When we bought the farmhouse in Tuscany, where I am now, more than 40 years ago, there were only two restaurants within a five-mile radius and neither of them was much good. And being in the unfashionable province of Arezzo, as opposed to the then already popular Chianti region between Siena and Florence, there were few foreigners among their patrons, so they published their menus only in Italian. But 40 years have brought many changes. Many foreigners priced out of the Chianti region have bought houses here, foreign tourism has increased dramatically, and new restaurants have sprung up all over the place. And now it is very hard to find a restaurant that doesn’t publish its menu in English as well as Italian. The amazing thing, however, is how ridiculously bad these English translations of Italian dishes usually are.
In some ways this is rather comforting.
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