humble ‘strings’ of spaghetti and fancy ‘ribbons’ of fettuccine, right through to violent strozzapreti [priest stranglers], there’s a pasta type for everyone. Well, except fruitarians and strict no-carbers, who may prefer their conchiglie to be lontane dal dente [away from the tooth] rather than al dente [on the tooth]!

A largely unsung hero of Italian cuisine, the gnocco, continues to live in the starchy shadows of its durum wheat counterpart. Gnocchi means ‘knots of wood’, or ‘knuckles’ if traced back to nocche, and can be a little tricky for non-native Italian speakers to pronounce. The ‘gn’ in gnocchi is similar to the ‘ny’ sound in ‘canyon’ and ‘onion’ in English, and close to the Spanish letter ñ [enye] as heard in España. Listen here. Given the British love of potatoes in all their forms, it is quite astonishing that pasta’s predecessor, gnocchi, hasn’t risen [in popularity] as quickly as it does in the pan. Oh well, those taters gonna tate, let’s not be down in the dumplings about it.

La pizza is so ubiquitous that we often forget the word wasn’t coined in English. Much to the intrigue and/or repulsion of many traditional chefs, pizza continues to be reinvented across the globe. Deep-fried, pie, dessert, full breakfast, and bagel varieties can render pizza’s origini napoletane unrecognisable. Whatever their base, sauce and toppings of choice, it is estimated that the typical British person will consume over five thousand slices during their adult life. This equates to one and a half slices a week. If we are talking about pizza-sized slices, then I might just represent the average Brit for the first time in my life.

One of the most versatile cheeses in the Italian kitchen is ricotta, meaning ‘recooked’ or ‘cooked twice‘. An essential component of cannoli, cassata, malfatti, pasta alla Norma and ricotta granita, you would be forgiven for assuming that ricotta was invented in Italy. However, many agree that ricotta-making methods were first brought to Europe during the Arab conquest of Sicily in the ninth century. There is even evidence to suggest that Neolithic people discovered the very first iteration of ricotta. They noticed that whey, a by-product of their cheesemaking, could be magicked into additional (albeit not particularly ‘cheesy) cheese! Some people profess that ricotta isn’t even a cheese at all, just a mere dairy by-product. Fear not, ricotta lovers: if plant milk labelling precedent is anything to go by, cheekily uncheesy ricotta will remain. What’s more, vegan ricotta is going di bene in meglio [from strength to strength]! Whey-hey!

Words borrowed from other languages do not only continue to expand the English lexicon but also adorn the culture with new narratives, ideas and traditions. Many English native speakers are not particularly adept at communicating in foreign tongues but the universal language of food does much to bridge the gaps in vocabulary.

Part Two [Music] Coming Soon