Tag: Italy

On my last week in Siena, I took a cooking class at the Dante Alighieri School alongside other Notre Dame students and a group of students from the University of Illinois in Chicago. The class was led by three cooking coaches: Letizia, Massimo, and Aldo. I spent a majority of the class under Letizia’s guidance and a few of the things I learned about her were that Letizia’s primary job is at a bank, but she loves to cook. She and her husband, who happens to be Massimo, work part time at the school as cooking instructors, and they love it. In general, every recipe they share with their students they have memorized by heart, and their joy for sharing them is obvious. Like everyone else at the school, Letizia, Massimo, and Aldo were some of the kindest people I have ever met, and naturally, they were amazing teachers.

There were four courses on the menu for that evening, therefore four plates we would learn to make. In order of, the four courses we learned to make were pomodori ripieni di riso in forno, pici all’aglione, vitella in salsa tonnata, and latte alla portoghese. The class was split into three groups, one group per instructor. I chose to stay with Letizia; she was in charge of the sauce for the pici. Letizia explained, in depth, the process of this simple yet lovely sauce, and it was incredible to watch as her experienced hands swiftly handled each ingredient. She was adamant that everyone in her group had the opportunity to contribute to the sauce making; she gave me the chance to dice vegetables, blend them, and stir them into the pot. The tasks to get the end product may at first seem simple enough, but it was obvious that each step takes great care and technique.

As I stirred in the tomatoes to the big pot, Letizia walked over to me and asked, “Come va la salsa, tesoro?” (How’s the sauce coming along, treasue?) She then looked into the pot, complimented my contribution to the sauce making, and gathered the rest of the group to offer up further tips. Letizia loved watching us try our hand at the cooking and delightedly complimented us often. Needless to say, the process was just as fun as it was informative. The sauce took a couple of hours to make and consisted primarily of oil, tomatoes, lots of garlic, and some spices. As we let it sit in the pot for some time, Letizia led us over to the back of the kitchen, and there she showed us the process of making pici: a traditional Senese pasta. The pasta, she explained, was traditionally made with only water and flour in its origins due to availability of resources back in the day. However, today it isn’t unusual to make a batch of pici with the inclusion of a single egg, as is her method. What makes pici so special is that due to the quick hand-rolling method of each individual noodle, it has a bit of an irregular shape and texture. Each batch is unique. 

By this point, Massimo and Aldo had finished teaching the other groups the process of making the veal and stuffed tomatoes, so everyone had gathered to watch Letizia knead the dough. She expertly and swiftly handled the batch, and as she finished incorporating the ingredients, dusted her hands and pointed to the batch of pici noodles she’d made earlier in the day. It had taken her two hours to make! Letizia stepped back and told us to try kneading; it wasn’t as easy as she made it look. Afterward, she explained the method of hand rolling the pasta – which also wasn’t as easy as it looked – and watched on as we together the class worked through the batch of dough. Thankfully, there were enough students to get through the task within the half hour. Our pasta was definitely irregularly shaped, and the cooking coaches looked pretty proud with our work. Once the pasta was finished, we quickly learned to make the dessert, and then it was time to serve and eat.

The class overall lasted about three hours, and we stayed to eat together out on the patio for a couple more. The dishes were amazing, and preparing them was even better. I think out of all the activities I participated in during my time at the DA school, this one was definitely one of my favorites, and no words can describe the gratitude I feel towards the school for providing these incredible experiences.

For my final blog post, having arrived back in the U.S. after a slightly extended trip, I wanted to reflect on my experience in Siena. While I knew already how instrumental this immersion would be to my fluency with the Italian language, it was something else entirely to experience it firsthand. I think that my weeks in Italy far exceeded my expectations for how much I could learn in this frame of time. It’s easy to feel like you have stagnated in your learning of a foreign language once you’re hovering around an intermediate level, but I instead elevated to a medium level of fluency during my time there—something that could have otherwise taken me another semester or two. In my time in Siena, I felt like I went from making myself speak Italian (especially to other English-speaking students) to conversing naturally, even if not every word was perfect. And, I could not have felt more welcomed in doing so, from the helpful teachers in the Dante Alighieri program to the kind people of the city. 

Besides a new and better understanding of what it takes for me to really excel in my learning, I was exposed to the amazing Sienese culture. Something that we never see in the United States is traditions dating back five centuries! With the Palio and all the events leading up to it, I could not have been more astonished at how seriously this city takes and maintains its heritage in the modern day. While I may never have the same unique connection that a Siena-born Italian has to their contrada and the Palio as a whole, I won’t ever cease to admire it. Given this experience as a whole, I cannot recommend enough for my future fellow study abroad students to try and visit their area of choice during a significant cultural event to truly see their spirit while learning the language better than ever!

I am both happy and sad to be home. It feels great to see my family and escape the intense heat, but I miss the lifestyle I became accustomed to and the friends I met in Italy. It truly was an amazing two months traveling around Europe. One of the things I am most proud of is how much I improved in my Italian language skills. At the beginning of this program, I was able to speak in Italian, but it would take me a while to form sentences and I didn’t know all of the verb tenses. By the end of this experience, I was speaking fast and able to clearly say what I wanted to. I started having longer conversations with the people I met and I started receiving compliments on my speaking skills. Being able to speak in Italian made all of my hard work worthwhile. Looking back now, those conversations were some of my favorite moments from the entire summer. 

I am so grateful for this grant and the opportunity it gave me to explore Italy and learn more about Italian culture. I traveled to many different places across Europe: Paris, London, Siena, Florence, Pisa, the southern coast of Sicily, Cinque Terre, the Amalfi coast, Rome, Punta Ala, Colle di Val d’Elsa, and Naples. I met a ton of amazing people from many different countries and have made lasting friendships.

Yesterday was my last day in Siena and I got to cross off the final thing on my bucket list, a cooking class. We made a couple of different Tuscan dishes, and one that is specifically unique to Siena, pici pasta. Pici pasta is hand rolled, imperfect pasta. Pici is often referred to as ‘pici Senesi’ because of its origins in Siena. From a brief google search, I found that this pasta dates back to Etruscan times. There is a tomb in ancient Tarquinia that has a fresco showing a servant carrying a bowl containing a long, irregular pasta. This tomb is from the 5th century B.C. and the pasta is thought to be the ancestor of pici. This pasta is fairly easy to make. To make the dough, one combines eggs and flour. Next, one must knead the dough until it is the right consistency. We then cut it into little pieces and rolled out each little piece into thin imperfect noodles. We paired this pasta with a homemade garlic tomato sauce. The instructor of our cooking class showed us how to make a fluffy garlic sauce. She blended cloves of garlic in a food processor at a specific speed that made it turn into a fluffy cloud of garlic. She then added a bit of water and blended again. We paired this with fresh tomatoes, lots of olive oil, and different seasonings. It was delicious. The pici pasta was our first dish.

For our appetizer, we made pomodori con riso (tomatoes with rice). We cut the tops off of whole tomatoes, scooped out the inside, and filled them with day-old rice which was mixed with tomato sauce. We then put bread crumbs and the tomato tops back on top and put them into the oven to bake. For our second dish, we had veil with tuna sauce and tomatoes with a herb glaze that was fully prepared by our instructors. For dessert, we prepared a type of flan dish that was delicious. I really enjoyed doing this cooking class and learning about the origins of these dishes.

I am just getting home from a weekend trip to the Cinque Terre as I write this blog post. It was one of the coolest places I have ever been. Our Airbnb was in La Spezia, the port city near the Cinque Terre. We then took the train everyday to the 5 cities which was super easy. We met up with other Notre Dame students there who are currently studying in Rome. We went kayaking, hiking, swimming, cliff jumping, and we tried a bunch of different foods. On Sunday, we went to the train station to go back to Siena, and we learned that there was a train strike going on. All trains and buses to Siena were canceled that night, so we were forced to spend another night in La Spezia. We got a quick Airbnb and ended up having a super fun night, getting all you can eat Sushi and then going to a salsa dancing party. We are just now finally making it back to Siena.

For this blog post, I would like to write about something my class discussed last week. We discussed the vaccine and how Covid has impacted the different countries around the world. We all shared our opinions and I explained how there has been a divide in the United States about getting the vaccine. We discussed the various reasons why people do not get the vaccine and what we believe is right. We also talked about whether it should be allowed to mandate the vaccine at schools and companies. I shared how I was personally thankful for the vaccine mandate at Notre Dame, as it allowed us to return to a more normal learning environment. 

Italy was hit extremely hard by Covid and was one of the first countries to go into lockdown. Because of this, the general public attitude is very positive towards the vaccine. The vaccination rate is higher in Italy than it is in the United States, with almost 81% of the entire Italian population being fully vaccinated, whereas only 67% of all Americans are vaccinated. The discussions I had with different Italians across the country reflected these numbers. Italy has a partial mask mandate on public transportation, which will end in September. 

Discussions about controversial topics such as the vaccine are conversations I have honestly tried to avoid in the past. I often find it difficult to voice my opinion in a way that is not offensive. Finding the perfect words to say is hard in English, and much, much harder in Italian. I am glad I did have these hard conversions though, because I learned a lot about Italian culture and it was a great way to practice voicing my opinions in another language. 

For this week’s blog, I wanted to mention probably the only negative thing about my experience in Siena, that being the excessive heat during my whole month here. The weather has been very much constant here: high eighties or nineties every day, mostly sunny, and typically somewhat humid. My professors additionally informed me that this is especially unusual for that town at this time of year; it’s usually far more mild with warm daylight hours and cool evenings. Knowing this, I think I just have bad luck when it comes to weather and traveling in Italy. Of the four times I had been to the country, two have been during the most intense summers and two during the coldest winters in recent years!

With that said, I think there’s a lot that factors into this uncomfortable heat. For one thing, Siena is atop a very hilly terrain like many other medieval towns. Because of this, as I actually explored in a small research project about Sienese aqueducts, it’s very difficult and energy-consuming to bring water up to the main part of the city. When the city’s ancient aqueducts were not just being used for public fountains as they are today, they even had to have pumps installed many centuries later to support the demand for water with Siena’s growing population. 

For another thing, the city is definitely somewhat congested this summer, and I’ve been to enough ND football games to know how much hotter that can make an environment even in the open air! With travel restrictions a lot lighter this year, it certainly seemed as though thousands of tourists were flocking to Siena, especially around the time of the Palio. 

However, at the end of the day I just remember to keep a folding fan and water on me at all times. In all honesty, the heat was the only issue I ever had here, and you forget all about it when it comes to the excitement of seeing all the sights and just spending quality time in Siena!

For this blog, I wanted to gather some opinions of Americans (both the country’s culture and the tourists we provide to cities like Siena) according to both native Italians and fellow students from countries such as Switzerland, Germany, and Spain. For this survey, I was certain to ask for their honest opinions excluding study abroad students like myself, since there would likely be some positive bias when accounting for Americans who come to Europe with the sincere intention of learning a foreign language and culture.

I first turned to my cultural professor for his thoughts, as dozens of Americans were chatting outside the Galleria dell’Accademia (the museum containing Michelangelo’s David). He remarked most prominently that it’s a shame that so many people come to grand cities like Florence to see the art and take pictures, but not to fully absorb its significance. Indeed, as I saw, it can be hard to find sincere, invested American tourists who aren’t only there for photo ops; however, my professor assured me that this is not at all exclusive to Americans or even all other Europeans. He explained, some cities just “become” fully tourist cities over time, and some of Italy’s grandest towns are great examples of this. As a result, even native Italians will see them as a site for their own tourism, much like how we Americans may spend vacations in hot cities like New York, Miami, or San Francisco. So, while it was comforting to know that this isn’t exclusively an American phenomenon, it’s rather unbelievable to consider that Italy probably has a much larger ratio of touristy cities to total landmass than the U.S.!

I spoke to my peers in Italian class more about how they view American culture. Did they feel like they knew a lot about it, and was it because of how easy it is to share media internationally these days? And how would they define the stereotypical American?

To answer the second question first, the response was fairly unanimous: loud and outgoing! I found that pretty fair, and added myself that American tourists like to see everything, but they often don’t take the time to understand it all. I think it says a lot when Italian business employees are impressed with a young American speaking their language as best they can, but it’s always a good sign that language schools like the one I’m attending have a steady influx of American students!

According to these students, they feel they’re inundated with plenty of American cultural references in online spaces, especially through mediums like music and fashion which can be found very easily on social media. The fact that they knew about the Fourth of July last week really demonstrates how much our country permeates the Internet! Entertainment, however, is generally the most reach American culture has for European teenagers, as they all have their own values and beliefs as influenced by their upbringing in their own home countries. I think this interview in particular was really great for having an extremely casual conversation to compare customs and interests across nationalities, especially among my peers.

For this blog, I wanted to discuss the most traditional and unique holiday in all of Siena’s culture: the Palio! To oversimplify, the main event of this medieval festival is a horse race between ten of the seventeen contrade, or neighborhoods, of the town that takes place on July 2 and August 16 in the central Piazza del Campo. I had read plenty of articles about it before arriving in Siena, but I don’t think anything but seeing it take place firsthand could have helped me recognize how central this event is to Sienese culture. To elaborate, I’d like explain how historians and average citizens perceive the Palio!

Our cultural professor at the Dante Siena program may not be a Siena native, but his extensive knowledge on the history and customs of the Palio is truly second to no one! As he explains, the Palio is actually more about the horse than its jockey. Some hours before the race, every horse is taken to it’s contrada‘s church to receive a special blessing: to go and return a winner! The titular “Palio” is the name for the large painted silk banner that the winning contrada will be able to display in their local museum. These often feature the flag patterns of the ten participating contrade and some graphic of a horse, but will always show an image of the Virgin Mary—to whom the race and the city are specifically devoted to.

In medieval times, as the professor explained, contrade were strictly divided, with various rivalries and alliances. This horse race was both an event to blow off some steam (as post-race fistfights between very devoted fans are accepted as part of the Palio culture even today!) and to establish which contrada would have rule of the city for the year. There’s plenty of customs that may come off as strange to foreigners, he adds, but it’s most important to note that the Palio is a nearly five-centuries-old tradition that tourists should respect. For example in my experience at the Palio the other day: the Piazza, even crowded with thousands upon thousands of people, must be in dead silence while the horses’ starting lineups are announced! And while not as grievous, most native citizens of Siena prefer that tourists who aren’t strongly invested in their culture do not wear the fazzoletti (bandanas or scarves featuring their contrada‘s flag).

I found that average citizens are more likely to talk about their own contrada in the Palio, and this is where the aforementioned rivalries and alliances dominate conversation. Speaking with my host the night of the race, she said, “So long as Valdimontone doesn’t win, everything is good!”
Most contrade have a rival, and all will have at least one ally. Our contrada, Nicchio (“the seashell”) is rivals with Valdimontone (“valley of the ram”), and allies with Bruco (“the caterpillar”), Tartuca (“the tortoise”), and Onda (“the wave”). Allies are known to help each other out either financially or—as it’s whispered—with certain maneuvers during the race itself. My host adds: the gravity of these ties between contrade remains present all year! She rarely enters Valdimontone, despite it being a few streets away, because they are Nicchio’s enemy.

As extreme as some of these traditions may seem—and this doesn’t even begin to scratch the surface!—the spirit and excitement of the Palio truly can’t be matched. The dedication to this holiday even after five centuries is unbelievable, and I highly encourage anyone who is interested by what I have to say to read up on it or watch videos in their own time.