Is the word pancetta used in English? 06:03 Sep 24, 2019
Born and bred in England, I arrived in Italy in 1981 at the age of 28. I had a tiny smattering of Italian and very definitely had absolutely no idea what pancetta was. Not even my rudimentary Latin helped me. Mind you I remember at the age of 18 American girls in Switzerland explaining what pizza was. They said the best were in Italy. When I finally learnt what pancetta was, I remembered my father's stern words as a child "don't eat raw bacon, or you will get worms". Then I dug in and ate. The raw goat's liver I had eaten some years earlier on the banks of the white Nile hadn't done me any harm. Well of course the world has moved on and Italian cuisine has conquered the world, but there is nothing more embarrassing than looking at a menu when everyone knows what that pancetta stuff is except you. A kind translator would do something like "pancetta (similar to bacon, often eaten raw) and chiodini (mushrooms)" |