So to avoid this she is often sending food over to my house so that she's sure that he at least get something nice to eat....
Parmigiàna - Aubergines with Parmesan cheese, tomatosauce and bechamelsauce, made in the oven......
Pasta (fazzoletti) con bieta - Pasta with chard. (The pasta is called "handkerchiefs because of the shape and size, it's really big....)
Some days ago I had a conversation with her and it went more or less like this:
Mother-in-law: ....do you eat during the day???
Me: Yes, of course. (What a silly question....!)
Mother-in-law: But what do you eat? Le "cazzate"?? (This is difficult to translate, but if you eat "le cazzate" you eat junk food or other food that's not made the way it "should be" or it might be that you eat the wrong food at the wrong time....)
Me: Oh no, I eat proper food. I don't even like "le cazzate"...
Mother-in-law: But do you make a hot meal every day?? (At the moment the thermometre shows 30+, but you need at hot meal every day!!) What do you really eat?
... At this point I'm starting to feel that this is kind of an interrogation of the third degree.... (Especially since I don't like to have two hot meals a day like the Italians have..... So, my answer is kind of vague........)
Me: Eeeehhmm..... I eat ...... eeeehmm..... I eat "the Norwegian way".
At this point I see that it dawns on my mother-in-law.... Everything that's not Italian is not worthy of being called food. So really, I guess I do eat "le cazzate" ....
And my mother-in-law is clearly not very happy with this answer.... Whaattttt??? Mangi alla norvegese?? ....... What??? Are you still eating "the Norwegian way?! Ma lascia perdere con il cibo norvegese!!! Mo' stai in Italia e hai bisogno di cibo che ti da l'energia!! Stop eating this (stupid) food. Now you're living in Italy and you need food that gives you energy....!!! Lascia perdere davvero... You really need to stop!
And then she gave me a whole list of things that are so easy to make that even I ought to manage.... (I wonder how I survived before..??!?)
And the day after her son - my husband - came home with this.... And it's still 30 degrees.... (Oh well, so my husband will survive yet another day......)
Pasta e fagioli - pasta with beans
In addition my mother-in-law had sent me "gli odori" - some vegetables that you use when making Italian food..
And since a Norwegian and an Italian is literally on "different planets" when it comes to what kind of food you're preparing and eating - and the time of the day when you eat it... I didn't have the right stuff in the fridge to make whatever my mother-in-law wanted me to make. But, since I knew that she would ask me what I used them for the next time we talk I had to use them. So I used them to make a "soffritto" (Taken from Wikipedia: it's a combination of onions, carrots, and celery. Either raw, roasted or sautéed with butter, it's the flavor base for a wide number of dishes, such as stocks, soups, stews and sauces. The three ingredients are commonly referred to as aromatics.)
And so (yes, I have to admit that I'm really really ashamed...) I used this in a "frozen-soup" that I had in the freezer...
And lucky for me, my camera didn't work when I was going to take a picture of the final result. So nobody gets to see "le cazzate" that I made. Hooray!! But at least I can tell my mother-in-law that I used the aromatics for a soup. I have a clean conscience!!!!! Almost...
4 comments:
i am back from Greece weighing 2 kilos more.... mothers like mothers in low...
I guess mothers from south Europe are all the same... Afraid that you're going to die if you don't stuff yourself until the point that you're feeling ill....
My mother-in-law is very proud of herself because I put on some kilos when I moved here, due to her cooking.... ;-)
Typical - anything that isn't Italian isn't worth eating :-D My aunts think that way too!
I use a soffritto as base for my cooking too - only I use another variation, which is olive oil, garlic and onion. Parsley, carrots and/or celery might be added depending on the dish.
Ciao, in fact I also use olive oil and garlic in the soffritto and then I add other stuff. But I think there's just as many ways to prepare the soffritto as there's Italian in Italy....
But it's funny that almost all Italians think the same way about foreign food.... And I feel like I'm committing some sort of crime when I make Norwegian food here in Italy....
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