So in case you couldn't tell this is a food topic blog post. Today, I wanted to go to Venice or Padua to go check out the sights. I did neither. Instead this morning I went to a bakery but not the bakery I had been going to all week (who is the host family of another tutor so I felt like I was cheating on them) and then went to a meat market that ONLY sold horse.....For those of you wondering, horse looks darker than your average meat. It looks like the color of liver actually. Its a dark redish color. So they had sample horse meat....4 different samples....and I tried them all. Horse is saltier than I thought it would be and I don't know if its how they cured it or horse is naturally saltier but it wasn't easier for me to eat emotionally and physically. It wasn't bad, but it was like...oh, Mister Ed. Luckily my host mom bought the type I appreciated the most. I just don't know when I will get it in a meal now. Oh and it is expensive. I don't know how much exactly but I remember looking at the prices and thinking damn, that is pricey.
After the meat market we went to the grocery store. I really liked the experience to see what they had comapared to what we have. For starters, the shopping carts are all chained up but they each have individual chains. You put a euro in and it releases the chain so you can take the cart. Ater that, when you return it you get the Euro back. Very smart and they are not losing carts that way. Once inside, in the produce section, you have the bag where you put your fruits or vegetables but also little plastic gloves to pick said fruit to make it as clean as possible. The store has 2 different cheese sections. The first section are cheeses that are local growers. So all the chesses say the name of the cheese by so and so family and they were all really cheap, the cheapest cheeses I have seen EVER. The second cheese section are all imported cheeses and they were like 9 euro a whatever their unit of measurement was but that breaks down to about 13 dollars. No thank you imported cheeses, I will not be having any of you.
So then I came back and got an email from my fellow tutors about lunch. I went to meet up wtih them and we went to get pizza because that was the only thing open. I had a seperate menu from my friends. My menu had the name of the pizza, what it was in Italian and in English while my friends only had the Italian (keep in mind one of them knows Italian decently well). I ordered a brie mozzarella pizza with argula and cherry tomatoes. Yum. Robbie's was similar but better. Marlena got some other pizza that looked decent, healthy but something that I did not recognize on top. As the waitress put it down, Robbie who is our Italian langauge person says "cavallo"? Apparently it is shredded horse on top of her pizza! That was too weird for someone who even recently tried horse and didn't find it that bad. However, on the menu it was sfiliaccti (keep that in mind for those of you traveling in Italy) and it sounded ok right? No it was horse meat. We got that packed up for Marlena to take to her host family and ordered the same pizza without the horse meat. Luckily, Robbie was there and heard "horse" in Italian and saved her. It could have been bad.
We then walked around and hung out at Marlena's host grandmother's house talking or watching Robbie and Marlena bounce up and down on the trampoline. I enjoyed my pristine spot on the yard too much to lose it. Marlena's family apparently doesn't eat horse so they got a pizza without knowing what to do withit. However, it was so peaceful just to be there with nature on a beautiful not too humid day and just enjoy it. I was then dropped off at my home. Soon, I was invited to go eat with Rache's host family. Their neighbor came over and I don't remember what it was called but I rememebred what it was. For those of you that know me well, you know that I LOVE pumpkin. Well today, I had tempura flowers, but they were the flowers off the vine of the pumpkins. DAMN they were good. I asked for the recipe because I could have had the whole plate. I also had some cheeses, fruit, pasta and zuccini but the FLOWERS are what I will take away with from that meal. Can I have some more please? And with that, tomorrow I go to Venice. Apparently I have to get glass something as a present. Who knew about Venitian glass and how it was world famous? Not me. I missed that portion of my history class!
I cannot wait! More to follow!
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