In Turin, the meal is structured into several courses: the antipasto (a convivial appetizer, often shared at the center of the table), the primo piatto (pasta, the heart of the meal), the secondo (meat, sometimes served cold in summer), then the dolce and a digestivo or sweet drink. The Levi family, bourgeois Piedmontese Jews, maintained this refined structure where one eats little but well, in order and conversation.

Piedmontese paradox: this landlocked region adores salted anchovies, brought long ago by the acciugai (anchovy merchants) who hid them under salt to evade the salt tax. It defines both bagna càuda and vitello tonnato — the deep umami of Rita's Piedmont.