Life is unpredictable like trying out new food flavors

Much has happened in the past 4 weeks. I have been traveling through out Europe, interviewing chefs, organic producers, cheese manufacturers and producers, agricultural producers, and more. I have jumped from plane to trains to busses across Barcelona, Lucca, Florence, and Rome. I have tasted local foods, discovered organic cuisine in Spain and enjoyed wine on the Tuscan hills. And yet, that is not all. I m now moving to London on Tuesday, which means for you and me a new challenge and evolution of this blog. How to cook in a foreign country? How to discover new foods? How to find like-minded people who love organic produces?

While I was in Italy, I cooked for my friends in two occasions.

1. First, I made chili. I thought it would be an easy recipe, because the ingredients are pretty basic and to be found anywhere. It was not that easy. I had a hard time even finding black beans. The spices were the most difficult to find. At the national known supermarket, chili powder did not exist. The section of spicy was limited. This is terrible, but I had to buy a pre-packaged Mexican tacos box to get some of the spices. I was then told by my cousin that I needed to go to a small Asian market, but the reality is that my hometown does not have much variety in terms of markets (Asian, American, Mexican).

Another item that I could not find, which is incredible considering that Italy is popular for cheese, was cheddar cheese. Ok, I know that Italy does not produce the neon orange cheddar cheese. However, I thought I could find something similar, with a similar flavor. Nothing. I could not find anything. Maybe, I just don’t know much about cheese, maybe the supermarket, but the point is that I should be able to find a mediocre cheese right?

#Fritos, which I put on my chili were obviously impossible to find. I found a similar, fake version, which tasted like crap, and I am not even a big fan of Fritos for obvious reasons.

In the end I made a chili that was who knows what, but surprisely it tasted amazing. I am not sure anymore what I put in there, but it was a lot of unknown spices found in my brother’s kitchen.

2. I made for another occasion vegetarian lasagne. You will think, “Ok, come on you are in Italy.” Well, the problem was that I was staying in a house that had not been used in a while, so there was no garlic, onions, you know the basics, and most importantly I did not know how to use the oven. The electricity went off 7 times. I had to figured out how to turn it on again, finding the electric box in a romanesque ex convent – not easy.

The lasagne did not turn to be as good as always. I was so said. I found that the water, the ingredients, the tools, are just not the same. I made chocolate whipped mousse and even the way the heavy cream was whipping was not the same. I know that climate can affect food, but how do chefs do it when they travel? I did not realize how important is to feel the comfort of  your own kitchen and grocery store. I missed that.

#eating Italian chili

Memoirs of an Italian living in United States

Memoir of America

As I stepped out the airplane in Cleveland, Ohio with my guitar as my only companion, a sudden overwhelming yet capturing smell of pop-corn and butter ran across my nose. Around me, men and women in uniforms were walking by while multiracial people created an abstract colorful canvas like one of the many fascinating abstract Pollock’s paintings. That was my first reaction to America-colorful and artificial flavoring. Before landing in Cleveland, my understanding of American culture was based on American toys like Barbie and Fisher’s Price, American movies, my trip to Disneyworld, and the many trips to MacDonald’s while traveling and living through out the world with my parents. Cleveland, Ohio, like Tallahassee, Florida, was nothing like movies, and Americans were nothing like Barbie and Ken.

When I first came to United States I was 17 years old, did not understand or speak American and was about to spend 8 months with a host American family never met before, while attending my senior year at an American high school of 1,894 students, 75% of which were African Americans. I was a minority for the first time in my life. For the first time in my life I was going to interact with people of a different ethnicity without being on vacation in some foreign beautiful countries. I was not scared. I was excited and curious: eager to learn about the variety of cultures within one culture.

My Italian high school had only white people, none of which were foreign. Everyone knew each other, every parent had known each other from previous generation and so on.

There are obviously many events, objects, people, places that impacted, created, and changed my view of American culture. For the matter of today memoir I am going to focus on few items that particularly impressed me because so deviant from my culture.

American Supermarkets

American supermarkets are big. They occupy big lots of land where a large parking lot is built visible from any corner of the road. The parking lot is built right in front of the building. Rather than hiding it from the view of an individual the parking lot becomes the attraction of the driver. Supermarkets are usually built at intersections to attract more people and make them easy to reach.

As you walk in the store the temperature drops down to 63 degree, or 17 Celsius (you might notice that Americans like to keep their a/c very low everywhere). Employees wear the same uniform and are devoted to different job: stocking the vegetables sprinkled by an automatic irrigation system; packing the grocery for their customers; helping customers to carry their bags outside the store; and finding lost carts to nicely reorganize. Team-work seems a must in the grocery store.

The first time I went inside a supermarket, like a kid in a candy store, I was hypnotized by the large and endless selection of items and their packaging size. There was an aisle just for breakfast cereals. There were cereals of any type: banana, oat-meal, crispy, colorful cereals, chocolate flavored, strawberry, low calories, power energy and so on. The options were endless and they differentiated by their diverse packaging. Iconic images were printed on the cover of each cereal box trying to catch the attention of the target consumer. Cereals for kids had bright colors and funny animal characters portrayed in action poses. Cereals for women stress the importance of maintaining a healthy life style and a slim figure. The cereal aisles of the supermarket like any other American store had a purpose; appeal to a very specific and narrow target audience while promoting the capitalistic economy of the country.

SIZE MATTERS

Everything is America is GIANT. Food portions are so big they can fit an entire family in Italy. Drinks at MacDonald’s are so big I need two hands to hold one cup. Even people are big. They drive big cars jumping from one lane to another  on a 6 lane highway that wraps around the city like a snake.  “Why does everything need to be so big in America?” I always wondered.

OPTIONS

Ordering food or drinks in any type of restaurant, bar, coffee shop, or fast food requires a set of communicative skills that are native to the target culture of a country. In United States ordering a simple coffee might take 10 minutes, depending on how fast the buyer is accustomed to endless options.

In my country, Italy, when you go to a bar and you order a coffee all you have to do is ask for “one espresso”. In less than one minute you had successfully paid and enjoyed your drink.

In United States drinking coffee, like ordering food, becomes a personal experience like going to the salon to get a relaxing manicure, expect the relaxing part. First, you quickly have to identify the endless options on the menu. Coffee is not served only warm; it can also be served with ice, or with crunch ice.  Once you have proudly selected your choice and you feel less stress about interacting with the sale person, you have to undergo selective questions regarding your coffee similar to an interrogation. To please the consumer, most of the restaurants, coffee shops, etc provide OPTIONS. Some of the questions asked in regards to your coffee could vary from: “Do you want decaf or regular?” “Do you want house coffee, Puerto Rican etc?” “Do you want flavor in your coffee?” “Do you want it iced, warm or frappuccino?” “What size do you want?” “Large, medium or small?” “Do you want skim, 2% or whole milk?” “Do you want soy milk?” “Do you want whipped cream?“ Chains like Starbucks confuses me even more when categorizing their cup size using incorrect Italian terminology. Their “grande size”, which in Italian means BIG, translates into small size. That is just stupid in any level.

At the end of an exhausting interpersonal interaction with the sale associate you can finally deserve your drink. You have successful bought your first coffee!

PEOPLE ARE NICE WITH ME –WHY?

When you walk in a store, sale associates greet you and welcome you in the store. They provide their name attempting to establish a close relationship. They smile and compliment you. At restaurants, your personal waitress or waiter states her/his name and makes sure to contribute to the enjoyment of your experience at that restaurant. If it’s even your b-day all the waiters of the restaurant gather around you singing the Happy B-day song, while bringing a free dessert with candles.

If you are staying over friends’ s house, or friends’ s of friends’ s house, the first thing they will ever tell you is the following: “You are at your home here, just open the refrigerator when you are hungry and make yourself at home.” They mean it too!

In school professors, teachers, and TAs undergo trainings on how to respectfully treat students. Positive reinforcement is key to a successful teaching environment and teachers are not in any way allow to disrespect students.

In addition, relationships between students and teachers are more personal. This does not happen in Italy. Students are called only by their last name to reinforce a differentiation of status. As the teacher enters the room everyone stands up as a form of respect. Italian language has a formal form that is specifically devoted to differentiate classes based on their social and economical status. In addition, it is not uncommon for teachers to offend students in class as they feel they can use their power against students. In America that just does not happen.

Americans are so polite to strangers that it appears fake to the mind of a foreign person. It is actually quite annoying if you come from a country like Italy were rarely, and I might stress rarely, people in retail business for example say hi to you or devote their time to their customers.  In America, don’t be surprised if a stranger female or male compliments on your clothes, your hair, or your eyeglasses while you are just struggling to buy your coffee. People here are just nice. There is a certain goodness never seen anywhere in the world.  

I have now lived in United States for 11 years. I have lived in Ohio, in the north, and now Florida. Things that used to surprise me have become a routine that I have embedded in my own identity, but there are still so many differences that make me want to take my camera out and take a picture.