The paper addresses the issue of cultural descriptions as they are perceive
d and used within mundane conversation. We analyze a discussion of an Itali
an family about a future formal occasion (a party) in a foreign country (Au
stria), with foreign participants, in which they shall produce a typically
Italian meal. The analysis shows how cultural descriptions are both a resou
rce and a constraint when they must orient a practical activity which must
be publicly acknowledged for its cultural typicality. Discrepancies are hig
hlighted between cultural descriptions and ordinary practices, but it is al
so shown how culture (or 'cultural preferences') gets produced, at a less e
xplicit level, within discursive practices, through turn-taking filtering,
sequential architecture and selection of differentiated addressees. The soc
ializing import of the discursive situation for the younger participants is
also discussed, with reference to the relevant conversational devices.