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Published: January 27th 2008
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Coffee...
...straight out of the vending machine... a miracle! So I figure it is about time to finally talk about some of the food of this region... I will give a recap of some of the different types of food that I've eaten while I am here. For those of which I do not have a picture, I will look for a link on google...
Ah, the best, and the traditional type of pasta that I have eaten while I am here is called Cappellacci, which is ultimately a huge tortellini (as we would know it) with a sweet acorn squash filling (spiced with nutmeg and parmesan cheese). It is either covered in a meat sauce, or sage butter... both of which are delicious! I enjoyed this during my first Sunday here, followed by a dessert known as pampepato -- a chocolate nougat of sorts, almost chocolate fruit cake... which has almonds, candied orange, cinnamon and clove. It right up my alley on the tastes.
Today, for lunch (Sunday is always the big day to eat at the house) we had a lot of typical cuisine -- first Cappelletti -- a much smaller type of pasta (similar to tortellini) filled with meat). Today, we enjoyed it covered in a cream
Hearty Pugliese Dish
This is the dish we made with all the homemade stuff with my friends from Puglia (the heel of the boot) sauce. After which we had a peculiar, yet flavourful meat substance called Salama da sugo.
Here is a photo . It is a concoction of pork mixed with wine and spices which is then hung to age for at least a year in the dark. After this year, it is then boiled and eaten. We enjoyed it today with mashed potatoes, followed by, as always, veggies/salad. Today, the vegetable selection was fennel, carrots, mini-radishes and celery... which we ate by dunking it in olive oil and salt.
Another peculiar food item of these region is their bread. It is twisted up type of bread that is halfway to being a cracker. It is rather dry at times and tastes more like a biscuit... although I've definitely grown to love it.
VerdeDelta has pictures of the Ferrarese bread (2nd row, 3rd column), typical salami (4th row), and both the Cappellacci and Pampepato (last row).
For dessert today we ate Ciambelle, a very simple plain pastry (in fact, I think this may just be a general name for a sweet, for I was also told that Ciambelle typically have a hole in them, aka, a donut, and the one we had at lunch today didn't have one). Nonetheless, this simple ciambelle, we dipped in sweet red wine. This wine, called Cagnina, was exceptionally great.
On the topic of alcohol... a very typical aperitivo is a spritz. Here they use prosecco (or something similar) with a bitter liquor, either Campari or Aperol, served with a slice of orange). When it's "happy hour" between 5ish and 7ish, the bars also lay out different snacks (potato chips, spreads, breads, you know -- I had focaccia tonight!, etc.).
Last weekend, when I went with the program group to Mantova (a city a good hour or so away in pullman), we ate, amoung other things, donkey meat with polenta. I must say... the meat was okay, the sauce it was cooked it was not. Definitely goes on the list of weird meats I've eaten. Also on the same trip, for dessert, we ate what is known as the chocolate salami -- a mixture of chocolate, nuts, and other things that I'm not really sure of, formed into the shape of a salami. You slice it up, and eat it just like salami... but instead it is sweet chocolatey goodness!
see! .
Other things I've enjoyed a lot of:
-prosciutto crudo
-nutella
-cookies and tea (for breakfast)
-the espresso that come out of a vending machine
-my juice boxes of apricot or pear juice
On a slightly different note, that is, different style of food: my group of Italian friends that I've made here are all from the south of Italy... so all the food that we have made together has had a completely different feel. For example, one night we made a scrumptiously simple dish of sausage, cooked up with sauteed onions (sauteed with homemade olive oil), covered with red tomato sauce (also homemade) and beans (also home-jarred). This cooked up, served with a lot of bread -- we were happy campers. Another dish, throw some pancetta in a pot, cook it up, then throw in some slices zucchini and some pepper flakes, and mix in cooked pasta. Add cheese, and enjoy some good eating. Also with this group, we enjoyed orecchiette with basil pesto, followed by a cordon bleu bought from the store. and yet another, throw some salt into a pan, and cook pork chops in it... serve.
Needless to say, I've been eating very well... so well that I feel as if I'm gaining weight, and I'm biking over 6km on a daily basis...
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