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Rome’s New Cooking Museum Invites Visitors to Feast with Their Eyes

27 points by benbreen 5y ago

jaclaz 5y ago
Only as a side-side-comment: >If there’s one thing Italians are known for, it is zipping around on Vespas without a care in the world — but a close second would of course be the country’s long and delicious history of cuisine. It seems to me like old clichès are really tough to die. "Roman Holiday" is 1953. This (reknown, by Ruth Orkin) photo : http://www.ansa.it/webimages/img_900x700/2022/3/5/b3b30da089ecaf140ee308730e68dc48.jpg http://www.ansa.it/webimages/img_900x700/2022/3/5/b3b30da089... is 1951. Some 70 years have passed since, something, maybe not much, but still something, has changed, or at least I rarely happened to see people in Italy zipping around on Vespas without a care in the world.
- pmontra 5y ago
  Yeah. There are a lot of Vespas and similar bikes in Italian cities (they deal with traffic well) but I saw a lot of those vehicles in any Chinese city years ago. The only difference: electric engines in China.
- toyg 5y ago
  We have to unpack the sentence a bit. Lots of people zipping around in Vespas - they can be a bit bigger these days, but scooters continue to be utterly popular in any medium-to-large city in Italy, particularly around the centre. They are mostly not Vespas though, because they are very expensive these days and most of the local industry at lower price levels has gone; they're more likely to be Chinese or Korean products. Malaguti was recently relaunched though, so maybe things will change again. without a care in the world - that's a very subjective assessment, that is hard to measure. For sure Italians have not been particularly happy for a long time, and their respect of road laws has markedly increased since the postwar period (a result of increased education and stricter enforcement, often with essential technological aid). This affected scooters significantly, since compulsory helmets put off a lot of people.
  - jaclaz 5y ago
    >This affected scooters significantly, since compulsory helmets put off a lot of people. Maybe. But that (helmets made compulsory) happened in 1986, i.e. more or less 36 years ago, for most people (moped drivers more than 18 years old were exempt) and in 2000, still more than 20 years ago, helmets were made compulsory for all. I would say that by now they (the Italians) have managed to deal with that.
    - toyg 5y ago
      Eh, it depends what you mean by "managed"... It's still one of the most flaunted rules, in some areas people will even "wear" it with the lower part of a full-face helmet on their forehead, ready to "drop" the helmet (if they see police) but otherwise keeping it away from their preciously combed hair. In the "wildest" areas, the rules are still flaunted - although it's definitely less common than 20 years ago, particularly in big cities. But what I meant is that helmet rules were one of the factors that resulted in the decline of sales that eventually wiped all the local manufacturers except Piaggio (which survives on Vespa and Ape built in cheaper factories offshore). The peak years were the late '80s / early '90s.
      - jaclaz 5y ago
        Sure, though I don't know how much helmets were relevant, there is also the not-so-trifling issue of the 2 stroke and many older Euro level engines having been de facto progressively forbidden, some complications for getting driving licenses, the (debatable whether justified or not) resistance/fear of parents in letting 14 years old drive into the traffic. In the '70's and '80's (AFAICR less so in the '90's), any kid was waiting to get 14 to be able to get (if the parents could afford it) a moped, even a Ciao, and then started waiting to get 16 to be able to get the "A" driving license and be able to drive a 125 cc. I think that there has been a general shift due to these and possibly other factors that made mopeds (but also motorcycles) less desirable to most young people.

27 points by benbreen 5y ago

Only as a side-side-comment: >If there’s one thing Italians are known for, it is zipping around on Vespas without a care in the world — but a close second would of course be the country’s long and delicious history of cuisine. It seems to me like old clichès are really tough to die. "Roman Holiday" is 1953. This (reknown, by Ruth Orkin) photo : http://www.ansa.it/webimages/img_900x700/2022/3/5/b3b30da089ecaf140ee308730e68dc48.jpg http://www.ansa.it/webimages/img_900x700/2022/3/5/b3b30da089... is 1951. Some 70 years have passed since, something, maybe not much, but still something, has changed, or at least I rarely happened to see people in Italy zipping around on Vespas without a care in the world.

pmontra 5y ago
Yeah. There are a lot of Vespas and similar bikes in Italian cities (they deal with traffic well) but I saw a lot of those vehicles in any Chinese city years ago. The only difference: electric engines in China.
toyg 5y ago
We have to unpack the sentence a bit. Lots of people zipping around in Vespas - they can be a bit bigger these days, but scooters continue to be utterly popular in any medium-to-large city in Italy, particularly around the centre. They are mostly not Vespas though, because they are very expensive these days and most of the local industry at lower price levels has gone; they're more likely to be Chinese or Korean products. Malaguti was recently relaunched though, so maybe things will change again. without a care in the world - that's a very subjective assessment, that is hard to measure. For sure Italians have not been particularly happy for a long time, and their respect of road laws has markedly increased since the postwar period (a result of increased education and stricter enforcement, often with essential technological aid). This affected scooters significantly, since compulsory helmets put off a lot of people.
- jaclaz 5y ago
  >This affected scooters significantly, since compulsory helmets put off a lot of people. Maybe. But that (helmets made compulsory) happened in 1986, i.e. more or less 36 years ago, for most people (moped drivers more than 18 years old were exempt) and in 2000, still more than 20 years ago, helmets were made compulsory for all. I would say that by now they (the Italians) have managed to deal with that.
  - toyg 5y ago
    Eh, it depends what you mean by "managed"... It's still one of the most flaunted rules, in some areas people will even "wear" it with the lower part of a full-face helmet on their forehead, ready to "drop" the helmet (if they see police) but otherwise keeping it away from their preciously combed hair. In the "wildest" areas, the rules are still flaunted - although it's definitely less common than 20 years ago, particularly in big cities. But what I meant is that helmet rules were one of the factors that resulted in the decline of sales that eventually wiped all the local manufacturers except Piaggio (which survives on Vespa and Ape built in cheaper factories offshore). The peak years were the late '80s / early '90s.
    - jaclaz 5y ago
      Sure, though I don't know how much helmets were relevant, there is also the not-so-trifling issue of the 2 stroke and many older Euro level engines having been de facto progressively forbidden, some complications for getting driving licenses, the (debatable whether justified or not) resistance/fear of parents in letting 14 years old drive into the traffic. In the '70's and '80's (AFAICR less so in the '90's), any kid was waiting to get 14 to be able to get (if the parents could afford it) a moped, even a Ciao, and then started waiting to get 16 to be able to get the "A" driving license and be able to drive a 125 cc. I think that there has been a general shift due to these and possibly other factors that made mopeds (but also motorcycles) less desirable to most young people.