Ouzo e vino in Milano

[JHertzman@domain.elided]

In AD7-531 Tom Baumen writes "So isn't the Agean Sea and a little land all
that divides Italy from Greece and didn't the Greeks roam all over the
Mediteranean-"

Yes, certainly, but- 

Try the English Channel, and say that twenty miles is all that separates an
English cuisine, and drink, from French ones. They roamed all over, too.

Some of the Italian city-states, particularly those with sea-faring commerce,
like Venice, mingled the moneys, fashions and tastes of Moors and Turks and
Spaniards and Englishmen. Others, inland and off the trade-routes, didn't.
Many retain a strong sense of a separate local identity, like Milano and
Torino.

I have enjoyed ouzo, marc, grappa, and Jack Daniels. Warm beer, too. If you
want to find an empty bottle of Southern Comfort in your Alfa's door, ok, but
the guy who drank it might have gotten some funny looks from his peers.

In AD7-532 Rich Hirsch commented on the vending machines selling wine in the
lunch rooms when he visited Arese in the eighties. Don Black has a small jar
of aluminum disks, 27 mm diameter, with the Alfa Romeo badge imprinted
(anodized, actually) with the word "MENSA" (table, or mess-hall) where
"Milano" is on the real thing. When he worked at Portello these were used as
deposit tokens for the glass carafes of wine in the mess-hall, where an
excellent lunch was on the company but the workers had to buy their own wine.
The workers brought their flatware and napkins from home, though. Don,
ignorant Americano that he was, hadn't known about this, and he was too busy
to buy the tools, so at each lunch he left his passport as security for loaner
flatware. When the historic old factory was bulldozed he went looking for a
piece of the magnificent wrought-iron gates in the debris, but other like-
minded sentimentalists had already cleaned it out. All he found, besides
masonry rubble, were a bunch of the carafe-tokens which had been discarded
because the up-to-date facility at Arese would have the process mechanized.

During my stint in automotive assembly in the forties we brought our lunches
from home, including a Thermos if we wished. One of the crew on my line had
milk in his, but it was milk heavily fortified with White Lightening. The idea
never appealed to me.

Cordially,

John H.
Raleigh, N.C.

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