Most Italians are already planning their Christmas celebrations or holidays by the end of November and few of them remember that it is preceded by another festivity, Thanksgiving, which is particularly dear to North America. You may also be making plans for Christmas and deciding whether to fly home for the break or stay on and spend it with your fellow students, unless of course you are invited by some Italian acquaintance. If instead you have family visiting then no doubt you are already making arrangements for spending the festivities with them.

You will however wish to keep a slot open for the Thanksgiving celebrations on November 24th. In Italy Thanksgiving is really only celebrated by Americans and Canadians and usually thought of as a sort of pre-Christmas festivity, though few Italians know why it is held. In fact not many people in Europe realise that it originated with a sort of harvest festival that was organised by the Pilgrim Fathers, with the Indians who helped them, nearly a year after their arrival in America. As it is traditionally celebrated around the table with a bumper meal, your Italian friends will probably be delighted to join in the festiviities if you ask them!

You will therefore certainly have a pretty full programme of celebrations between November, December and the New Year!

Tourists staying in Florence are of course housed in comfortable hotels where expert chefs will present them with a wide choice of exquisite and refined menus, especially at this time of the year.

You instead are probably living in a rented flat or room that is lacking in most of the facilities or space required for complicated celebrations, and certainly in family atmosphere. You can easily get over the problem by eating out - students will probably go Dutch - but, if the parents are here, well, Dad pays! As for the Christmas celebrations, the Florentines already start experimenting in richer menus to combat the colder weather from October onwards. The climax comes at Christmas and the New Year when tables are laden with every imaginable gastronomic delicacy to attract gluttons and ensure the ruin of all well intentioned dieters!

The city streets are already alive with a Christmassy atmosphere. People rush about laden with brightly coloured packages, stoop off in the bars for hot chocolate or coffee, munch from bags of hot chestnuts and drop a few coins in the buskers’ hats. The haunting sound of the Italian style bagpipes - called zampogna - penetrates the brisk cold air and follows you back home.

Food seems to become a pagan rite. The restaurants and wine bars offer exotic meals and wines, the stores sell beautifully wrapped food baskets, containing anything from a complete meal to gastronomic treats (after all, diets start after the New Year)! Every family organises a series of magnificent spreads to entertain friends and relations and perhaps outdo their hospitality of the previous year.

Christmas treats can include almost anything rich, filling, irresistible though not necessarily traditional, from caviar to oysters, venison to eels, a complete fish menu or capon to wild boar! And our own traditional turkey features on many menus as well...! The most popular dish will probably once more be the Florentine T-bone steak, now that it is back on our tables. Sweet traitors to dieters include panettone (a well risen saffron sponge stuffed with raisins, currants and candied fruit), pandoro (similar but without the fruit), panforte (a fruity Sienese specality), ricciarelli (small soft almond biscuits) and torrone (almond nougat), plus plenty of mouthwatering variations.

The many restaurants advertising in Vivi can offer some, if not all, of just the right atmosphere and food for your very own Thanksgiving menu, pre-Christmas dinner or any other celebration, for that matter, though we can’t guarantee pumpkin pie! Try them, we are sure you (and your stomach) will come away completely satisfied!

[Susan Glasspool]
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