"No! You stupid woman, pasta is for lunch!"

Ok, this is a pretty old anecdote from quite a few years back and I was almost sure that I had blogged about it at an earlier point, but after a little thinking it seems like I never did...

This was a few years back and before I had joined the consultant company. I was part of a training course in Brussels with members from across the world (well, actually mostly European, but still) for a few days. Most of the participants were relatively young (as in late 20's, early 30's) and it was actually a quite relaxed feeling.

During our first evening, our group of around twenty participants had been scheduled in for a dinner at an Italian restaurant and when this was announced, a British lady excitedly exclaimed "(imagine a very heavy British accent here) Oh, how lovely! I just love pasta!". To this, immediately the one participant from Italy (tall, large and with a shaved head, quite intimidating) turned to her, towering over her and loudly and angrily said "No!!! Pasta is lunch, pasta is not dinner! We will not have pasta! (muttering something which I assume was something like "stupid sow" in Italian). As I ended up sitting close to the British lady, she was quite pacified by the previous outburst and did not seem to enjoy her, non-pasta, Italian meal much.

But after a while, she seemed to recover and when it was time to order coffee, she again loudly and excitedly exclaimed "Oh, I hope they have cappucino, I just love cappucino!", and just as some of the people in the groups started to nod in agreement, again came the loud voice in broken English "No!!! Cappucino is for daytime! Now is espresso! (again muttering something in Italian)".

But hey, he was a nice guy, but it seemed like Italian eating and drinking was quite a delicate spot for him and I don't think I saw him and the British lady talk again after that dinner... Good times!