How the Italians caught me at a young age.
The very first time I left these islands was for a holiday in Italy. I was a very young kid, and my dad was fed up with the English summers, so he decided to head for the sun.
Now the biggest problem to this adventure was he was anti any cooking that was slightly cosmopolitan. He even thought braised steak was “foreign muck”.
Fortunately for me, my older sister enjoyed experimenting with the more exotic foods and used her kid brother as a sounding board for her efforts.
I guess she thought I was the most expendable one of the family. And my favourite of her dishes was spaghetti with meatballs. So, Italy was going to be a gastronomic heaven for me, although I didn’t know it at the time.
My dad, in his wisdom, did his research and found a hotel in the town of Bordighera.
He chose the hotel for its name, the Hotel Bristol. This, he was convinced, was the type of place that would serve what he considered “proper food”, food that could be eaten by English people.
I must be honest, from what I remember of the hotel and its surroundings; it did look like a typical English hotel, in a typical English seaside town: in fact, it reminded me of Bournemouth. And it did have two elderly English ladies living there as in Fawlty Towers, all very genteel.
But if my father thought he was going to get roast beef and Yorkshire pudding style dishes, he was in for a big surprise. It may have looked English on the outside, inside it was Italian. And so was the food.
Everything they cooked up and served me, I ate with gusto. Now I am telling you if there is one thing Italian women love more than children, it is children who love their food.
I remember the female staff standing at the Kitchen door looking at this little English kid wolfing up everything they put on my plate.
The Hotel Bristol had a waitress named Maria who taught me how to eat spaghetti using a spoon and fork.
My dad turned his nose up at almost everything. He did lose at least two inches off his waist.
He caught a stomach bug that he blamed on the food, although how he could do that, I have no idea. He hardly ate a mouthful of anything.
Italian women must be some of the most maternal creatures in the world. I was a very small boy. Every time we boarded a bus, a matronly lady would grab me and sit me on their lap.
I swear that if they could, some of them would have kidnapped me, and I could have been brought up as an Italian.
I could think of worse things in life.
It is said that always remember your first love. Well, Italy was the first foreign country I visited, and it began my lifelong affection for Italian food and the Italian people.
Which is just as well, as I have an Italian son-n-law and three grandchildren who are half Italian.
