super market (second take)
Santa Fiora, Italy
At the risk of being monotonous, the supermarket features again today.
Yesterday in the supermarket, behind a glass-faced counter was a tantalising bowlful of fresh white ricotta cheese. Even better, it was inexpensive. But not so cheap that we could buy a whole kilo of it – and that’s all I could have managed to ask for.
I remembered back to our early days in Poland where everything had to be bought over the counter, and what a monumental achievement it was to finally be able to buy only half a kilogram of carrots, or ten decagrams of something instead of a whole kilo!
Here I was, almost two decades later facing the same problem.
Just in a different country.
But in a refrigerated display case I found a small container for a euro and so my dilemna was overcome for the moment.
Today we needed bread, and as it so happens, bread is also ordered by the kilo in Italy, and it, too, resides behind the counter. Thankfully, a kilo sounded a reasonable amount for us. I stood behind the rabble, paying more attention than I had yesterday, trying to work out whether to join an orderly queue or employ Chinese elbow-digging techniques. My momentary spot of observation was well rewarded. Off to the side of the deli counter is a metal stand with little strips of paper. You tear one off and check the number. In a few moments the number will be both displayed on a sparkly red screen above the counter and called out by the next available helper. The cry for number 61 signalled our turn and I stepped forward, showing my proof before depositing it in one of the two wicker baskets dedicated to that purpose. Pointing and rudimentary language saw us quickly in the possession of a large loaf of hard-crusted bread wrapped in brown paper.
By the way….detour…..every time I have made bread to supposedly authentic Italian recipes at home we have been sorely disappointed at the hard crust, flatness and bland taste. Having now tried bread from a range of bakeries here, I can be satisfied that it was not a lack of skills that produced these results; it’s just the way Italian bread is. Too dry and hard to be classed as one of our favourites.)
Back to the supermarket….bread in hand, it still needed to be paid for. That’s easy enough. Stand in the queue until it is your turn. On our various supermarket outings there have been enough people in front of me that I have been able to observe queue-behaviour and work out that what sounds like a sentence ending in the Polish “kapusta” is nothing to do with cabbage, but just the shop assistant asking if you would like a bag (which is actually, according to the phrasebook, “borsa” – not too far off, I suppose, for an untrained ear)
”No no,” said, of course, with the Italian accent and not kiwi, is naturally our answer as we exhibit our reusable bags that accompany each shopping trip.
And so, with a grazie mille, we are out of the supermarket.
And up the road is another market, a super one. It’s held in a medieval square that has been hosting such a gathering for hundreds of years. One of the adjoining shops full of olive oils and wines and salamis and pinenuts and pestos even has a photo on the wall of the very street/square brimming with people carrying out their marketting, from the looks of it, not long after the invention of the camera.
On sale today is a higgeldy-piggeldy assortment of clothing from South America, handmade bead necklaces, creative hats, crafted wooden spoons and honey drippers (and even a metal nutmeg grater with a wooden box to collect the shavings), pottery, lightshades of mainly fifties vintage and a huge array of secondhand goods, some garrish, some junk, some simply old, and some treasures.
We wandered the market and wriggled through the surrounding ancient streets. This is definitely the most character-filled Italian town we have encountered – there is a lot of stonework, the doorways are low and often arched, the alleys are full of promising curves, stone archways link buildings and open on to openair courtyards, letterboxes are painted artistically, shutters are open with delicate curtains hanging at them, mosaics can be spotted, and a stained-glass-memorial too…
The increasing heat sends us back to the shade of the trees for lunch (that dry bread made edible with French brie, sliced tomatoes, just-picked basil and lots of ground black pepper).
We discuss dinner. Later on the two eldest kids will whip up a tasty tomato sauce while I return to the supermarket to buy fresh gnocchi (nyo-kee please!)
There is dried gnocchi too, but the fresh looks so good. Come to think of it, there was A LOT of dried pasta (and yes, I really did stand there photographing half of it!)…..
Time on the road: none in vans, but a few hours wandering
Distance covered: 0km
Tags: 2008/09, food, postcard: Italy
rayres
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