I Am So Hungry!!!

I am obsessing. All I can think of is decent grub.

The song in my head right now, going around and around and around, is the song from Oliver. “Food, glorious food…. Sausage and mustard….. jelly and custard….”
Eating out is expensive here and the food is not what I was hoping for. I don’t know if the Italians are really just dainty little eaters who swallow bare morsels at a time, or if they’re into ripping off the tourists. The portions I have seen in restaurants do not match up to a good, South African sized plate. (Other travelers have mentioned the same thing to me, so maybe the restaurants just see tourists coming…) The one meal where we ate out in Rome was awful. I have had much better gnocci at Primi Piatti. And it was 1/4 of the advertised size. The sauce was watered down tomatoey stuff, with about 2 pieces of mince in it. A far cry from the “meat ragout” on the menu. N’s pizza was just as appalling. 3 pieces of very fatty salami type meat does not count as lavish toppings in anyone’s book.
We braved a restaurant once more, in Statte. And it was not too bad. Both of the pizzas were fine, but nothing to write home about. We left there satisfied, both in the tummy sense and in the “nice not to be ripped off because we’re tourists” sense.
Apart from those two occasions, and the pizza by the slice experiences in Rome (fantastic) and Naples (very average) we have been eating on the super cheap.
I have consumed ham and mozzarella rolls; mozzarella and salami rolls; mozzarella and salt rolls; ham rolls; bockwurst sausage (sold in bottles – quite a find at first but the novelty is wearing off rapidly); a carton of peas (desperate for veggies); bottles of asparagus (prompted by incipient scurvy – no N, cheese is not a vegetable….); tuna; sardines; sardines and crackers; tuna and crackers; dry crackers – oh the dreadful litany. I am traumatized just reading it again.
Tanya asked me (full of foodie excitement) to be sure to blog ALL ABOUT THE FOOD!!!
Well, sorry T. Doomed to disappointment.
My best stretch of meals has been quite recent. We found some hamburger patties in a super market and they weren’t excessively priced. 3.3 Euros for 4 patties. About R40. Twitching with excitement and drooling like starving slum dogs, we dashed home and fried them up in the campsite kitchen. Plonked between two slices of bread, they were absolutely delicious. It’s the first real meat in a meal that I have had for nearly 3 weeks. Those who know me well will understand the trauma of me being meatless. I am unable to decide which is worse – no meat with a meal or no red wine. Horrors. The next morning, I cooked up some French toast and slathered cherry jam over it all. Sublime. And then night before the hamburgers, I also bought myself a helping of chips from the camp site restaurant and drenched them with vinegar.
That, dear Tanya, I’m afraid to report, has been the gastronomical height of this trip so far. (Apart from the pizza in Rome, which perfection seems doomed never to be repeated. The Holy Grail of pizza…)

It’s very strange to me – the lack of variety in the little Italian food shops. The super markets are small and all seem to stock 905 the same stuff. I have a theory that the same single truck goes round the whole of Italy, stocking up every single shop from the same small selection of goodies. Fillings to put on sandwiches: nutella and jam. That’s it. Every shop the same two items. For the first time 2 days ago, N found honey and peanut butter. He paid about R50 for a tub of peanut butter and about the same for a pot of honey. Meanwhile, I sanctimoniously (more broke…) paid about R15 for the cheapest pot of jam in the shop. But it was cherry jam, and I really like it. Another find! I love it when the stuff I enjoy turns out to be the cheapest stuff on the shelf!
Hehe – on that note, my other big score was the expensive cherry juice that N bought himself. He failed to notice the bit in German, where it indicated “sour cherry” juice. N has the sweetest tooth on this planet. He did not like the cherry juice and donated a large portion of it to me. I did like it. I liked it a lot!
There is usually a huge range of cheeses for sale, a medium selection of cold meats (ham and salami and maybe some turkey/chicken) and then an entire row filled with packets of pasta. A full row. The pasta takes up more space than any other single item in the whole store. To go with the pasta, there is usually a large range of plain tomato paste.

Anyway, so much for any concerns about getting fat in Italy. So far there has not been a whole lot of pigging out on gastronomic delights. I was so looking forward to trying out a variety of exciting local dishes in every country I went to. Hold out for Spain, Mallorca and Croatia, T! I am hoping that the food there will be less expensive and more exotic.

My wishlist right now:
A man size, juicy, rare rump steak.
Chips to go with it, drenched in vinegar.
A BUCKET load of sushi. I covet a Friday evening of eat as much as you like at the Tokyo Sushi bar.
A delicious glass of South African shiraz. Ok – make that one a bucket load too.
Lindt chocolate balls. The box of assorted flavours.
An icy Coke. Real coke, not the stuff they serve here. It’s not the same.
A boerie roll, covered in tomato sauce and mustard.
A Steers burger.
Nandos.
Kentucky Streetwise 2.
A home cooked meal. Maybe T’s roast chicken, with roast potatoes and peas and butternut.
Thai green curry. A la Helen.
My own chicken stirfry, with oodles of chili.
An internet connection that does not constantly bomb out on me.

Things I could happily never see again:
Mozarella cheese on a roll. Or anywhere. (Except on those pizzas from Rome.)
Ham rolls.
Bread.
Tuna.
Sardines.
Bockwurst sausages in a jar.


N’s wishlist right now:
Condensed milk.
Florentino cookies.
A nice place to climb.
Good internet.
Heroes.

Typical Lunch - ham and mozarella roll: