Today’s Parola del giorno is a bit of Italian slang that was made famous on the TV show MasterChef Italia. The noun, il mappazzone,1 refers to dishes that are just a huge mishmash of ingredients that the dishes have no discernible character. We might call it complete slop in English.
From the description of the word (see the video below), it usually refers to a dish that has way too many ingredients, especially ingredients that don’t belong together.
A good example of un mappazone is this Instagram post from @respect_carbonara. If you aren’t familiar with true carbonara, it never has chicken, it doesn’t have peas in it, and it most certainly never comes in a bag.
You can hear the word explained by Bruno Barbieri to Italian children, who made the word famous on MasterChef Italia:
Is there a dish or un mappazzone that you have encountered or made? If so, share in the comments below!
You might also hear the word la mappazza, too.
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