pancetta e chiodini

04:28 Sep 25, 2019 

I think a good restaurant or pizzeria that values its customer would want pancetta in the translation but accompanied by a full explanation of why pancetta is precisely and how it is subtly different from bacon. That would save his waiters from having to explain to the customers what pancetta is and also reassure the customers. Never managed to get a regular supply of decently thick cut streaky with the rind on in Milan.

07:39 Sep 24, 2019 

any British foodie worth their weight in pancetta knows (or thinks they should know) exactly what pancetta and chiodini are, so would want you to use the Italian terms (perhaps with an explanatory note in parentheses to help the masses)

06:03 Sep 24, 2019 

Born and bred in England, I arrived in Italy in 1981 at the age of 28. I had a tiny smattering of Italian and very definitely had absolutely no idea what pancetta was. Not even my rudimentary Latin helped me. Mind you I remember at the age of 18 American girls in Switzerland explaining what pizza was. They said the best were in Italy. When I finally learnt what pancetta was, I remembered my father's stern words as a child "don't eat raw bacon, or you will get worms". Then I dug in and ate. The raw goat's liver I had eaten some years earlier on the banks of the white Nile hadn't done me any harm. Well of course the world has moved on and Italian cuisine has conquered the world, but there is nothing more embarrassing than looking at a menu when everyone knows what that pancetta stuff is except you. A kind translator would do something like "pancetta (similar to bacon, often eaten raw) and chiodini (mushrooms)"