Tom: - Whoa! I'm going to the centre of the world this summer!"
Jen: -Ooh! I bet it will be roasty toasty! Uhm...So, where is it exactly?"
Tom: - Foligno!
Jen: - Foolin...What?
Tom: - No foolin, you idiot! Foligno!
Jen: - And where on earth is Foligno??
Tom: - ...
Foligno is a fascinating city located in Umbria, in the heart of Italy. Because of its central position within the country and Italy being in the centre of the Mediterranean sea, years ago it was defined "Centru de lu munnu" (The centre of the World).
And....Guess what?? In the centre of Foligno there used to be a café called Gran Caffè Sassovivo and in the centre of that café there used to be a pool table....And in the centre of that pool table there was a red pin and THAT marked the centre of the world!
Hello folk! Are you up for a little Italian challenge? See how many of these you can get right!
Beware these are false friends and are here to catch you out!
1) Caldo means:
A) Roast B) Cold C) Hot
2) Camera means:
A) Sunroom B) Room C) Camera
3) Casino means:
A) Casino B) Small house C) Mess
4) Preservativo means:
A) Embankment B) Preservative
C) Condom
5) Confetti means:
A) Confetti B) Chickpeas C) Sugar coated almonds
Easter is on the doorstep and, I don't know about you, but when I think about Easter I think about Easter eggs!
As a child, I remember walking past my local pasticceria in awe as I admired giant handmade Easter eggs with colourful spring themed patterns! People have been giving their loved ones Easter eggs for hundreds of years as they are a symbol of birth, new beginnings and life. And with handmade eggs you can pick your surprise!
More expensive than usual supermarket eggs, these are crafted by expert chocolatiers able to blend unusual flavours into the chocolate as well as creating artistic works.
This year the Bompiani patisserie in Rome has made the headlines for creating "egg sculptures" inspired by great literary figures. But if this is too complex for your chocolate palate, Ernst Knam, a Milan based chocolatier, became famous for his chocolate handmade flamingoes and his original animal shaped eggs!
Shop around and you will see that there really is an egg for everyone!
Pictures below show eggs by Bompiani, Ernst Knam and Gallucci.
So, as I am sure you all know, Ciao means “Hello/Hi” or "Goodbye". It is possibly the most known and most used Italian word. But do you know its origin? Likely not, and it is quite interesting.
So the origin of Ciao is from the Venetian dialect/language word “sciavo”, which means “slave”, which in turns comes from thev Latin “Slavus” — which by the way is also the word/adjective used even today, Slavo, to indicate Slavic people. So, during the peak of the Venetian Republic in the 1400s, when Venice ruled most of the commerce in the World, most slaves were, well, Slavic.
In short, the origin of the greeting is an extreme form of submission to the person you run into: it mean something like “at your service”. With centuries of usage, Sciavo became Sciao and the latter became Ciao. Needless to say that the racial and social connotation of the word Ciao have long been lost