I don’t eat much when I’m home. This confounds the two kids who are around the most (which is not often), but what they forget is that they are young adult males and I am a post-menopausal woman. Appetites change, but, even if they don’t, the impact of food on the body certainly does.
Plus, gluttony is still a sin, last I checked. Not that I’ve conquered it. Ask anyone who’s gone out drinking with me. But yes, despite ubiquitous Chestertonian-LARPing in Catholic World, it’s still a sin. So if I’m not hungry – I try not to eat. Don’t get me wrong. To sit down with a bag of cheddar-cheese flavored Ruffles? Maybe my last meal, if I had to choose. But…gluttony. Stop.
The story’s different when I’m traveling. Then: I eat. After all, why do I travel? Mostly to learn about different places and cultures. How could I learn about any of that if I didn’t eat? Or drink? Or browse the grocery store?
You will find some restaurant dining below, but nothing high end. That’s not because I was traveling alone, but because high-end dining is generally not my thing. I can think of exceptions – when I go to New York City, I tend to eat slightly more elevated fare, since I have an offspring who lives there and can dependably lead the way. But otherwise, I’m all about the street food and the small joints the locals frequent.
I will say that I didn’t eat enough pizza. I was a little disappointed in myself on that score. But you know, I sometimes had a hard time synchronizing: what I was doing and seeing that day + my appetite + Italian schedules. It could be a challenge, dinner especially, since Italian dinner gets going at seven at the very earliest, and by that time, I was usually not in the mental space, after walking and seeing things all day, to go out one more time for a meal.
The weather had an impact, as well. It was fairly chilly the first few days I was in Naples, it was never really that warm anywhere, so not that conducive to whiling away a meal outdoors, which is my favorite thing.
Dining and drinking alone: The prospect prompts deep anxiety in some, but not in me. Of course, part of that is my only-child-solitary nature, but it’s also, just….it doesn’t faze me, and I see it as part of the job, even. That job being Me Watching You and Figuring Out the World. I dine and drink with others often, of course, and what pleasure there is in that! But there’s nothing awkward about dining or drinking alone if you decide there’s not.
A few years ago, we went to a local, popular mid-range pseudo-Tex-Mex place for dinner. There at the bar was a woman, a little older than I, with a beer, reading a book. I noted this, and thought, not, as some might: How sad! but instead – Best life, right there.
When I was in New Mexico last year, I was seated to eat at a popular eatery outside of Santa Fe. A few tables away, a middle-aged couple sat in silence, and you could tell from their faces it was not a companionable silence, expressing tension, either momentary for the evening or long-simmering who knows. The point was, in our minds when we eat alone, we sometimes imagine others looking at us, assuming the solo diner is envious of those with company. At that moment it dawned on me that there might be a cohort of fellow paired diners who looked at the solo diner, envious of them.
In Italy, I saw a few solo diners – older men, mostly, but also a couple of very well-put together young women, enjoying their meal completely by themselves. Not even a dog for company, unlike some of the more fortunate:
So:
Pizza: I (only) had pizza four times, five if you count the dinner my Naples landlady made for me one night. One was a simple focaccia from a baker in Putignano (which of course was great). Me = loser. The others were from:
50 Kalò in Naples Starita in Naples (they have branches in NYC) and Panificio Santa Rita in Bari. The last is famous for its Focaccia Barese, the typical focaccia of Bari, which is topped simply with cheese, fresh tomatoes and olives. All, of course, were hot, fresh, right out of the oven and delicious. And inexpensive. Neapolitan Pizza Margherita is going for $18 in Birmingham, Alabama right now. 6-7 Euros is typical in Naples, and the Bari focaccia – basically half a small pizza, folded – was 3. It was marvelous – crispy, airy, perfect.
Dinners: I had five sit-down meals, unless you count sitting on benches and church steps as “sit-down meals,” in which case there were many more:
Osteria Carmela in Naples – Restaurant Al 53 in Naples – Tandem in Naples – Pescheria Azzurra in Naples and Zi Ntonio in Sorrento.
The first was my favorite, and I now wish I’d gone there again. I had lunch there one day, getting to the small restaurant early, near the beginning of lunch service, to insure a seat, since I didn’t have a reservation. The server was helpful and charming, the room was just what you think at Italian osteria should be about, including the Madonna an the wall, and the old gentleman who came in for his lunch, as I imagine he did several times a week, if not every day. I had a vegetable and spaghetti vongole.
The other meals were good as well, most notably the famous ragu at Tandem. Pasta, meat, cheese. That’s what I ate. All good, pleasant experiences. I never had a reservation, but I went early enough each time, I hoped, to get a seat.
Pastries, Gelato, Street Food: A lot of all of them, although with the cool weather initially discouraged me from the gelato. I got over that though. I pretty much stuck to the sfogliatelle because of the ricotta filling. On my afternoon in Lecce, I did grab a savory rustico, which was delicious, filled with cheese, some ham and (a little too much) béchamel. I had a lot of things like that during the days: pastries filled with savory things. Including, in Naples, arancini and frittatine – the Naples specialty of deep fried pasta bound with bechamel, with various fillings, including, of course, meat and cheese.
Which is another reason I wasn’t super hungry for meals. I didn’t take photos of everything, first, because that’s lame, secondly because, well, it’s a little challenging to take photos with one hand. But be assured: many filled things, all over southern Italy.
And of course, the wonderful Caciocavallo (being made below right) – which is a cheese that’s hung over heat and scraped off as it melts. Same idea as a raclette. That was in Putignano: toasted bread topped with the cheese, a piece of prosciutto, sun-dried tomatoes and grilled peppers. Heaven.
Street food, but sit-down was orecchiette pasta in Bari – a woman made her own, cooked it up, simply, and served it. I would not call it a “makeshift” kitchen – it was outdoors, but clearly permanent. And she had a good business, based on tourism, since the other customers there had been brought by tour guides – one a bike tour, the other walking. I should have gotten the version with broccolini, but I was a little confused when she asked me what I would like, so I ended up with the tomato. As I wrote before, that was fine, since my main goal was to understand what hand-made, properly cooked orecchiette pasta felt and tasted like.
The only thing I ate that I didn’t like was on the plate of grilled meat on the upper right. This was a the Carnevale in Putignano, and all of the meat was great except this one little bundle – I looked it up at the time, but don’t remember what it was – the one on the far right edge. One bite told me it was organ meat/offal, and gross. Not my thing. But everything else was fantastic.
Lots of wonderful olives (my favorite), Aperol spritz many days (again, if it had been warmer, it would have happened more often. The gelato was always great, with my favorite being in Bari here. I wish I could remember the flavors – I should have taken a photo of the menu – but one was something to do with St. Nicholas, and the other was with black pepper, and it was perfect. They have branches in NYC.
Apertif: Every day that the weather permitted. It wasn’t so much the drink (although that was part of it, won’t lie) or the apertif snacks offered, but just the peace of what we call the third place – the space that is not work, not home, but a gathering place – or even if you’re not gathering – a place to stop, refresh and just be without having to be anyone in particular.
A couple of notes about eating and drinking culture.
It is easy, upon even just superficial observation of two groups, to determine which is American and which is Italian. Not that Americans are the only overweight people on the globe – far from it. But yes, Italians, unless they are genetically predisposed, tend to maintain a balanced weight until middle age, when nature starts winning. Much ink has been spilled on this – not only with the Italians, but the French and the Spanish and the Japanese, most notably – so I won’t repeat that. But it’s just true that the Italian way of eating and living really is a more balanced approach that protects against, well, gluttony and unnecessary eating. Meals as a thing – as an event of sorts, to be approached purposefully and with care, even if you’re alone – rather than on the fly.
(In general, for yes, I know, McDonald’s is very popular in Europe…..)
There’s a culture of purposeful between-meal sustenance, mostly in the form of coffee, but also any small accompanying snacks.
One thing I saw quite a bit in Italy was the sight – usually late morning or very late afternoon – of cafe/bar employees hustling down the street with round trays covered by clear plastic lids, on which they were carrying small coffees, heading into neighborhood shops and businesses, bringing those employees the boost they needed to make it to the end of the morning or day.
Snacking, in the American style – that is, sitting down with your big bag of chips or your box of crackers – in front of the television, is not a thing. When we began our 2012 trip, we started off in France, and early on, I set out to find snacks for our American crew. I went to the grocery store, searched and searched but could not figure out where they were. Couldn’t see any. After all, in America, there’s no question, is there? An aisle filled end to end with bright bags full of crunchy, salty things. Finally, I found it – a few shelves, with small boxes of crackers and small bags of chips – right next to the alcohol. Ah, I realized. Here, these kinds of snacks aren’t standalone experiences. They’re nibbles that go along with drinks.
Now, Italians like chips very much. They’re served with apertifs, and there are shelves of large bags in the grocery store. But by far the most popular Italian crunchy snack is the taralli. This is just a bit of what was stocked in one Putignano grocery store. I think there were two more shelves I didn’t get photos of.
Not that Europeans don’t have their indulgences. The candy and chocolate shelves go on. And when it comes to cereal – after your muesli and granola section, all you will find is chocolate-flavored cereal, and lots of it. Which is not surprising in a country in which breakfast = pastry.
Random leftover photos – braised vegetables at Osteria Carmelo in Naples; Delizia al limone, the typical dessert of Sorrento; panzarotti sign in Alberobello; citrus in Matera, sfogliatelle – you can see the ricotta filling, which I much prefer to a cream. What I did not eat in Bari.
Above: some pastry in Putignano. I was actually trying to ask what was in it, and she thought I was just buying. Answer: cream filling. Last meat before Ash Wednesday: a delicious doner kebab in Putignano. Orecchiette maker/seller in Bari. Panificio Santa Rita in Bari. Wine vending machine in Putigano. (Inside the alcove was a bunch of spigots with different kinds of wine. Bring your own vessel, or there were empty plastic bottles for sale.) Meat, cheese, vegetables at Al 53 in Naples. Booth distributing “blessed bread” after Mass in Sorrento. They waited, and waited. I never saw it arrive.
Below: another typical sight in Italy – dogs in restaurants This fellow got a little dish of food brought to him from the kitchen – I would guess that’s normal…