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Your say - Lost for words 3l126w

Great thirst, small drinks 5b215f

After a hot morning of browsing the beautiful streets of Lucca, Italy, our group including four young children desperately needed refreshment. We found a café looking out over a large piazza with a coolish breeze. As the only Italian speaker I was the nominated drink orderer. The kids were very thirsty and excited as I explained they had delicious little fruit milkshakes: succo di pesca ... , peach juice, succo di ananas ... , pineapple juice, etc. ... nella lattina. I could not understand why the waitress looked so confused when I insisted on the "milkshakes" rather than a cheaper larger glass of the same fruit juice out of a bottle. When the "milkshakes" that everyone thought I had ordered arrived as fruit juice in little tins the dictionary in my bag explained the error of my ways. Lattina was not some form of milk drink but a 'little tin'!

Editor's note: The Italian word for milkshake is il frullato.

Sent by: Richard

Comments 682840

Giancarlo 2007-12-24

Careful: you may be getting into regional differences here. In the North-West we use frappé for milkshake even when fruit-flavooured. We use frullato when we mean frullato di frutta or fruit smoothie. Recipe-wise, milkshake and frullato are different.

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Elis 2005-06-21

We (Italians) also use the French word frappè, but 'milkshake' is also understood.

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