Thursday 5 October (Day Eighteen)
Today was an interesting day! In the morning I went to the market – we were out of food! I bought a nice cauliflower and then realised I’d been overcharged by a euro. I also got stewing beef – that was a real challenge to ask for but it’s done. At the back of the farmers market was cheese stall and I had an interesting conversation with the seller in French. At the market some people do speak French and a lot of the Arabic speakers will do that to make sure you get what you want. It’s fun. Oh, and Liat recommended that I try a Nebbiolo (red wine) from the region so I will open that when I can.
When I got home, I planned to start the stew. Was thinking about red wine and thyme and garlic in there… but once there Krish suggested we go see the original language version of Blade Runner 2049 showing in only one small cinema in central Torino. I’ve been looking forward to it so – yes!
The cinema is in a part of Torino we haven’t spent a lot of time in so we can look around that a bit. The cinema is on a short pedestrianised street lined with cafes and little shops as well as a gated garden. And the cinema itself is easily missed, it’s so small. Not only small but also gated. With a padlock – less than half an hour before the show start time! Hmm. We walk up and down for a few minutes and when we get back we notice a half dozen people sitting around, most likely also waiting for that padlock to come off. At least this wasn’t a scam, then. Just a few steps from the cinema is a Turkish café. Neither of us is fond of Turkish food but this promises hummus and baba ghanoush and the like, and we’ve been desperate for some nice fresh flavours. However, it will be closed when the film ends. Ah well…
Five to ten mnutes before the show start time, the gate is opened and we all traipse in to the cinema. It’s long and narrow with just seven seats across and perhaps twenty rows. The screen isn’t quite as small as I’d feared but we sit in the fourth row anyway. In front of the screen is a table with two lecture chairs. Very odd!
Also surprising was that they played a few ads before the show. Two of them were duplicates! There’s also an Italian film trailer – no woman in sight in that but a lot of shouting and action. We suppose that the main actor is well known but he’s a stranger to us. The Italian film industry is strong enough here – and Torino is the birthplace of Italian cinema – but not so many actors make it out of the country.
The movie! The sound alone makes it compelling but the story captures me. I wish I’d seen the original again before seeing this since, although it’s the first movie I think of when someone asks what’s your favourite movie, I can’t remember a lot of detail. I love Ryan Reynolds in it – it’s almost the part he was always meant to play. There are no weak characters. Everyone is perfect. And this time Krish isn’t interrupting the movie with criticism into my ear so that makes it feel even better. Yay, even he likes it! Mr Fussy is happy and I certainly am.
Buoyed by the movie, we walk back to that flat after considering staying around for the Turkish restaurant to reopen in 45 minutes.
We’re a bit stuck on trying it anyway and the menu items sound nice – there’s a chicken casserole with prunes and cinnamon. So back we go after a rest.
It was a mistake. The hummus is dull with hardly any hint of garlic or lemon. The baba ghanoush tastes like plain boiled eggplant that’s been pureed. There’s no pita or flat bread – only regular tasteless Italian bread. The chicken casserole is dry and if there is cinnamon in it, we can’t taste it. There are two prunes and a dozen raisins.
I’m convinced that immigrants choose to adapt to their new country far too much. I realise that you have to make a profit and you want your customers to come back – so best to adapt to make that happen – but this feels like too much selling out. I also guess that Italians, who are strongly traditional about what food needs to taste like in every dish they make and who seem only seldom to venture a change in the traditional ingredients, wouldn’t put up with anything that has strong tastes. To me it’s a shame. To them it’s about pride and keeping alive the traditional tastes they’ve passed on for generations.
When ordering a traditional Italian dish here, the server will often use the word Typical – there’s pride in that word for them. For me, it results in an unsurprising meal – the same one I had in another place. I want certain dishes to be there but it’s fun for me to see the different takes on the same thing (outside of Italy) and I will often look for ‘traditional dishes with a twist’ when not at home. I’ve had Italians tell me that they want to cook things the way they’ve perfected and that for them the North American dishes, for example, have too many flavours in them so they can’t taste the dish properly. This puzzles them. And their way puzzles me.
