Italy knows good eats

Spring Break. The time in every girl’s life that she must starve herself for a week or two or even three before daring to strip down and frolic in the sun with friends. Though she knows it’s merely impossible to lose the unwanted flab in such a short amount of time, it’s inevitable that she will skip the chocolate croissant, the whole milk in her coffee and the other half of her Manchego-cheese bocadillo. Where the trouble comes, though, is when she knows she is going to Italia, where the word food is synonymous with carbs and chocolate, and the idea of steamed or grilled vegetables is as laughable as genuinely expecting to see the Pope while touring the Vatican.

While a crash diet the week before break seemed promising, in hindsight it seems foolish. The smooth gelato beckons, the steamy, frothy cappuccino calls, the Chianti and Prosecco promise to get you buzzed, and the pasta – oh the pasta, in all shapes and sizes, but always al dente – will get you every time. Period.             

Since I had no idea what to expect from Italy, I dismounted the plane in hopes of finding some spaghetti with meatballs, chicken parm, garlic bread and fettuccini alfredo. Well, I’m “alfred-o” not.

Of course the long, round noodles that I know to be spaghetti exist. And yes, there are meatballs. But together? No way. As hard as I looked, for the life of me, I could not find the staple American-Italian dish. As for garlic bread, turns out Italians have simple breadbaskets with dry, stark-white bread and prepackaged breadsticks. Waiters will look at you strangely if you ask for a plate so you can dip your bread into olive oil with pepper or balsamic vinegar. They do, however, love to put oil and vinegar on their salads…which they eat after dinner. They say it helps with digestion. Why yes, of course this makes sense, I thought to myself. After an entire plate of alfredo (the thick, creamy, heavenly sauce that no one, no matter how skinny, should be allowed to eat), the Italians are going to need something to keep it from sticking to their insides. Oh wait. Italians don’t even know what alfredo is. So much for that idea. But, no worries, Italians get their fat from a whole plethora of other deliciousness that I didn’t even know existed.

Italians would rather sink their teeth into “spaghetti carbonara”, or cream, egg and cheese atop of a hefty plate of pasta. Though I never ordered it, I did snag a bite from one of my travel buddies. Other staples in the Italian diet included spaghetti with cheese and pepper and spaghetti with tomato sauce and bacon. Pesto was impossible to find in Rome, but delicious in Venice. Gnocchi and tortellini in Florence were heavenly. And the pizza, which doesn’t come in round pies, but rather in long, rectangular ones, was pure ooey-gooey sin.

On my day trip to Pisa, the boys who traveled with me and I stopped in a pizza joint, where the waitress chopped the pizza and then weighed it to give it a price. I chose the veggie pizza with fresh zucchini and tomatoes, and my slice (or better yet, my slab) was less than 2 Euros.

As I was walking away, a grungy man appeared from the back with a plate of deep-fried balls the size of baseballs. How could I resist? I ordered one to split with my travel guys (they are always hungry, even right after they eat!) as the man explained to me they are called “arancini,” or little orange, because of their shape like the fruit. It was filled with rice, peas, tomato sauce and meat. I was content with my decision to try one, and I am certain the boys loved me even more for overfilling their tummies.

Every morning (and sometimes in the afternoon) I would sip on cappuccino – another newfound love of mine. I thought I had tried the best coffee in the world in Spain; however, the Italian cappuccino really gave Barcelona a run for its money. When walking by the Pantheon in Rome, I spotted a yellow sign that read “La Casa del Caffee, Tazza d’Oro” (Via Degli Orfani 84). Craving something cold to wake me up, I stopped in and ordered an iced cappuccino, not quite sure if such a drink existed. The man at the register mentioned something even better, called a “granita di caffe,” and rung me up for 2.50 Euros (a pretty steep price for even a coffee addict like myself, but I needed coffee so I paid without contesting). I took my ticket over to the barista (if that’s what you call him) and he dug deep into a slushy cooler to fill my cup with literally iced espresso. He filled the rest of the cup with cream and whipped cream, and then sent me on my way with a straw as if this coffee were a mere espresso shot. It was, however, nothing short of tasty perfection. Sweet cream mixed with bitter coffee – any chocoholic/coffee lovers delight.

As you would expect, God’s gift to the world comes in dessert form and it consists of gelato, tiramisu, cannolis and Italian cookies. While you’d be hard pressed to find bad gelato, my favorite was from a neon-colored store in Florence, where the line went out the door. Every color and every flavor were piled high behind the glass encasing in metal containers, and when mixed together in a cone I thought I had gone straight to heaven.

In Rome, I was determined to find biscotti. Chocolate-chip, melt-in-your-mouth biscotti. I was told Trastevere has the best food in all of Rome, so when wandering with the boys, I found “Biscottificio Artigiano Innocenti,” (Via della Luce, 21, Trastevere, Roma) an Italian hole-in-the-wall, family-run bakery. The cookies galore were filled with jams and jellies and fruit and gummies and nuts, but my favorites were the horse-shoe-shaped, crumbly ones dipped in chocolate. My notion of chocolate-chip biscotti, the owner told me, should be dismissed just like my notion of spaghetti and meatballs.    

The conception about Italy that did hold true was the loud, jovial, big family, wooden table mantra. In Venice, the boys and I ate at a local trattoria and happened to have walked in a man’s 83^rd birthday party. The red wine flowed freely, the speeches kept coming and after singing the Italian version of “Happy Birthday” to present the tiramisu cake, the 30 guests started signing what seemed like every Italian song under the sun. Like a Christmas sing-along. Italians really do know how to throw a party…or the alcohol is just that strong.    

My favorite meal took place at “Il Gatto E La Volpe” (Via Ghibellina, 151) in Florence, where I managed to meet up with a childhood friend and some other friends I made in Barcelona who were also traveling in Italy. It felt like a very merry un-birthday party for me, since I was the only person bringing everyone together. With this motley crew, I learned to always choose wine over water (even if it makes me a tad tipsy) and I tried the sweetest, yet most tangy aged balsamic vinegar I have ever eaten. After salad and pasta and an irresistible bite of chocolate cake that one of the boys ordered, I went home with a food baby forming in my stomach and a smile on my face because Italy knows good food and good company.