Questions from a reader

One of my readers peppered me with a list of questions. I'm going to give her some half-baked answers. (We've only been here a bit more than a week, after all.) She writes:

Hi Expats, Can you enlighten me about a few things? (Meaning, should I try to move there someday?)

     1. Is it better for old people than the US, with housing, medical care, transportation, in-home services?

      2. Are the 4 neo-fascists currently running for office there worse than Drumph?

      3. Do people sit in cafes and converse, or are the cafes filling up with laptop zombies?

      4. Can one wear comfortable shoes without getting laughed at?

      5. Do most people have normal looking teeth, or are they Chiclet white? Thanks for your attention to these important matters.

1. I suspect that being old and infirm is not easy, even in Italy. But Italy has one of the best health systems in the world, according to the World Health Organization,ranking second only to France, and that probably helps make getting care easier for Italian oldsters. Romano's mother, who lives here in Fidenza and is housebound, gets a wide variety of home health services, including monthly house calls from her doctor, all for no charge. 

Shank's mare is a popular means of transport for Fidenza's anziani

On the other hand, there don't seem to be a lot of the kinds of discounts for older people that we eagerly take advantage of in the U.S. There's a fair amount of public transportation, that is, buses and trains, but no discounts for the elderly, as far as I've seen, and tickets aren't particularly cheap. Uber and Lyft have yet to come to Fidenza, and taxis are quite expensive. Walking and biking are popular ways to get around the downtown, much of which is closed to vehicle traffic, which is nice for everyone, including us older people. But I suspect that once old folks can no longer get where they want to go on a bicycle or by foot, their children take on the job of hauling them around. 

In sum, I think an old person who's independent would be better off in New York City or the San Francisco Bay Area than in a small town like Fidenza. 

2. All of the right-wingers and so-called populists in Italy are more serious about politics than our president, who apparently cares only about his own popularity and his ego needs of the moment. Whether that makes them better or worse, I'm not sure. 

3. I have yet to see anyone in a cafe with a laptop. Sometimes people pull out a phone to check messages, and young people who are sitting alone will often use their phone as a substitute companion. But most Italians seem to have an endless appetite for conversation, and it's rare to see someone sit at a table with someone else and stare at a phone instead of talking, talking, talking.

4. Two kinds of women wear comfortable shoes, as far as I've noticed. Young women wear sneakers or flats, but they are almost in violently feminine colors or fabrics, and often covered in sequins or shiny gold or silver leather. On weekend evenings, though, you'll see the same ragazze staggering across the cobblestones in high heels. Perhaps it gives them an excuse to hang off the arms of the young men.

Older women wear more conventionally comfy shoes, but they are still markedly feminine in cut. I've never seen a woman around here in hiking boots or other heavy, orthopedic-looking shoes. When I went around wearing men's sandals last summer (because I couldn't find any women's sandals big enough for my American feet), no one laughed at me, but I did notice people looking at my feet--not pointing and staring, but definitely noticing.

5.  The drugstore shelves are full of tooth-whitening potions and toothpastes, but evidence on the street is that either they aren't much used or they aren't very effective. Italians drink a lot of coffee and red wine, and many of them still smoke, so Italian teeth are far from Chiclet-esque. Fidenza is also a small town without many "beautiful people," though. I'm sure in the right precincts of Milan you can find plenty of blindingly white choppers.

The same reader peppered me with more questions after I posted about a recent lunch that included a vegetable soup and pickled peppers but no salad: 

What kind of vinegar? Where are the greens? Do they use parsley in the winter? Do they grow herbs on windowsills? Is cilantro ever used?

This nice little vegetable market had beautiful produce but not a very wide selection

I'm going to write a longer disquisition on Italian salads any day now. But here I'll say that salads are not a standard part of an Italian meal, and when they're offered are often not very nice by California standards. The usual vinegar here is wine vinegar, either red or white, though a lot of places now offer balsamic, which I think is a step down since it's usually too sweet. Parsley is a common ingredient, but not wildly in evidence. I think maybe it's in the cooking rather than featured on top. I've seen little pots of herbs to grow on your balcony, but only standard Italian ones--oregano, basil, parsley. 

Cilantro is completely foreign to Italian cooking, and like most foreign foods it is not easy to find in a small town. Pam says you can occasionally find cilantro for sale at a local immigrant-serving market that sells Chinese ingredients. She's still looking for a source for brown sugar, molasses, sumac, or peanut butter other than Jif. If you want a global diet, places like New York and the Bay Area are probably your best bet in that regard, too.