Rose Thomas spills the prosecco on Italian swears, her favorite Italian gesture, the ultimate spritz recipe, and the bartender travel advice that could cure your ennui. This travel story episode reveals more background about the name "Modo di Bere" and RT's frame of mind as she claimed permission to enjoy her first visit to Venice.
Referenced in the episode:
Bele Casel Prosecco from Asolo DOCG
Ca' Nigra Lagoon Resort
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- Expand for auto-generated transcript. (Please excuse errors.) (laughing) (speaking in foreign language) - This episode features strong drinks as well as strong language. Welcome to Modo di Bere, the podcast about local drinks and local sayings. I'm your host, Rose Thomas Bannister. Today, I'm sharing a travel story I wrote about my first time in Venice on the trip in 2022, where I also got the idea from Modo di Bere. I recently returned to Venice for the second time, where I witnessed a falcon attempting to board the Vaporetto. That is a story for another day. Before I share my first impressions of Venice, I want to say a special thank you to my Patreon supporters, to everyone who has shared a written review, or sent me a note on social media to let me know what you think of the show. You are 100 % what keeps me going in this work of mine. This 2. To stay up to date on Season 3, which is coming soon, please subscribe to my newsletter at MododiBere.com. I got called for a wine gig in Italy just as the COVID stricken world began to open up. The pandemic still felt like a bad movie that just wouldn't end. And I was bone deep in burnout after surviving sirens and morgue trucks, American mask fights, shuttered rock clubs, and the hell of remote school. Springtime in Italy sounded so nice that I spent weeks before the trip, mildly convinced I'd die in a car crash on some obscure mountain road. I didn't die, so on the last day of my trip my reward was seeing Venice. I rolled my red suitcase back and forth, gazing at the blue dot on my phone, as if it would help me find my hotel. "What should I do in Venice?" I'd asked winemaker Paolo Ferrero of Bellecassell over a glass of Oslo Prosecco, so replete with terroir, one could see the story of the land in the shadow the liquid cast on a wine barrel turned on its side for a table. I'm not kidding. That's what they call a glass of wine in Veneto. Lombra. Shadow. I had a few days free to visit producers like Pala, and I learned that Venetian wine sellers of yore kept their wines cool in the shade by scooching their Prosecco stands around the San Marco bell tower as if it were a sundial. And Venice, Pell had answered, "Get lost. Walk. Take in all the sounds. Forget yourself." She said I'd love the local language there. I asked her what the words or accent sounded like. "You'll know it when you hear it," was all she would say. I wanted to take Pell's advice, but I hadn't planned on getting lost before checking into my hotel. Venice is not a blue dot sort of place. I'd have to rely on how my father taught me to travel. Forget the internet. Hit whatever watering hole had evolved from the bell tower scene and make friends. As soon as I'd dropped off the suitcase. I'd passed three or four times through the same corridor when a panned handler pointed a finger over his shoulder and intoned. "La," he was right. The gate was there. I rolled my stuff into the Ca -Nigra Lagoon Resort Hotel. At the front desk, I told Narciso of the mischievous goatee that I knew lombra and desired more words like it. He let slip which cestiere he and his friends frequent after work. Conoregio is the most of the districts described by the special Italian word for "neighborhood" that lets you know that there are six of them. I wouldn't come close to exploring all six zones in just one day, but I'd go out with a local saying from Narciso that I could use to break the ice. "L 'acqua marcise e pali" Narciso wrote it down. He told me it means "water rots the boat poles, and that it's used to admonish anyone who'd request a drink of water instead of something stronger. Selling wine in New York City introduced me to people from all over Italy. Their linguistic diversity was as vast and varied as the native grapes that drew me to Italian wine. I collected the wine names like baseball carts, L 'Ambrusco di Sorbara, Malvasia di Lippari, Palla Palagrello Bianco. The deeper I got into the grapes, the more sayings and dialect came my way. I started noticing idioms that expressed the same idea with local variations in language, agricultural products, and animals. Mere days before Venice, high on surviving my first time driving in Italy, I'd felt my definite belief that It's way too hard to become a wine writer, dissolve into the modest idea that I should start a blog or something. I could bring in the language stuff. Then I realized it was called "modo di bere," way of drinking, a pun on the Italian word for a saying, "modo di bere." I sat up behind the steering wheel and thought, "That's a good idea." it was time to start having a little fun. In other words, water is bad for you. Drink wine. Narciso's local example of what water destroys — poles for tying up gondolas — was the third such phrase I'd collected during my visit to Veneto and Friulio Venezia Giulia. The first, in Italian Italian, "l 'acqua farugine" means "water makes rust." The second, in Friulano, sounded like "lagge je buine per croce. Water is for frogs." Narciso gave me a tour of the boat dock, explaining that it's luxurious to have one and that it's called a cabana. We toured the hotel, Narciso dishing 17th century gossip about ambassadors and courtesans. My red rolling suitcase matched the walls of my room. I photographed the colorful glass chandelier, marveled a little at the private veranda, and went back out in search of the COVID test I'd need to reenter the states. The pharmacy was closed for lunch. All right, I'd eat too. I approached a tiny bar protruding from a window. A waitress came out the door and simply said no. I didn't understand what I'd done wrong, only ducked like a dog into a big restaurant that seemed open, if entirely empty. Its sign advertised gluten -free pizza. A Sri Lankan waiter of about 17 led me to the garden, which was still encased in plastic, like it did not believe the spring was here to stay. I was joined in the garden by a group of mechanics or something. They sat with their boiler suits peeled down at the waist, like half -open bananas. The mechanics faced each other at a long table across the aisle to my right. My table faced the next garden over, which was boldly open to the air. There sat an older man in profile sunning himself like a cat. He moved only to twitch his cheeks, crack his craggy fingers, sip his white wine, or let out a few measures of stentorian coughing. The oldest mechanic either knew the guy or found the cough as striking as I did. He'd imitate the sound to his buddies after each round of Qatar. "You'll know it when you hear it," Paola had said of the Venetian dialect. The mechanic's conversation started to sound like Blah blah blah Mona blah blah Mona Aha, I'd been invented to long enough to pick up the regional word for pussy If you learn Italian in a restaurant like I did you start with one part rude words one part food words and one part dishes Capsa be steka Coltello dick steak, knife. Either the mechanic's conversation concerned explicit subjects, or they were using Mona, the way many Italians, in casual contexts, use "cazzo." Days into learning restaurant Italian, I'd remarked that the sound of them talking to each other was like "blah blah blah cazzo, blah blah blah cazzo." "It's the same for you guys and fuck," my colleague had replied. I'd spent the next several years picking up local slang from every Italian I met, and the cocks would far outnumber the vulvas. Either the mechanic's frequent monas were a regional specialty, or my instructors had been holding out on me when it came to the emphatic feminine. The local language had found me. It was time to make friends. I had liquid courage in the form of an apparel spritz. I'm kidding, apparel is not so alcoholic, perfect for day drinking, but I'd struggled with my sudden desire to order one for lunch. The Italians I'd met ordered spritzes in the late afternoon only. They take this gustatory time of day stuff so seriously. Typical Americans ignore them, consuming both cappuccinos and spritzes for brunch. As an obedient student of Italian customs, I tried to win in Rome, but I wasn't in Rome, and I wanted a spritz. When I was a bartender, I made so many damned spritzes, and I advised all the customers who complained of ennui to go on vacation alone. It was my turn to travel. I ordered a spritz. In a matter of hours I'd learn that Venice is a magical place, where you drink nothing but spritzes, day and night, made not only from apparel, but from the local red spirits' select. A spritz with select is more bitter than apparel, less sweet than Campari, and they throw in an olive as often as an orange. Despite my ignorance, Venetian spritz magic had already done its work on me. Full of prosecco and vivid herbaceous liqueur, I strode over to Ioperae, the workers, and sat down at their table's open seat. "Hello," I said in Italian. "I am interested in local language. For instance," I told them. "I have learned. L 'acqua marcise e pie." Introductions turned to jokes about ancient rivalries I could not begin to fathom. The outsider accused, I think, of eating cats. I decided I must have misheard. Ricardo, the oldest, the cough imitator, he of the white mustache and the sweater with thick horizontal stripes, became even more animated when I mentioned the boat poles, Pali. Narciso had already informed me that the local accent drops the central single L, but Riccardo held up his hand in a sort of "okay" sign, the Italian gesture for "listen up, I am teaching you something." He plunked this handshape through the air, emphasizing each syllable, like a note on a stave. "L 'acqua, marcisse, i pai." Turns out the second word was not quite "marcice," Italian for "rot." Ricardo insisted I repeat "s" with perhaps a hint of "s -marcice." A freshly minted blogger, I was filming Ricardo with my phone. An off -camera mechanic pointed a finger into the frame and prompted Ricardo to teach me the second half of the saying. "I learned so many versions of the waters bad for you, saying, without ever encountering a second half." "And the wine?" the man asked, in Italian. "The wine," Ricardo answered, "makes you sing." I knew I'd captured the o 'er -recording of my folkloric project, even as I'd just begun. Stuffed with local language and sad pizza, I receded to my own tovelino. The mechanics paid up and left me alone amid the see -through plastic walls. I stared at the old cat in the next garden over. He twitched his cheek. "L 'acqua marcise pie," I thought. songs. Italy, Venice, had given me permission not only to enjoy myself, but to sing. I sat (singing in foreign language) (singing in foreign language) I hope you enjoyed this video. I hope you enjoyed Venetian Spritz Magic and any other episodes of Moto D Berry that you've heard. If you have a dream that feels impossible right now, I hope you can take some time for yourself doing something fun, whatever that looks like for you. I still stand by the advice from my bartending days that a little solo travel really helps open our minds to consider new possibilities. In case you didn't know, I produced "Moto di Beria" by myself, along with the Italian version of the podcast, "Moto di Beria Italiano," including all the interviews, booking, recording, promotion, and editing, with a tiny bit of audio help from Steve Silverstein. I have a collaborator on my YouTube travel show, now in production. You can watch the pilot on the MotoDBerry YouTube channel, but Amelia Agamirzaii and I are still two ladies wearing a lot of hats. The MotoDBerry podcast really is made possible thanks to listeners like you. Please consider taking a moment now to visit patreon .com /MotoDBerry and sign up as a patron for as little as $5 a month. Thank you for listening wherever you go and whatever you like to drink always remember to enjoy yourself and to never stop learning Support us on patreon grab the newsletter at moto de berry calm and subscribe to the youtube channel at moto de berry to watch the travel Show moto de berry TV Music for the show was composed by arcilia prosbury for the band. Oh, purchase their music at the link in the notes.
Music composed by Ersilia Prosperi for the band Ou: www.oumusic.bandcamp.com
Produced, recorded and edited by Rose Thomas Bannister
Audio assistance by Steve Silverstein
Video version by Giulia Àlvarez-Katz
