Italy- Food Caitlyn K

The amazing foods and desserts in Italy were the best parts of the whole trip. Most meals are so different from the meals that we have here in the US. Going through the meal courses, breakfast was my second favorite, behind desserts. I thought that the Dunkin Donuts coffee was the best, but the Italians do it much better. They drink the milky, creamy coffee, like a cappuccino, only at breakfast. It is common for people to dip their breakfast biscuits into the coffee, or even mix the whole biscuit into the coffee. While I was in Italy, I had this each morning. The coffee shop was one of my favorite food places to go!

While breakfast is the “most important meal of the day” in the US, lunch is more important to people in Italy. There are steps to getting the complete meal. At each restaurant I went to for lunch, I sat down and there was already some sort of food on the table. Olives, cheese, or salami are common snacks, or as they call it, “nibbles”. Then I was served the first course, which was a pasta of my choice. I chose to have spaghetti and meatballs. The waiter gave me a strange look and left to have the chef start making the “primo piatto” part of my meal. When the waiter came back with dish, there was only spaghetti. After I ate that, I was told to that my second course, or “secondo piatto” was on the way. I was then given my meatballs on a new plate. That’s when I realized that the courses are separated. The first is for pasta dishes, and the second is when I could get meat or fish. There’s no such thing as getting a spaghetti and meatball dish together.

Besides all the wonderful and tasty dishes in Italy, there are some strange and unappetizing meals offered. One of the dinner menus included snails, horse, donkey, hedgehog, goat, guinea pig, rabbit and hare, wild boar, sea urchin, sea snails, octopus, squid, sparrows, and peacocks. There is no way that I would ever try any of those.

By far, my favorite food is the delectable desserts. You can’t even compare our ice cream to their Italian ice. The closest comparison would be our slushies to their italian ice. They both include shaved ice, but Italian ice has cream. I have had cannolis in America from the supermarkets, but they are awful compared to the real Italian cannolis. Cakes, cookies, sweetbreads, custards, and confections are some of the types of desserts I tried in Italy. Biscotti is great, and we actually found out how they are made. They are cookies that are baked twice. They are made like this to take out the moisture, so when they are done they will be hard. The biscotti is messy to eat, because it is so dry that it gets crumbly.

The food was just a bonus to the great experience I had while visiting Italy. It was an amazing trip, and I definitely miss the delicious desserts and the milky coffee. The American foods will never taste as good as they did before my trip to Italy.