Remember how Pippin wails, “But what ‘bout second breakfast?” at Aragorn in Lord of The Rings? That line’s our new in-joke about italian cappuccino.
Okay, so it’s not particularly novel to note how things are smaller in Europe than The States — after all, these divergent cultures respectively regard Smart Cars and Hummer H2s as acceptable, non-comedic commuter vehicles. Swap continents, though, and these cars would draw more laughs than a clown ambulance. (It’s probably been that way since classic Cinquecentos and Caddies first rolled onto the streets.)
So the car thing is obvious, but it’s the pervasiveness of this sizing switcheroo that’s harder to convey to folks back home: everything here, from shower stalls to soda cans, seems of skewed scale or diminished heft.
Right then. And what was that about Italian cappuccino?
Best. Coffee. Ever. And nobody who’s sampled it would ever argue the point.
And yet… coming from a country where the ‘Thirsty-Two Ouncer’ was long ago deprecated to a mere ‘medium’ versus a ‘large’ 64-oz. pail of carbonated beverage, a nation where the words ‘super’ and ‘size’ are not only combined, but also conjugated in an imperative verb form, and where a zillion Starbuckses huck percolated swill in ‘Venti‘-ounce units, I can’t help but have my heart sink, just a bit, every time i’m served my Morning Cup here.
‘Cause it’s better coffee, sure, and it’s better milk, no doubt, but it’s just so damn… dainty. Hell, I’ve seen Java Jackets boasting double the diameter of the cappuccino china here.
But you can’t order two. It’s bad manners, against the rules, something only silly stranieri would do. (As, btw, is ordering cappuccino after 11 or so in the morning.)
Hence the little Tolkien joke. Our solution, you see, is the hobbit-inspired ‘Second Breakfast’, cunning and conniving, and awfully elegant, too: we’re two-timing the local cappuccino bars.
We’ll have a cappuccio at the bar closest to home, happily trading the morning ‘buongiornos’ all around, quaffing our coffee, and then stealthily slip around the corner, where we repeat the routine, down to the last drop. Topping off the tanks, so to speak.
So is this gluttonous? Yeah, probably. But, then again, one doesn’t get to drink Italian coffee every day of their lives. Rr do they?
