This comparison seems kind of unfair. I bet that the city where your workplace is located, if it’s not London, is still significantly bigger than the home town of your colleagues. It’s not that difficult to find variety in large Italian towns.
That said, it’s true that food is a huge part of the Italian culture, and the reason why most small towns have approximately zero ethnic restaurants is that the locals won’t eat there in the first place. The YouGov data here are probably quite right: 99% of Italians do like Italian food, and they like it quite a lot (note that no other square in the table has such a high value: 99% manages to beat even the lizardmen constant).
The only Italian that I ever met who complained about food in his home town was a vegan from a town where all the traditional specialties are meat-based. He claimed that several restaurants outright refused to serve him anything at all (which kind of proves your point, but again, the median Italian is very fond of the traditional specialties). I strongly suspect that similar cases make up the majority of that 1% who claims to not like Italian food.
On the other hand, even the smallest of small towns in the UK has a wide variety of ethnic food. I think pretty much anywhere with a restaurant has a Chinese and an Indian, and usually a lot more.
Yes, I considered this point. It is an unfair comparison to an extent, and actually made this point during the conversation. I was assured by the Italian that they did not think it was that unfair, that their home town was not much smaller than the place of our workplace.
This comparison seems kind of unfair. I bet that the city where your workplace is located, if it’s not London, is still significantly bigger than the home town of your colleagues. It’s not that difficult to find variety in large Italian towns.
That said, it’s true that food is a huge part of the Italian culture, and the reason why most small towns have approximately zero ethnic restaurants is that the locals won’t eat there in the first place. The YouGov data here are probably quite right: 99% of Italians do like Italian food, and they like it quite a lot (note that no other square in the table has such a high value: 99% manages to beat even the lizardmen constant).
The only Italian that I ever met who complained about food in his home town was a vegan from a town where all the traditional specialties are meat-based. He claimed that several restaurants outright refused to serve him anything at all (which kind of proves your point, but again, the median Italian is very fond of the traditional specialties). I strongly suspect that similar cases make up the majority of that 1% who claims to not like Italian food.
On the other hand, even the smallest of small towns in the UK has a wide variety of ethnic food. I think pretty much anywhere with a restaurant has a Chinese and an Indian, and usually a lot more.
Yes, I considered this point. It is an unfair comparison to an extent, and actually made this point during the conversation. I was assured by the Italian that they did not think it was that unfair, that their home town was not much smaller than the place of our workplace.