neighborhood—who come in alone. The prelunch conversation lasts longer than it takes to eat the meal, which is slapped down, consumed at breakneck speed, and the diner leaves as quickly as he arrived.
Another thing that keeps us from having that preprandial conversation is, obviously, cultural. Americans aren’t used to it; at home, we just don’t do it. At good restaurants, waiters recite the list of specials and then, more often than not, take a deep breath of relief at having successfully got through their personal mini-ordeal. The especially daring or altruistic waiter may suggest that this or that dish is particularly good tonight, but in general that’s the end of it—not the beginning, as it would be in Sicily.
And who can blame American waiters for their hesitation? Americans make fun of servers who are perceived to be excessively outgoing or chatty. Their personalities are considered too big for their jobs, their friendliness inappropriate, intrusive, an invasion of the diners’ privacy, an abrogation of our God-given individual American freedom to choose for ourselves. It’s almost as if the waiter had followed us into the election booth and was telling us how to vote. And though I have heard the waiters in my neighborhood coffee shop in New York say that that day’s chicken noodle or pea soup is particularly good, it rarely happens that your counter person at the roadside diner or local lunch joint will be asked about, or spontaneously begin to praise, the virtues of the grilled cheese or the hamburger deluxe.
And so it’s only natural, or in any case, cultural, that something of that reticence and anxiety should persist among Americans abroad. We think of ourselves as decisive people, we’re wary of uncertainty, of seeming not to know what we want, of taking up a waiter’s time, of seeking and taking advice. Suppose he suggests some delicacy we can’t afford, or some ingredient we don’t like, or are allergic to? (One thing that does seem to make this easier for the Sicilians is the fact that their food tastes are, in general, so much broader, so much less picky than ours, and also that their menus list so little that hasn’t been familiar to them since childhood.) We Americans can’t help but worry: Will the waiter be insulted if we ignore his suggestions and shake our heads and return to our strained perusals of the menu? Will the whole conversation turn out to have been a mistake, a source of misunderstanding and embarrassment that will linger throughout the meal?
In any case, I gradually come to realize that my difficulty in having the conversation is not entirely a matter of culture but also of gender. For in Sicily the waiters are nearly always male, and though you do see women working in the kitchen and managing restaurants, it’s mostly in places run by entire families. Female chefs certainly exist, but—just as in the United States—they’re much more rare than their male counterparts. And while women may be dining alone in restaurants in Milan, or ordering the wine for their entire party in Rome, or chatting up the waiters in Venice, the fact is I’ve rarely seen this even in northern Italian cities (except when the customer is a female foreign tourist) and almost never in Sicily.
Anyone who doubts that Sicily is still a patriarchal society should note how rarely women are entrusted with the job of preparing and serving food, or encouraged to work outside the home in such an intimate relation with strangers. Because the fact is, it is intimate: Two men talking about the food about to be served resemble, in more than casual ways, two men talking about women, or sex. There’s that same sense of appreciation, of remembered or anticipated enjoyment, that shared knowledge of pleasure.
Which all contributes to the reason why I find the conversation so difficult. As flawed as my Italian is, I’m more comfortable speaking it than Howie is. And though any waiter can quickly figure out
Another thing that keeps us from having that preprandial conversation is, obviously, cultural. Americans aren’t used to it; at home, we just don’t do it. At good restaurants, waiters recite the list of specials and then, more often than not, take a deep breath of relief at having successfully got through their personal mini-ordeal. The especially daring or altruistic waiter may suggest that this or that dish is particularly good tonight, but in general that’s the end of it—not the beginning, as it would be in Sicily.
And who can blame American waiters for their hesitation? Americans make fun of servers who are perceived to be excessively outgoing or chatty. Their personalities are considered too big for their jobs, their friendliness inappropriate, intrusive, an invasion of the diners’ privacy, an abrogation of our God-given individual American freedom to choose for ourselves. It’s almost as if the waiter had followed us into the election booth and was telling us how to vote. And though I have heard the waiters in my neighborhood coffee shop in New York say that that day’s chicken noodle or pea soup is particularly good, it rarely happens that your counter person at the roadside diner or local lunch joint will be asked about, or spontaneously begin to praise, the virtues of the grilled cheese or the hamburger deluxe.
And so it’s only natural, or in any case, cultural, that something of that reticence and anxiety should persist among Americans abroad. We think of ourselves as decisive people, we’re wary of uncertainty, of seeming not to know what we want, of taking up a waiter’s time, of seeking and taking advice. Suppose he suggests some delicacy we can’t afford, or some ingredient we don’t like, or are allergic to? (One thing that does seem to make this easier for the Sicilians is the fact that their food tastes are, in general, so much broader, so much less picky than ours, and also that their menus list so little that hasn’t been familiar to them since childhood.) We Americans can’t help but worry: Will the waiter be insulted if we ignore his suggestions and shake our heads and return to our strained perusals of the menu? Will the whole conversation turn out to have been a mistake, a source of misunderstanding and embarrassment that will linger throughout the meal?
In any case, I gradually come to realize that my difficulty in having the conversation is not entirely a matter of culture but also of gender. For in Sicily the waiters are nearly always male, and though you do see women working in the kitchen and managing restaurants, it’s mostly in places run by entire families. Female chefs certainly exist, but—just as in the United States—they’re much more rare than their male counterparts. And while women may be dining alone in restaurants in Milan, or ordering the wine for their entire party in Rome, or chatting up the waiters in Venice, the fact is I’ve rarely seen this even in northern Italian cities (except when the customer is a female foreign tourist) and almost never in Sicily.
Anyone who doubts that Sicily is still a patriarchal society should note how rarely women are entrusted with the job of preparing and serving food, or encouraged to work outside the home in such an intimate relation with strangers. Because the fact is, it is intimate: Two men talking about the food about to be served resemble, in more than casual ways, two men talking about women, or sex. There’s that same sense of appreciation, of remembered or anticipated enjoyment, that shared knowledge of pleasure.
Which all contributes to the reason why I find the conversation so difficult. As flawed as my Italian is, I’m more comfortable speaking it than Howie is. And though any waiter can quickly figure out
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