MUMsnet little Italy

[mediterraneo]

buonasera!

WhAT do italian children eat for their school lunch?

Med, some bambini delle elementari go home at 12.30, the others eat alla mensa. Menus are rotated on a weekly basis, they have the usual, pasta, salad, risotto,pollo, and pizza once a week. A friend of mine told me that once they had seppie con i piselli. When I was a child I used to go home at 12.30 as my mum stopped working when I was seven. I did bring a merenda (snack0 for the 10.30 break. That varied. My fav were michetta con il salame or cracker saiwa with 2 quadratini di cioccolato fondente!
Ds has school dinners here, as, like Cali's friend, I find the idea of packet lunch a bit "tricky" !
Globetrotter, I'm so impressed by all the things you are doing for the children .

the children in Hue.

Pocket Coffee got me through my conference on Monday on 2 hours' sleep! Wonderful invention!

hold on, I don't think pocket coffee is perugina! I fear that it might be ferrero, like ferrero roche', quelli dell'ambasciatore...

Will check packet at work tomorrow and confirm.

check this out! a whole review of pocket coffee (whic, btw used to have a fantastic ad, papapappapapapapa' pocket coffee... )

Definitely Ferrero!

I like the link, Franca...... I wish they exported to Asia.... Some Baci too, Califrau. I have yet to find good chocolate in Hue.

not a Fererro fan sorry to say more of a Lindt person ( the red ones). Globe trotter I admire what you are doing are you planning on staying in Vietman for a long time or are you going to carry on moving ?
Went to the Perugina factory /musuem once and did the Hershey ( if thats how you spell it) in the USA...They were both sooo different but the one thing in common were the free samples

ohhhhhhhhhhhh! papappapppa POCKET COFFEEEEE
! I had completely forgotten about this advert, thank you for reminding me. Oh childhood memories.....
I should have explained why I want to translate lunch box. A friend is translating an english novel and doesn't know how to translate lunch box, hard because it is a British concept. I guess the Italian equivalent would be a panino con una bibita...
E Pippppiiii dove sei?

Med: it could be colazione al sacco, but it's a bit old fashined

gosh, that's bad cali! Can't you find lind?
I think there's a British grocery in La where you can buy all the cadburys you want (I read about it in an interview to sharon ousborne )

Cali, do you want me to send you some choc?

Will google colazione al sacco, never heard it!

and you as well globetroter, would you like some chocolate? (although would the choc survive in 50 degrees?, in Italy you can't buy ferrero roche' from may to september)

All this chocolate talk is making me very hungry indeed. STop it!
What are you reading Franca? Are you getting used to returning to your beloved Milano?

Med... It would depend on the context, of course (i.e. whether it's important to know what is IN the lunch-box, when it is eaten, etc.) but in general I'd be tempted to use 'merenda'/'merendina'. It's not a literal translation, but since the concept of a lunch-box doesn't exist, you need to find something close to the concept... something a child takes to school to eat. Obviously this doesn't work if the whole sentence is 'Little Jimmy took his sandwich, crisps and fruit shoot out of his lunch box'. But if it's more in the line of 'The children went off to school with their books, pencils and lunch-boxes' then merend(in)a would probably be OK, wouldn't it? (OTOH, am not a native speaker of Italian, so could be making this up, LOL! )

Aiuto... quick... anyone got any idea. How would you say 'funding bodies' in Italian? (I mean institutions like the British Academy and the Arts and Humanities Research Council, which give money for research-related activities in the Arts in the UK.) Any ideas?

Off the top of my head:
gli organi di amministrazione/di vigilanza/o di provvedimento dei fondi? any of these?

organi di gestione dei fondi?

am sure there is somenthing better...anyone else up?