Are You Enjoying Our Linguine? — The Dial

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Are You Enjoying Our Linguine?

Essay

Dec 9

Written By Francesco Pacifico

How American tourists took over everything.

DECEMBER 9, 2025

I. The Gelato Order<br>An American family walks into a gelateria in the center of Rome. Reality is about to be called into question. The fabric of the world will soon be unmade by a confusion about flavors. The place is disorienting. It is not gelateria coded; it lacks the pastello vibes, the relaxed interiors, the colorful exhibition of flavors. This place has a ton of reading material on the wall about the ingredients, as if it were trying to educate you. At the counter, there is only a small selection of fancy flavors under the glass; the gelato is hidden by metal lids.<br>These flavors sound unusual; what are they? The American family had read in a guide somewhere that this was a good place. It is conveniently located, in the Centro Storico, near the Ghetto Ebraico. But they realize it might not end up providing them the gelateria experience they had imagined. Mother, father, grandfather, two kids. They had bet on this place as a substitute for lunch — it is hot outside. They have the option to leave, as families from other countries would. European tourists have a rude habit of flaking if a place doesn’t conform to their expectations. Americans persevere. The minute they stepped into the air-conditioned air of the small shop, this family knew they were not going to flee the premises without trying whatever flavors the place had to offer. Their curiosity is triggered precisely by their sense of discomfort. They won’t let the strangeness trigger them. They look for the expected, yes, but love a challenge as well, so they prepare to ask the worker behind the counter as many questions as it takes to make this place part of their new and improved notion of what Rome and Italy are.<br>It’s going to take 30-plus questions, and these are going to be asked by three adults who are not self-conscious at all. The tone of their voice is flat: unassuming but unrelenting. If they’re going to ingest these new gelato flavors, they need to know all there is to know about them. Why isn’t the name of the flavor — gianduia — the name of its main ingredient, nocciola (hazelnut)? Why all the instructions on the wall? Oh, so this is all organic. Oh, so this is, what? Crudista? Oh, it means raw; that’s interesting.<br>The gelateria wants to be modern and foodie-ish, not a place for the average tourist. But the family is not to be put off. They feel challenged. They feel alive. They are Americans. They are frontier people. They love a cultural mystery.<br>They’re here, in a way, expressly to make sense of all this. To give it value. This amazing gianduia flavor. Oh, yes, we must have tried it in Florence, and we forgot, but this tastes so much yummier than hazelnut-anything. A constant process of evaluation. To them it feels like an existential task. Without their discovering these new flavors, it would be as if they never existed. The colors are unfamiliar; the flavors are not flashy or sculpted into waves like in other shops. The tourists need time to figure out what the experience is exactly. The place is small and moderately expensive. The Rome-based franchise is only three stores deep. It has a pretentious one-word name. This gelateria is not part of any Roman lore or circuit. And crudismo is maybe the furthest thing from Roman cuisine, which is a humble one, everything stir- or deep-fried. The counter is filled with carefully arranged cookies and pralines. The worker always takes their time to fulfill orders.<br>It might be obvious, to someone who’s not them, that this family is not the demographic this gelateria is trying to appeal to. The gelateria wants to be modern and foodie-ish, not a place for the average tourist. But the family is not to be put off. They feel challenged. They feel alive. They are Americans. They are frontier people. They love a cultural mystery.<br>And so, since the family has entered the gelateria, time seems to have reached a standstill. When these tourists ask the worker behind the counter What is gianduia?, time enters its favorite zone. The fabric of time loves American tourists. When Americans analyze a small shop in a foreign country, time stops counting itself on clocks and pondering its own dull finiteness. Now it can pleasurably yawn into the holy hollowness of the 30-plus questions the tourists are asking. Now, everyone around the American family is swamped in the buttery goo of the present, stretched. The other people in the gelateria can’t name the feeling that wraps itself around them. The feeling that time is purring, that time is on the American family’s side.

I don’t want to talk about my feelings as a Roman yet.<br>I believe there’s a universal consciousness that is both me and the gelateria worker, and is also the family of tourists and the person...