to not want to go on holiday with DH as he’s taking Pot Noodles?

[Astridastro]

Hear me out on this, we are off to Italy in a month, a lifelong dream of mine, I had visions of long leisurely lunches and dinners, great Italian food and wine aplenty.

Food on holiday has always been a contentious issue for DH, he believes eating out is a waste of money and would rather sit in the hotel room with a Pot Noodle (seriously). On one holiday he actually went to a supermarket and bought all these pound noodles to try. Now I’m not for blowing money on fancy gourmet dinners but I like to eat nice, good healthy food. We’ve gone all inclusive and that’s usually a great compromise.

So this time I was informing him of the Italian tradition of eating late and it being an event, courses taking a while etc etc and he’s been so annoying about it saying he wants to go to McDonalds or he’ll just have Pot Noodles. He like to eat at 12 noon for lunch and 5pm for dinner on the dot, he eats very fast too. He says he’s going for the sights not for the food.

So I’m contemplating leaving him with his sad Pot Noodle and just taking the DC put for a nice meal on my own. It’s the way he keeps going on about it to get a rise out of me.

Great update OP!

Amazing news OP! Glad you had a great time.

Glad you had a lovely time!
What did most of us say About Italian food being excellent😸😸

I’m really please to hear that.

However for everyone out there please understand that pasta is meant as a starter as such. You have anti pasta eg bruschetta or hams or buratta etc the. A pasta or rice dish and then a meat with vegetable dish.

There is much more to Italian food other than pizza and pasta. I had a most amazing plate of food when I went to a proper Italian restaurant and no pasta or pizza in sight.

Thanks for that lesson @Noras but from my reasonably extensive travels in Italy I’d say they don’t care what order or what courses you have. Just eat what you want. As long as it’s not pot noodle

glad you had a good time op.

Has your DH had a celebratory pot noodle now he is back home?

Well I’m sure that your ‘extensive travels’ to Italy beats hands down me having an Italian mother, over 100 Italian cousins etc. I have also been taken to restaurants tourists don’t go to as they don’t known they exist. As you might gather I go to Italy to see family and occasionally to travel. Being a tourist is a different experience to being a family member.

The glut of pizza/ pasta restaurants in places like Amalfi (25 minutes from my cousins’ homes) and Florence are places they avoid. The little restaurants up in the mountains with fresh truffle picked that day - you won’t find as a tourist/ will be where I get taken. Pizza is the equivalent of fast food eg going out for fish and chips and normally ( in non tourist areas) taken with beer and not even wine.

Moreover food etiquette is very important to Italians but they are too polite to tell you. They have huge rules eg never putting salad on the same plate as other food. However they indulge the oddities of other nationalities and will serve you what you want as you want it. Hence they serve cappuccinos all day long if that’s what you want ( whilst thinking that you have baby tastes).

A meal in a family home on a daily basis is eg salad pasta meat/ veg alternative and then fruit. Fruit is always peeled. Wine is drink but is deemed unseemly to have more than one or two small glasses.

On the assumptions you make about me and my experiences Nora! 😳

But as the vast majority of people on this thread have demonstrated. Even people who have only been to Italy once, lots of times (and not Just “tourist” places) like me, or Italians themselves have pointed out on this very thread, there’s more to Italian food than the things the OP’s partner was imagining and you can eat and drink What you like. Even if you’re being judged, which I doubt, the Italians are far too polite and accommodating to make a guest feel uncomfortable. Which was my point - and yours - though I tried not to be quite so condescending as you!

By the way I don’t even like coffee, or pasta, that much - imagine the scandal I must cause! 😳