Part Two: Mangiare bene (To eat well)

t’s easy to spot the Americans at an Italian ristorante. They’re the ones who are rolling their eyes, holding their breath, glancing at their watches. The evening air is magnificent, the sidewalk table is plunked down in the middle of the 16^th century, but somehow atmosphere is beside the point. We’re done eating, their body language is screaming. What are we doing still sitting here? The waiters seem oblivious. All around, Italians are engaged in spirited after-dinner conversations.

This was the scene at the small neighborhood restaurant near Piazza Navona that Claudia Probart has adopted as her restaurant in Rome. This was what Probart was talking about. In Italy, she was saying, eating well involves more than just food.

"Take a look around," she said, gesturing. "Here we sit in a piazza—an outdoor living space, really an ideal space for eating. For people." A designed space that acknowledges that eating is more than taking in nutrition, it’s an opportunity for enjoyment—and for interaction.

Walk into any of the small stores that exist in every neighborhood—the alimentari where you buy figs and strawberries, the panetteria where you purchase bread—and try to get out again without having a conversation: in Italian, in English, or in something in between. "The shopkeepers want an interaction," Probart said, and it’s true. The huge outdoor market at Campo dei Fiori, with all the shouting and hugging and playful haggling, often seems like a gathering of old friends.

In a restaurant, too, interaction is important. Truth be told, the waiters in Rome are sometimes jaded. But in smaller places here, and especially in the lesser cities and towns, a culture of intense hospitality prevails. And when you’re done eating, they leave you alone. You have paid for the privilege, this benign neglect says. Stay as long as you like. Why would you want to rush off?

efore or after dinner, Italians of all ages still engage in the passagiata, a leisurely, sociable stroll around the neighborhood—a chance at once to chat, to stretch your legs, and to be seen.

This relaxedness, this social emphasis, in addition to boosting mood and sanity, may well contribute to the health benefits of the Mediterranean diet. In fact, there’s some evidence that the social bonds are more important than the food. A famous study conducted in the 1960s in Roseto, Pennsylvania, a small town populated almost entirely by Italian immigrants, found that in spite of a high prevalence of smoking and a diet that was heavy in fat, the town had a remarkably low incidence of heart disease. This fact was attributed to the closeness of the community and the persistence of communal rituals (which have since died out). "People are nourished by other people," wrote Stewart Wolf, the physician who co-authored the study.

In Rome, Probart has assigned her students to get out and experience the social dimension of eating first-hand. "I asked them to plunge in," she said, "since it’s easy to be intimidated. I had them write narrative sketches of their encounters in restaurants and shops, just as the architecture students are drawing sketches of the marketplaces.

"I want them to take notice of the cultural differences, to see that this is a different way of eating. Think about it. What is the American equivalent of buon appetito?"