Un lezione da un cuoco.

Buona sera,

Today was my second day of Culture in the Cuisine. The reading for the class was awfully boring, but I think I'm still going to enjoy it as a whole. Today we spent about an hour discussing the different social classes during the Italian Renaissance and how their economic status influenced the way they prepared their food. After our break we had a guest speaker come in, a chef and author who owns a restaurant down the street, and he spoke about renaissance customs involving food preparation. My professor, Sue, had to translate his lecture, but until I began falling asleep on my hand I understood a small amount of what he had to say.

At the end of the lecture, the only guy in our class asked him who cooked in his house--his wife or himself. The chef responded that his wife cooks, and went on to explain that although they have equality in their marriage, they do not have a modern marriage. He compared their lives to the sun and the moon, and rather than focusing on the fact that the moon revolves around the sun, he said that like the moon, his wife reflects the sun's light. He told us that the masculine force of the sun represents the things of the day, the fire and passion and physical labor associated with his role as the husband, and that his wife is like the moon, serene and calm and cooling. It was sweet, really, and he went on to mention that without masculine and feminine forces working together, their home would be unbalanced and could not properly function.

When he began explaining this to us, I thought he was going to tell us that his wife was dependent on him, but as Sue translated for us he said, "I do the masculine things. I pay the bills. But my wife keeps the money. She holds onto the money and gives it to me when I need to pay the bills." It's not often that you see people so dependent on each other and yet so comfortable in their roles, no matter how they define them. Plus, it's so very Italian of him to compare his marriage to the solar system. I feel like I'm walking around the set of Under The Tuscan Sun, with Italian men prancing about saying things like, "Francesca, your eyes are so beautiful...I wish I could swim in them."

Con affetto,

Athena