Wednesday, February 17, 2010

Bet you didn't know...


Did you know Italy contains 70% of the world's art? Think about that for a second, a country so small physically is so crammed full of art, monuments, churches, artifacts, tombs and on and on!! It is just amazing to me the whole concept, thinking about the number of people who passed through the country leaving such an imprint and patrimony for the rest of the world to come. No wonder Italy is so short on living space. ;-)

Meucci was the father of the telephone, not Mr. Bell; in fact Bell was well known for pirating his inventions. Marconi was the father of the radio and I bet you did not know the world's first freeway, created conceptually and physically constructed was here is this little land of dreamers and creators. Today the Italian autostrada is one of the best out there that is, if you do not judge it for the curves. With such a lack of space to build freeways, and the fact people will not sell land, the roads have to curve around history and stubbornness, so remember this when you are screaming down the road and have to back off by 50 mph to make a curve and stay alive. They have the best and world's only draining asphalt so when it rains, you can see the road; it is truly amazing (and still drive fast).

Now a quick tip on how to choose Gorgonzola, make sure the mold is not uniformly distributed. You should look for inoculation lines as well as where made. Gorgonzola originated in a small town close to Milan called, obviously, Gorgonzola. Today most of it is produced in the province of Novara and regions of Piedmont and Lombardy.  Try a risotto with Gorgonzola!

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

"Italy contains 70% of the world's art"? Please provide a citation for this absurd, and obviously incorrect "fact".

Snow White said...

To the cretin who can insult with this "absurd" fact, who has no balls remaining anon, here are two links.
The first is UNESCO, it is a big site, I got the data from here and have no time at the moment to go fish for it, but I am sure you can since you think this is such BS I write.
The second link is an article on art theives, it does not mention a figure but it does follow upon the data from UNESCO, I am sure you can find it in the frist two paragraphs.

Snow White said...

http://www.unesco.org/new/en/unesco/

http://www.nytimes.com/1992/08/02/arts/art-art-thieves-bleed-italy-s-heritage.html?pagewanted=1

Anonymous said...

Yep! An anonymous cretin and ignorant.