The TV Food Network And The Italian Language

I was watching "Road Tasted" with Paula Deen's kids, Jamie and Bobby. They were on Arthur Ave. in the Bronx visiting various Italian deli's and bakeries etc. At one place, they were checking out the stuffed bread. You know. You roll up cold cuts, mozzarella etc. into bread dough and bake it up. Good stuff.

Anyway, the baker offers the boys each one heel or end of the loaf and asks whether they know what they got. Of course, they respond in the negative and baker enlightens them and says they call that "oo gool" where the "oo" is pronounced like the "oo" in "boo."

Well, the soda squirted out of both my nostrils when I heard that. We never referred to anything edible as "oo gool" when I was a kid. In fact, had we referred to anything as "oo gool," we might have gotten the back of our father's hand. Transposed into normal Italian, "oo gool" is "il culo." I'll leave it up to you gentle folks to look that up online. As a good Catholic boy, however, I might have hit the bleep button on that one.

I was wondering. Do any of you real live Italians use that phrase to refer to the heel of a loaf of bread?

And while we're at it, has anyone ever driven by the Halloween costume shop on Park Ave. in Rutherford, N.J. called the "Fun Ghoul?" No, I ain't kiddin'.

Transposed into normal Italian, "oo gool" is "il culo." I'll leave it up to you gentle folks to look that up online. As a good Catholic boy, however, I might have hit the bleep button on that one.

I was wondering. Do any of you real live Italians use that phrase to refer to the heel of a loaf of bread?

And while we're at it, has anyone ever driven by the Halloween costume shop on Park Ave. in Rutherford, N.J. called the "Fun Ghoul?" No, I ain't kiddin'.

Italian dictionary sat on my desk .... ah yes that's sort of logical and in keeping with Italian humour. Never heard it before myself.

on a similar and linking theme, there was a shoe shop I recall in Brighton, UK called "R soles"

regards

Ian

I
I was wondering. Do any of you real live Italians use that phrase to refer to the heel of a loaf of bread?

We always did. The oo-gool or the Americanized version, the "coolie" of the bread translated as the end of the bread.
Makes perfect sense, no?

I
I was wondering. Do any of you real live Italians use that phrase to refer to the heel of a loaf of bread?

We always did. The oo-gool or the Americanized version, the "coolie" of the bread translated as the end of the bread. Makes perfect sense, no?

Oh, it makes perfect sense, but in our neighborhood we never referred to the heel of the loaf of bread or the end part of cheese with that particular word because it was vulgar. It was just so funny hearing it broadcast, probably without knowledge of the anatomical reference, on the TV Food Network. Hey, maybe I'm just getting old!

I
I was wondering. Do any of you real live Italians use that phrase to refer to the heel of a loaf of bread?

We always did. The oo-gool or the Americanized version, the "coolie" of the bread translated as the end of the bread. Makes perfect sense, no?

Oh, it makes perfect sense, but in our neighborhood we never referred to the heel of the loaf of bread or the end part of cheese with that particular word because it was vulgar. It was just so funny hearing it broadcast, probably without knowledge of the anatomical reference, on the TV Food Network. Hey, maybe I'm just getting old!

If you thought that term was vulgar, your neighborhood must've been better than ours. The nuns talked worse than that!

Reminds me of a friends dad, who's a vicar. This is a true story and very much in character for him.

He was chatting to some people from the church and they asked him how his day was. He said that it wasn't bad, however one of his parishioners had been burnt today. They were concerned and asked "Were they burnt badly?" to which he replied "They don't f*ck around at the crematorium!".

I think he blames his humour on a stint in the RAF.

regards

Ian