Italy is full of art, architecture, culture, history, beautiful scenery, and wonderful people, but the main reason to visit here is to eat. Mangiare!
As soon as we arrived in Bologna we headed down the block to Pizz'Altero for their wonderful pizza al taglio, chunky rectangles of thick pizza. The next day we had a three-hour lunch at a agriturismo with Cinzia and Sergio, sampling the different pastas of Emilia-Romagna and discovering crescentine, puffy fat squares of fried bread topped with different kinds of cheeses and cured meats. It's been pretty much an eat-a-thon ever since.
Our usual routine is to have breakfast at the hotel, a cappuccino or two along with pastries, salami and bread, or whatever else they put out that morning. Lunch is very light, a sandwich or snack eaten on the go. We save our appetites for dinner, the big meal of the day.
The food in Italy varies considerably from region to region, and even from city to city. In Bologna we dove into big plates of tagliatelle alla bolognese, flat noodles with meat sauce, and I had to have a cotoletta alla bolognese, a veal cutlet breaded and fried and topped with ham and cheese. Since we moved south into Tuscany we've had bruschette (grilled bread with garlic, olive oil, and diced fresh tomatoes), pappardelle (very wide flat pasta) with cinghiale (wild boar) sauce, thinly sliced beef on rucola, fried artichokes, and ravioli di zucca (pumpkin). At one little family place in the Oltrarno in Florence, we had arista, huge slices of pork perfectly oven-roasted.
The biggest problem each night has been, what do we order? Italian menus are made up of antipasti (appetizers, some quite substantial), primi piatti (first dishes, usually pasta), secondi piatti (second dishes, meats), contorni (side dishes) and dolci (dessert). Sometimes we split an antipasto then each have a primo. Or we split a primo and each have a secondo. Or I'll get an antipasto and a secondo while Terri will have a primo and a contorno. If we have a dolce, we share it. The serving size varies from restaurant to restaurant so it's hard to tell if you're ordering too much. Twice so far we couldn't finish our food, as delicious as it was.
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We bring along a dictionary but it's not much help. Menu listings use special terms and regional dialects that are never in the book. Rather than being a problem, this gives us an excuse to try new things and surprise ourselves. Sometimes we pay too much, sometimes we don't order the right things, sometimes we get too little or not enough. The only certain thing is that in all the time we've spent in Italy, we've never had a bad meal.
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With every meal we order a carafe (liter or half-liter) of house wine, almost always rosso (red), and it's always good and half the price or less of the cheapest bottle on the wine list. We also get a bottle of acqua minerale naturale (no carbonation); Italians do not serve tap water in restaurants and if you ask they will only answer with a puzzled expression.
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The waiter never brings the check until we ask for it. We sit at the table as long as we like and linger over the last of the wine and water. Finally, when I know it's time for a lie down back at the hotel, I get her attention and ask, "Il conto, per favore." We wander out into the Italian night, suffused with a rosy glow of contented satisfaction, and start thinking about what we'll eat tomorrow.
Here's the trip photos I've posted on Flickr. And here's dessert at the end of a lovely meal.
