Slow Food

To finish up a wonderful stay in Italy, a group of around eight decided to try one of the best things that Italy has to offer, the slow food movement. We went to a restaurant called Tratoria Isolla, where the owners cooked and served the meals. This was the first restaurant that I went to in Italy where the food was not ready two minutes after it was ordered. That was very exciting for me, since I have gotten used to eating reheated meals. I ordered spaghetti with ragout sauce (meat sauce). It was the best spaghetti that I had in Italy. It was fresh, well seasoned, had the right amount of sauce; it was amazing! That was the primo piatto. For secondo piatto I had a pork chop. It was very tasty but needed a little bit more salt. The environment was great. The owner joked around with us, chatted with us, and made us feel very welcomed. This tratoria convinced me that slow food is the way to go. A couple of hours after finishing our meal (because we went Italian all the way and stayed chatting for hours), we went to a chocolate bar. The atmosphere was phenomenal and the chocolate unthinkable. I had chocolate mousse that was magnificent. It was a very nice way to end up the adventures in Italy.

Lago di Garda

As part of our regular schedule trips we went to Lago di Garda, a huge lake half hour west of Verona. We visited an olive oil museum, a beach, a mountain and a town. The olive oil museum was not a great thing for me. It was a video with the history of olive oil that lasted twenty minutes and two rooms with replicas of machinery used to produce olive oil. At the end there was a store to buy different products made out of olives. I thought it was going to be different, not just a video. The video was good, but the rest was disappointing. The beach was really nice and it had a great market. It was full of people. But one of the food related things that I like the most was the lunch. We went up the mountains that surround Lake Garda. At the bottom of the mountain it was 90ºF; at the top it was cold. But that did not stop us from having a wonderful lunch. The view was something magnificent. The fact that I was having lunch at the top of a mountain was something that money cannot buy. On top of that the service of the restaurant was magnificent, very attentive. I ordered macaroni with four cheeses and on top of that I added Parmesan cheese. It was delicious, kind of similar to Alfredo sauce. Even though the weather was a little cold, the meal was great. This shows how a great environment can make a meal taste so much better. After that we went to Riva di Garda, at the top of the lake. Nice little town, and great artisanal ice cream. Wonderful day!

La Casara

By far, the best food experience I had as far as cheeses and salumi go, took place in Italy. La Casara is a cheese farm located outside of Verona. In this farm I learned how cheese is made. It is so amazing to see how actual people work with their own hand, with almost no machinery. The staff grabbed the cheese with their own bare hand and molded it into containers to give it shape. It was something amazing. I am so used to seeing everything mechanized that when I saw all the artisanal products I almost have a heart attack. On top of that, the owner of the farm gave us a tour of the place which was magnificent. He taught us about cheese and how the different types of cheeses differ and why. The younger the cheese the softer it is. We tried four types of cheese, from young to old (softer to hardest). The soft cheeses were the ones that I liked the most. The most amazing cheese in my opinion was the Monte Veronese, a local cheese from Verona. It was soft and very smooth, incredible! He also told us that it is better if the milk comes from cows from high mountains because the cows were healthier up there. One of the reasons was the pure air and the fact that they were fed with grass instead of livestock.

The other thing that this farm produced was salami and sausage. La Casara uses pigs that are fed with the left over cheese which makes them very healthy. In addition, they use the best parts of the pig (butt, shoulder and ribs I believe) for the salami, which is not a common practice. We had a taste of this salami. What an incredible salami that was! It melted in my mouth! So smooth, so tender, so delicate…I want more!!!! It was accompanied by a type of hard bread, which also delicious. Best salami I ever had. I would have loved to try the sausage, but we did not have enough time.

In addition to all this amazing food, the owner was a member of the slow food movement. This means that part of his believes is to pass on his knowledge of cheese to others, which is exactly what he is doing, and very good I might say. He is also helping promote locally grown products and trying to help others create their own little cheese farms. It is an amazing work the one that this man is doing. Congratulations! I look forward to keep on trying these types of aperitivi, and who knows, one day I might be able to go back to La Casara.

Ravioli

During my time in Verona I tried the best ravioli I have ever had in my life. I went to a little ravioli specialty shop, where only fresh pasta and bread were sold. I bought ten ravioli of Monte Veronese cheese filling to see what kind of ravioli Italy had to offer. How glad I am that I did! I went home and cooked them for about ten minute. I added olive oil and Parmesan cheese. What an appetizing meal! So simple and yet so fulfilling. I liked these ravioli so much that I ate this for three days in a row. I believe that the freshness did it for me. I also had fresh bread to accompany the dish. This homemade meal was one of the best meals I had in Italy and in my life. My greatest surprise is the fact that the delicious dish did not contain any meat at all. I am a meat lover; I cannot eat without meat. But these cheese filled deliciousness was better than steak. This shows that simple can be delicious and healthy at the same time. Go pasta Go!

Rome

Rome was somewhat disappointing. It was crowded, rushed and very touristy. On top of that the food service was horrible. Erica, Jenny, Nick and I went to a restaurant right across from the Vatican Museum. Before even entering the place we knew it was not going to be a good experience. The waiter dragged us into the restaurant and within less than a minute after having sat down he asked us for our orders. We had not even had a chance to look at the menu yet and this person was already rushing us. He asked us more than five times if we were ready to order. Finally, ten minutes after we ordered. This environment frustrated us, making our meals not as enjoyable as they should have been. Everything was reheated and did not taste very good. I believe that most of the lack of taste of the meal was due to the harsh environment. This is the perfect proof to show that environment plays a key role in the art of eating.

Since we had such a bad experience eating out and little money, we decided to try home made. We went to one of the little food shops down the street from the apartment we rented, which by the way was not touristy at all. It seemed like if real Italians lived there, and I loved it. We ate sausage with noodles which were really incredible. The sausage was so fresh and so tasty that it was amazing. The next day we had mashed potatoes with stake which was also delicious. Even though we were in Rome and we should have wanted to experience the city to the fullest, we had more fun cooking ourselves and enjoying the freshness of the local food than eating out. I believe that people enjoy food much better when they feel like they have all the time in the world to eat. I would like to lose the habit of eating rushing because my day is much more pleasant when there is no rush involved in my meals. I believe that that restaurant in Rome should learn it too in order to keep customers.

Florence

In Florence I did not have many meals, but that did not restrict me from having good one. As soon as I arrived I had a Panini. I did not like it that much because it was reheated. Italians tend to reheat a lot of things. I am guessing that is due to the tourists, which come in masses, and demand food in huge quantities and little time. But later on, I have one of the best gnocchi dishes I had in Italy. The sauce was just right and on top of that it had mozzarella. What also helped was the atmosphere, it was very relaxing and in a way cool because it was in the center of the city, right across from the Duomo. It was a magnificent view. The next day we had breakfast at the hotel we were staying on and to my surprise, it was delicious. But the best part was the famous Florentine Steak. It was amazing; very juicy, well seasoned and gigantic. I accompanied with potatoes which were also very tasty. I would have to say though that the stake that I had at Isolla della Scala, at the Risotto Festival was much better. I am guessing that the difference is due to the freshness of the meat. In the country everything is better because is fresh. I imagine that in a city like Florence things are not as fresh. The other thing that I liked about Florence was the meat market. Even though we walked through it quickly, it was an amazing place to buy meats of any type, from salumi to fish. Florence was a great place, its history, especially its food history is something amazing and it shows how politics and economics change the way we eat.

Dolci

Dolci, what is dolci? For many people is the essence of life. Those few minutes of sweet deliciousness in the mouth are the greatest thing that most people experience in their lives. Most people look forward to dinner times, not because they will be nourishing their bodies, but because they will be having dessert at the end of the meal. There is something about sugar that drives people crazy about it. As for me, I do not have this problem since I do not love sweets at all. I like brownies and that is about it. I am crazy about meat, and I would rather have meat for dessert than any other sweet. But Italy has taught me the ways of the gelato. I have tried ice cream before, but I never said “Mmmmm… yummy!” I always had it to accompany someone, never by choice. But since Italy is the capital of gelato, I had to try it, and how glad I am that I did. I have had five consecutive days of ice cream (chocolate of course), and they have been very good days. The artisanal ones are the best, because they are kind of “homemade.” Also, I think that there is more love to them since the owner, (who is most cases is the same person that sees the clients), is there to see that final product of the hard work… a smile and happiness in people’s faces. As for other desserts, I have not tried any because they do not seem appealing to me. I am still to try the only fruit that I like, banana, since fruits are supposed to be better in Italy due to their freshness.