The Student's Guide to Food in Rome: Part 1

This post is not about what you think it's about. This post is about my own cooking.

It's not awful. That's all I can say.

I am not a particularly discerning eater. Taste is my least cherished sense, and food is not particularly important to me (though I can certainly appreciate edible heaven when I swallow it) so I have been surviving on a monotonous regimen of supermarket supplies, the chief of which is (naturally) pasta. Until a few days ago, it was only ever garnished with butter and salt, but I got tired of that and splurged on some supplies.

Never underestimate the power of garlic.

Not only can it repel vampires, it can whisk your cooking into a whole new level. So far, I have soutéd the stuff with part of a bag of frozen vegtables and found myself with a fine new mixture with which to toss pasta, and I made a great stew with the rest of the bag, more garlic, noodles and ham bones.

The fact that this is exciting and makes me feel as if I am finally living on my own should probably concern me, but that topic is not flattering, so let me distract you with pictures of the supermarket:

Produce is sold on a very what-is-in-season basis. When we arrived, almost this entire side was covered in peaches. The next month, the smell of grapes (not the castrated grapes that we are used to, but real grapes, twice as big, with seeds) almost intoxicated you the moment you stepped into the supermarket.


You can't tell from the pictures, but this is a tiny, tiny store, and yet, the seafood ice shelf has the most incredible collection. There is everything from raw octopi to whole flouder in this pic, and once I saw a sturgeon's head, its pointed nose uselessly stabbing at the ceiling.



Keep in mind that the store in only four or five aisles wide, and marvel at the entire corner dedicated to alcohol. There is more on the other side of that wall.



 This is how we pay. There are two aisles with actual people that you can see behind the robot here, but they will stand and wait for ten minutes for you to dig out exact change, and are frustrated when you don't have it, so we feed our 50£ bills to our friend Robby as he chatters to us in an Italian voice, and he gives us back change with no problem.

Well, that's all for now! Tune in next time for Part 2: Street Food!

-Maria

PS. Notice how I didn't mention what the rest of the house is eating? It's because they're making German chocolate cake from scratch.
PPS. We make popcorn on the stove. It is awesome.