Italy Trip 2006: The Teaser

19 May 06

I'm back from three weeks in Italy, and I'm going through low grade food depression.

I spent three weeks in the city of Gubbio (city of about 36,000 located in Umbria, almost in the middle of the boot of Italy) visiting family, and learning a bit more about home Italian cooking from my aunts and cousins.

Have to tell you that I got a great cross section of home cooking in central Italy, but in pretty big doses. While most Italian families have a substantial lunch around 1pm and a smallish supper around 7-9pm, asd guests, we were treated to a larger-than-usual spread at most meals we were invited to. In fact, imagine some days, where we were treated to a huge home-made pasta hit, two-three roast beasts, a touch of veg, some home-cured pork products, great bread or flatbread cooked on the coals, and a baked sweet for lunch, followed at 7-8pm by another not-insignificant dose of pasta, some more meat, veg and another baked good. I'm still afraid to weigh myself.

Just to give you a taste of some of what I'll be writing about in future editions:

• Italy as the Land of Nutella (guess where you can buy a seven pound jar of the chocolate-hazelnut spread?)
• Death and Food
• The Italian Fish Feed
• Italy's Changing Demography and the Impact on Cooking
• Lessons Learned from Nonnas' (Grandmas') Kitchens
• Pig, the Noblest Beast

Meanwhile, here's some images to give you a taste (so to speak) of some of my adventures - enjoy!