Learn Italian with a Real-Life Conversation | Family, Food, Conversation at Dinner | Italian Podcast

A Real Italian Conversation: Family, Food, and Chaos at the Dinner Table | Italian Podcast 🇮🇹

Ever wondered what it’s really like to be at a family dinner in Italy? Forget the quiet, romantic restaurant scenes from movies. This is the real, unfiltered, beautiful chaos of an Italian family dinner—the shouting, the laughter, the decades-old arguments, the recipes that taste like love, and the nonna who rules the kitchen with a wooden spoon.

In this special episode of ItalianPod, we don’t give you a language lesson. Instead, we invite you to pull up a chair and immerse yourself in the sounds, stories, and soul of Italy that travel shows never capture. You’ll experience a genuine conversation between Italians, exploring the deep connection between family, identity, and the food on our plates.

👂 You will experience:

Real, Spoken Italian: Listen to the language as it’s actually spoken—fast, overlapping, full of dialect, emotion, and gestures you can almost see.

The North vs. South Divide: A lively discussion between hosts from Napoli and Milano on different family rhythms, traditions, and even what time dinner is served!

The Language of Love & Food: Learn why not finishing your plate can be an insult and how a simple “Mangia!” means so much more than “eat.”

Cultural Secrets Unpacked: Why does your aunt ask if you’ve lost weight? Why do Italians talk with their hands? Why does every argument end with someone passing the bread?

The Heart of the Home: Understand how a simple dinner table becomes a sacred space for sharing joy, grief, gossip, and unconditional love.

This is more than a podcast; it’s an audio documentary, a cultural deep dive, and an Italian language immersion all in one. Don’t worry if you don’t understand every word! The emotion, rhythm, and passion are universal. We’ll help you grasp the key phrases and meanings along the way.

🍷 Chapters / Timestamps:
0:00 Welcome to Our Table
1:30 This Isn’t a Lesson, It’s an Experience
3:15 Napoli vs. Milano: A Tale of Two Dinners
10:45 The Sacred Ritual of Sunday Lunch
15:20 “Mangia!”: Food as a Language of Love
22:10 The Third Degree: When Nonno Asks When You’ll Get Married
28:45 The Art of the Italian Gesture (You Have to Imagine It!)
35:10 Litigating Politics, Then Passing the Bread
42:00 The Stories That Bind Us: Memories at the Table
50:30 The Silence That Speaks Volumes
58:15 Three Generations at One Table
1:05:00 A Tour of Italy on a Plate: From Piedmont to Sicily
1:15:10 How to Be a Guest at an Italian Dinner (Survival Guide!)
1:20:00 Grazie per essere stati con noi (Thank you for being with us)

📚 KEY ITALIAN VOCABULARY FROM THIS EPISODE:

Famiglia – Family

Cena – Dinner

Tavolo – Table

Nonna – Grandmother

Ragù – A rich, slow-cooked meat sauce

Parmigiana – Eggplant parmesan

Mangia! – Eat!

Allora… – So…/Well… (The ultimate Italian conversation starter)

Che schifo! – How disgusting! (Often used ironically to mean “this is amazing!”)

Basta – Enough

Dolce far niente – The sweetness of doing nothing

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What’s your family dinner like? What’s the one dish that tastes like home to you? Share your stories and food traditions in the comments below! We love hearing from you.

#LearnItalian #ItalianPodcast #ItalianCulture #ItalianFood #FamilyDinner #ItalianLanguage #ImmersiveItalian #RealItalian #Italy #LanguageLearning #Nonna #ItalianFamily #ItalianConversation

Hello everyone, welcome back to ItalianPod. How wonderful to have you with us again tonight, just as if you were sitting at our table at home. Today we’re not talking about a dinner. Today we’re taking you inside a dinner. One of those long, noisy evenings, filled with gestures, flavors, bickering, and laughter. The ones where time seems to stand still, even though it’s actually running as fast as ever. Exactly. This episode is a little different. It’s not a lecture, it’s not an interview. It’s a true story, lived, breathed. It’s an Italian family dinner. With everything that comes with it. The love, the chaos, the heavy silences, the sudden memories, the flowing wine, and that munching you’ve felt since birth. We thought, why not let you experience what it feels like to sit at the table in an Italian home. Not a restaurant, not a scene from a movie. A real home. With your grandmother yelling from the kitchen, your grandfather complaining about the price of bread, your uncle telling the same joke for 40 years, and your cousin trying to eat without being noticed because he’s had a fight with his girlfriend. Yes, this is the heart of Italy you don’t always see in documentaries. Not just pasta and mandolins, but also your mother’s hands kneading dough while she talks to her sister on the phone. Or your father pouring red wine as if it were water, saying it’s a digestive aid. Even the doctor says so. We’ll talk about food, of course, but above all about what food represents. Identity, belonging, memory. How a simple soup can tell the story of generations. How an argument at the table always ends with someone passing you the bread. You’ll hear real Italian spoken quickly, sometimes overlapping, with dialects, interruptions, and gestures you can’t see but must imagine. Don’t worry if you don’t understand every single word. It’s not necessary. The important thing is to feel the rhythm, the warmth, the soul. And then, between courses, we’ll explain something more. Why are certain phrases said like that? Why do some homes eat at seven and others at nine? Why does your aunt ask you if you’ve lost weight? As if it were both a compliment and an accusation. Yes, indeed. This is the heart of Italy that you don’t always see in documentaries. Not just pasta and mandolins, but also your mother’s hands, kneading the dough while she talks to her sister on the phone. Or your father, who pours red wine as if it were water, saying it’s a digestive, even the doctor says so. In short, tonight we’re not just two people talking about language and culture. We’re two children, two grandchildren, two friends, two people who’ve spent hours at that table, and we want to share that moment with you. So, turn off the outside world for a moment, turn on some warm lights, maybe make yourself a herbal tea, a glass of wine, and sit with us. At seven o’clock sharp, at my parents’ house in Naples, the sauce has already been boiling for an hour. Not one of those quick sauces, ready in half an hour, ready and gone. No, I’m talking about a ragù that started cooking at five, with the onions slowly sautéing, the meat sizzling, the tomatoes splashing against the sides of the pot, and my mother occasionally glancing at it and saying it’s not ready yet, it needs time. Whereas here in Milan, at that hour, we’re all still out and about. My dad leaves the office, my mom comes back from shopping, I might be arriving from a meeting or a university class. No one thinks about dinner before eight-thirty, sometimes nine. And when I finally get home? It’s already a mess. My grandmother yells from the kitchen, “Giovanni, are you coming to taste it?” Even though I know perfectly well I shouldn’t taste anything, because if I say it’s good, She changes it anyway. Too much garlic? Too much salt? Tell me straight. But if I answer, she looks at me askance. Better to shut up and eat. Everything here is quieter, more calculated. My mother sets the table at ten past eight. Linen tablecloth, straight cutlery, glasses lined up. Even if there are three of us and we eat in the kitchen. Even if the dish is a salad and a bit of cheese. She does it anyway. She says that the table is respect. Respect. In my house, respect is eating with your hands the parmigiana your grandmother fried especially for you and always having a full plate, even if you say no thanks, I’m fine. Is it your aunt who pours you wine while you’re still halfway through your other glass and says, ‘You don’t like it?’ Yes, but sometimes I miss that chaos. Sometimes I look at my tidy, clean, almost too quiet kitchen and think, ‘Where are the noises?’ Where are the overlapping voices? Where are the hands flying in the air while we’re discussing Napoli or politics?’ It’s just that in the south the house never ends inside the walls it opens onto the balconies on the alleys on the terraces in Naples at this time of summer everyone is outside the tables are in the street the children are running the grandmothers are screaming from the clothes hanging out Antonio at the table and you know that if you don’t arrive right away your mother will send someone to get you by force in Milan instead we often eat at home with the window closed because of the heat or the cold the balconies are there but they are small with two chairs and a dying plant and if you eat outside it’s because it’s booked in a nice place not because your grandmother has a lot on the terrace with the checked tablecloth but you know something when it rains in Naples everything gets smaller it gets shorter the table in the kitchen gets closer narrow with the yellow light the steam from the dishes that fogs up my grandfather’s glasses and outside the rain beats on the floors as if it wanted to come in too and in Milan when it rains we eat first we are in a hurry anyway after I have to go out tomorrow I get up early I have glue on my new clothes the time is always tense while in your house it seems that time doesn’t exist in fact in my house the Dinner has no timetable, it ends when it ends, sometimes at half past nine, sometimes at midnight, it depends on who’s talking, who’s coming, who’s telling a story that’s ten minutes long and then lasts an hour. One time my uncle started talking about the earthquake of ’80 and we were still there at eleven hearing about how he saved the neighbor’s dog, and meanwhile outside the world goes on, trains leave, offices close, shops lower their shutters, but there at that table nothing can interrupt it, it’s as if time bends just for you, exactly, it’s the only moment of the day when everyone stops, the father stops reading the newspaper, the mother stops clearing the table , the son puts down the phone, and even if they’re all talking at once, even if no one’s really listening, they’re all present, it’s true, at our house, sometimes we’re all sitting at the same table, but everyone ‘s somewhere else, my brother with his headphones, my father checking his email, me replying to a message, we eat, yes , but we don’t have dinner, that’s the point, in my house we don’t have dinner to eat, we have dinner to be together, even if you argue, even if you don’t like the sauce, even if your cousin is unpleasant, you have to sitting there because the table is sacred and when I was little I didn’t understand it I thought that in Milan it was more civilized more modern now instead I ask myself but who is right who has really understood what family means maybe no one maybe everyone because even if the way changes the need is the same to have a place to return to where they wait for you where they yell at you if you don’t arrive but then they leave you a place near the oven because you eat better when you’re warm and you know what I’m telling you that maybe in the end it doesn’t matter if you eat at seven or nine if you use a cloth napkin or a paper one if you speak loudly or it’s whispered the important thing is that there’s a table and that there are people around who watch you while you eat and smile even if your mouth is full even if you have juice on your chin because that’s home so let’s talk about what’s really on the plate because in my house on Sundays we don’t joke around when you get to my parents’ house at two in the afternoon you already know what awaits you an hour of appetizers two hours of first courses another of second courses and then well then the serious part begins the dessert the coffee the liqueur and the discussions that last until late at night while when I get home on Sundays I often find my mother who has prepared a light table outside on the balcony raw ham stracchino cherry tomatoes olives a nice focaccia genovese and a glass of vermentino everything cold fresh quick in the kitchen it’s too hot to turn on the stove she always says it’s just us but you eat like this every day in the summer more or less in Milan in the summer if you turn on the oven at three in the afternoon you risk setting off the fire alarm no really once my father made pizza and we had to open all the doors windows and turn on the fans for two hours since then no more oven from June to September in Naples instead we turn on the oven even at 40 degrees my grandmother says I don’t feel the heat when I cook the heat I feel when I’m not eating and then for us the kitchen is not just a place where you prepare food it is the heart of the house if there is no smell of sauce or fried food it seems like something is missing I understand but for us in certain periods dinner is almost an escape from the heat we eat early we eat light we drink a lot and above all we sit outside on the balcony in the courtyard sometimes even on the street if there is a free table but tell me the truth when you eat so light you feel really full because if I don’t eat a well-made first course with the sauce that sticks to your fork I don’t feel right it’s as if the day is not complete I understand but sometimes after a salad with tuna a little cheese and a piece of bread I feel better lighter less heavy and then let’s face it not every day you can live as if it were Sunday at home your mother ah but you have never tasted my Lapoletan ragù the real one the one that cooks for four hours with the meat that melts the tomato that becomes almost a red oil and that bottom of the pan that my mother scrapes off with the wooden spoon and gives you on a separate plate as if it were a prize this is for you she says and you eat it with a piece of bread and you know it’s the best thing you’ve ever eaten in your life ok I have to admit you made me hungry but you know what strikes me is that in the south food is almost a ritual it’s slow abundant sacred while in the north it’s often more functional sure we love to eat too but we don’t always have four hours to dedicate to a sauce and instead you should because time in food is not wasted it’s time given to love my mother says that the ragù is never perfect she says it every time this time it was a little too sweet this time it was missing a bit of basil this time the meat was less tender but I would eat it every day even if it was burnt but think about it this difference is not just between north and south it’s also between city and countryside between families rich and poor between those who have time and those who don’t my cousin lives in a small village in Tuscany she still makes pasta at home every Saturday with her grandmother in the kitchen with flour everywhere but in Milan many of my friends buy ready-made pasta and put a jar of sauce on top I don’t have time they say and yet even we in the south have poor cuisine my grandmother when she was young made panzanella with stale bread tomato sauce from the balcony a drizzle of oil and a little onion nothing special but today they serve it in restaurants for 20 euros a portion and you know why it was good because it was made with what was available and because even if they had nothing it never lacked flavor it’s true even in Milan certain dishes are born out of necessity Milanese risotto for example was born because saffron was a way to give color to a simple dish or the cassuola a cabbage and pork rind soup that was the way to use the parts of the pig that no one wanted today is a winter specialty with restaurants that put it on display this is what I like that the humblest things become sacred that food is not only nourishment but memory when you eat your grandmother’s parmigiana you are not just eating aubergines and mozzarella you are eating her hands her sweat her way of saying I love you without ever telling you and sometimes a smell is enough to take you back twenty years if I smell the butter frying with the onion I burst into tears because it is the smell of the kitchen of my Milanese grandmother who made risotto every Sunday with the wooden spoon that was stirred slowly and she would say wait it’s not ready yet the risotto needs time you see even in the north there is time it just hides behind precision while here it explodes in the middle of the table and then there are the Stories behind every dish like the one about your aunt who always puts too much garlic ah aunt Carmela the queen of bad breath once made the sauce and after dinner no one dared to kiss anyone my cousin went to greet the girl at the door and she took a step back and said you ate and he my aunt but in the end everyone ate it anyway and actually came back for seconds of course because garlic doesn’t just kill germs it also kills inhibitions and anyway in the family who cares about your breath the important thing is that the food is good and that you eat it and if you don’t eat it then it’s a drama you don’t like it you don’t feel well you’re angry with me because in our country if you don’t eat it it’s like you’re rejecting love my mother once cried because I left some pasta on the plate you don’t like my cooking anymore I know even in our country if you don’t finish your plate your mother looks at you as if you’ve insulted her existence but you know what the difference is at least with us they don’t cry they sigh oh well I’ll eat it they say and do it disappear in a moment but the meaning is the same eating is an act of love and not eating is an affront that’s why when you’re a guest in someone’s house in Italy you can never say no thank you with too much conviction you always have to say just a little because if you say no they look at you as if you were sick or worse as if you didn’t trust them exactly eat because it’s good for you eat because you’re too thin eat because tomorrow I don’t know if I’ll see you and in the end you eat not because you’re hungry but because you want to make them happy because you want to be part of the circle because food is not just food it’s language it’s belonging it’s family and even when the dish is simple it’s always full of meaning so imagine this scene we’re all at the table Sunday afternoon the sauce has been served the parmigiana is steaming the wine flows my mother runs between the kitchen and the table my father holds the newspaper even while he eats and my grandmother checks that everyone has a full plate and at a certain point silence a moment of calm too calm and you know what happens in those moments of silence everything explodes in fact not even ten seconds pass before I hear the voice of my grandfather stern like a judge Giovanni just like that Giovanni with That tone means the third degree is starting now, and what are you doing? I freeze, fork in mid-air, eyes downcast, tell me, isn’t he when are you getting married? He sighs, that’s the classic, but it’s not over yet, before I can answer, Aunt Maria enters the scene, the one who knows everything about everyone, have you seen that Maria, Teresa’s daughter, bought a house in Forte dei Marmi with two bathrooms and a parking space and she’s only 32 years old, and meanwhile she looks at me like I’m a failure who still lives with her mother, but you don’t live with your mother, I know , but for them, if you’re not married, you’re not a mute and you do a podcast instead of working in a bank, then yes, you live with your mother, period. And what does your father say? My father looks up from the newspaper and puts his glasses on the table. and take it easy, but this podcast is a real job, ah, here’s the low blow, exactly, and I try to explain, dad, it’s communication, it’s culture, people learn Italian, and he does, but do they pay you or do you do it as a hobby, and you? I smile, take a sip of wine, and say, dad, if it were a hobby, I wouldn’t spend eight hours a day on it, but he shrugs, goes back to the newspaper, and mutters, but once upon a time, young people were apprenticed in the shop, now they make podcasts, and in the meantime, who stays quiet? My cousin Luca, sitting in the back with his phone in his hand , eats in silence, eyes fixed on the screen until my mother sees him and shouts, Luca, take the phone away, you’re at the table, not at the disco, and him? He raises his head, smiles, puts the phone face down, and after two minutes, picks it up again, why? Why does he have to reply to a message, it’s important, mom, and she’s more important than family dinner? It’s incredible how certain scenes repeat themselves in every Italian home. In fact, it doesn’t matter if you’re in Palermo or Turin. At some point, someone asks you about marriage, someone else talks about money , and someone else judges you for the work you do. Do you know what strikes me? These questions aren’t meant to hurt, they’re meant to include you, to know that you’re part of the right group. When my aunt asks me when you’re getting married, she doesn’t say it to embarrass me. She says it because for her, marriage is security , order, real life. If you’re not married, for her, you haven’t arrived yet. When they tell you you’ve lost weight, it’s not a compliment, it’s a warning. If you’ve lost weight, it means you’re not well, you’re stressed, you’re not eating enough. Something’s wrong. And if you’ve gained weight, but what do you eat? You’re always in the kitchen, or worse, be careful, because at 50, problems all come at once. It’s true, in Milan, my mother always says to me, Alessia , have you lost weight? Are you okay? Or are you too busy? And I reply, I’m fine, Mom, I just changed my diet , and she says, but do you eat? Because if you don’t eat, you collapse. For Italians, the body speaks. If you don’t eat or if you eat too much, there’s always an emotional reason behind it. I’m hungry or I’m not hungry, it exists. I’m happy, I’m sad, I’m anxious, I’m running away from something. And the funny thing is, they never say it directly. They’ll never ask you how you’re feeling emotionally. No, they’ll ask you, are you hungry? Or why aren’t you eating? And if you say, I’m not hungry, they look at you as if you’d just said, I’m depressed, because for them, eating is living. If you don’t eat, it’s as if you’re giving up on life. And then there are jokes, teasing, things that seem mean but aren’t, like, “Are you hungry?” Like when my uncle sees me with a long beard and says, ” Have you lost love or have you become a philosopher?” and everyone laughs, and I laugh because it’s not an insult, it’s a way of saying, “I see you, you’ve changed, and that’s okay.” It’s true. Teasing in family is a secret language. If they tease you, it means you’re part of the group. If they don’t say anything to you, then you’re out of it. Right, when my cousin first put on glasses, he got a “Finally, finally, you can see clearly in love,” and he laughed because he knew it was affection. While my father, when he started losing his hair every Sunday, would hear, “What are you getting ready for summer?” “Have you discovered it’s more comfortable?” “Finally, you can wash your hair in ten seconds.” And he? He laughed because if you laughed, it was like saying, “Yes, I’m getting old, but I’m still here, and you see me.” It’s incredible how some families seem at war, but instead they’re united like no other. They argue, they yell, they interrupt, they tease each other, and then in the end, they pass the bread, they pour the wine, they hug each other before leaving. And do you know who the real ringleader is? he’s not always the strongest he’s not always the father no in my house the ringleader is my mother she never raises her voice she never says be quiet but when she gets up from the table everyone knows it’s over and no one dares to stop her here she’s my grandmother even if she now sits in the armchair she doesn’t cook anymore she speaks softly but when he opens his mouth everyone shuts up because he knows things that no one else knows because he has lived it all and when someone exaggerates when the discussion gets too heated when my father and my uncle start arguing about politics but that Berlusconi will return to the premiership at 80 years old and then Draghi what has he done ruined us it’s my grandmother who says enough pass me the bread and in a second everything is over it’s magic no it’s family and in that moment you understand that it doesn’t matter who is right what matters is that you are together that you feel that you tolerate each other that you love each other even when you undermine each other because in the end these dinners are never just about food they are about power of affection of hidden hierarchies of who decides who obeys who challenges who forgives and you even if you are the last to arrive even if you are only 20 years old even if you do a job that no one understands in that moment you are there in your place at the table and no one can take it away from you you know something that you never understand if you have never really been at an Italian table that there is no round of words there is no now he speaks then it’s your turn no it’s a wave a storm of voices that starts from the right ends on the left comes back it crosses itself it overlaps it explodes and if you don’t raise your voice they won’t hear you and it’s not anger in fact the louder they speak the happier they are the more they shout the more alive they are sometimes when I hear my father arguing with my uncle what are you saying it’s false no it’s you who doesn’t understand anything I think they’re arguing but no they’re laughing they’re eating they’re fine it’s as if the volume were the measure of heat if you speak softly it seems like you don’t care if instead you shout you wave your hands you bang the spoon on the table then yes you’re in you’re part of the game the silence the silence is terrible a minute of silence at the table and someone has to fill it my father for example as soon as you feel a moment of calm starts ah anyway yesterday I saw the mechanic and he told about when the car made a strange noise and no one had asked him anything but he does it because he can’t stand the emptiness exactly where we are if there’s silence someone says you’ve lost your tongue or but we’re at a funeral and immediately another story starts a joke a memory an argument anything just to keep quiet and then there are the gestures that even if you don’t see them you have to imagine them because without gestures Italian is not complete imagine my father when he talks about Napoli the hands fly in the air as if he were conducting an orchestra a finger pointing that damned referee then the hands cupped as if he were holding a ball and the goal was disallowed like that and then the gesture of the head shakes rolls his eyes says but what a drag and you don’t even need to speak sometimes a gesture is enough to say an entire sentence like palms of the hands raised fingers open what do you want? or the tight fingers moving back and forth you’re exaggerating or the hand cutting the air on your neck it’s over and if you don’t do them it seems like you’re not really talking my little cook when he came back from London he spoke with his hands in his pockets serious calm and my grandmother told him but they killed your soul over there but it’s true when you come back to Italy after a while of living abroad you realize that you speak too slowly too orderly and the family looks at you as if you were a robot because here speaking is not just transmitting information it’s expressing it’s feeling it’s showing that you’re alive and if you don’t shout you don’t gesture you don’t get agitated it seems like you ‘re not there and then you know what happens when they argue because at a certain point it always happens someone says something political someone else answers rudely and in two minutes it’s war but how can you vote for those fascists and you with those communists who want to tax everything but you’re stupid no it’s you who hasn’t studied they shout they stand up they point the finger and you think I’m about to call the police and instead two minutes later one says pass me the bread and the other one passes it to him without looking at him without smiling but he passes it to him and then after a while someone laughs and at that point everything starts again as if nothing had happened it’s incredible they argue as if It should end up in a fight and then they hug each other before leaving because for us arguing doesn’t mean hating each other it means I see you I hear you I care what you think and if you never argue with someone maybe you don’t care enough and that’s why there are proverbs the set phrases the sentences that come out like bolts from the blue like after the storm comes the calm my grandmother always says after an argument and everyone knows that it’s the signal okay enough now we move on or in the family you never give up my mother says when someone announces that they won’t come to Christmas dinner it doesn’t matter where you are the important thing is that you know that they’re waiting for you here and then there’s the one my father says when someone stops they give up whoever stops is lost and he doesn’t say it angrily he says it softly but everyone understands that it’s a lesson because in Italy stories and proverbs are like grandparents who are always present you don’t see them but they are there and when someone says it it seems like the whole family stops for a moment because you know that that phrase isn’t just from today it’s from generations my grandfather for example every time someone complains about work He says bread never fell from the sky and he says it in a tone that doesn’t allow for any arguments because he walked 40 kilometers a day to bring home dinner and if you complain because you have to stay in the office until 6 well for him it doesn’t exist and my grandmother when someone is sad always tells the same story during the war my sister and I walked for days with only a piece of dry bread and when we divided it into three because there was also a child we didn’t know then I understood that hunger is not only in the stomach it is in the heart and you believe it I don’t know maybe the story isn’t exactly like that maybe it’s a little romanticized but it doesn’t matter because when he tells it everyone gets quiet and someone wipes away a tear and you understand that it’s not the historical truth that counts it’s the truth of the feeling and that’s why the elderly are the kings of the dinner because they don’t just say things they tell lives and when they talk it seems like time stops even my cousin who never looks up from his phone when my grandfather starts talking about the earthquake of ’80 puts his cell phone away because he knows that you don’t hear those words anywhere else and at a certain point during dinner someone says tell us about when you met grandma and then all around the noise drops the forks stop the wine stays in the glass and he starts it was 1963 I was 23 I worked at the port and one day I saw her with a red dress and in that moment you’re no longer at the table you’re in another time in another Naples in another Milan in another Italy and you understand that dinner is not just food it’s memory it’s identity it’s the way we say we are here and we have been here and we will continue to be here because yes we argue yes we believe yes we make fun of each other but when someone starts telling everyone listens because in the end we are all hungry for stories more than pasta you know when after the dessert after the coffee after the limoncello that your mother poured you because it’s good for digestion slowly the noise subsides the children are tired they snuggle on the sofa someone turns on the TV but without the sound and suddenly the table is no longer just a place where you eat it becomes a place where you really talk it’s like If dinner had two souls, the first would be chaos, arguments, laughter, jokes, the wine flowing, the plates turning, the second would be silence, what comes after when everyone is full, relaxed, and finally opens up , and often it’s precisely in that moment that something important happens, something that would never happen amidst the din, like that time your cousin said she was leaving her husband, yes, we were all on the terrace with the lights low, the mosquitoes buzzing , and the wind moving the plants, my uncle was telling us about when he stole the car at 16, and everyone laughed when my cousin Anna quietly said, “I’ve decided to leave Marco,” and the silence. Immediately, no one shouted, no one asked why, no one said, “You’re crazy.” Everyone stopped, put down their coffee cups, looked at her, and then my mother stood up, poured her another limoncello, and simply said , ” Do you want another?” She nodded without speaking, and after a minute, my father said, ” If you need a house, you know where to find us, that’s it.” No questions, no judgments. We’re just here. It’s beautiful because in that moment, she didn’t need to explain, she needed to feel welcomed, and they did it without drama, without a scene, just with a gesture. And do you know what struck me? That no one said, “Poor you,” or “That’s a bastard,” because in a family, certain things aren’t said, they’re understood, and you act. It’s true, in our country, one evening, my father said, “They’ve offered me a job in Zurich,” and he took a sip of grappa as if he’d just announced he’d run out of bread. And what did you think? I felt a pit in my stomach because I knew it wouldn’t be easy that it would mean seeing him less that he would only be far away but I looked at my mother and she didn’t say anything she just nodded then she got up went to the kitchen and brought a bottle of old sparkling wine that she was keeping for a special occasion not to celebrate but to honor the exact moment to say I know it’s difficult I know I’ve changed but we’re with you here’s the beauty of Italian dinners that the most serious things are never said directly there’s never I’m sad I’m scared I feel alone no they say I’m not hungry tonight or I leave a little sauce on the plate or I go to bed early and those who know you understand because they know that I’m not hungry it doesn’t mean a full stomach it means a heavy heart my grandmother when she was sad always did the same thing she stopped singing in the kitchen for years every time she turned on the stove she hummed o sole mio then after my grandfather’s death she stopped without saying anything and no one asked her but everyone knew and sometimes sadness comes with a very small detail my mother for example She stopped working the Sunday shift for 40 years, every week she took out the pan, the flour, the eggs , and now for a year nothing, and I’ve never asked her why, but I know it’s because Dad adored her, and now maybe it’s too painful , yet no one talks about this, no one says Mom, are you sad about Dad, because in Italy, emotions are often not confessed, they show themselves, they hide in gestures, in glances, in silence, and when someone tries to speak directly, sometimes they don’t know how to react. Exactly, once at dinner I said, I’m going through a difficult time, I feel a little lost, and for a moment it seemed like I’d broken something. My father coughed, my mother looked at the ceiling, my sister asked, “Did you eat well today?” Of course, the Italian response to feeling bad is “Eat something,” and then after a minute, my grandfather said, “When I was your age, I lost my job, my girlfriend, and my house, and now, now, I’m drinking my coffee and looking at the sea.” He put his arm around my shoulders without hugging me tightly, just like that, in that moment, you understood that he had heard you, yes , because he didn’t give me advice, he didn’t tell me courage, or Everything will be okay, he just reminded me that he too had been through the darkness and that he had come out of it, and you know what I learned, that in Italy love is not spoken, it is done, you pour another glass of wine, you leave a place near the oven for someone who is cold, you hide a piece of cake for those who arrive late, you clear your child’s plate without letting them notice, and when someone is suffering , you don’t tell them, cry, you tell them, eat, it’s good for you, and you say it with your gaze lowered because you too are afraid of crying, it’s a culture of silence full of shared pain, without words, of support that doesn’t need to be expressed, and maybe that’s why certain emotions only explode after years, like when my grandfather, after the death of his dog, a beast he had had for 15 years, sat down in the kitchen and took the empty bowl. he looked at her for a long time and said she was the only one who really listened to me and he cried for the first time since I knew him and you? I cried with him and in that moment I understood that he hadn’t cried for the dog, he had cried for loneliness, for the time that passes, for the people who leave and for all the things he had never said and maybe that was the truest conversation I’ve ever heard at the table without words, without arguments, without jokes, just two empty plates, a dead dog and an old man who finally said I need it and no one answered because there was nothing to say, just to be and after all, maybe that’s the true meaning of dinner, not eating, not talking, not arguing, being present even in silence and knowing that even when you don’t say anything, someone sees you and pours you another coffee because they know you haven’t finished and haven’t even started, you know something, dinner doesn’t end when the table is cleared, in fact in Naples they say the real evening begins after the coffee because when the plate is empty, the wine is finished and the dessert has been devoured down to the last crumb, then yes, it really begins, it’s as if the body was full but the soul had just opened its eyes, everything slows down, the voices are lowered, the children are still running but slowly, as if they too felt that there’s something different in the air and instead of getting up and leaving you settle better into the chair you stretch your legs you light a cigarette and think I’m not in a hurry and meanwhile the coffee always arrives even if you said no thanks my mother still brings an espresso just to clear the stomach and after the coffee limoncello in the south is sacred my aunt makes it with the lemons from the terrace and has it in the freezer since June it’s for digestion she says but we all know it’s for spending a little longer together in the north instead in the north it’s often grappa or a Tuscan bitter dark as the night my grandmother has always drunk a small glass after dinner it’s for the stomach she says but I think it’s for the memory because her husband drank it too and now every evening it’s as if she’s inviting him to sit with her and who does the dishes? This is an age-old battle in my house, it’s clear: women in the kitchen, men in the living room. My mother, my sister, my aunt, all washing, scrubbing, and drying while the boys enjoy the newspaper , the TV news, or a game of cards. It was like this until ten years ago, then slowly something changed. My brother started washing the dishes without anyone asking. My mother looked at him suspiciously. What do you want? Have you done something wrong? Exactly, as if it were a betrayal, but no. He said I want to help. And in twenty years, if I don’t know how to wash a dish, who will do it for me. And slowly, even my father has started clearing the table. Not everything, but at least the glasses. And when he does, my mother makes fun of him. But look, the gentleman has deigned to do it, but you can see she’s proud. It’s a slow but true change. In my house now, if my cousin gets up and goes to the kitchen to wash a dish, the others look at him as if he’s performed a miracle. Have you converted? Did you argue with your wife? But in the end, no one stops him, in fact, someone passes him a dishcloth and while this happens outside the evening transforms. In Milan we often sit on the balcony with a blanket over our legs in the winter with the fan on in the summer and there without any plan, without any rush, we talk about nothing at all. In Naples, on the other hand, we sit on the street on the sidewalk with two chairs, a low table and a glass of wine. The neighbors come out of their doors and join in. Someone lights a cigarette, someone else walks the dog and after eating for three hours you find yourself there talking about football, politics, who got married, who died, who opened a new bar. It’s the sweet idleness, that moment in which you do nothing but you feel full, exactly, there’s nothing to achieve, no goal, just stay, breathe, be, and often it’s precisely in those moments that the most beautiful things happen, like when my uncle after half an hour of silence he takes out a deck of cards and says who plays briscola and in two seconds a table is formed my father my cousin my uncle and I who don’t know how to play stay there watching laughing learning and in Naples it’s scopone scientifico a serious game with complicated rules fiery glances and bets of packs of cigarettes or a coffee at the bar my grandfather is a master he plays slowly calmly and then suddenly he throws a card and says closure and everyone explodes no but how and meanwhile the children run around the table playing hide and seek among the cars they scream laugh fall get up and the adults don’t say anything because they know that one day they too will be old and those noises those games will only be memories and the TV is often on but not to watch at my house they put Striscia la Notizia not because I like it but because it’s always been there it’s like the background noise of the family my ronno hates it but he doesn’t turn it off he says so much they talk about useless things yet every now and then he turns up the volume and says wait they talk about Naples in our country it’s the news my father watches it religiously even if he says that journalists all lie but I have to know what they say so I know what isn’t true and while they talk about politics of crises of wars we are there with cold coffee in hand thinking about how small the world is when you’re at home and you know what happens at eleven nothing no one says I’m going because we’re not going not yet even if there’s work tomorrow even if you’re tired even if you’re sleepy because leaving too early is like saying I don’t care and here instead it matters once a foreign friend came to dinner at our place at ten thirty he looked at the clock and said thank you it was beautiful but I have to go and my mother made a face as if she had announced she was about to die but how come you still haven’t had the coffee the ligoncello tomorrow’s dessert he poor thing didn’t understand for him it was late for us it had just begun because here time isn’t measured by the clock it’s measured by the heat when the heat ends then you can go and sometimes that heat lasts until midnight with the lights low the wine almost finished the cards shuffled for the umpteenth time and someone who speaks softly tells of when you met grandma and then silence again the ears pricked the heart stopped and In those moments you understand that you’re not just spending the evening, you’re building a memory of something that one day you’ll tell your children. Once at grandma’s house after dinner we talked until dawn, and maybe that’s the secret that dinner never really ends because even when you leave, you take with you the taste of the sauce, the sound of voices, the warmth of the limoncello, and the certainty that tomorrow, or the day after tomorrow, or next Sunday, you’ll be back because you know that the table will still be there and that they’ll be around with the same faces, the same arguments, the same stories, and even if you’ve changed, you’ll always be at home. You know something that no one teaches you in school: in Italy, it’s not enough to speak well, you have to speak alive, because at the table, the Italian you hear isn’t the one in books, it’s another language, warmer, faster, sometimes meaningless , but always with soul. Exactly, it’s an Italian that lives between a sip of wine and a forkful of pasta, an Italian made of gestures, tones, pauses that speak louder than words. And if you’ve never really heard it, today we’ll give it to you, so make yourself comfortable, close your eyes if you want, and imagine yourself sitting here with us because Now we’ll take you into the real language of the family, the one you don’t find in dictionaries. Let’s start with things that aren’t words but count as if they were. For example, “famous.” Then you hear it all the time. Then “Giovanni, pass me the bread.” Then yesterday at the market I saw your aunt. So what do you say? Should we eat this cake or not? Then it’s the bridge between thoughts. Breathing before speaking sometimes means nothing and sometimes it means everything. It’s like a cough, but verbal, yes. And then there’s, well , that’s even better. In short, I don’t understand why you didn’t get married. In short, Napoli lost again, in short, eat something , you’re pale, in short, it’s grandma’s secret weapon, when she says it, you know a sermon is coming, it’s like a warning, I’m about to tell you the truth and you can’t escape me, and then there’s it, so it ‘s used mostly by middle-aged men when they’re about to tell a long story, so in 1987 I was working at Fiat, so I once saw Berlusconi at the bar, and you’re already like, you won’t be out for an hour, but the king of all these fillers, I don’t know , maybe , well, it’s the only sound that can express surrender, sarcasm, sadness, resignation, and even a little affection, all in one syllable, it’s Italian in a nutshell. Now let’s talk about those phrases that if you hear them for the first time, you think, “This family hates each other,” but no, they’re the most sincere, for example, how disgusting, imagine your grandma putting a steaming plate of baked pasta in front of you and your uncle looking at it and saying “how disgusting,” and you thinking, “No, he said it’s bad,” instead he starts eating and asks for a second one , because what? disgusting doesn’t mean I don’t like it it means it’s so good I can’t believe it it’s irony affection disguised as criticism another example you’re stupid you’re stupid eat you’re stupid you don’t like Aunt Carmela’s wine it’s like a verbal hug if they don’t tell you you’re not one of the family and then there is you’re exaggerating said with fingers moving back and forth as if you were pushing something away you’re exaggerating with the salt you’re exaggerating with the work you’re exaggerating with the phone here this is one of the most Italian phrases of all because after all in Italy everything is an exaggeration food love pain joy and if you don’t exaggerate you’re not alive now a little lesson an idiom that you don’t find in books but that you hear every Sunday having your hands in the dough literally having your hands in the dough but in reality it means being involved in everything my aunt has her hands in every family decision the mayor has his hands in everything and it’s beautiful because it comes right from the kitchen when your grandmother kneads the dough and everyone wants to help but actually they just want to check let me do it no it’s not good like this but can’t you see the pastry is too thick that’s what it’s like to have your hands in the dough but there’s also another rarer but very powerful expression being in the family like dried figs ah yes it means a tense atmosphere dry without sweetness dried figs are hard sticky difficult to chew just like certain family dinners after an argument after Uncle Marco said those things about the politician we were all like dried figs and no one speaks everyone eats slowly no one laughs and the wine stops flowing but then after a while someone says pass me the bread and it all starts again and now the real secret at the table Italian often disappears and in its place dialect comes out even in families that speak Italian all day when the voices are raised when there is an argument when there is a joke the perfect dialect comes out in Naples for example when my grandmother shouts she comes to eat she doesn’t say she comes to eat she says mangia which is Neapolitan and do you know why? Because eating is stronger, hotter, more real. It’s the word she’s used for 60 years, even in the north of Milan. My grandmother, when she’s angry, says ” te sei un bagai,” which means “you’re rude.” She says it in Milanese dialect because in that moment, it’s not just a phrase, it’s a tradition that speaks through her. And then there are the small regional differences that seem like nothing but are everything. For example, a napkin in Milan is a napkin. In Naples, it’s a napchino, from the French “napkin,” passed through English, and distorted by Neapolitan. And pizza? In Naples, pizza is sagra, it’s round, tall, with a soft crust. In Genoa, pizza is a low, savory focaccia with oil and onions. If you say pizza in Genoa and expect a margherita, you’ll be disappointed, but it’s beautiful this way because every word, every dish, every accent tells a different story. And now the most important thing is the tone of voice. because in Italy it’s not what you say it’s how you say it take the phrase “are you fine” if you say it with a sweet voice it’s affection you’re fine love but if you say it with a loud voice the eyebrow raised and a bit of suspicion it becomes an accusation you’re fine but look you’re pale I don’t think you’re fine at all exactly it’s as if the question was just the cover the real message is in the tone and the same goes for “eat” if you say it softly with a smile it’s a caress eat it’s good for you if you say it with a fixed gaze the fork pointed is an order eat and you eat because you know it’s not just food it’s love it’s fear it’s control it’s all together and then there’s silence after a sentence for example did you see who was at the market today? your aunt and in those two seconds a perfect movie happens so if one day you find yourself having dinner in an Italian house don’t worry if you don’t understand every word listen to the rhythm the volume the pauses the laughter the shouts look at the hands flying imagine the gestures you can’t see and if someone tells you you’re stupid while I fill your plate smile because in that moment you’re at home because the real Italian isn’t learned in school it’s learned at the table and we’ve been teaching it for generations you know something that came to mind a little while ago that at every dinner there are always three generations sitting around the same table but each with a different world inside and I’m not just talking about age I’m talking about the way of seeing family food time love yes it’s true and if you close your eyes you can clearly see the grandmother the mother and us those who today are in last place who yesterday were children stealing cheese from the plate while no one was looking three women three eras three ways of being at the table let’s start with the grandmother because the grandmother is not just a person she is a force of nature here she is who arrives first in the kitchen that she removes the table cover at five in the afternoon and puts the water on to boil even though there are still two hours left until dinner and when she enters the kitchen she enters with authority she doesn’t shout she doesn’t threaten but everyone knows that from that moment on she’s in charge grandma can I taste the sauce no because because it’s not ready yet and if you taste it then it changes flavor and you don’t argue because you know that for her food isn’t just for eating it’s sacred it’s memory it’s order and then there’s the golden rule at the table you stay quiet when grandpa speaks even if grandpa says things that don’t make sense even if he talks about politics and gets the names of the ministers wrong even if he repeats the same story from 1968 for the tenth time when he speaks everyone is silent and if someone interrupts grandma she glares at them not a word is necessary but you know what the most beautiful thing of all is that no matter how strict she is, no matter how much she controls every detail the salt the pepper the cooking of the pasta, grandma is also the most tender because while everyone eats she observes and if she sees that someone is eating slowly who has their eyes down who doesn’t laugh then She secretly hides a piece of cake in her napkin and after dinner, when everyone’s out, she calls you, comes here, and offers you the cake wrapped in cloth for you when you’re really hungry, and that’s when you understand that grandma doesn’t just rule the kitchen, she rules the heart of the family; she’s the memory, the tradition, the continuity, without her, the table isn’t the same, and then there’s the mother, the middle generation, the one between two worlds. On the one hand, she learned from her mother respect for food, attention to detail, the duty to keep the family together. On the other, she lives in the present, has a job, a cell phone, a life outside the home, so what does she do? She adapts, exactly, my mother still makes grandma’s risotto with the same soffritto, the same broth, the same cooking time , but she does it with the food processor, and when grandma sees her , she rolls her eyes. What? She doesn’t know how to hold a knife? And my mother smiles, mom, I have a Zoom meeting in 20 minutes, and yet she doesn’t betray anything. The flavor is the same, the love is the same, only time changes, and it’s not just in the kitchen, it’s in everything. My mother still asks me when you’re getting married but then the next day she sends me a link to an apartment for rent, look, it’s nice, isn’t it? and she has a big kitchen yes that’s the beauty of it the mother doesn’t live in the past but she doesn’t deny it she tells you you have to respect the family but then she helps you say no thanks when your uncle offers you a job you don’t want she teaches you how to make fresh pasta but she doesn’t get angry if you freeze it in portions because she understands she knows that the world has changed she knows that not everyone can spend six hours in the kitchen every Sunday but she still transmits the value it’s not the time that counts it’s the intention if you make grandma’s sauce even if you make it late on Saturday night even if you freeze it even if you heat it up in the microwave you’re still with them and then there’s us the generation that grew up with the phone in our hand who traveled who saw other ways of living we who say they want to keep the traditions but then we add in my own way for example I make Neapolitan ragù every Sunday four hours of cooking meat tomato onion a pinch of sugar but I make it in my studio apartment in Rome I freeze it in jars and sometimes I eat it alone in front of the TV and my mother says to me but why don’t you make it when you come home and I answer because I want the scent to be here, the flavor to be with me even when you’re not here, and I invite friends to dinner, but not because it has to be done, because I like it, because I want them to taste my grandmother’s risotto, because I want to tell the story of the Parma ham she bought on the black market in 1973, because I want them to hear the sound of the cutlery, the warmth of the wine, the chaos of the overlapping voices, because for us, tradition isn’t an obligation, it’s a choice, and maybe that’s exactly why it survives, because if it were just duty, it would already be dead, but if it’s love, then it changes shape, but not heart. You know, once after my grandmother died, we had a dinner at her house, all the children, grandchildren, brothers-in-law, there were 14 of us, and my mother prepared her grandmother’s lasagna, the same recipe, the same pan, the same oven, and when she brought it to the table, no one spoke. We took the fork, we stuck it on the plate, and in that moment, we all cried, with the fork in hand, without screaming, without hugging, just tears and mouthfuls of lasagna, yes , when I make the sauce, of my grandmother at a certain point I close my eyes and I hear her voice slower Giovanni the sauce rushes by nothing and then I lower the heat I stir with the wooden spoon and for an hour I don’t think of anything only of the cooking tomato and of her who is no longer there but that he in the scent in the flavor in the silence between one turn and the next here this is the magic the grandmother taught us to cook the mother taught us to adapt and we we are learning to remember not with photos not with speeches but with the palate with the hands with the gesture of pouring wine for someone without asking with the habit of leaving a free seat even if no one will come because you know that one day maybe someone will occupy it and then that seat won’t be empty it will be full of history of waiting for love three generations three ways of loving but one table is one heart you know something if you eat the same pasta in ten different cities you don’t taste ten versions of the same dish you taste ten stories because in Italy every region not only speaks a little differently but also feels food differently it’s not just a question of ingredients it’s a question of soul and It’s beautiful because you can start from the north, go down to the south, cross the islands and every time the table changes not only what ‘s on the plate but the way they look at it, smell it, divide it, defend it. Let’s start from the north in Turin in Piedmont. Dinner is never noisy, it’s precise, refined, almost solemn and one of the most sacred dishes, bagna cauda. Imagine a small pot in the center of the table, oil, garlic, anchovies that slowly melt in a bain-marie and around it raw vegetables, carrots, tottenambur, peppers that everyone pierces with a fork. He dips and eats in silence, but it’s not just food, it’s a ritual because bagna cauda is often eaten in the winter with the family, with the windows closed, the heating on, and a good Barrolo wine flowing endlessly. It’s heavy, strong, almost excessive , but that’s exactly what we like. It’s like a warm hug after a cold day. And then there’s Venice, where the sea enters the kitchen, and one of the most beautiful dishes: sardines in saor. Fried sardines alternated with wilted onions, raisins, pine nuts, vinegar, sweet, sour, salty, all together. It’s a dish that tells a story. It originated with sailors who had to preserve fish for a long time at sea. The vinegar protected it, the raisins gave it energy. Today, it’s a holiday classic, and you know what they do? They serve it cold the next day because the saor needs to mature. They say, like memories we pass through in the center of Rome, time seems to slow down when they put a plate of cacio e pepe in front of us, no tomato, no butter, just cheese, pepper, pasta cooking water, and a ladle that stirs, stirs, stirs until it becomes a golden cream. And if you do it wrong, it’s a disaster, too dry, too lumpy, too much pepper, but if you do it wrong, it’s a disaster. Too dry, too lumpy, too much pepper. But … you do it well it’s as if the palate remembered something it had forgotten for years and then there are the crispy fried Jewish-style artichokes with leaves that open like a flower you eat them with your hands dirty happy and no one judges you in Florence instead when the Florentine steak arrives the table stops it’s gigantic at least three fingers high cooked on the grill blood dripping coarse salt and it’s eaten rare if you ask for it well done they look at us as if you had blasphemed in church and first a poor but powerful soup the ribollita old bread black cabbage beans cooked reheated ribollita hence the name it’s heavy dense almost a work dish but in winter with a drizzle of new oil it’s pure comfort and now we go down south to Naples food is not just nourishment it’s theater it’s passion it’s pride the eggplant parmigiana for example is not just a dish it’s a weapon of seduction fried eggplant fresh tomato buffalo mozzarella basil layers upon layers and when you cut it the mozzarella stretches and someone always says look it’s perfect and then there’s the sartù di Rice, a timbale as rich as a king. Rice, ragù, peas, zucchini flowers, meat , sausage, all wrapped in a golden crust. It’s made for the holidays to say today is special. In Puglia, however, the queen is pasta, but not just any pasta. Orecchiette with turnip tops, small, rough, handmade with those bitter vegetables that actually become sweet after a while. And you know what people say? Anyone who doesn’t love turnip tops doesn’t understand life because even bitter things, if eaten with love, become beautiful. And in Sicily? Oh in Sicily the food speaks three languages ​​Arabic Greek Italian take the caponata eggplant celery tomato olives capers vinegar a chaos of flavors that somehow works it’s sweet sour salty crunchy like the island itself and then the arancini fried rice sphere with ragù mozzarella peas or sometimes butter and ham and the name depends on the city in Palermo they are arancini in the masculine in Catania arancine in the feminine and if you say the wrong word you risk a fight and after dinner sweet the cannoli crunchy on the outside soft inside with sweetened ricotta that explodes in your mouth and sometimes a candied cherry on top if you don’t eat it with your hands you’ve never really eaten it and in Sardinia here the food is wild ancient the porceddo the roast suckling pig cooked slowly on myrtle wood the crunchy skin the meat that melts they eat it at outdoor parties with their hands laughing singing and the bread is not bread it is carasau bread thin as crunchy paper it breaks with a gesture women have been making it in the kitchen for centuries with precise quick gestures and they call it music paper because if you eat it you break it well it makes a light sound like a note and myrtle is not just a plant it is a red or white liqueur they drink it after dinner slowly as if it were a secret and you know what strikes me that in the north the food is often refined seasonal measured in Turin Milan Venice you eat well with respect with order in the south instead it is abundant theatrical heat tall plates wine that overflows courses that never end but in the midst of all this there is one thing that never changes it doesn’t matter if you are in Bolzano or Reggio Calabria if you are in a mountain house or in an apartment on the fifth floor without an elevator the family is always the main ingredient we don’t have dinner to eat we have dinner to be together to tell stories to argue to laugh with your mouth full to make someone feel you are there and here you have a place and maybe that’s why every region defends its dishes so much because they are not just defending a recipe they are defending a way of being a family the parmigiana in Naples the bagna cauda in Turin the ribollita in Filenze the porceddu in Sardinia they are all different but all equally true all equally full of love and if one day you find yourself at the table in a place you don’t know don’t just look at the dish listen to who made it who serves it who eats it because in that gesture even a small one there is all of Italy not one but a hundred and yet always just one if one day they invite you to dinner in an Italian house don’t just think about the food think about the food to the ritual because it’s not just about sitting down, eating, leaving, it’s an experience, almost like an exam, but one where the only rule is to make yourself loved, that’s the first thing, arrive late but not too late, 5-10 minutes, never 15, if you arrive on time it seems like you have nothing better to do, if you arrive too late it seems like you don’t care, 10 minutes exactly, perfect signal, I’m enthusiastic but not desperate, and when you come in, don’t just say hello, it smells so good, it doesn’t matter if you don’t smell anything, say it anyway, or this sauce is incredible even if you haven’t tasted it yet, because for them, food is pride , and a sincere compliment, even a small one, opens all doors for you , and when they fill your plate, never refuse, even if you’re full, even if you’ve eaten before, just a little bit and then eat it all, because if you leave your plate half full, your mother, sorry, someone else’s mother, looks at you as if you’ve refused her blessing, and be careful, don’t offer to help in the kitchen unless they specifically call you. If you enter the kitchen with your hands out and say, “Can I do something?” you risk offending, because for many mothers and Grandma, the kitchen is their kingdom, and you’re not there to work, you’re there to be pampered. Instead, what you have to do is stay until the end. Don’t run away after the main course, saying thank you. It was all delicious. Now I’m going. No, you have to be there for the coffee, for the liqueur, for the cards, for the gossip about the neighbor who bought the Porsche. If you leave early, they’ll think you didn’t have fun, or worse, that the food wasn’t good enough to make you stay. Leave your phone in your bag. Don’t check it. Don’t reply to messages. Don’t take screenshots of the recipe while your aunt is talking. If you do, they’ll look at you, and after dinner, someone will usually tell you, ” You’re in prison. You have to call your lawyer.” And regarding discussions, avoid politics and religion unless they start them. Because if you start talking about government or God, you risk triggering an earthquake. But if they start them, then yes, enter the chaos , shout, gesticulate, defend your idea, because in that moment, you’re no longer the guest, you’re one of the family. And if you don’t speak Italian well, it doesn’t matter. Just laugh, eat, say thank you, with eyes full of gratitude, and if you don’t know what to do. Saying it’s all delicious, three magic words always work. And if they ask you, do you want more? Even if you’re about to explode, smile and say just a little bit , because in Italy, just a little bit isn’t a quantity, it’s a promise of love. In the end, you don’t have to be perfect, you just have to be present, with your mouth full, your glass half empty, your hands stained with sauce , and your heart a little lighter than when you came in. Because if you do that, you’ll never be a guest again, you’ll be one of them. Here, dinner’s over, but in reality, it never really ends, because what we experienced tonight between a sip of wine. A forkful of pasta, an argument and a laugh, it’s not just a meal, it’s where we become family, even when we’re far away, even when we don’t understand each other, even when we tease each other or raise our voices, because in the end it doesn’t matter who’s right, it matters that we’re here, that we stopped, that we ate together, that we talked too much, even loudly, even about useless things, but together. And if you, who are listening to us, have thought of your dinner, your grandmother, your table, your food, which is good for you, then you were with us, not as a guest, like one of the family, so tell us, write to us, give us a name, a dish, a memory, my aunt’s apple pie, saor sardines with my grandfather in Venice, the silence after coffee when my father said he was leaving, or send us a photo of your Sunday dish, the tablecloth, the pictures, the glass of wine next to the dry bread, because every table tells a story, and we want to hear them all. And if you enjoyed being with us tonight, wait for the next episode, because the conversation doesn’t end here. In the next episode, a chat at the bar, coffee, croissant, gossip, quick jokes, and all the culture. Italian that passes between one sip and another it will be informal it will be true it will be as always deeply Italian thank you for being with us for having turned off the world outside for having sat at our table thank you for having listened not only to the words but to the silence between one joke and another the weight of an eat the sweetness of a pass me the parne bon appetit good family both of you and see you soon on ItalianPod