Italian Foodie Experience #3 Cooking for Mini Italians and Pseudo-Italian Meatballs

One of my most traumatic foodie experiences in Italy was cooking for my friends' Italian children.



Don't get me wrong, they were lovely boys, but just like their Italian adult counterparts, they knew what they liked and how it should be cooked.



It took me many failed attempts to be able to cook to their standard.

I mean, the adults could always tell you what a wonderful cook you were in such a courteous and loving manner, that you would actually believe them, albeit for not too long!

The children, however, still polite, would just, merely refuse to eat your food by stating that they were full.



I have to say that I admired this. It's part of the Italian culture, always to be loving, complimentary...any other child would have frown and stated purely and simply that they did not like it!

Italian children were far too aware of your feelings and how they would hurt you by saying such a thing.



And so the food was played with, pushed to the side of the plate, twirled about for a bit, and after half an hour, a happy exclamation of supposed satisfaction.

The Italian Children then exclaiming they were full, albeit that their plates, themselves were still full of food.



So I asked around, tweaked a few recipes or so, tried what I thought all children would like and still nothing.

Until one day I asked one of the boys if he liked Meatballs.



There was a silence.

I repeated the question:' Do you like spaghetti with meatballs?'

The reply came: 'Don't know, never tried it...'



That made me think that I hadn't actually come across any Spaghetti and Meatballs in any Italian residence or restaurant, for that matter!



I googled the fact and this is what I found:



'No peasant in Italy had eaten spaghetti with meatballs or milanese alla napoletana prior to migration. Such dishes used ingredients that had originated in the Americas but by 1920 those ingredients were typically imported from Italy before being combined by immigrant cooks in America with the meats that had originated in Europe but were mass produced in the new world.'

From History in Focus



Not implying that the people or the area I lived in were peasants, but Spaghetti with Meatballs was just not part of their culture. It was an American idea!



What better challenge then? To cook this pseudo-Italian Dish and to have it tried and tested by genuine Italian children!



And so I did. I replaced the Spaghetti with Linguine as I thought it would hold the sauce better.



The result was surprising. The boys loved it!



I was so moved I even asked Luca if I could take a picture of him eating my meatballs so that it could go down in Blog History!



He, being the true Italian gentleman he is, agreed to it!

How I miss the Italian boys, they taught me so very much indeed!





Add the parsley,egg and and mix well together



Add your meatballs, cover and cook for a further 45 minutes.