Italians can’t seem to help themselves when it comes to packaging their products! It’s a design thing!
I promised myself when we were in Italy a few months ago, there was no way we were hauling home dried pasta! But one day, near the end of our 2 week stay in Roma, we went to Romeo for lunch. It’s just a couple of blocks from the apartment we rented, very nice and handy if too much wine is involved while enjoying a lunch!
After the fabulous lunch, while we are at the counter paying, we were studying all the products they have for sale. They have a few counters selling baked goods, salumi, and all sorts of goodies on one side and on the side where you pay, there are a number of tinned and dry goods used in the restaurant. And that’s when I spotted the jaunty blue ribbons on the packages of Benedetto Cavalieri dried pasta! Having never seen this brand before, what can I say, we simply had to buy a package!
I’m a sucker for Italian packaging! I mean…wow!
The Cavalieri packages of pasta come with a “story” about the company being started in 1918 by Benedetto and how his family continues making “choice pasta;” how they make it, about the wheat used and so on.
This is followed by the Instruzioni per la Cottura (Cooking Directions).
“With your choice you are rewarding not only the care that we have taken, but also the toil of the farmer and the miller. We thank you but…the adventure is not yet over: YOUR COLLABORATION IS IMPORTANT for perfect cooking. Pour pasta into salted boiling water (l lt. per 100 g. pasta)? Stir occasionally and keep it boiling. Our pasta merits an attentive cook: only experience can tell you when it is “al dente”! Drain, season, and stir quickly to obtain a more fragrant and tasty blend with your best sauces. Then serve it up immediately…HER MAJESTY THE PASTA cannot wait! For any enquiry or advice please write.”
Talk about pressure! Luckily I am an attentive cook because it turned out perfectly!
Easter and Christmas are the best times to see Italian packaging at it’s best here! I got hooked on buying bath soaps made in Florence because the packaging is just so gorgeous!
Even if what’s inside is not expensive, it still gets the “full Italian treatment.” You have to love that!
Couldn’t agree more, Phyllis. Italians have such a sense of beauty and style, and it permeates every aspect of Italian life, even packaging. One of the things I loved about living there.
I know Frank, it almost doesn’t matter what the heck is inside does it?? There are frustrating things about living there I am sure but then, but then…