Uh… Can I Interest Anyone In A Corn Dog While They Read This?

I live in a university-granted apartment as the sole “stable” tenant, so I get to meet and see a lot of people on a semestral basis — some colorful, others less so. Sometimes, between the tenants, there is… quite a bit of friction. But never quite as much as in this story.

Meet [Danish Student] and [Polish Student]. The former studied Economics and basically came to Italy just to party while occasionally crunching a few numbers; the latter studied Political Science and was taking the whole “Erasmus (student exchange) is for studying experience” thing rather seriously. 

You’d think they would rarely interact with each other. In fact, you’d normally be right… but I ruined the peace.

How? 

As is tradition, I organized a “cultural cuisine weekend”, where each tenant cooked something they liked from their country. I started by cooking amatriciana (a traditional Italian pasta sauce) on Friday.

Danish Student: “Where is the spinach?”

Me: “Spinach doesn’t belong in amatriciana.”

Polish Student: “[My Name] obviously would know better than you would, [Danish Student].”

Danish Student: *Yelling* “Just because [My Name] lives in Italy, it doesn’t mean they know how to cook a good amatriciana! I’m more qualified than either of you; I took cooking classes in high school and you didn’t!”

[Polish Student] and I were taken aback but decided to let it slide to not ruin the vibes, and apparently, we all three enjoyed it.

The next day, it was [Danish Student]’s turn, and he decided to serve rye bread with cold cuts, which [Polish Student] didn’t like, and his reaction triggered an argument between the two.

Danish Student: “This is exactly how my mama makes it!”

Polish Student: “It’s just a matter of taste, and I don’t like it!”

It went on long enough that [Polish Student] stormed out, proclaiming:

Polish Student: “If that’s the standard, Danish cuisine is pigs’ food and penance diet!”

And he left to go pick something up at a nearby delicatessen.

I wanted to cancel the next day’s meal, but [Polish Student] insisted I let him have it. Dinner time came, and, sure enough, he had prepared bigos stew (a dish using cured meats and sauerkraut). It came out a little bit too salty, but [Danish Student] claimed:

Danish Student: “This is salt soup to accompany a tankard of vodka!”

Polish Student: “At least my stew has some flavour and consistency, unlike that rye bread. That was just peat that has been dried out in the sun and then mixed with kidney gravel!”

And it was at this point that, apparently, war was declared.

As much as I begged the housing service to just separate the two, they never intervened, so I was stuck tolerating day after day of one going into the other’s pantry to bin everything that didn’t fit their standards, the other retaliating in kind, and both of them shouting at each other about being either a “little provincial worm” or “a creaky piss-haired snob” and other such insults, giving each other passive-aggressive “tips” when even remotely close to the kitchen. 

Their feud apparently extended to campus, because other international students avoided them like the plague — but they still gossiped about them often enough.  the language exchange cafè’s personnel tried to keep them as separate as possible!

Peace was had only when [Danish Student] took his exam and then caught his flight out the day afterward, way before [Polish Student] was done. Suddenly, [Polish Student] became a whole new person and tried to be more cordial with me, but at that point, I was entirely burnt out on him and the other guy.

I guess in terms of tidiness, I’ve seen worse, but this was the most emotionally tiring experience of all!