One of my daily reads is Sicily Scene penned by linguist teacher Welshcakes Limoncello who left her Cardiff home after retiring young enough to enjoy 
the irresistible charms of the Italian 
island. She has no plans to return.
She waxes lyrical about its cuisine and describes their close family life, where students return home at weekends. And mighty giants McDonalds were not made welcome there, that was too diverse from the Sicilian traditional culture and values.
I don’t know about you, but I’m ready to pack my bag right now and head off to the airport. This is her story:
In 1995, I brought a group of British Year 12 (old 6th form) students over to Modica in Sicily on a school exchange visit. Most of these students had never been out of a fairly deprived area of Cardiff before, let alone abroad, so you could say that they were apprehensive – apprehensive, but not terrified. Yet terror was what I saw on all their faces when I met them on the second morning after they had all spent a first night with their respective exchange partners and their families. What, you may ask, had so frightened them? Was it being so far away from home? Was it being plunged into an Italian speaking environment when they had only had two hours a week of lessons for a few months? Was it Italian plumbing? Was it the food? The latter guess would be closest, but it was not the food itself which had worried them; rather, it had been the fact that the whole family had actually sat down, in the same place at the same time, and eaten together. This, sadly, was so outside their experience as to cause them true culture shock.
According to Istat (the Italian National Statistics office) 94.9 % of Italian families sit down together for Sunday lunch, even if, as in some of the northern metropolises of the country, ready-prepared food is eaten. I suspect that the same happens on most other days of the week, too. For at least here in the south, the 1pm closure and the ritorno a casa to eat is sacrosanct, even if it involves quite a long commute. True, some fathers do work too far away to return but this is not the norm and I’ve always thought that the long lunch break in Italy gives fathers a chance to be with their young children whilst the latter are awake, rather than returning in the late evening to find them tucked up in bed. This has got to be good for family life. Mind you, children in Italy are not sent off to bed early; usually, if the parents are invited out, the children go too and a pizzeria or restaurant will always provide a high chair or somewhere for a tired and irritable toddler to sleep if necessary.
If you take a look around any supermarket here, or even around the frozen food centre, the one thing you will not find is any kind of ready-meal apart from frozen pizza . Packets of oven chips, maybe some arancine (fried rice balls) ready to be popped into the oven, a packet of ready-prepared vegetables for your minestrone – that is as near as this part of Italy gets to the frozen ready-meal. Sicilians will buy hot arancine or focacce to take home from a bar but these will form only part of a meal, not the whole of it.
A McDonald’s which opened here in Modica a few years ago failed miserably as the Modicani proved staunchly loyal to their own food and traditions. And good for them, I say! This, of course, means that the symbolic figure of mamma – even one who is juggling family life with a very demanding job, as many a mamma does today – being at home to prepare fresh food for lunch and supper remains paramount. How many British women would cook at least two courses and wash up after them not once but twice a day? Suppers are lighter, admittedly, but they usually involve at least one item of freshly cooked food. Dessert, however, does not present itself as a chore, for usually fresh fruit is served. (I thought this was wonderful when I first came to Italy and still do.) If it is a special occasion, the Italian cook sees no “shame� in buying pastries from one of the many marvellous pasticcerie – that’s what they’re there for! – and usually if you are invited to lunch or supper you take along a dessert rather than a bottle of wine. So in those respects, the work is less, but sometimes when I think of my friends with large families I imagine all that washing up – it still entails work, even for those with dishwashers! – and I wonder how the women retain the will to live.
The case of one friend in particular highlights, I think, the differences in family life between the two countries: Maria’s son is a student at Catania University (Catania is about two hours away) and he lives in lodgings in the city during the week. Every Friday evening, though, he comes home and on Sundays I have often watched Maria spending the whole day preparing the week’s meals for him to take back to Catania. Maria is a busy professional woman and I know she finds this task onerous, but she wouldn’t dream of suggesting that perhaps her son could have the occasional meal out, learn to cook at least a plate of pasta or even exercise a little independence! And this pattern is repeated, at weekends, all over Modica. Every Friday night I watch the students alight from the Catania bus and every Sunday evening, when I am walking my dog, I see them getting back onto it. How many college students in Britain attend an institution so close to home, prefer a weekend with their parents to one spent carousing with their friends and have Mum to do all their cooking? (Bringing all the washing home occasionally is a bit different.)
Most Italians I know express surprise that the single son or daughter does not, usually, live at home in Britain. Here they will live with their parents quite happily even well into their thirties and beyond. This is said, these days, to be partly for economic reasons, but from my observations it has always been so in Italy. Couples do not, as a rule, move in together before they are married, either, and it is not unusual [at least in this area] for a young couple to wait ten years before getting engaged, let alone married!
Does all this lead to a healthier (in all senses of the word) generation of young people and happier family life, then? Italy is not, after all, a country without drug addiction among its young, its share of disaffected youth or football hooligans. In the late 1970s and 1980s you could not live in or visit a big city without becoming a victim of petty crime, perhaps several times. Yet here in Modica, I can walk around at night without any fear and you do not need to feel anxious if a crowd of young men strides towards you.
This is a country in which a popular Sunday afternoon quiz programme for young people assumes that they will have a knowledge of the literature not only of their own country but of others which would be unimaginable in the UK. A teacher is still someone deemed worthy of respect and, although you could be forgiven for imagining that the education service is chaotic were you to arrive in a school at breaktime, I find that most young people here take their studies extremely seriously and once they are in a classroom they expect to be made to work. Tom Paine commented on James’s post for Ellee last week that in Russia a taxi driver could tell you who had won a literary prize and I find, here, that everyone could discuss opera, literature and certainly the culture of their own town with you. So my conclusion is that, both educationally and in the way they live their family lives, the Italians must be doing a great deal that is right! I don’t want to live anywhere else on earth.
*I have posted some snapshots of Sicily on my photo gallery, perhaps I can book a trip with the 10,000 Airmiles I have accrued.
Tnis was really interesting. Thank you, WL. It all goes to show that in Britain we are both providing too little for, and expecting too little of, our young people. I refuse to believe that they are any less capable than Russians or Italians of living their cultural life to the full. In fact, I know from my own experience that’s not true.
The best thing about bringing our children up abroad was that we fell into the local habits of eating together. Had I stayed in England as a commuter to London, with both my wife and I needing to work to feed that most British monster, the mortgage, it could never have happened.
We raised our daughters over lunch and dinner tables, at home and in restaurants, discussing this, that and the other quite naturally throughout their childhood. In consequence, we know each other far better than families we know in England.
Nothing is more culturally corrosive than the modern Anglo-Saxon habit of eating separately, on the run. Just as nothing is worse than the reaction of Anglo-Saxon diners when you bring a child into their restaurants. Ours caused initial consternation in some of the best restaurants in London, New York and Hong Kong only then to behave better than many of the adults present.
Even planning policies in Britain now encourage tiny “green” homes with no room for a dining table. It is not the state, nor – God help us – “the community” that matters in the long run. The family is the centre of all civilisation, and the dining table is the command centre, university and parliament of the family.
Thanks again for an interesting piece. I am pleased my “guest blogging” suggestion is bearing such marvellous fruit.
Thanks Ellee and Welshcakes Limoncello for an excellent post. Lots to consider there from the excellent family practice of eating together – the British habit of “grazing” impacts on social skills as well as undoubtedly, current obesity/eating disorder issues.
Also, I love the discussion of education – sadly few of my UK University students seem to be engaged by culture, news or anything that would actually stimulate their brains.
I loved this insight into Italian family life and culture and wish it was the British way of life too. When I visited Corsica last summer, I was told that the island did not have any old people’s homes, they looked after their own elderly family members, each generation would have a role to occupy. It seems so much more civilised and caring. As a mother hen myelf, I love the way that students come home each weekend and return with a hamper of goodies, mothers love nurturing and their young people seemingly enjoy it too. Alas, I am often regarded as an embarrassment by my teenage sons who worry so much about what their peers will say if they seen out with their mum, and I thought I was a cool mum.
My mother is Greek and we enjoy a close bond, but she has never enjoyed cooking, unfortunately, she loves music and singing and her family is her life, and the same goes for me.
Welshcake’s post shows how young people’s education starts in the home, how they can learn so much from their families. I agree with Tom’s lament about the loss of dining rooms and the impact this will have on an increasing “vegging out” community who eat meals on a tray in front of the TV a la The Royal Family.
A travel blog from another country is always fascinating, as it reveals little facets of knowledge we were unaware of. I can well imagine McDonalds would be not welcome there.
Children who are used to eating en famille at home, ‘sitting up nicely at table’, using cutlery properly, taking their turn in the give and take of conversation, are the exception in the UK. Which is why they must find it such agony (and often impossible) suddenly to acquire table manners on those occasions they are taken to a restaurant. That is why I and so many others inwardly groan when we see kids in a restaurant in this country. And people _ including parents _ are surprised that children often behave badly in restaurants or are not made welcome. Well, part of the ‘social contract’ of expecting acceptance/ a welcome for your children in public places must be that you have taught them how to behave at home.
You are most kind, Tom Paine. Thank you for the idea of guest blogging and thank you, Ellee, for inviting me. I agree that if children are brought up to expect to eat with everyone else and to have some table and conversational manners, then it should not be a problem to take them out to eat. DA, I’m with you; parents must bear responsibility for their children’s behaviour in all aspects of their lives. Italians are more tolerant of children than the British are in general but it doesn’t seem to result in any display of bad manners at table. I think this is to do with respect for food and the amount of time that goes into preparing it, too. Heather, I, too, despair of some students’ attitude to culture in the UK: 50 years ago it was probably true to say that we didn’t value scientists or inventiveness, for all the wrong reasons, but now we don’t value the arts and I think that is very dangerous. My Italian friends are appalled when I tell them that philosophy is not taught as a separate subject in secondary schools in Britain. Thank you, J-L P. I think that the “little things” in any culture reveal a lot and to me, a nation’s cuisine and the history of that cuisine tells us at least as much as its literature.
Moan, Moan, Moan. Here we go again. God forbid someone might build up this country for once.
Of course, Italian taxi drivers can discuss Opera, it’s a national institution. Ask any cab driver in this country about Shakespeare and they could discuss that too.
Really, why the need in this country to constantly bring ourselves down? Maybe that’s why our ‘youth’ today have no confidence or hopes; they are constantly being told how uncultured, uneducated and useless they are.
What you sow, you reap.
As a child, every morning, I used to sit down with my Mum and have breakfast. My Dad went out to work before 7.00am, so I never saw him on a morning. When I came in from school, I would always look forward to my Dad coming back from work between 4.45 and 5.00pm. Sometimes I would get on my bike and meet him off the train. We would sit down in the kitchen and eat at around 5.30. How many children in Britain have that experience?
I am an only child, so it was always the three of us, but I was always encouraged to contribute to the conversation. Those family meals are so important and I still love going up to see my parents – as they live 100 miles away now – and sit down in the little flat they have now, and eat and talk with them. This is what family life is all about. Thank you Welshcakes – and please tell me your real name at some point is you can – for telling all of us what life is like in Sicily. I can see people there recognise that the family is the most important thing in keeping society together. I just wish it was the same here in Britain. This has been a truly excellent post. Thank you again.
David Anthony, I didn’t intend to “bring down” anybody in Britain. Indeed, I have spent a lot of my life worrying about the low self esteem of our children and trying to do something about it.
Andrew, I’m a Pat! I was an only child, too, and my great aunt and maternal grandad lived with us. Mealtimes were so important although our family was not without its problems. Thank you for your kind comment.
I realise you didn’t mean to bring anyone down but I’m sick of hearing how bad this country is all the time. Sure, we have our problems, but who doesn’t.
What with their corrupt politics, rising hooligan problem, dying local villages and pension timebomb … Italy has its fair share too:
AGING ITALY
Birth rate is 1.2 children per woman, compared to 2.1 needed to keep population stable.
By 2050, the average age will by 53, compared to 41 now.
41% of the population will be over 60 and 34% over 80.
Source: UN Population Division
David: I think you are missing the point. What Welshcakes was trying to do was tell you what life was like where she lives. I think it is a better way of life than we have here in Britain. I have stayed with friends in France, Germany and the USA. I have experienced what life is like there. Travel does broaden the mind and I can tell you that family life in those countries is better than it is here in Britain. And yes, I am including America. They have hectic lives like we have, but I get the overall impression that the family means more in the US than it does in the UK. All countries have their problems. No-one denies that. What I read from WC was a lovely narrative of what life is like in another country. Don’t be a party pooper.
Andrew: I have no problem with you enjoying your little utopian fantasy, but when you choose to do it by denigrating others … I do.
Children who are used to eating en famille at home, ’sitting up nicely at table’, using cutlery properly, taking their turn in the give and take of conversation, are the exception in the UK.
How do you know this? Please spare me your social research by way of the Royle Family. This is exactly what I am talking about.
^^ to clarify: That’s a quote from David Allen
What a wonderful tradition Tom started here and Welshcakes has really added to that with this fascinating post. I always wanted to know but didn’t want to ask how she got there and so on. Thank you, Ellee too, for making it possible.
Hi, James and thank you. In the early days of my blog, when I didn’t have many readers, I posted a series called “Moving Stories” about how I got here and the process. You may like to look at them. I think they’ll be in the June 06 archive.
Meanwhile, the debate here got a bit heated and that’s what blogging’s about! David Anthony, yes, the falling birthrate and ageing population are of concern here – you are right. And I have written extensively on my blog about the appalling recent football violence and most Italians’ feelings of disgust regarding it.
With regard to earlier comments about table manners, on reflection it is probably easier for Italian children to be polite in table conversation as everyone talks at the same time anyway!
The fact that I don’t live in Britain does not mean that I don’t deeply love the country that formed me or that I am not immensely proud of it. I care very much what happens to it and I have written many times that I believe it to be the most tolerant country in the world. And when I read / hear of those who wish to push that tolerance beyond all reasonable limits I become very angry.
Regular readers of my blog will know that, much as I love Italy, too, there are days when it drives me barmy, its bureaucracy, seeming chaos and acceptance of inefficiency topping my list of “Here we go again” triggers – not to mention the erratic water supply in this area and the limits on domestic power use.
I will never quite be Italian, and my gut reactions will always be British. I know that now. But if you embrace a new culture you can, I believe, become “bicultural” and bring to it a little of what is best in your own. In turn , in accepting that new culture, you learn and grow and hopefully, in your small way, build little bridges between nations. Surely that was never needed as much as now?
The broadcaster John Simpson writes, in “Days from a Different World”: “This, I suppose, is the real basis for a post-modern patriotism: not that my country is better than yours…. but that it is simply my country, with all its failings and embarrassments; and I might as well accept that, and make the most of it”. That sums it up for me.
Thanks for the response. I may have forgotten my own manners because I forgot to thank you for an interesting article in the first place.
I realise there was no intent in the article to ‘bring down’ anyone, it just happens to be one of my bugbears. Having worked in a restaurant I can honestly say that unruly and impolite children were the very rare exception (in fact it was far more common in the so called civilised adults). We have a habit in this country of finding the worst case scenarios of everything and then magnifying them as barometers for our entire society.
Constant testing, grading, belittling, snobbery and ignorance are the real problems in this country … that’s our problem not our children’s.
I actually love Italian culture Opera, Poetry, Literature, Art, Style, Cooking. What binds every culture and race across the globe far outweighs whatever separates us.
Thanks again for an interesting post. I was once told that I like arguing for the sake of arguing … this may be true. 🙂
I think it is great to see strong feelings of patriotism and love for your country. And David, who can not love Italy for all those reasons you mentioned. I love the English countryside and shall enjoy it tomorrow on a 12 mile plus walk, and with every breath I take, I shall marvel at the buds bursting through and nature in its full glory.
This is a series of wonderful snapshots into life in Sicily, without pictures, Welsh.
A close family life has to make a difference, I believe. My brother and I were brought up to meals at the table every evening, a sit-down breakfast in the mornings and Sunday lunch was always a major event.
A great expose’….thank you.
I have to say an excellent post. Fascinating stuff. I wonder if half of our social problems could not be cured with a dining table?
I certainly love the way food brings people together. Especiallyfamily. I kow this is the case in france and in Italy.
Sadly here is Aus we are heading down the good ol’ USA model.
I drove through a town called Penrith and there was a Crispy Cream donut shop”, a McDonalds, KFS, Hungry Jacks, The leaugues club looking like a casino, and a petrol station…..People were lining up through the drive throughs….
I HATE it!!
Great stuff Welshcakes. Nice to hear how you’ve embraced the land which now affords you it’s protection. I must visit some day!
I’m also a fan of Italy and Welshcakes, especially her recipes, one of which I’m determined to have a go at soon. As for Italy, I’ve enjoyed many business trips there and I could never work out how such a shining example of civilisation can do so well when the government is always about to fall, falling, or about to be replaced with a new one.
Hmmm…but times are changing. I think more British people are living at home for longer. And the long engagement thing is not unheard of either. The other Italian influence is that Welsh towns like Llandeilo are adopting the ‘cittaslow’ approach to food. They are also re-discovering the links with Italy – for example, cappuccino bars are no longer confined to cities or crappy chains like Starbucks. And the cured meat in Wales is now competing with imported Parma ham. I am not suggesting that Welshcakes should return – we don’t have the weather for starters.
But it is re-assuring that some aspects of British life are being inspired by Italians, and not the ‘work all hours, eat rubbish’ yank culture which had seemed to be prevalent.
David Anthony, I’m just glad I provoked such an interesting debate! We all have bugbears and it would take a good 48 hours to list mine! Lee, Benedict, Simon, JJ, thank you so much. John East, thank you, too; I don’t know how Italy does it, either! Bedd, you are right – Welsh cured meat is fantastic and the society is “opening out” to the best of other cultures – I am proud of my heritage. Well, whenever any of you want to come to Sicily, I’ll be glad to show you around! Oh, Ellee, forgot to say those are lovely photos in the gallery there. Grazie di nuovo.
We try to instill table manners with our David for weekend meals and the like. It isn’t enough to overcome the tedium for him of very slow service in a restaurant though and Children do tend to show off in social situations.
I do understand the cavillers. The fact that people are forced to live with their parents in this country is altogether an evil depriving adults of self respect and it is clearly the result of the property boom.
The fact is that this country is far more Libertarian than the continent and that is why our being ruled by it is such a standing source of outrage. I thoght it was funny when our children were described as having more sex , more cigarettes , seeing less of their parents and getting drunkerThe picture showed two UK teenagers grinning at the tragedy with obvious delight
What about the way they treat women as well. It is a country where women are still not allowed to admit that they enjoy sex see recent post of the treatment of female adulterers. It is a deeply stultifying environment to be in if you are the wrong sort of person and this “Respect for the role of the mother ” Is exactly what the Muslim scumbags say about their fascist theocratic garbage
(You Ellee sometimes dislike overly ripe opinion but without wishing to change the thread how do you suppose our mutual gay friends feel about having a little poster up at the bus stop suggesting they should be burned alive .) It is personal , it all is .
While I enjoy teasing girlies I am glad the ours are relatively Liberated. Its fun to tell them to get back into that kitchen and rattle them pots and pans but if one ever said ” Oh alright then “, wouldn’t that be a bore. What , no argument ….jeeeezzz
Oh by the way …I would just like to thank the Welsh women I met over the years before I was married …Top marks all round 🙂
Newmania, I assure you that I very much enjoy your “overly ripe opinion”. Bigotry of the type you mentioned can never be condoned. It’s fine to joke about women and the kitchen, but it’s when men say it and mean it that I worry. However, if that is what both partners want, then that is fine also, it’s a case of being free to make a decision that is right for your lifestyle.
I also have fond memories of Wales – I had my first kiss there at the age of 13 when I was on a school trip.
10,000 accrued airmiles!?! How environmentally unfriendly is that!?!
Snafu, I’ve acrued them with Tesco, I’ve tried to exchange them for vouchers, but they won’t hear of it, it’s not allowed. This is about 8 years of Tesco clubcard points which will at some point be used by a family of 4, that’s pretty good going, you must admit.
Ellee, you shop at Tescos too!?!
“When Tesco says “every little helpsâ€?, who are they really helping – their shareholders and profits springs to mind.”
https://elleeseymour.com/2007/02/19/will-planners-ever-say-no-to-tesco/
Snafu, It’s either Tesco or Waitrose, and the latter is so much nicer, but more expensive. However, I don’t think Tesco is much cheaper and their deli is very poor. We don’t even have a Netto or Lidl in my nearest town. I do, however, always buy my meat from a local butcher run from someone’s house in a neighbouring village and it is delicious, as well as much cheaper, I also buy my free range eggs and veg from a womna’s front porch in another village. My nearest town doesn’t even have a greengrocer or bakery any more, that was the way I used to shop until supermarkets forced them out of business. I live 14 miles from Cambridge and when I shop there, I like Sainsbury, they sell my favourite ground coffee.
Oh come on Elle please don’t encourage those people who point to McDonalds as either cause or symbol of every ill of modern life. They sell burgers. If you don’t like them don’t buy them.
David, It sounds like the Sicilians did indeed give McDonalds the heave-ho and I merely facilitated Welshcake’s observation on this.
Ok, but it seems to have become such a tedious debating football now that it is almost devoid of all meaning. Oh, we don’t work for them by the way!
David, Like you, I believe in free choice, people can decide for themselves if they want to eat a McDonalds or not, I’m sure they do they surveys to find out how their customer’s tasts and attitudes are changing towards food and whether they need to adapt.
It seems that we are now spying on everywhere. When the world does not feel safe, schools and businesses to return to the use of electronic means. Usually, this consists of hidden cameras. Sometimes there is even a bathroom hidden cameras.
Schools are using more and more surveillance. That should help keep students safe. It also helps solve crimes that have already occurred. Knowing the cameras have reason to think students before they came to misbehavior.
hidden camera
[url=”http://geocities.com/hentaioza”]hidden camera[/url]