Italy Journal 8 - Teatro del Sale & Parma/Modena

Friday was one of my favorite days yet in Florence. In my cooking class, we made Saltimbocca alla Romana which are thin veal cutlets rolled with proscuitto and sage leaves, cooked in olive oil and marsala wine. The drippings are thickened into a sauce and served on top. The taste is at once earthy, salty, and sweet – like a party in your mouth that you just don't want to end. To my horror, one of my station-mates in class got a bunch of paper towels to "blot all that greasy stuff off" her piece. Some people just do not deserve to eat in Italy!!

After class I went for a walk in a different part of town and got completely lost for about an hour. Florence has many tiny streets that sometimes feel like they just lead you in circles, and since the streets are so narrow, unless you are in the center of town, it's not easy to orient yourself according to the landmarks, unlike New York. With my useless map in hand, I just walked around and around until things finally started to look more familiar. Another interesting thing about Florence is that the locals don't know the names of streets, either. So if you are, say, trying to find a particular street, unless you know a nearby landmark/church/or market, you are pretty  much out of luck getting directions.

The goal of all that wandering was to reach the Teatro del Sale, translated as the Theater of Salt. It's a very exclusive dinner club run by the chefs and owners of Cibreo, one of the best restaurants in Florence. The irony of the name comes from the fact that the bread in Florence does not contain salt. During the middle ages, Pisa, a rival city, decided to levy an exorbitant tax on salt to Florence, and they responded by doing without, proudly. I've gotten used to the bread and really like it, by the way. The tap water is fine to drink, too, in case you were wondering.

In order to have dinner at Teatro del Sale, you have to become a member, at the cost of 5 Euro for one year for foreigners. Locals pay more. There can only be 99 members at any given time, so it is never overcrowded or touristy. When you walk in, it is clearly an old Theater, but all the seats have been detached from the floor and are positioned around small dinner tables mostly for 2 or 4 people. The ceiling is huge, with old wooden rafters and there's a stage with regal velvet curtains. Off to the side is a table with unlimited water, seltzer (called Frizzante here) and free flowing red table wine. There's fancier wine for purchase, too.

A buffet table with servers has about 15 different vegetable and pasta dishes, everything from pesto pasta to hummus, braised carrots, lentils, baked tomatoes, fresh bread sticks, etc. Through a huge glass window you can watch the chefs work on the various meat and fish courses. When something is ready – be it mushroom soup served in mugs sans spoons, meatballs livornese, clams and mushrooms, baked eggplant with cream, or any other number of amazing dishes, one of the chefs passionately sings out a description of the food (in Italian) at the top of his lungs and we go up to the window to get our individual portion directly from the cooks. I was with my friend Julie and each time we went up, this particularly charming young chef would generously describe each dish and its ingredients to us in English.

You return used plates to the dishwashers through a little opening near the kitchen. Even the guys doing the dishes are happy and seem to have having a good time. Back there, they are eating the same food as us. At the Teatro, everyone seemed to be happy to be there, especially the staff. This added so much to the experience.

Dinner began at 7:30 and was over by 9:15 and I could not have eaten one more bite! Toward the end, I was taking dishes just to taste them as I was so full of goodness. My meal at Teatro del Sale was without a doubt the most delicious one I've had here, and that says a lot considering some of the food I've had the pleasure of tasting over the past three weeks. The show part of the evening was two Italian jazz  musicians singing Bob Dylan with guitar and bass accompaniment. I asked my 20 yr old companion if she liked Bob Dylan and she said she only knew him from the TV show "Full House". (That's Bob Saget, the comedian, not Bob Dylan, I said with a smile.)

Since I didn't take any pictures at Teatro del Sale, I am attaching some photos of my trip through Parma and Modena where I saw/tasted parmesan cheese making, proscuitto aging, and tasted real balsamic vinegar. I am bringing back a huge piece of real parmesan cheese and some traditional balsamic vinegar that was aged for 25 years. The proscuitto is aged in the countryside of Emilia Romagna. The salty winds of the sea meet the northern winds and it's the combination of special air that lends the meat it's special taste.

Italy Journal 1 - Food Shopping & Cooking

            Mi chiamo Diane. Sono Americana, di New York. Ho trentidue anni e ho un marito simpatico, si chiamo Kevin. Studio gastronomia e cibo italiana. Parlo inglese e un po spagnolo. Il mio indirizzo e via dei San Jacopo 13, en Fiorenzi. My name is Diane. I am American, from New York. I am 32 years old and have a nice husband named Kevin. I study cooking and food of Italy. I speak English and a little Spanish. My [temporary] address is 13 San Jacopo in Florence.

The lesson today was an introduction to Italy, including conversational basics in Italian, geography and basic food terms from various regions. We had a walking tour to the Mercato San Ambrogio. Since I arrived here, just two days ago, I have really experienced the significance and importance of food in Florentine society.

            Yesterday my roommates, along with other friends—a group of ten students—went to the Billi supermarket and shopped alongside the native Italians for ingredients to make our own Sunday evening family dinner. We went to the supermarket because it was Sunday and the open air markets were closed. At the supermarket, I was surprised to see so many imported foods, particularly in the produce department. Not knowing the language, it was tricky to decipher which foods were actually from Italy. After all, I didn't fly thousands of miles to get here and eat mangoes and bananas! As my husband, Kevin, back in NY, knows, I can spend hours food shopping, looking at all the ingredients and labels etc. Luckily my pokiness meant that we missed a rain shower—a blessing, considering how far the walk home would be. With groceries in tow, five of us headed back to our apartments across the Fuime Arno river and cooked an amazing meal of orchette with sautéed vegetables and cheese, along with a salad, garlic bread, and lots of wine. I chose the menu and cooked most of the food, teaching my new friends how to cut vegetables, wash salad, and make vinaigrette. It was amazing.

            Along the way to the Mercado today, I tasted a sandwich called Il Lampredotto, made of cow stomach. It tasted more like pork than beef to me, and with the texture of a fatty corned beef. It was fun to try such an unusual food. In the Mercado, I wished that I could remember more of the Italian language lesson just an hour earlier. Most of the vendors there did not speak English, but I still got along okay. The rainbows sea of fruits and vegetables was breathtaking. I purchased lacinto kale, cabbage, tomatoes, fennel, and the biggest celery I've ever seen. My roommates, Carolyn and Nicky, bought proscuitto and some cheese and we decided  share everything – tutti. Our little dinner group decided to collectively purchase ingredients to make a family meal of Parmigiana di Melanzane, eggplant parmesan, later in the week. An interesting fact about eggplant parmesan that we learned in class today is that it is not named for the cheese. Sicily, where the dish originates, has its own dialect that is unintelligible from regular Italian. The word 'parmigiana' means 'shutters', and refers to the thin stacks of fried eggplant, which resemble window shutters.

            In class we also learned about the differences  between peasant cuisine and rich cuisine, namely that the wealthier people historically ate more meat, such as Steak Florentine, and the poorer people ate more beans and vegetables. Everyone eats pasta. This sort of "peasant cuisine", making plant-based meals accented by meat and cheese is exactly the type of cooking that I enjoy most. Being in Florence, I do not miss my CSA (community supported agriculture) subscription food share because the food here is just as fresh and organic and wonderful.

            For dinner tonight I cooked my household a light meal of eggplant, garlic, tomatoes, fennel, cabbage and kale braised in white wine with garlic and pepperoncini, topped with Italian canned tuna. We had run out of bread and olive oil but it still tasted wonderful because everything is so fresh. After cleanup and homework, we will go watch the World Cup at the park and eat some gelato.

            Another part of the Florentine culture that I'm surprised to be enjoying so much is all of the walking. We walk everywhere. My apartment is a fourth floor walkup. It is steep. I forgot my pedometer at home in New York, but am sure that we are clocking at least five miles per day, if not more.  Most of my time is spent walking around in transit. The street vendors are annoying and very aggressive here, especially the men selling posters. It makes me laugh that someone would come to the Piazza Santa Croce, where we watched part of a renaissance-era soccer game reenactment yesterday, only to purchase a poster of Marilyn Monroe!

            After my third day here, I am already getting used to this lifestyle and know that I will miss it when I go home in a month.  I'm really grateful for how the program is structured, giving us this introduction to the language and basic culture before going into our subject classes next week. I came here for a class called Food, Culture & Society and it seems like I'm already getting a lot of all three even though it hasn't technically started yet.