Foods of Italy

I love that each region of Italy (& even each town) has it's own culinary traditions. Here in Treviso, food is taken very seriously. In season foods are used - in the fall you'd find mushrooms in almost everything, through the winter it was radicchio (the special kind called Treviso which looks like fingers, not a ball), and now we are on to asparagus and another tender spring shoot which I can't recall the name of. It's the same with meats, I suppose. From what I've heard, lamb is eaten on Easter, but not as common throughout the year. At one point, at the fish market, I saw a bin of live animals which looked like miniature crayfish. Today, I saw bins of snails. I had to take a picture - sorry for the poor quality. Yes, I've tried escargot. To me, it tasted like butter & garlic. I'm not sure if they have a taste of their own under the sauce but I don't think I want to find out. My children would definitely not eat them, so there's no point in figuring out if I'm brave enough to cook them. But here, on the right, are net bags of live snails. And, on the left, a bin of live baby snails. What would one even do with those little ones? Are the shells soft enough to eat whole? Sometimes food here baffles me.

I felt the same way recently when I saw older ladies buying artichoke stems. STEMS. Isn't that the bitter part that we all cut off? At the market artichokes are sold whole, as we normally see them. There are small ones & regular sized ones. They also have them with the stems on. Each stall also sells just the hearts, floating in liquid (not sure if it's water or something else, probably to keep them from turning brown), and then, there is a bin of stems. I'm happy to know that all parts are used, but I haven't yet figured out how.

Two weeks ago I attended my first cooking class here in Treviso. It was held in a demonstration kitchen at a home goods store near my home. The class was taught by a female chef & there were 11 ladies & one man in the class. We drank prosecco, had appetizers, and mainly watched, but also helped make (& then eat!) fresh egg pasta and four different sauces, lasagna, and panna cotta for dessert. I think the man was just there for the company & the food, because he never once got up to see what was happening on the stove & he didn't help at all (except to pour the prosecco). It was all in Italian & it was great! My only complaint is that the class was from 7:30-11:30 at night. After eating such a heavy meal so late, it was hard to sleep. But I learned a lot of new tips. I'd never made fresh pasta before. Also, I now have some new ideas about how to put ingredients together for sauces. Later that week I made a vegetable bolognaise at home & everyone really enjoyed it. Next lesson will be poultry & white meat. Another heavy night, but I'm sure I'll learn a lot.