Vu cumprà?
To update those of you (all of you) who didn't have any good US cuisine ideas for my dinner last week, it was a success nonetheless. The menu included sweet potato coconut curry soup, cornbread, and a salad of radicchio, valerian, and fennel. Three of my ten guests brought dessert and we had some wine-bringers as well. The soup had acquired an eerie color, since I could only find these whitish potatoes with purple skin that claimed to be sweet potatoes and then I added the curry, which is a shade of yellowy-orange. The cornbread looked beautiful though. Funnily enough, everyone loved the soup and the cornbread was salty!! So it was sort of a dinner of surprises...I'm planning to re-do the cornbread well next time. My guests were mostly Italian, but there was another Californian representin' and a friend of mine from Lithuania, so it was a rather international evening. I'm planning another such dinner for my housemates: suggestions are still welcome.
Today is March 9th. Yesterday was International (minus the US) Women's Day. What a good day. I had another dinner last night to celebrate and because my friend Misa was visiting on the Italy leg of her month-long Eurotrip, she wanted to make some Italian dishes. We made pumpkin and zucchini risotto, salad with mozzarella di bufala (see Inno ai formaggi for details), and tiramisù for dessert. I am really mostly studying abroad to eat and let me just say I deserve Summa Cum Laude and then some...there were really fun guests and good conversation too. If I do anything next year that I learned how to do this year, it will be make lots of food and invite good company over to eat it.
Actually it was awesome to have Misa here. She liked Bologna so much she didn't want to visit Venice or Florence. For some reason, my housemates haven't made much of an effort to speak to my native English-speaking guests, but I don't really expect them to. This time, I got to hear all of their English as they made a huge effort with Misa.
On another topic, I was thinking as I came back from class today how exactly certain ethnic groups decide or, in any case, end up working in certain sectors. Here, it's an obvious phenomenon that you can see by just walking out my front door. Small produce markets that are open even on Sunday and late into the evening are run by people generally from Bangladesh, Pakistan, and India. In fact, it's really common to say something like "I'm going to the Pakistanis' to buy some ____" as a reference to this genre of store. The produce is often less expensive than the grocery store but if only men work there, like at the place below my house, I think twice before going in. Despite the fact that I am a potential customer, every once in a while (and most annoyingly right below my apartment), the owners make kissy lips or call out suggestively.
Others go door to door ringing all the bells of every apartment to be let in to stick junk mail in everyone's mailboxes.
Along the porticoes on my street, many immigrants from Africa (and I would bet from a particular African country, though I'm not sure which) sell imitation designer purses and belts. They sit and wait as people pass by, and call out to encourage a purchase if someone stares particularly fixedly on some piece of merchandise. These vendors always look thoroughly bored (and rightfully so) or else worried as they hide behind the big pillars that hold up the porticoes because they are selling illegal ripoffs of designer stuff.
Another group of vendors, usually from Nigeria (I have asked a couple of times), walks around to solicit people to buy kleenex in those little travel size packs, gloves, socks, and things that are easily portable. They are not passive like the imitation bag sellers, in fact they are often rather aggressive, always holding out their hand to shake yours and then holding your hand as you pull away. This must be the worst of the jobs, because they have to get in people's faces all day long and probably seventy percent of the time they are blown off rudely. Some of them really look dejected and depressed, and most, if they don't succeed in convincing someone to buy their merchandise they ask for a euro, just to buy a cup of coffee. It's a good strategy, I often give a euro because I can't imagine living that lifestyle day in and day out. Sometimes they look relieved when I just shake their hand and tell them honestly I don't have any money, or they ask my name and tell me to have a good day. Some sell really cool things like thin books filled with poetry from various African nations. Many speak English and have a really hard time in Italian: some, even when I speak back in Italian, plead anyway in English.
I wonder why some get the job of roving vendor, and some get to sit boredly and let the customer come to them, and why others are able to own shops and decide their own hours and establish a more even relationship with their regular customers, like the Pakistanis and everyone else who falls under that category. It seems like there's an ethnic hierarchy of immigrants to Italy and as soon as one arrives, they will have a narrow field of options to choose from. It's not a new phenomenon; I remember talking to my mom about the Chinese Laundries in California in the peak years of the Gold Rush, and today in the US hotel and gas station owners are stereotypically Indian. It's curious though.
