Countries Beginning with I

Most of the world’s major religions proselytize (for some, it’s a major facet of the faith), and eagerly accept converts. Except Hinduism. Hare Krishnas notwithstanding, you really can’t convert to Hinduism, because it is much more than a set of beliefs and practices. Hinduism is a system that you are born into, a fixed hierarchy of families and castes. You are who you are because of your birth, and nothing can change that. Therefore, logically, anyone born outside the system must forever remain outside.

By analogy, I’ve been wondering: A non-Hindu can’t become a Hindu. Can a foreigner become an Italian?

I don’t think so. Not in the same way that an immigrant to America becomes American. I think this has to do with the Italian concept of paese (hometown). You’re born into a paese, you grow up in it, absorbing its cultural and linguistic nuances, its history and traditions. “Italian” isn’t enough to define you; you’ve got to have a paese (and, often, a dialect) as well.

The attachment to paese begins early. Rossella has had trouble finding kids to hang out with after school, because most of her classmates commute to Lecco from smaller towns, where they already have firmly established social circles with whom they spend any leisure time left over from school and family. The frightening part (to me and Ross, anyway) is that, at age 14, they already consider themselves set for life, and will not move outside of their established places and groups unless forced.

They don’t get out, and no outsider (estraneo) gets in. This goes for other Italians as well. Italians who leave their paese to live elsewhere in Italy don’t fit in – they are not part of their new paese of residence, and never will be. One exception is Milan. I recently met an Italian who told me that, when he wanted to return to Italy after years abroad, he deliberately chose Milan as the most welcoming city in Italy, both to foreigners and Italian strangers.

Which is not to say that people in smaller towns are cold, far from it. My experience of the Lecchesi is that they are warm and welcoming and happy to have us here. But we’ll never be Lecchesi.

That’s okay with me. As a third-culture kid, I long ago resigned myself to never fitting in anywhere (except Woodstock). We have friends in Lecco whose company I enjoy, but these days I am expanding my social circles among expatriates. Interestingly, some Italians also seek out opportunities to socialize with expats, because they have themselves lived overseas and, as often happens to travellers from any country, find that they no longer quite fit in when they return “home.”

Apr 27, 2004

This article was widely read and responded to. One interesting thread came up on eGullet (I posted the article there at the invitation of one of the moderators), where some very knowledgeable people discussed the phenomenon in terms of Italian and European history.

I wrote some time ago about the phenomenon of fan fiction , where fans make up their own stories set in particular fictional universes. Although publishers and copyright guardians are uneasy about the phenomenon (especially because many of the stories are sexy), I feel that the creators of these fictional worlds should feel highly complimented. Writing really good fan fiction requires a tremendous amount of knowledge and sympathy for someone else’s creation – it’s a sign of truly dedicated fandom, and a very sincere form of flattery.

Technology has now enabled fans to take things one step further: fan music videos. Fans take clips from a beloved TV series or film, and weave them together using a favorite song as a soundtrack. Some are funny, some poignant, some epic. Vids can explore single characters, or relationships among pairs of characters – relationships obvious in the original material, or imagined by the video creator (vidder). Yes, there are slash vids, too – it’s amazing the spin you can put on material by clever editing.

It’s a lot of work to make these vids. The vidder must get the source material into a format she can work with, often by copying and converting clips from DVD. Then she must trim it down to the scenes she needs, and edit it all together to fit with the music. The professionalism of the editing is often astounding, considering that most vidders probably don’t edit video for a living, and they don’t earn anything for all this hard work. Though it might be great practice for a film editing career. I’ve been tempted to make a vid myself, but so far have not found the right combination of tools (and time!).

We’ve discovered a new treasure, Crotasc, a restaurant attached to the Mamete Prevostini winery in Mese, just outside Chiavenna (a town north of the northern tip of Lake Como). Their specialties are salumi and insaccati (dried meats) and wild game (including salumi made from wild game), and of course their own wines.  

The house welcoming nibble was thin slices of slinzega, a dried beef similar to the Chiavennasca specialty, violino di capra ("violin of goat’ – salted preserved haunch of goat, traditionally carved by holding it under your chin and sawing towards you with a long knife), along with several kinds of excellent bread, ranging from pure white to the traditional pane di segale (rye) – I wish I could buy the bread the restaurants get!  

My husband had the 30-euro wild game menu, which started with a small selection of wild game salumi, followed by ravioli with fagiano (guinea fowl). I had home-made papardelle (wide pasta ribbons) with duck breast. Both were wonderful.  

Enrico’s secondo was a medallion of venison with a sauce of Sfursat (the local "fortified" wine); I had a venison cutlet. Both were served with a dollop of polenta and a vegetable "foam." My cutlet was excellent, but Enrico’s with the sauce was even better.  

For dessert I had a chocolate pudding in vanilla sauce, Enrico had an orange semifreddo (semi-frozen), which again I liked better than my own – maybe I’m just envious.  

We accompanied everything with a Grumello 2000 by Mamete Prevostini, also excellent. We could probably have bought some of their wine while we were there, but they were disappointingly out of the lovely white called Opera that we had tasted last summer at Lanterna Verde – they’re waiting for the new vintage to be ready. I guess we’ll just have to go back for it.  

The restaurant is divided into two rooms, one traditional with a huge fireplace, and big dark wooden ceiling beams. We ate in the non-smoking room, which looked as though it had been recently done or re-done, in light wood with lovely modern fountain chandeliers and stone paving. There is also lots of outside seating, so the place is probably even more delightful during daylight, in good weather.

I warmly recommend this restaurant to anyone who’s visiting Lake Como – it’s well worth the trip.

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