Eating Seasonally and Locally (Italy Recap)

As with my French adventures, I found the Italian food culture inspiring for their use of seasonal, local ingredients. As I mentioned before, wild boar was on almost every menu in Florence, because apparently boars run rampant in Tuscany this time of year. The olive oil at even the humblest restaurants is delicious enough to eat straight, because it is remarkably fresh, as it comes from nearby producers.  There were plenty of springtime flavors that I saw popping up on menus again and again, but here are some of the ones that I found most delicious. 

Fava Beans

We ate some (chicken) liver with fava beans and a nice Chianti.  Silence of the lambs… anyone?  During a long lunch in Tuscan wine country, we ate a huge plate of these beans.  They were served raw, and you dipped each bean in salt before eating it -- kind of like edamame on steroids.  It was a simple, but extremely crisp and fresh way to start the meal. 

 

Tartufo/Truffles

Holy. Truffles.  We visited Italy right in the peak of truffle season and definitely reaped the benefits.  Now, if your'e like me,  you probably associate "truffle" with ruffle fries, a trendy American bar snack (french fries drenched with truffle oil and parmesan).  Truffle oil is heavy and gross and not at all the same as fresh truffles. 

 

This is a red onion custard with a truffle-scented foam, fresh truffles and a parmesan tuile.  The dish was light but rich and had just the right amount of earthiness from the truffles. 

 Then, we hit the MOTHER LOAD of truffles in Rome at Ristorante Tullio.

There is pasta somewhere under there.  Literally this entire dish was buttered pasta with a giant mountain of black truffles shaved on top.  At first we didn't order this because of the absurd price tag, but hey -- when in Rome, right? It was totally worth it. It was hard to believe such simple dish could have such complex flavors.  

Finally, we ate an amazing dish at imago that featured black truffles.  It was a pan fried scallop stuffed with mozzarella that had black truffles shaved on top.   I didn't take pictures at this restaurant because it was really fancy, but I'm kicking myself because the food was gorgeous. After a week of delicious but rustic cuisine, we sat down to a nine-course tasting menu of immaculately plated, modern cuisine.  Maybe one day I'll be a big time food blogger and then I'll have no shame in whipping out my camera at fancy restaurants. 

 

Carciofi/Artichokes

We also hit the high point of artichoke season. I was jumping for joy because artichokes have been my favorite food since I was a little tot (followed by lamb chops and chocolate mousse, obviously).  I ate them at least once a day on our trip.  Here are some examples: 

Pizza toppings. I'm not going to waste too much time discussing this, as I plan to devote an entire post to pizza. It is one of my great loves, after all…. but let's just say that artichokes are a baller pizza topping. 

Roman style artichokes.  Drenched in olive oil.  So tender that you can even eat the stems. I could easily eat ten of these. (By the way, artichokes are one of the naturally highest-fiber foods, so that would be a terrible idea).

Fried Artichokes. Admittedly, this is not my favorite way to prepare artichokes. I find that the artichokes are a little watery to work as a fried vegetable. I think you lose something of the delicate texture once it's battered.  I had the urge to dip them in ranch dressing, which would have been a travesty.

Stuffed artichokes.  These were stuffed with ground beef and tomato sauce.  They look pretty unattractive, but the taste was amazing and one of the only artichoke dishes I've ever had that could be described as "hearty".

Artichoke pasta.  Simply prepared, again with just olive oil, artichokes, and the pasta. The freshness of the ingredients truly elevated this simple dish to something awesome -- this was one of the best things I ate all week. 

 

 

 

 

 

Gelato (Italy recap)

I sampled my fair share of gelato while in Italy, despite my resolution to only steal tiny bites of my travel companions'. It's just too good!  If you are wondering what makes gelato different from regular ice cream, the biggest difference is in the method of production. Ice cream is churned with a lot of air and served at a really cold temperature.  Gelato does not have as much air mixed into it, which makes it seem more dense and creamy. Also, it's served at a higher temperature, so it is less icy and more creamy.  (The ratio of ingredients is also a little different - gelato uses more milk and less cream than ice cream).

After one week of voracious gelato-eating, I can say that I've decided on the best shop in Florence… in my opinion anyway. 

Pignoli: Pine nut gelato.  This was pretty great. The version I tasted didn't have a super strong pine nut flavor, so I imagine that they infused the nuts into the dairy.  I'm going to try to make this one at home to see if I can amp up the flavor a bit. 

Ricotta and Fig: Hands down the best gelato I had all week.  The tanginess of the ricotta balanced out the sweetness of the figs perfectly.  Unfortunately I don't think I could replicate this one at home because the texture and flavor of Italian ricotta is really different than ours in America - it tastes a little bit more sour and the consistency is much thicker. 

Gianduja: Chocolate. Hazelnut. Enough said.  I add this in to point out that if you ever see "Gianduja" as opposed to "Nutella" at a gelato place, you should definitely order the former. 

Mascarpone:  This was  crowd favorite, although it didn't top my list.  Mascarpone is a key component in tiramisu; it's actually a soft cheese (like, really soft - almost liquid) with a really mellow taste.  I think this gelato would be perfect to pair with a rich plated dessert.

Nougat:  I ordered this one by accident from a place that didn't have English translations (the lady told me what it was after I ate it). I  think nougat and I imagine the nasty filling inside of a three musketeers bar.  I should have known better after culinary school -- nougat basally means something that is nut based.  In this case, the gelato was filled with bits of a hazelnut praline (almost like a hazelnut brittle). A happy surprise,  indeed! 

Fior de latte: After tasting this a few times, I still had to google it to fully understand what it means ("milk flower").  It's confusing because this is also the name of a type of mozzarella, but in this instance, ti's basically a sweet cream or vanilla flavor. 

Cookies and Cream: I got a kick out of this one, because the "cookies" were little broken bits of biscotti -- not the oreo-inspired flavor I'm used to! It was tasty, but a different texture, as the cantucci added a bit of crisp.

And, just so they don't feel left out, here are some other, more traditional flavors that I sampled: Salted Caramel, Lemon, Raspberry, Coffee, Tiramisu, Coconut.  A gelato a day keeps the doctor away, right?

The Italian Meal

Lunch aftermath.

Three important things I learned in the past few days: 

1. Don't watch a movie about being stranded at sea on a tiny raft while you're flying over the Atlantic Ocean.  Thanks a lot, Pi, for making my heart rate 190 BPM for the past 10 hours. 

2. If you are afraid of getting hit by a car, don't go to Rome, ever.  Most of the crosswalks don't have lights and the traffic is akin to New York City, except drivers (seem to) go twice as fast.  Basically, you just have to jump off the curb and hope that people will slam on their brakes before turning you into a pancake.  Or you can be like me and wait for someone else to cross the street and scoot right next to them. 

3. Always bring an extra fold up suitcase when you're traveling. Duh.  I'm pretty sure when I sat on my suitcase to try and zip, it caused a black pepper and sesame blend I was smuggling home to explode all over everything.

This past week I was lucky enough to travel to Florence and Rome and I had some pretty excellent food adventures.  I've had enough gelato, pizza, and cheese to last me a month -- which is fortunate, because my wedding is six weeks away and I'll be eating spinach and water only from now until then.  I couldn't possibly put all of the tasty things I ate into one post, so I'll have to split it up.  I was too cheap to buy internet access at our apartment in Florence, so this is going to be a slight delayed reaction. 

There was so much amazing food and so many amazing meals in Italy that I decided to do a few topical blog posts to outline some of my favorite eats. In case you are 0% Italian (like yours truly), I thought I'd write a bit about the experience of the Italian meal -- because I had no idea how many different elements were involved! Luckily, I only read tourism books focused on food, so I wasn't entirely blindsided. 

The Italian meal… oh boy.  I seriously can't imagine how Italian people eat so much food and stay so skinny. I never saw anyone eating breakfast, with the exception of espresso shots (which you drink standing… DRIVE BY CAFFEINE!) 

Antipasto - the best versions of this usually involve prosciutto, a giant blob of mozzarella cheese, and some sort of grilled or marinated vegetable (artichokes, please).  Other taste examples include bruschetta or crostini.  Oh, and in case you wanted me to solve an age old debate - it's officially pronounced "bru-SKET-ta"  and not "bru-SHEH-ta"… the latter is the name of a famous Italian mob boss. 

Primi - Pasta dishes.  Specialities vary regionally -- in Florence, wild boar ragout was on almost every menu.  Rome is famous for cacao e pepe, which is a simple but delicious spaghetti with cheese, pepper, and tons of oil. 

Secondi - Lots of meat, especially in tuscan cuisine.  Bisteca Florentine, a huge t-bone steak, is popular and fairly absurd.  The minimum size is 1kg -- 2.2 pounds.  

Contorni - vegetables and salads. served along side the meal. 

Cantucci and Vin Santo - this was served at many places we ate.  It's a dessert wine to dip biscotti in -- I don't think you're actually supposed to drink it, but rather suck it out of the cookie

Dolci - dessert.  Cheesecake, napoleons, and panna cotta were on most menus. 

 

As you can see, this is quite an ambitious undertaking! Our really ambitious meals ended with grappa or limoncello and some espresso. 

Limoncello: not just for ladies.   Stay tuned for some highlights from my amazing vacation.  Ciao!