"Food, glorious food / Eat right through the menu..."
- Food Glorious Food; Act I, Oliver; music & lyrics by Lionel Bart
When the fruit and vegetable seller drove through our street this morning, shouting his wares over his (very loud and somewhat distorted) sound system, I could actually make out some of the words - a first for me! Specifically: "Arance oggi!" (Oranges today!)
He certainly did have a lot of oranges, as well as lemons (limoni), potatoes (patate), apples (mele), a smaller amount of other citrus fruits, and some kind of leafy green vegetable. I didn't buy any today; between last Saturday's market and a trip into Termoli to go to the supermercato, we have enough fruit and veggies on hand for the week.
I think I've mentioned orange juice previously; I love that you can easily get arancia rossa here - red orange juice (the link is to an image of the brand we normally buy here). I think it tastes so much better than arancia bionda ("blonde" or orange-colored orange juice; like we mostly see in the US). I find the red OJ to be less acidic; at least, it doesn't give me heartburn. I have never yet seen (yucky) frozen juice concentrate here. It may be available in bigger towns/cities/regions with more expats, but not here.
Apricots (albicocche) are also very popular here. Not only is the fruit easy to find, as well as the juice, but there seem to be a lot of baked goods with apricot in them, particularly cornetti and other pastries, cookies, and so on. Paolo usually chooses apricot-filled cornetti for his breakfast; I prefer ciliegia (cherry), myself. Or chocolate.
I've encountered some other interesting fruit flavors via Italian carbonated drinks - I hesitate to call them sodas, because they aren't as aggressively carbonated as soda we'd buy in the US. The first one I tried was chinotto:
It is citrusy without being very sweet, and has a somewhat bitter aftertaste - which is probably why I like it.
Another one I tried and really enjoyed:
Bergamotto is also very citrusy, but a bit sweeter, with less of a bitter aftertaste. According to Wikipedia, it might not be very good for your skin. On the other hand, I'm drinking it, not wearing it, so...
My favorite flavor to date is cedrata - as you can see, I will need to get more very soon:
This is made from the citron fruit, kind of the granddaddy of all citrus fruits. The beverage has a sweet and sour flavor, and is mildly carbonated. When I first bought this, I was confused by the name, because "cedrata" and "cedro" also translate into English as "cedar," like the tree. I am not a huge soda drinker - or at least, I wasn't - but I will be very sad if I can't find a way to buy this when we are back in the US.
Every now and then I get a craving for cola flavor, so I've bought a few packs of the mini cans of Coke here; not very often though, because I can't seem to find a Coke that is both caffeine-free and diet - it seems to be an either/or thing in the stores where we are. One good thing about the soda packs here is that they do not hold them together with those plastic rings that are so bad for the environment. Instead, they are sold like this:
The cans are slotted into a cardboard carrier, and attached to each other, for extra support, I think, via what I call "glue boogers." No dolphin-killing plastic rings here!
Speaking of plastic, I've noticed that the plastic bags used to package loaves of pre-sliced bread are quite different than the ones I've encountered in the US. The plastic is thicker and stiffer, for one thing. Also, it is sealed at both ends; you have to cut the bags open at the top. Now, for our dinners we do buy good Italian bread from either the bakery here in town, or the bakery counter at the Carrefour, but we also usually keep a loaf of what I think of as "sandwich bread" on hand, simply because it's a little more convenient for sandwiches, melts, etc. at lunchtime. This is the brand I prefer - note the "cut here" scissor markings:
On this same shopping trip, I came across this bizarre offering in the pasta aisle:
This is just...wrong. Why, Barilla, why? Pasta mista is basically "mixed pasta." If you look closely, you'll see it indicates the pasta will be cooked al dente in 9 minutes. But look at the pasta inside the box - they're different sizes and thicknesses; I can't believe all of them take as long as 9 minutes to cook. I'm not going to try it to see how it turns out - I don't buy Barilla here; I like La Molisana much better. Interesting difference between the packaging here vs in the US: I've checked a few brands, and unlike in the US, none of them specifically state the "directions" for cooking pasta (first, boil x amount of water; then add pasta and cook between ___ and ___ minutes...). All of them simply list the amount of time needed to properly cook the pasta (oftentimes, right on the front of the container). And by "properly," I mean "al dente." Overcooking pasta is practically a criminal offense here, as is not salting your water (one of the very first things we did when we arrived here, at the insistence of Nicoletta, was to purchase both pasta and the salt required for cooking same). I like that Italian pasta manufacturers assume their buyers already know how to cook pasta and just need to know for how long a particular type should be cooked.
Aside from bread and pasta, our other kitchen staple item is a carton of eggs. At the supermercato where we shop, you'll find them in same aisle as the UHT milk (Parmalat, which is also sold in the US, is an example of this) and various "panna" products (creams) - across from the cereals. In other words, they're not refrigerated. We keep our eggs on the kitchen counter:
These are store brand eggs from free-range chickens
All the eggs we see in the stores seem to be brown, not white. If I remember correctly, egg color depends on the breed of chicken; I guess they have a lot chickens of the brown-egg-laying variety in this region. The eggs are packaged in recyclable plastic containers inserted into cardboard sleeves; I have not seen any Styrofoam egg cartons here. We usually buy a pack of six, although you can get bigger packages, such as of eight or a dozen. The reason they don't need to be refrigerated has to do with how they are processed - unlike in the US, the eggs aren't washed here prior to being sold, so they don't lose the protective coating on the shell.
In other news: we have a little four-night getaway planned for later this week, yay! We'd originally planned to go late last week, but put it off as it seemed at the time that the weather wasn't going to cooperate. Although looking the weather report now, it's still a bit iffy as to whether or not it will be raining during our stay, sigh. However, temps are looking to be in the range of high 50s to about 60F, which will be pleasant enough for walking around outside. We'll be taking the train from Termoli station; we'll leave around 12:30ish and arrive about 15:45 (with one change). We will be located about a 50-minute train ride from Naples, so we're hoping to day-trip in for a museum visit and/or shopping. One of the major attractions at our destination has a Star Wars Episode I connection, a factoid I learned right before I typed this sentence. So check back soon to see where we are!
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