My hunger while in Spoleto was insatiable. My most frequent craving was a burrito as big as my head, chock full with a zillion different, oozing, juicy ingredients. Before coming to study abroad in Italy, I had always proclaimed that pasta was my favorite food. I suppose I have a thing for foods that feel […]
Archive | Culture & Cuisine
My Perfect Umbrian Meal
You see, if you could find all of these food choices on a singular menu in the Umbrian region that would be the best case scenario. It took my taste buds over two weeks to try all that I would now combine to call my perfect Umbrian dinner. Authentic Italian food and I have definitely […]
Pasta in the Piazza
Food has always been a sensitive topic for me. At first, it was because my vegetarianism made me uncomfortable around the smells and sights of meat. Once I overcame that around the age of 12, the turmoils of my preteen and teenage years brought a different type of uncomfortableness, one that is too deep to […]
Sip a Moment, Let it Linger
When you’re an American and you order a coffee in Italy, you’re not really ordering a coffee, not in the American sense, anyway. When you order a coffee in Italy, it’s fast, almost too fast, and you’d better have the exact change for your order in hand and ready to be placed in the tray […]
The Cocoa-Powdered Bridge Between Us
I have always been a big fan of tiramisu. Maybe it is my distant Italian ancestors speaking through me because despite my very Irish appearance I have been told during my time here that I “couldn’t possibly be Irish” for my preference for spicy foods and lack of interest in beers and whisky. Maybe physically […]
To Lift One Up
Eating was a chore for me as a kid. It was also a chore for everyone else involved. I was the stubborn parental nightmare that insisted on stopping by McDonald’s for a Happy Meal before everyone sits down to eat at the Mexican restaurant the family frequents. On the occasion that I did eat what […]
The Umbrian Food Experience: A Deep Dive Into a Four Course Meal
L’Aperitif The bread was finally salted. In Umbria, they do not have salt in the bread. This bread, however, was different. Served before us, a plain wheat bread – salted to perfection. Its firm, yet textured crust was juxtaposed to the soft, bed like, interior. Accompanied with it were two types of focaccia: olive and […]