Lesson Transcript

Hello everyone, welcome back to italianpod101.com.
My name is Desy, mi chiamo Desy and in this video, we're going to talk about fast foods in Italy.
fast food in Italia
I think we could translate them as in piatti pronti or like cibo pronto, like a ready, ready food.
Because we don't really say like cibo veloce which would be the literal translation of fast food.
Maybe qualcosa di veloce like something quick to eat, qualcosa facile, easy, qualcosa facile e veloce da mangiare.
But as I think you already know, Italian food culture is basically the opposite of fast food.
I'd say that we have slow food culture, meaning that you spend a lot of time at the table, eating, drinking, chatting.
So fast food doesn't really fit into Italian culture, but of course there are times when you need just to eat something,
to grab it and eat it on the way or to eat something that is ready and that you don't have to spend time on
or that you don't even have to sit at the table to eat.
And something that you can find of this kind, kind of wherever you go, I'd say is, for example, number one, pizza and focaccia.
Pizza and focaccia.
So as you know pizza, not that you have to make it of course because that would take time,
but you can find it even just a slice, una fetta di pizza or un trancio.
Un trancio is not a slice like triangle as you know it, but like square trancio di pizza which could be margherita or farcita.
Margherita is just a simple one, farcita is something with more ingredients and condiments.
Focaccia is just the white one without tomatoes and also farinata is the one made of chickpeas.
This kind of shops like pizzeria or focacceria, you can find it anywhere basically in all cities.
There are also some, let's say chains, for example Rosso Pomodoro or Fratelli la Bufala,
which is more like pizzeria, proper pizzeria at all, like where you get the whole pizza, not just a slice
or even Domino's Pizza, just recently it also spread around.
Number two, pasta asciutta.
Pasta asciutta, asciutta actually means dried, it doesn't mean that it's a dry pasta, it just means that it's not a soup.
Anywhere you go, I'd say for lunch, you would find a kind of pasta that you can order and have quite quickly.
So it could be pasta al ragù, with ragù or pasta al sugo, just with sauce or al pesto,
so the green one with basil and so on, which as I said is the contrary of zuppa, soup,
so more like something that would take you longer to eat, for example just for the reason that it's hot.
Number three, something else that you can find is rosticceria, rosticceria.
Rosticceria is actually the place where you buy this kind of food that I'm gonna talk to you about briefly,
but also the category of this food, rosticceria.
Everything that is roasted, like pollo, pollo arrosto, roasted chicken, pollo arrosto,
but not only, for example you can also find some wings, some nuggets, some potatoes or some arancini,
arancini which is like rice ball with ragù and peas fried, so I'd say everything that is roasted or fried.
Let's think of it like Kentucky Fried Chicken, which we also have in Italy, but you can find also more
places that have something more genuine, more typical. I'd say for example in Italy, in Turin,
we have Gira Rosto Santa Rita, which is a particular brand which was born in a specific area and then
spread around, Gira Rosto, because the chicken has a stick in it and it turns on itself, so Gira turning,
arrosto, so it's the roasted chicken turning, it's called Gira Rosto.
Number four ready to eat is also la piadina, which goes together with toasts and sandwiches.
Piatina is just a flat bread, let's say that you can fold and fill it with what you want,
so for example prosciutto and formaggio, ham and cheese or some vegetables and so on,
but anyway that's really something that you can get in like five minutes because they have it
ready and they just like fill it in and give it to you. It's like a sandwich I'd say or a toast,
but it's typical of Italy. There are some piadinerie around the city, piadinerie. There's also a chain
nowadays which is called la piadineria and as in for sandwiches maybe like Subway,
but that's about it. For the rest it's just like bars that you can find at every corner where you
get coffee, you also get sandwiches and toasts. Number five I'd say hamburgers,
hamburger, hamburger. Of course you have McDonald's and Burger King, but also just
hamburgeria, hamburgeria, which is kind of a fast food but made with more natural ingredients,
for example some specific meat or like roasted potatoes and so on. It may take longer than a
normal fast food, but that's still something quick that you can eat. Here you can also find of course
chips, patate fritte, but not only, some of them are made like in a more traditional way. In fact
I'd like to say that what we think as fast food doesn't really have to be junk food as you may
think of, because we really care about food in general, so even fast food I'd say is made with
care and everyone really cares about that, because otherwise people would just not go. Even big chains
like McDonald's and Burger King, they have specific sandwiches, specific bread that is more like
typical Italian. I'd also like to add that in all these places anywhere you go to eat like let's say
just lunch break for example, you can also get an insalatona, which is literally a big salad,
insalatona, insalata, insalata and onna is something that makes it bigger, so insalatona,
which has more of it, but also more ingredients, so not just salad, but maybe some chicken,
some cheese or a tuna for example. Anyway, something that could replace a meal, that's also
what you would consider fast food and as I said before it doesn't really have to be junk food.
So yeah, maybe when you're in Italy and you're visiting cities you may want to try one of them,
just to see if it's different compared to other countries, which I can already tell you it is to
some extent, like for example remember that here you don't get the free refill of your drink.
Anyway, let me know in the comments what you would consider as fast food in Italy, so Italian
fast food and if you ever tried some, also if you want to learn even more about Italian culture
and Italian language, just click the link in the description and download our PDF lessons
to learn Italian in the fastest, easiest and most fun way possible. Thank you for watching,
I'll see you soon, ciao ciao, bye bye.

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