Let Them Eat Pizza!

      I am sick of Italian food. There. I said it. And I'll add something else. I miss the variety of NY, where going out to dinner means choosing a restaurant based on the ethnic cuisine one happens to be in the mood for. Got a craving for Ethiopian food? Thai? Mexican? Indian? Raw? Fancy nouveau American? For every random craving there are at least ten potential restaurants within walking distance from wherever you are... including Italian. (Don't actually look up that statistic.)

      As I write this I can already hear the public outcry and the indignation, reminding me that I live in arguably one of the best food countries in the world. And my response to all of you is this: I don't care. When I go out to dinner I can already predict what most of the dishes on the menu will be, and I'm talking antipasto, primo, AND dessert. (I don't eat meat so I ignore the secondo, but I'm still pretty sure it wouldn't impress me with any surprises.) As I scan a menu it's possible that I may find one thing that's a little “different” and I'll probably order it even if the ingredients aren't things I'd normally be drawn to. Ex: trofiette with radicchio pesto... I don't even really like radicchio that much, but at least this dish was making an effort.

      I'll tell you what I miss. I miss being able to order something like a warm beet salad with roasted fennel and walnuts on a bed of arugula drizzled with a raspberry citrus vinaigrette. I miss butternut squash soup and truffled mashed potatoes. I miss the food of trendy NYC restaurants where the chefs treat their menus like an expressive form of art, playfully combining unexpected ingredients to create surprising new flavors. I miss veggie burgers on multi grain bread with sweet potato fries and fresh field greens. I miss crunchy vegetables! (Sorry folks, but I gotta bust a bubble here. Italians do not know how to cook vegetables without turning them into baby food.)

      Sigh.

      I have to admit that even I would never have predicted this predicament. I mean people come to Italy looking forward to the food that they will eat. Thousands of diets are suspended here and thousands more are begun upon departure. And yet I am totally uninspired by the idea of going out to dinner.

      My gastronomic crisis hit a peak several days ago when I was out and about in Rome at lunch time. Lunch-on-the-go is possibly the most variety-less meal that exists in Italy and, unfortunately, this is a meal that I have to deal with at least two or three times a week. The choices are basically pizza, a sandwich, or an arancino (large fried rice-ball stuffed with something or other). Pizza is usually the easiest, but no matter how many different types of toppings I try, it's still pizza. The vegetarian sandwiches tend to be rather flavorless. And I'm sorry, but large fried rice-balls just don't feel like the healthiest and most well-rounded choice. But this selection is what I was faced with yet again on Tuesday.

      As I weighed my options and determined that I didn't want any of those things, my mind focused and I saw clearly what it was I craved. A big, hearty salad. That's it. So simple and yet so unattainable. And as I looked at the pizzas and golden brown fried surfaces laid out before me my focused mind began to panic and despair.

      “What do you want?” my husband asked me as he was making his decision.

      “A salad.”

      Silence.

      “I want a salad. That's what I want. I don't want anything here. I need a salad bar,” I replied in an increasingly whiny and desperate tone.

      “This isn't NY.”

      Oh God. How true that was. I thought about my last job in NY. Right across the street was a deli with a huge create-your-own-salad counter. My eyes glazed over as I began to mentally toss mixed baby greens with shredded carrots, parmesan, kidney beans, walnuts, cherry tomatoes, cucumbers, and a balsamic vinaigrette. Or if I didn't want salad they had about five different choices of hearty, delicious soups. Or I could build a complex vegetarian sandwich of cheese and avocado and lettuce and tomato on pumpernickel toast. And oh, the options at the food court on the lower concourse of Grand Central! The more I let my mind wander the more I wanted to cry.

      Meanwhile my husband just rolled his eyes at me.

      “You know what you're like? You're like those Italians that we make fun of who travel to other countries and still want pasta two times a day.”

      This was the wrong thing to say.

      “It's one thing to be away from home for two weeks and not be willing to taste new things! It's another to live somewhere for three years and miss something!! I can't even look at another slice of pizza!!! All I want is a healthy lunch!!!!”

      I believe the “discussion” ended more or less there.

      But now that I have had some time to mull things over, I actually think that there is a direct correlation between the lack of variety on the menus in Italy and the Italian tourists that can't go a day without pasta. What I am coming to understand is that the majority of Italians want familiar food, whether they are in Time's Square or Piazza Navona. So a restaurant owner in Italy can't stray too far from the classics because he knows that that's what people are expecting when they open the menu. A random dish with a twist might make an appearance, but for the most part if he wants to stay in business he's gotta give the people what they want. So in Rome there will always be bruschetta al pomodoro, fiori di zucca, prosciutto e melone, bucatini all'amatriciana, tonnarelli cacio e pepe, pasta alla carbonara, spaghetti al pomodoro e basilico, panna cotta, tiramisu, etc. etc. (Are you hungry yet?) Yes there are some variations, but there is little element of surprise.

      I'll concede (because my husband is reading over my shoulder and sputtering all over me) that this is not unique to Italy and to Italian restaurants. Chinese menus, Japanese menus, Indian menus, Mexican menus, etc., even diner menus, are all pretty predictable once you get the jist. (Maybe French and Spanish menus too but I'm not familiar enough with those cuisines to feel comfortable adding them to the list.) So this sort of leads me back to my first point. I don't care, or even really notice, if each restaurant serves the same dishes as its counterparts when I can whimsically choose a different ethnic cuisine for each meal. I'm spoiled. I'll admit it. It turns out that while Italians are spoiled by their pasta, I am spoiled by the variety I was once accustomed to!  

      In closing I would like to say that, despite everything, I still love and respect Italian food. This week I had a little melt down. I'll get past it, though I won't go so far as to say that it won't happen again. In the mean time, if someone is looking for a business opportunity in Rome, I'm thinking that a salad bar could be right on the money. Just make sure that it serves pizza too.

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