Lygon Street, the Little Italy of Melbourne!
Strolling through Lygon Street and north of Faraday St, makes me reminisce the time I was cooking in Nonna’s kitchen. The aromas of tremendous cheeses, meats and sauces. Seeing ham hanging from the ceiling. The Italian song ‘che sara sara’ playing in the background, with the echoes of Italian words being shouted across the room. The fluffy texture and touch of the crisp pizza dough! Plus the tastes of sweet Italian sauce. These are what captivates me in Little Italy. I felt like I was reliving my memoires of cooking with Nonna. This made me feel right home in Nonna’s kitchen.
At the heart of Italian Cuisine in Melbourne, there’s a wide variety of Italian well-priced and large sizing of cuisines from many regions of Italy. From my hometown Sicily to Roma to Milan, it is a demonstration of a unified Italy within Melbourne! Being located minutes away from The University of Melbourne, students and teachers are only a few steps away from having their mouths full of delicious food!
I use to think that Lygon street was a replication of Italy, but the more I critically evaluated it, the more I recognised a few ambiguities. The restaurant Tiamo emphasised itself as an authentic Italian restaurant. However it used “keep cups” for take away coffee, but coffee in Italy is always sit down. According to Anderson, National Diet 2014, “authenticity…persist problems”. I noticed this when eating the tortellini, it was obvious that this was ‘packaged’ and frozen and not like how “[Nonna] use to cook”, National Diet 2014. This accentuated that Tiamo was changing its traditions to compete in the business world, by saving money and time preparing food from scratch.
Whatever you do, don’t tell Nonna about this!!!
Just like Nonna’s Style of Cooking 