Eric Dregni takes a bite out of Italy
When writers travel overseas to countries known for sumptuous, leisurely meals, it’s understandable if their accounts get a little bloated. But Eric Dregni’s observations come in small bites in his foodie memoir Never Trust A Thin Cook, And Other Lessons From Italy’s Culinary Capital. Around the turn of the century, Dregni and his future wife, Katy, dropped everything and moved to Italy for two years. They scraped by on Dregni's column in a local newspaper and sporadic teaching and translating jobs. They learned about balsamic vinegar, Formula One racing, and which Italian laws are worth ignoring. Oh, and they ate really well. Never Trust A Thin Cook covers all the grand meals you'd expect, plus less tasty topics like government bureaucracy and locals' penchant for reckless driving. Now back in the Twin Cities, Dregni teaches Italian and is working on a book about Scandinavians' influence on the Midwest. Dregni reads from Never Trust A Thin Cook Nov. 3 at the U of M’s Coffman Union Bookstore, Nov. 14 at the Maple Grove Barnes & Noble, and Nov. 18 at the Southdale Library. The A.V. Club recently spoke with him about culturally enforced naps, his favorite cheese, and a lasting interest in Italy that began when he was a foreign exchange student.
The A.V. Club: How did you end up going to high school in Italy?
Eric Dregni: When I was little we lived in Belgium, but I went to Minnetonka High School, and after a while the suburbs just grate on you, so I had to get out of there. So my senior year I just wanted to go somewhere warm and Mediterranean. It was either Greece, Spain or Italy, and I lucked out and got Italy. ...We’d always done things in Northern Europe, so I was familiar with that, but ... Northern Europe is a little like Minnesota in a lot of ways, pretty staid. Italy is much more vivace, exciting. Everyone thinks my last name is Italian, but it’s actually Norwegian.
AVC: Did the Italians think it was Italian?
ED: They did, actually! “Oh, Dregni!” they said. “That’s from the region Le Marche!" Or "Abruzzo!” I guess there are a bunch of Dregnis down there. [Italy] is the only place I’ve been where I could spell my last name and they could say it instantly.
AVC: There are lots of books about food-obsessed Americans going to Europe. How did you want yours to be different?
ED: So many people have written about Italy. The big ones now are, like, Frances Mayes, and there are just tons of them. But it’s this idea—like when you go over there and you expect it to be like Frances Mayes hitting this villa in Tuscany and having these quirky servants working on your house and they’ll stop in for some homemade limoncello. And it’s like, “Wait a minute—that’s not real.” So us living there, it was like “Okay, this is the real life. We’re at the Italians’ mercy. We’re not hiring them to work for us. They’re hiring us to work for them."
AVC: There's an ongoing theme about red tape that sort of takes away from this romantic idea of Italian life. Did you know that would be a big part of the book as you were writing it?
ED: I didn’t expect it to be. I mean, no one really wants to hear about your problems unless there’s a good story around it. But there were these tangled webs of bureaucracy that really go back to the Romans, I guess. There were these catch-22s all the time. ... And these rules that they make often are to stop people from doing things, but once you got to know someone, all those barriers are gone.
AVC: Did you run into many people who didn't want to be in the book?
ED: There’s a compilation of articles I wrote in Italian that came out called Thank God I’m Not From Bologna, and the person I was really worried about was Roberto, my editor. So I changed his name in the Italian version, and he was so upset. The portrayal of him I didn’t think was particularly flattering even though it was all true. And he was like, “What do you mean? This is how I am!” So I made sure to keep his name [in the English version]. People generally weren’t upset about being written about. They found that kind of flattering. But people would get upset when we’d go to the next town, like Bologna, and say, “Wow, that’s a really great town.” People are just so proud of their towns. Sure, I’m proud of being from Minneapolis, but...
AVC: But you don’t hate St. Paul.
ED: Yeah. People say we have a rivalry with Wisconsin or whatever, but it’s all good-natured. Over there, there’s this good-natured rivalry, but it’s been going on for centuries. If you’re from the next town over, you’ll never really fit in, even generations later.
AVC: When you moved back to Minnesota, did you experience any culture shock?
ED: There are a lot of habits I still haven’t gotten used to. I mean, just eating here. I really like being able to have a nice meal at lunch and then taking a little nap. Not that I need to lie down for two hours—just a little 15-minute nap. That and having a glass of wine at lunch. Here, if you go back to work after a couple glasses of wine, it’s sacrilege.
AVC: What do you miss most food-wise?
ED: Tortellini, the real stuff. Tortelloni. And mozzarella di bufala. People say you can get it here, but I’m sorry, when it’s wrapped in plastic it’s not the same. ... I was working at this dairy, this cheesemaker out in Silver Lake, Wisconsin, and they had me translate for this group of Italians who make mascarpone. They were setting up this rather large mascarpone plant there, and the people who worked at the plant had never even heard of mascarpone. So now I’m trying to convince them to make real buffalo-milk mozzarella, but you'd need real water buffalos. I know there are a few in southern Wisconsin. You’d be a millionaire.
AVC: Taking all that cheese into account, how did two years of Italian living affect your health?
ED: You’d think I’d come back huge like Pavarotti, right? We lived right dead-center in the middle of town, a block from the main square and the market, so we could get all this great prosciutto and stuff, fresh as it could be. But we never had a car, so we were on our bikes all the time. We never gained weight. In the U.S. we have a much more sedentary culture. And the food there, even though it is rich, there’s this idea that Italian food is pasta with tons of cheese and really gloppy or whatever. And there’s a certain amount of that, I guess. But they eat so many fruits and vegetables, more than anyone in Europe, and Europeans in general eat a lot more fruits and vegetables than we do. There's also this misconception that they eat a lot of dessert, but they really only eat them on special occasions. They're not eating tiramisu and zabaione every night.
