Parsley is an aromatic cooking herb, used in many recipes of Neapolitan cuisine. In Neapolitan language it is called Petrusino and comes from the ancient Greek petrosélinon and from the archaic Latin petroselinum.
O’ petrusino (the parsley) looks good everywhere. In sauces, soups, meat and even pasta. You can find it here every day at the table, both at lunch and dinner. In Naples it is used above all to season hot soups, the ones that feed Neapolitans throughout the winter.
From this culinary logic one of the most famous proverbs of the Neapolitan originates:“petrusino ogni mmenesta” (petrusino in every soup). What does it mean and why is it said so? Well when a person is really intrusive, always present in your life, you can call him precisely o’ petrusino and tell him that he is just a petrusino ogni mmenesta.
Obviously this idiom can also be used in a context of friendship and family. For example, when a person is really curious and wants to know everything about events and conversations, he will behave like a petrusino. He mostly meddles in conversations that don’t concern him. This happens especially to Neapolitan children who want to immediately enter the speeches of adults. Parents and grandparents usually scold them with a loving tone saying: “Here, petrusino every mmenesta has arrived!”.
The children of Naples love to be called in this way because it means that they are already behaving like they grow up and that, in some way, they are getting into the good graces of adults who appreciate their precocious curiosity.
Over time, children who heard themselves called petrusino when they were young should learn to be more reserved with strangers as they continue to behave excessively curious within the walls of their home.
When the great Neapolitan families get together, those who had been a petrusino as children continue to be a petrusino even as adults. They do this mainly to carry on a family tradition and make their grandmothers and mothers laugh, remembering the sweet times of their childhood.