Perche si dice "parla come mangi"?

New city, new blog. I've been in Rome for the past three days, and although I haven't yet visited the center (instead opting to spend some time at the Piazza de Popola, first to watch the incredibly pleasing results of the World Cup and then to just sit among fountains and statues and write) I can say with certainty mi piace Roma!

I don't have too much time to write at this juncture, because in half an hour I have to get to class - we are finally going to take a walk into the center and follow some of the places Princess Ann explored in Roman Holiday.

So for my first post, an explanation. What dose "parla come mangi" mean? I first read this phrase in Elizabeth Gilbert's Eat Pray Love and unlike most idioms in a language foreign to me, it did not go straight out of my head. "Parla come mangi" means "speak the way you eat" and upon further research in yet another TimeLife Cookbook Series cookbook, this time for Italian cuisine, I discovered that authentic Italian food is simple, natural, and just plain good. I haven't yet had the chance to do too much exploring in this area, as yesterday my roommate and I enjoyed our own version of Italian food - pasta with funghi, pomodori, basilico e olivos (mushrooms, tomoato, basil and green olives) - and sauteed aspargi in limon (you can figure that one out) - but today perhaps for lunch I'll see what Real Italian Food is all about.

So, in an endeavor to live the idiom, I am going to eat simply and attempt to speak simply and directly, instead of my usual rambling and run on sentences (and endless parentheticals...can she do it??)

And because an Italian of course defines the idiom much better than I can, here you go, an answer from Sandro:

Per mangiare, tutti procediamo allo stesso modo, come madre Natura ci ha insegnato: semplice, naturale, senza finzioni, condizionamenti "intellettuali",concessioni alle mode del momento o del passato: esattamente il contrario di come, spesso, ci si comporta con la parola. Di qui la sollecitazione del "parla come mangi" ad una maggiore naturalezza espressiva.*

My translation (based of a knowledge of Spanish and some fledging Italian half-remembered from 2 or 3 summers ago, and also Google translator): "To eat, everyone goes about it the same way as Mother Nature - simple, natural, without "intellectual" conditions, without worrying about what's in style at the moment or what has been in style in the past: exactly the opposite of how you comport yourself with the word. Thus, whoever uses the idiom "parla come mangi" has a more natural way of expression."

Yes, yes, I know my translation sucks. I'm going to take Italian again in the fall.

*http://it.answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20080813085416AAEDrrJ