Many tourists coming to Italy experience some little issues when ordering certain kinds of food or drinks because of some similarity between Italian and English words having different meanings. This post is made in order to help everyone who plans a trip to Italy and has some issues when ordering certain kinds of food and beverages.
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- Latte → This happened to lots of tourists going to Italy: they order a Latte at the bar and they get just hot milk. Why? The reason is really simple: the Italian translation for milk is… “latte”! So, when saying “Latte” in Italy, you are just ordering milk! In order to get what is commonly referred to Latte outside our country, you have to tell one of these words: caffelatte or latte macchiato. Then you will get a Latte… yeah, the Latte you are really looking for! The word “caffelatte” is an union between Italian words for “coffee” and “milk” while “latte macchiato” means “soiled milk”, referring to the fact you are “coloring” the milk with the addition of coffee.
- Pepperoni → You all know the story, right? You order a “pepperoni” in Italy and you get peppers! That’s because the Italian translation for “peppers” is “peperoni” (with a single “P”). In Italy we don’t have the exact “Pepperoni” variety of salami: you can still order salame piccante (literally “spicy salami”) or diavola in order to get what looks more similar to the popular American Pepperoni Pizza (but don’t think you will eat pizza like in the USA: Italian pizza is very different).
- Mocha → in Italy we don’t have this word! We have a very similar word, which is “moka”. When you say “moka” in Italy, everyone understands “moka pot”, there’s no other interpretation. So you want to order the popular Mocha beverage you’ll have to say mokaccino (just like a “cappuccino” or a Starbucks Frappuccino, you just add the -ccino termination).
- Alfredo → Alfredo like it is known outside Italy does not exist in our country! The original Alfredo recipe is completely different and it is not even know as “Alfredo” in our country. You can order something quite similar by saying “pasta with butter”, but really: you are not going to find Alfredo sauce you usually see at Walmart, in Italy! The myth of Italian Alfredo is well described in one of my videos.https://youtu.be/W6eaJu5taFQ