Italian Food  

 

    Once you eat Italian food you never want to eat a tv dinner again. They
take a lot of time and pride into preparing their food. I often had pasta,
a lot of tortellini and peni pasta. Pizza was often served. Most often I
was served the margherita pizza which was tomatoes and cheese. I believe it
was referred to as the "poor man's food." It was relatively cheap, 10,000
lire. On one occasion I asked for a pepperoni pizza (although I tried to
explain to them that I wanted the pizza with the meat.) and received a pizza
covered in red peppers. At the house I stayed, everything was served at
once, however, some families served meals in courses. They like to eat a
lot and they eat very fast. I had a hard time keeping up on both. They
also use both a fork and a knife which is difficult for me to coordinate
because I rarely use the knife.
    Fast food restaurants were pretty much nonexistent except for an occasional
McDonald's. The McDonald's in Milan was quite large and had the techno
music going. This was the only fast food restaurant I saw. Ice was also
pretty much nonexistent. I often got warm drinks. After dinner I was also
told that I was to not take a shower until two or three hours after eating
because it would cause "congestion."
    Let's not forget to mention the cheese. I was served mozeralla
plain which had no taste. I was also given this creamy cheese which had an
iron flavor. One time I started eating the mold on top of the cheese and
eventually they told me that I needed to cut that off. It was rather
disgusting. I really liked the local cheeses. They also used a lot of
cheese on tomatoes. Hmm....
    I think the Italians believe that meat should not be cooked thoroughly. On
one occasion I ate raw bacon, which was almost unbearable to eat. One girl
had to eat raw salmon with raw egg on top. Hmmm...hmmm. I ate a lot of
ham. I rarely had chicken. On Easter they had quite large meal. They had
lamb, beef tongue, seafood, stuffed olives, stuffed peppers, deviled eggs
with tuna fish, salami, avocado pasta, spinach pizza, and many other food
items. It became quite sickening after the 3rd course. Well, all the food
was quite lovely. The pasta was delicious. Buono...molto buono.

 

Abigail Parsons