A Note on the Food

Okay so this blog is meant to be about my experiences and “taking the leap to live a dream” but I really do have to take a second to talk about the food.

Bologna, and the surrounding region, Emilia Romagna, is known as “The Bread Basket” of Italy. It’s where Ragu (or Bolognese – basically a swear word here) comes from, Proscuttio di Parma, Parmesan Cheese, Balsamic Vinegar, Lasagna… literally everything you eat in the UK that you think represents Italy comes from here (except pizza – that’s from Naples).

I can’t even begin to explain just how good the food is here. I wake up every morning and head to my favouite café for brioche or homemade granola and a cappuccino (and then usually another espresso).

Lunch is usually a long affair, and really the main meal of the day for Italians, consisting of two courses or more including a pasta dish then some kind of meat or vegetable based second course. A cortorno is a side dish, usually eaten alongside your second course, followed by cheeses, fruit and, if you can fit it in, dolce (pudding basically).

Dinner tends to be lighter than lunch but, from my experience, this is still hefty resulting in me having the landmark moment the other day of having to throw away my first item of clothing because it no longer fit!

That zip was not going to close!

There is that great line in the film Eat Pray Love were they’re sat eating pizza and Julia Roberts gives the other girl a pep talk basically ending in the line “just buy some bigger jeans”.

I went out and bought another dress.

I can safely say that, apart from one slightly disappointing breakfast, which I think was the result of them training a new member of staff, I have not had a bad meal here.

My Achilles heel are the amazing antipasti boards they do here, filled to the brim with regional meats and cheeses, accompanied by lovely fresh bread (and usually copious amounts of wine).

They are just amazing and so much cheaper than in the UK, primarily because the produce has only come from up the road. The wine is also pretty damn cheap but the problem is it doesn’t taste cheap – cue sore head the next morning!

This wine was especially good and check the name, it couldn’t get more Italian!

A traditional street-food here is Piadina. Basically a flat-bread traditionally filled with prosciutto and a soft brie-like cheese, but there are little hole-in-the-wall shops that offer a huge variety of fillings including sweet versions – they love their Nutella here.

This particular Piadina I had was eaten at the top of a great place called San Lucca – the history lesson will come in a later post. I cannot express how good it tasted after that walk (it’s a long, steep affair) overlooking Bologna. Pretty damn good!

Another street-food here is called Tigelle. It’s this really pretty bread (note the pattern) which you fill with cream cheese and meat. I fist had it not knowing what it was – I just thought it was a novel antipasti.

It was only when I was invited out on one of my first nights by S* to have it that I realized you’re meant to make them into little sandwiches. It’s great socializing food and, again, we had one filled with Nutella (be aware – this one is very messy and not at all elegant to eat).

As you can see, there is a lot of meat, cheese and bread; it is a dieter’s nightmare (hence the new dress). I’ve tried to start cutting down now the initial novelty is over but you really cannot pass up on the opportunity to have a real Italian pizza (it's the best brain food)…

…or dinner cooked for you by your host family. That was a great experience.

There is this stereotype of Italian home meals, and a lot of us probably just suspect they have beans on toast like the rest of us but, let me tell you, trying to explain Heinz Baked Beans in very basic Italian to an Italian is really really hard – they honestly have no clue what you’re talking about and when they start to get the gist they are well and truly disgusted (and rightly so, let’s be honest!).

So this family meal – according to the mother it was “basic” she even apologized… oh my word!

We had tomato and caper pasta, sautéed greens, a homemade balsamic dressed salad, a full meat and cheese board, these awesome fried bread dumplings, fresh bread (yep – Dr. Atkins just had a heart attack) then fresh strawberries, grown by a farm they help fund, and, of course, wine. It was divine!

One of the most amazing things I’ve found about Italy is the sheer variety of pasta they have here and how each pasta is matched to a certain sauce. If you eat the wrong pasta with the wrong sauce, you may as well go and hand yourself in to the Polizia right now.

The pasta type tends to be particular to a region. Here the local dish is Tortellini con Brodo – small meat filled pasta in broth. In fairness, the word “broth” does it a disservice; it’s more like a consommé. Sprinkle it with Parmesan and get a good chunk of bread and it’s perfection.

Last but not least, a note on the coffee. The Italians LOVE their coffee and you can walk for as long as you like but you will not find a single Starbucks, Costa or Nero.

Side note: When in the UK, Italians choose Nero

A coffee if always an espresso, if you ask for a latte you just get a glass of milk (it’s caffe latte) and if you order any kind of milky version (macchiato is the exception) after 11am, you may as well walk around with a massive neon sign screaming “uncultured tourist”.

Coffee is an art here. I cant express how truly Italian I feel every time I go for a coffee, stand at the bar and state in perfectly practiced Italian “Un caffe per favore”.  You get a little glass of water (it’s not a shot of Sambuca as one of my friends once asked of a photo I posted) and you sip it, chuck your euro down and flounce out.

I say flounce because that’s what you feel like doing as an English person when you have just performed an Italian ritual.

If you so desire, you can also order a cake or biscuit to go with your (bluddy strong) coffee and, honestly, every single coffee shop, even a little grubby one in a backstreet, has better cakes, croissants (or the Bolognese called them cornetto), pastries and biscuits than Mr. Morrison and his bakery in the UK could ever hope of producing, I don’t know how they do it!

So there you have it, a little note on the food. It is incomparable to anything in the UK and I will openly admit that I am now a massive food and coffee snob – get that granulated s**t away from me, you insult me with your Nescafé and Greggs doughnut!

I must add, however, that I haven’t lost my roots.

During a walking tour with the school yesterday, one of the gentlemen told me that, if I was ever homesick, there is a great little hotel that serves real English Breakfast Tea with English biscuits for the bargain price of 5 euro. 

Needless to say I will be paying that place a visit very soon, probably after I’ve finished this "cornetto" the sizee of my own head!

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