Dining Italian Style
Post date: 15-Oct-2009 18:16:28
We went out for many nice meals and also enjoyed many delicious dishes that Samantha and Tiziano cooked for us. We made them coke and ketchup chicken and fajitas. They made us lasagna, and the best pesto pasta we have ever had (there were mashed potatoes in the sauce). My favourite pasta second to the pesto is spaghetti alla carbonara which is freshly cooked spaghetti that has raw egg, pepper, and bacon mixed into it and the pasta cooks the egg.
A typical Italian meal in a restaurant takes quite a few hours. In most cafes it cost more to eat your food or drink at al tavorno (table) than at the al blanco (counter). A coffee or tea will double in prize if you consume it sitting down. A typical dinner consists of an antipasto which is an appetizer such as a plate of tomatoes, mozzarella and proscuitto. The first dish is usually pasta and the second dish is usually a meat and sometimes a salad too. For dolce (dessert) either tiramasu, gelato, or something wonderfully chocolately. All meals also inlcude bread. It's usually always white bread. Most restaurants also server thin curnchy breadsticks.After dessert a gernerous shot of grappa or sambuca is usually served and then limecello to settle your stomach. After my first shot of a creamy Limecello it did settle my stomach. However, a non-creamy variety is also served by the entire bottle to your table after a meal. It's quite strong and I would compare it to Tequila or a shot of vodka in strength. At first it's nice and citrusy, but then the after taste is strong. It's sipped rather than shot back too.
My favourite dessert was chcocolate salami. There is no actual meat involved but it's dark salami looking slabs of chocolate sprinkled with icing sugar. We also shared two really large cookied with Samantha and Tizian. They are the size of cookie that you would get from Pizza 73, but they taste way better. One was like a sugar cookie and the other one we had had sweet almonds glued on the top. Our favourite gelato flavors were: Pink Grapefruit, blackberry, Spagnola (tastes like a cream soda float) and nutella.
Colin also found his buffalo mozzarella cheese. He was looking for it about 2 years ago in Edmonton to make a receipe. Buffalo mozzarella is soft and is kept in water. It melts nicely into scrambled eggs but looks like marsmallows melting into Rice Krispies. It's a rather stringy cheese and is very soft with a texture similar to eggs. It has a subtle light taste.
Since Parmesan and asiago cheese are produced locally, it's only 2 euros for 500 grams. The wine is 2 euros a bottle too. The types of wine that are produced depend on what region you are in. For example in Bardolino, the type of wine they produce is Bardolino.
Colin says that the cliche of coffee in Italy being the best is true. He kept bragging about his wonderful cappuccinos and espressos etc. and eventually convinced me to try a sip. I did and well I am still don't love coffee but if was more bearable than the coffee I've tried at home. There was no horrible bitter after taste. We even became hooked on Cafe Zero which is not a coffee with no calories. It's a frozen moccachino or espresso, or cappuccino. They taste just like a slush and are great after a hot day of biking.
I enjoyed all the food that we ate in Italy, but ordering food off a menu in another language is a bit like walking into a restaurant and saying "I'll have the umm well...surprise me."
Misconceptions about Italian Food
Contratry to our western beliefs there are no Italian sodas in Italy. When we asked people they had no idea what we were talking about and none of the coffee shops serve them. Also, there is no Alfredo sauce for the pasta either. I know Olive Garden serves lots of Alfredo dishes, but this sauce is not available in the parts of Italy that we visited.