Wednesday, October 13, 2010
Tour Through Europe!
Alright, y'all. Midterms are done, I did well on all of them, and now... I'll be gone for the next 10 days traveling through Europe. First stop is Ireland, we'll be visiting Dublin and Galloway. Then Barcelona for a few days to get paella. And lastly we'll be in Paris for the last three days. This is going to be one incredible trip. Be back on the 23rd with plenty of pictures, stories, and empty space in my wallet.
Monday, October 11, 2010
Mediterranean Diet Rant #2
In the spirit of midterms week, and since I have my Mediterranean Diet midterm tomorrow, here's another rant. There's one more important thing people don't eat here. In fact, it's not easy to find in the grocery store. Of all the meals I've cooked with people, or that I've seen cooked, I've never seen anyone use it. Vegetable oils! Like soybean oil, canola oil, corn oil, etc. Here in Italy, they've never heard of these oils. They use extra virgin olive oil and butter. Mostly the olive oil, it's on everything. No vegetable oil, and especially no margarine. It's funny, in the United States the government recommendations tell us to eat less butter and animal fat and replace those with vegetable oils. And that's exactly what we've done... since the 70's, Americans have eaten less "heart attack causing" saturated fats and eaten more "heart-healthy" vegetable oils. Anybody know what's happened to heart disease rates?? Cancer?? Every other chronic disease there is?? Skyrocketing! Okay, so that's a little off topic. But the point is, Italians have never heard of vegetable oils. So that's four things now that they do NOT eat... sugar, trans fats, fried food, vegetable oils. Americans eat all of these things regularly.
On the next Mediterranean Diet Rant, I'll explain why the Mediterranean diet is NOT the healthiest diet on earth. Maybe. Unless I feel like ranting on something else. Buona notte!
On the next Mediterranean Diet Rant, I'll explain why the Mediterranean diet is NOT the healthiest diet on earth. Maybe. Unless I feel like ranting on something else. Buona notte!
Saturday, October 9, 2010
Day Trips
We have four weeks throughout the semester in which we don't have any classes, but instead we visit farms and do various other activities related to agriculture and sustainability. This week, we went truffle hunting, visited a vineyard, tasted cheeses, cooked lunch with a professional chef, and visited a biodynamic farm.
On Monday we went truffle hunting in the woods. Truffles, for those of you who don't know, are extremely expensive mushroom-type foods. They're not really like typical mushrooms that you would find in a grocery store, though. They're found underground near the roots of trees in a forest. They develop some sort of symbiotic relationship with the surrounding trees. Truffle hunters typically use either dogs or pigs to smell out the truffles; we had two dogs with us. We found approximately 30 grams, probably about average for a trip few the woods. Since truffles cannot be grown, and they only grow on their own in the wild, they are in very short supply. Some people love the taste of them (I don't know why, they're nothing special), so the demand is much higher than what can be supplied. The most rare type, white truffles, will sell for up to $2000 euro/kg! I don't really get truffles, I don't think they taste all that great, and I definitely would never buy any for that price.
Later on that day, we visited Villa Banfi, the biggest vineyard we've been to yet. Not coincidentally, it's American-owned. We got a tour of the wine-making process, which we've already seen countless other times at other vineyards. But what set this one apart was the sheer quantity of wine that they produce. We walked through room after room of giant wooden barrels full of wine. I've never seen such a huge winery. We also had a tasting of a few of their wines, they were all delicious. One of them sells for 75 euro a bottle, called Brunello di Montalcino, it was very very good. I didn't make any purchases there, though, since they sell their wine in the United States.
Wednesday, we had a cheese tasting in the morning with one of our professors, who is a cheese-maker from Connecticut. We tried probably a dozen different cheeses, some better than others. There were the softer, fresh cheeses, like fresh mozzarella, that tended to be milder in flavor. Then there were the medium-aged cheeses (aged a few months) like gorgonzola or bleu cheese, which I just can't eat because the texture freaks me out. And then there were the aged cheeses, aged for at least a year and sometimes much longer. These aged cheeses were my favorite, Parmigiano Reggiano fits into this category, but the best was called Pecorino Sardo. Pecorino means that it's made from sheep's milk, which is higher in fat than either cow's or goat's milk, hence making it more delicious. I tried to be open to trying as many cheeses as possible, but some of them I just couldn't stomach, like the softer medium-aged ones... I sort of have a fear of new cheeses lol.
Thursday afternoon, we visited a professional chef's house and learned how to cook a real Italian meal. Italians don't mess around for lunch; a traditional Italian lunch consists of at least three courses, but ours on this day had five. We made three types of crostini for the antipasto, gnocchi as the "first" first course, ravioli as the "second" first course, roast pork and onions as the second course, and tiramisu as the dessert. I feel like I learned so much from the chef and his wife about cooking. I learned more in this one day of cooking lunch than I have in 5 of my other cooking classes. The cooking class has been somewhat of a disappointment. At the chef's house, we had plenty of room for all twelve of us to help prepare lunch. I personally helped prepare the tomato sauce for the gnocchi and the pork roast. In addition to that, we were instructed on how to properly cut vegetables, taught about using herbs for cooking and also about their medicinal properties, and probably some other things I can't think of right now. Aside from that, it was the best tasting meal I've had since I've been here, and that's saying a lot. There are a lot of pictures on Facebook of this lunch.
After lunch, we went to a biodynamic farm nearby. A biodynamic farm is a type of farm that is essentially one big organism. Everything in the farm has a particular function and many of the pieces are interrelated; the result is a farm that is more than just the sum of its parts. They have goats and cows for milk, they use the manure from these animals as fertilizer, which grows their vegetables and fruits, including olives, which are then made into olive oil, which produces byproducts which are then used again as fertilizer, etc, etc. They also don't use any chemical fertilizer or pesticides or anything like that. The cows and goats eat only hay and fresh grass. They also provide some energy to run their farm through sustainable methods, like wind power and solar power. At the end of our tour, we had a tasting of cheeses, raw milk, and homemade grape and apple juices. The raw milk was great, my roommate Matt and I had been missing that since we've been here; it's impossible to find it in the city. All in all, this day with the lunch and the biodynamic farm tour may have been the best day we've had here thus far. Here are a few pictures, but again, check Facebook for more.
On Monday we went truffle hunting in the woods. Truffles, for those of you who don't know, are extremely expensive mushroom-type foods. They're not really like typical mushrooms that you would find in a grocery store, though. They're found underground near the roots of trees in a forest. They develop some sort of symbiotic relationship with the surrounding trees. Truffle hunters typically use either dogs or pigs to smell out the truffles; we had two dogs with us. We found approximately 30 grams, probably about average for a trip few the woods. Since truffles cannot be grown, and they only grow on their own in the wild, they are in very short supply. Some people love the taste of them (I don't know why, they're nothing special), so the demand is much higher than what can be supplied. The most rare type, white truffles, will sell for up to $2000 euro/kg! I don't really get truffles, I don't think they taste all that great, and I definitely would never buy any for that price.
Later on that day, we visited Villa Banfi, the biggest vineyard we've been to yet. Not coincidentally, it's American-owned. We got a tour of the wine-making process, which we've already seen countless other times at other vineyards. But what set this one apart was the sheer quantity of wine that they produce. We walked through room after room of giant wooden barrels full of wine. I've never seen such a huge winery. We also had a tasting of a few of their wines, they were all delicious. One of them sells for 75 euro a bottle, called Brunello di Montalcino, it was very very good. I didn't make any purchases there, though, since they sell their wine in the United States.
Wednesday, we had a cheese tasting in the morning with one of our professors, who is a cheese-maker from Connecticut. We tried probably a dozen different cheeses, some better than others. There were the softer, fresh cheeses, like fresh mozzarella, that tended to be milder in flavor. Then there were the medium-aged cheeses (aged a few months) like gorgonzola or bleu cheese, which I just can't eat because the texture freaks me out. And then there were the aged cheeses, aged for at least a year and sometimes much longer. These aged cheeses were my favorite, Parmigiano Reggiano fits into this category, but the best was called Pecorino Sardo. Pecorino means that it's made from sheep's milk, which is higher in fat than either cow's or goat's milk, hence making it more delicious. I tried to be open to trying as many cheeses as possible, but some of them I just couldn't stomach, like the softer medium-aged ones... I sort of have a fear of new cheeses lol.
Thursday afternoon, we visited a professional chef's house and learned how to cook a real Italian meal. Italians don't mess around for lunch; a traditional Italian lunch consists of at least three courses, but ours on this day had five. We made three types of crostini for the antipasto, gnocchi as the "first" first course, ravioli as the "second" first course, roast pork and onions as the second course, and tiramisu as the dessert. I feel like I learned so much from the chef and his wife about cooking. I learned more in this one day of cooking lunch than I have in 5 of my other cooking classes. The cooking class has been somewhat of a disappointment. At the chef's house, we had plenty of room for all twelve of us to help prepare lunch. I personally helped prepare the tomato sauce for the gnocchi and the pork roast. In addition to that, we were instructed on how to properly cut vegetables, taught about using herbs for cooking and also about their medicinal properties, and probably some other things I can't think of right now. Aside from that, it was the best tasting meal I've had since I've been here, and that's saying a lot. There are a lot of pictures on Facebook of this lunch.
After lunch, we went to a biodynamic farm nearby. A biodynamic farm is a type of farm that is essentially one big organism. Everything in the farm has a particular function and many of the pieces are interrelated; the result is a farm that is more than just the sum of its parts. They have goats and cows for milk, they use the manure from these animals as fertilizer, which grows their vegetables and fruits, including olives, which are then made into olive oil, which produces byproducts which are then used again as fertilizer, etc, etc. They also don't use any chemical fertilizer or pesticides or anything like that. The cows and goats eat only hay and fresh grass. They also provide some energy to run their farm through sustainable methods, like wind power and solar power. At the end of our tour, we had a tasting of cheeses, raw milk, and homemade grape and apple juices. The raw milk was great, my roommate Matt and I had been missing that since we've been here; it's impossible to find it in the city. All in all, this day with the lunch and the biodynamic farm tour may have been the best day we've had here thus far. Here are a few pictures, but again, check Facebook for more.
Oktoberfest (a week late)
Sorry I'm beginning to slack off on the blog, I think it's been over a week since I last wrote. Last weekend we went to Munich for Oktoberfest. We took an overnight bus, leaving at 11:30 pm Thursday night and we arrived back in Florence at around midnight on Sunday. Germany's culture is much different from that of Italy's, which was surprising to me because it's not all that far away. Drinking culture is about as opposite as you can get: Italians drink red wine with meals but don't get drunk, Germans drink as much beer as possible. It actually felt a little more like America... just a little. Oktoberfest itself was great, they had countless beer tents (they're called tents but really they're actual structures that hold thousands of people), all kinds of carnival rides, bratwurst, etc.
We also visited Dachau concentration camp, just outside Munich. It definitely wasn't a fun experience, but probably the most impactful couple of hours we had all weekend. I had been to the holocaust museum in Washington DC, but this was just on another level. To actually go to the site where people were imprisoned and killed was a different monster. The place doesn't look quite the same as it did 70 years ago, but it was still very easy to visualize it as a fully functioning concentration camp. The whole place just had a really dark, creepy energy. In fact, as soon as I got out of the taxi, this weird feeling came over me, like I could feel the death camp just around the corner. Definitely a must if you ever go to Munich.
And on the last day we did a free walking tour. They have these free walking tours all over Europe, where you take the tour and then tip the guy however much you feel he deserves. It was a really great tour, and we all learned a lot about Munich and German history. One interesting story can shed some light on just how much Germans love their beer. I can't remember when this happened, but at one point their town hall caught fire. Since they had so much beer around and it was cheaper than water, they decided to try to put it out with beer. So they assembled a line of people to pass barrels of beer down to the town hall. Problem was, people had begun to take sips of beer out of the barrels they were passing. In the end, only 10 of the multiple hundreds of barrels made it to the town hall. Needless to say, the they couldn't put out the fire, so their town hall burned down. The government then decided to put a tax on beer, thinking that the citizens had a drinking problem, but this just induced riots and chaos, so the tax was removed. This was known as the beer revolution. Pretty interesting culture eh?
That's all for now, I'll update again soon about the day trips we took this week for school!
We also visited Dachau concentration camp, just outside Munich. It definitely wasn't a fun experience, but probably the most impactful couple of hours we had all weekend. I had been to the holocaust museum in Washington DC, but this was just on another level. To actually go to the site where people were imprisoned and killed was a different monster. The place doesn't look quite the same as it did 70 years ago, but it was still very easy to visualize it as a fully functioning concentration camp. The whole place just had a really dark, creepy energy. In fact, as soon as I got out of the taxi, this weird feeling came over me, like I could feel the death camp just around the corner. Definitely a must if you ever go to Munich.
And on the last day we did a free walking tour. They have these free walking tours all over Europe, where you take the tour and then tip the guy however much you feel he deserves. It was a really great tour, and we all learned a lot about Munich and German history. One interesting story can shed some light on just how much Germans love their beer. I can't remember when this happened, but at one point their town hall caught fire. Since they had so much beer around and it was cheaper than water, they decided to try to put it out with beer. So they assembled a line of people to pass barrels of beer down to the town hall. Problem was, people had begun to take sips of beer out of the barrels they were passing. In the end, only 10 of the multiple hundreds of barrels made it to the town hall. Needless to say, the they couldn't put out the fire, so their town hall burned down. The government then decided to put a tax on beer, thinking that the citizens had a drinking problem, but this just induced riots and chaos, so the tax was removed. This was known as the beer revolution. Pretty interesting culture eh?
That's all for now, I'll update again soon about the day trips we took this week for school!
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