What Fills My Plate

Liver and Onions with Polenta When I was a kid cowboy movies were big entertainment.  I couldn’t wait for every  Saturday morning when the theatres would program 3 westerns and 5 cartoons.  (This was in the 50’s before daytime television)   There were famous cowboys, Lash Larue with his whip, singing Gene Autry, toothless Gabby Hayes, and Hoot Gibson.  My hero was Roy Rogers and his horse Trigger , while his wife Dale had ol’ Buttermilk . This was about as close as I ever got to a horse and I never thought that people in the world would eat horse meat.  It was a shock to me to find that here in north of Italy there are restaurants that specialize in horse meat.  You can also find meat dealers in every market that sell horse meat.  You can buy steaks of horse meat, or even tiny strings of “gourmet” horse meat.  Italians will tell you that horse meat has less fat than beef, that it is better for you.  I have also seen horsemeat shops in Slovenia and Croatia.     There was a seri

Most house wines here in the Veneto are exceptional.   Restaurant owners take a pride in offering a house wine that the locals will happily drink.  You have to remember that the village restaurants are not ones frequented by tourists who only visit once and never more.  These locals know a good wine from a bad and will be vocal about a bad house wine.   One major type produced in the Veneto, called Prosecco, is something I enjoy.  Italians cannot and do not want to call it champagne.  It is not aged in oak casks or stored in underground tunnels for many years.  It is priced much cheaper than French champagne, and every bar has it on tap.  I can buy a jug of prosecco in my local supermarket.  They even provide the bottles.  When ordering in a restaurant you can get it in liter or half liter pitchers.  Sounds funny to order this  sparkling wine by the “jug”, but this is Italy.  They are quite proud of producing prosecco, and I am sure you will agree that it is exceptional.   N

Italian television has begun to provide access to American food shows with exception of the Food Network that does not even allow Europeans to see video content from their food articles on the internet.   My friends are shocked to see food piled onto plates,  consumed by eating activists with a high-wattage passion for large sized portions.  A perfect example is the program   Man Versus Food .   It is amazing to see the host grow in size through the year of eating his way through America.   After several seasons he was forced to change the format and have others competing for top glutton. Another show popular in the mainstream here is produced by the Brit, Jamie Oliver.  He has a knack for showmanship and in one series he visited American schools and made a serious attempt at changing the offerings in school cafeterias.  He was met with mean spirited and angry officials afraid to examine their carbohydrated menus.  Oliver features programs more closely to Italian thinking.  He c

Bruschetta, pronounced Brooskehtah Lingering over dessert In a noisy restaurant in Padova I tell my friends about conquering the Italian driver exam. Directly across my table, with face cupped inside her palm with a toothpick, my friend politely listens while she picks her teeth clean.  More than frequently when dining with a group of Italians I see the majority looking like a group of giggling Japanese school girls, hand over mouth.   It causes me to smile when I see the whole table mining their “denti.”  I never know whether I should stop talking to them and instead gaze off to do some people spying.  Encountering these teeth pickers I am a bit flummoxed .  (Now there’s a word you don’t see much.) The rooting out of stringy bits of flotsam and jetsam has caused me to consider my next few posts:  a good discussion of  Italian restaurant customs and idiosyncrasies as seen through my American eyes.  7 years of culinary exploration has revealed restaurant  behaviors displayed

Italian Horsepower In Italy pedestrians rule!   I have just finished my second “in the car” driving lesson.  I have been corrected, during my lesson, absolutely stopping for people who are standing at a crossing without a street light.   Even if they are standing there smoking a cigarette, without intention of going across, I must stop for them.   Driving the streets of Padova with my expert instructor has been as fun as a dental visit.   My armchair expert instructor has not been greatly impressed.   I am a defensive driver, while Italians are more aggressive.   Wrecked autos in junk yards here show mostly front end collisions.  Italians don’t stop at stop signs, I do.   My greatest flaw is forgetting to signal with my blinker when I exit a roundabout, the circular intersection that saves Italy from purchasing super expensive street lights.   Today I was forced  to drive through about 30 roundabouts.  It is confusing when I appear to be going in a straight direction across

THANKSGIVING ... is at the top of the list of special occasions I did not want to miss when moving to Italy.   But where in the Veneto to obtain a turkey?   I had never seen a whole turkey in any market.  One could walk all over Padova and not find one gobbler anywhere in the meat markets.  They don’t exist.  The closest thing would be a leg and thigh, attached, or you can also buy breast of turkey.   Italians do not  eat a whole turkey, never see them, and they do not roast them or cook them whole.   I knew they had turkeys, just not whole ones. I began to look harder.  My quest was successful after I questioned my local macellaio (butcher) if he could provide a whole turkey.    I began a long explanation, recounting the history of Thanksgiving in America.   He smiled and told me that my request could be met, and what date would I want to pick it up.  Thanksgiving was a go! I described the size I needed, and this is important because the ovens in Italy are smaller than the

There is a local watering hole I frequent, which I call the “Old Farts Bar”.  We have several bars in town where one can get a number of different kinds of coffee drinks.   Old Farts is only patronized by tottering old men, well past the age of 70.  It is a deep-rooted “men only” establishment.  Not more than once or twice have I seen a woman venture inside,  sitting by what I gather would be their husbands.  These old men have been beaten down by a lifetime of hard work, wear and tear.    Italian life hasn’t always been easy.  You can expect sudden loud clearings of throats and noses, coughing and snorting.  If they see a friend on the street, a greeting will be bellowed out to get their attention.   They know everyone in the village and have an opinion on everything.  The only woman inside this bar is the barista, a knock dead 30 year old with shiny well kept hair and big black glasses which partially hide her dark blue eyes.  She daily dresses herself typically in Itali

In America you can get a driver license within a minimum of time.  You take the test, pass it and drive your own car to show  your driving skills.  You pay the fee, less that 50 dollars, and they take your picture and you are out the door.  In Italy a beaureaucratic mess awaits you.  If your country does not have an agreement for older licensed drivers from other countries to trade in and be issued a new license without testing (How do they drive in Sri Lanka, for instance?) you will experience your bank account shrinking as you pay over 600 euroes directly into the pockets of a driving school, a doctor who gives you a ridiculous 4 minute exam, and the government establishment which grabs the rest.  It is a shameless creation of government, over designed, and strengthened by a law that by its very essence plunders its citizens.  Topping it off is an exam obviously created by people who have nothing to do all year except think up more than 7,000 trick questions.   Many of these hav

     I am afraid that this post will sound like an advertisement for truffles and the Motovun Truffle Festival.   I must admit that I am not an expert on food, nor truffles,  On this subject I feel more like a redneck who blundered into a beer and crawdad festival.   Previously, most of my experience with truffles is like a kid window shopping for toys at Christmas.  My experience has been more like  field testing for flavors I have never known to exist.  However, I will try my best to give a straightforward analysis of the whole affair.      This has been one of the best weekends I have had all year!  We have had some great ones.  Reviewing the weekend my mind has indulged itself, lingering over long moments of a taste so warm and filled with the  sudden sensation of glorious contentment.  It was that good!      Finding almost nothing but short critiques on the festival on the internet,  and only first knowing about it by watching Anthony Bourdain's show on Croati

     I am calmly sitting at my table, waiting for a steaming plate of wild boar, called cinghiale,  nestled on a small pile of soft polenta.   Sipping my wine, and reasoning like a kid who suddenly realizes because ol’ Santa could not possibly deliver all those presents to the whole world,  I consider how many hunters and wild boars would be needed to furnish all the restaurants in Italy that feature wild boar every day.        Later I posed this question to my buddy, Alfonso, who has an agritourismo restaurant in the hills outside of Padova.  His answer delivers a crushing blow to my romantic view of Italy.  I am told those so called wild boars are a sham, fradulently labeled as wild, but instead raised on a farm.   (The word for swindlers in Italian is truffatori.)   Consider that wild boar is served in some Italian restaurants in the states.  Are they importing?  A waiter who writes on a blog called Waiter Rants , says that his restaurant uses rabbit, but labels it wild boar. 

            Soon we will be joining carloads of foodie worshipers headed down the autostrada to visit the Truffle Festival in the small village of Motovun, Croatia.  This area’s forests are famous for the malodorous fungus known as the white truffle of which these are said to be of the highest quality.   October and November are said to be the months where the most truffles of quality are found.   These truffles were known throughout history, especially used by both the Greeks and Romans.  The Istrian truffles from the Montovun area were featured in a television show on Croatia by Anthony Bourdain.      Local producers will be showing their largest mushrooms, liqueurs, wine, crafts and cheese.  I have read that if you pay a fee of 20 kn you can have a non-stop guzzling of wine, and there will be demonstrations of cooking with truffels.  Free tasting is ncluded after the demonstrations.  Somewhere in the middle all this we have a reservation to Konoba mondo Motovun Restaurant wh

       American television shows are shown in Italy, but they are years behind the actual date.  Most are older shows such as Hawaii Five 0, Ironside and The Simpsons.  All are repeated constantly,  but the best shows are related to food and travel.         We watched Anthony Bourdain visit Tuscany and attempt to make a pasta for a young group of Toscani friends.  Bourdain should have been alerted that they would never appreciate his pasta.   (My wife says that the whole thing is probably staged.)   We see him nervously prepare everything and cooking it, making sure it is al dente but tweeking it with a few new components.  He did not realise that trying something new with pasta would not be pleasing to Italians.   Italians do not seem to enjoy innovation but instead consider it an annoyance.   Adulteration is out!   The word “purists” would correctly describe them.  The result of the dinner was that Bourdain became the main course in front of his television audience.      T

           Remember when you were at the circus and the tiny Italian car drives into the center ring and one after another men keep coming out of the car?  Fooling you into wondering, how many more?  And  they keep coming!!   This is much like my life struggling with the Italian Driving Exam.      I have been studying for the driver exam for many months.   It  has been developed over the years by a group of whom I believe to be a scheming and deceitful bunch of question makers.   The exam has been created at a  level of the Italian language which is a much  higher level than my Italian language school.  I am not a teenager, I have driven for years the freeways in Los Angeles, San Francisco and never had an accident or been stopped for bad driving.  However, here in Italy I have had to spend a great amount of time with the Italian driver exam.  For months many of the things I like to do have been put on hold,  as every morning my nose is buried in the text book.      The proce