Beautiful Italian words: Fare la scarpetta

A gentle reminder on how to enjoy food in a diet-obsessed world

I’ve just wrapped up the last Cremona Retreat for 2024 ( a post about this amazing event is in the works.) 

During these days, we had a chance to enjoy the wonders of Cremona cuisine and a word that came up a lot  was “ fare la scarpetta”. It came up because at some meals, I was doing a lot of it! 

Fare la scarpetta is something that we do a lot in Italy. 

In today’s post, we’ll see what it actually means and how this word can enrich your life no matter where you are in the world.

Fare la scarpetta literally  would be “do the little shoe”.  But it actually describes mopping up leftover sauce with bread. 

Just picture it. You’ve just finished eating a very good dish, you notice some sauce left on the dish and you gleefully tear a chunk of bread off a loaf and dip it in the leftovers of what you’re eating, carefully mopping the dish clean. 

Like last Saturday, in Cremona. I’d just finished eating a wonderful Caprese with Burrata and there was some juices from the delightful pomodori datterini mixed up with olive oil. 

Leaving all that felt like a pity so I just took some of the bread from the basket that was so fresh and crunchy and mopped the tasty remains up. 

The burrata caprese and the view. Where you eat can help complete the experience.

When you’ve enjoyed a dish, you just wish it would last a little longer. 

A scarpetta is the perfect option to enjoy what’s left of your meal a minute longer.

 You’re cleaning up your dish, treating your taste buds  but you’re also letting people know indirectly that you really enjoyed your meal. 

There’s nothing more satisfying for a cook than to see that the plates are being returned spotless. 

What better proof that people have enjoyed their food? 

What makes the perfect scarpetta is, aside from having a good dish to mop up, is the bread. Not just any kind of bread can complement your meal.

It has to be crunchy on the outside, soft on the inside and very fresh.

I have very fond memories of my grandfather letting me mop up some of the sauce that he was making as a sort of anticipatory treat. He’d give me a chunk of bread to have a taste and it was so special. 

With that chunk of bread dipped in sauce, I felt like we were truly connecting. I was loved and the world was a beautiful safe place.

In our diet-obsessed culture, fare la scarpetta might seem over-indulgent. 

Extra carbs? No, let’s skip that.

But I’m sharing this word with you today because I think mopping up what’s left of your meal is not something driven by gluttony but instead the joy of life.

After all, when you’re mopping up your meal, you’re signaling that the meal was really good instead of just passing on mindlessly to the next dish.

Perhaps if we spent more time acknowledging how good our food is, we’d be more appreciative and satisfied with our meals and wouldn’t need snacks throughout the day?

After all, our bodies ( and minds)  need fuel. What we eat ( and I’ll add, how we eat) affects our mood and feelings. 

And yet, we don’t hesitate to deprive ourselves of the very things that nourish and replenish us. 

Why do we have this need to keep ourselves and our joy constantly on a leash?

Diet culture, that most of us live in, keeps us focused on keeping a tab on our calories.

For our health, for our looks and to  fit into our clothes.

But what if the contrary were true?

I’m starting to believe that the more we spend time truly savoring our food, the less we have to worry about stuff like  waistline, carbs and calories. 

Being happy keeps us healthy.

How does constantly starving ourselves accomplish any of that?

There’s research to back all this up but I don’t even need to go hunting for it. All I have to do is look at my own life.

 The minute I stopped thinking about diets and allowed myself to truly, utterly enjoy my food, was the moment in which I stopped putting on weight and began to enjoy all that life has to offer. 

Because food, good food, healthy food, is part of our happiness. 

Being in the moment, eating at a table with a nice conversation to go along with it, is happiness of the best kind. 

Life is too short for us not to jumping at every opportunity of tiny moments of happiness during the day. 

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Ciao !

Coffee Secrets shares all that lies behind a good cup of coffee. Here I share about life in Italy, reconnecting with your passions and compassionate language learning. Learning Italian should be a journey of joy like the country that inspires it and not a dreary reminder of school.

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Elfin