It’s not a philosophical problem if a couple orders the same dish at a restaurant

Franca Valeri, late Fifties (of the last century): “If you ask me ‘Miss what are you getting?’ I say a mint, because, you know, promptness in ordering makes the lady”. Title of Post1920s (this century): “A heated debate about couples ordering the same thing at restaurants.”

Franca Valeri was a great comedian and a great writer. The post he made his fortune – relative, let’s talk about journalism – promising “things well explained” – the aftertaste of the school desk evidently incites the generations who have never seen a professor sitting behind his desk – above, if anything.

Franca Valeri told the manicurist Cesira, and her desire to do well in society. The post submits the dinner of the couple Joe and Jill Biden to the care of “things explained well”, before the president left for Kyiv. Rigatoni for him and rigatoni for her. “Who ever does such a thing?” asked the Washington Post. Applause to the social manager: over 2,000 readers comment on the article. The question, strange as it was, ends up sounding serious. As happens with nonsense written on Twitter, or Instagram, even on the white silk stole in Sanremo, when they go out of context and attract turns of phrase such as “as a last resort”.

When the matter arrives on the site of the Post it has the coloring of a drama. Of a philosophical problem to dissect. Of a rule of etiquette – see under the heading couple, and see under the heading restaurant, and above all under the heading “but why can’t anyone mind their own business, ever?”. Examples, counterexamples, advantages and disadvantages, as if there were a balance at stake that should not be disturbed. Did you order the same plate of macaroni at the restaurant? Crazy, seven years of trouble await you. Have you ordered rigatoni with ragu? Both? But don’t you know that this way the carbon footprint grows dramatically? If one eats the meat sauce, the other has to compensate with a salad.

Luckily it was forbidden to ban (in times closer to Franca Valeri than to ours). Even the restaurant is becoming a place where it is difficult to be calm. It is taken for granted that “there are some deeply rooted beliefs about how a couple should behave in a restaurant”. And therefore: “Ultimately, the dishes you choose are what defines the experience itself when you go out to eat”. And what happens to those who, when they hear the word “experience”, look for a machine gun that shoots at least one sticky syrup?

Textual: “The more methodical couples scan the menu (perhaps ‘examine’, in well-spoken Italian, or in good translations), choose two dishes that they both like and do exactly halfway”. Without arguing, of course: “They usually follow reviews on the dishes just tasted and pleased evaluations on having shared the experience” – the couple is translated increasingly worse, and less and less frequent.

Finished with the case study? Not at all. There are also couples who take two different dishes, and instead of dividing them in half, they give more or less abundant portions. Or they taste from other people’s dishes, as the publisher Giulio Einaudi was said to do – not all the diners appreciated “the right to peck”, but it was difficult to escape.

There are couples who order two different dishes, but one of them always gets it wrong, and the other sacrifices himself by pretending to crave fried brains so badly. They are the couples who then divorce with great quarrels and tragedies. Friends comment: “They got along so well, they always swapped dishes at the restaurant.” It was enough to remember the one and infallible rule: what’s on your neighbor’s plate is always more appetizing than what you ordered.