Florence Buying Lunch

Buying lunch in Florence is too easy; so easy, I don’t like it. I’ve been a cheese addict since I’ve been here. I am surrounded by little shops offering every last delicious morsel you can imagine. When I stick my head out of my Corso window early in the morning, I almost taste the sickly smell of sweet breakfast delights together with the familiar sound of ‘Sobre las Olas’ from the accordionist on the corner. At least I can resist all that.

But lunch is a different story! They say you should never go shopping when you are hungry. Unfortunately I always go shopping when I’m hungry so it is a miracle that I have such an ideal slim svelte ‘sublime’ body! (No photograph supplied!)

First there’s the easy way. Go to the tripe places and they’ll fix you up with a delicious wholesome Florentine lunch unavailable any where else in the world. They are the MacDonalds of tripe!! Of course, you can actually go to MacDonalds these days. After all they do coffee for 70 cents opposed to espressos round the corner for one euro!!!

Then there’s the pizza man about twenty metres away. He’ll actually stretch out a piece of dough and add the topping of your choice and you’ll have a real pizza within a few minutes of being placed in the oven. Yum!!! The pizza man down the lane opposite just tells me to go and listen to the ‘phantom’ play Bach for a bit and come back in ten minutes when it’s cooked. He also makes a sort of calzone which can be even nicer than his normal pizza.

In fact, as you walk down our lane, you are almost accosted by the sight of hundreds of submarine sandwiches of all types made with delicious rolls and fillings. Yummy!!

What is the astute gourmet (like I’m not) to do about all this? Why, go to the Central Market of course! Become even more confused about what to have for lunch! Make it difficult for yourself! But have a ‘food experience’!!! (Have you noticed that everything today isn’t called a trip or an outing? It’s called an ‘island experience’, a ‘mountain experience’, a ‘music experience’ and so on. You’re not allowed to simply go somewhere any more. You just MUST have an experience

To get to the market, you have to avoid a ‘shopping experience’ as you go through a couple of markets and a ‘leather experience’ as you run the gauntlet of stalls bestrewn with coloured leather items of all sorts. Finally you reach a huge building with “To the Toilets” written on the door.

And then …. Wow!!!! The sights that greet you are amazing. As far as the eye can see is a myriad of delicious food!! (I suppose the toilets must be somewhere) If you walk to the right around the perimeter of the building, you see people devouring bowls of delicious tripey stuff. I haven’t a clue what it is, but I promise myself that I will pluck up the courage to try some of it ‘domani…’

I have a problem with photography. When I go somewhere really interesting, I never take photographs because I’m really interested. I only take photographs when I am so bored that I cannot think of anything else to do!!! I simply MUST change my ways.

So … today I have brought my camera with me even though I’m interested and I’m hungry. Isn’t that an improvement? I take a few shots but, even with my incredible expertise, they cannot possibly give a real impression of this market. I’m surrounded, locked in, absolutely can’t get away from all this food! Wide angle shots make spaces look bigger and there isn’t enough room to use a longer lens. Ah well, you’ll just HAVE to make do with the pictures I have. Sorry!! The photos simply do not reflect the feeling of being ‘hemmed in by piles of food’ that you feel actually being there.

Then there are the antics of the people selling the food. There are piles of samples which you are continually persuaded to try. Normally this might not be such a rewarding exercise. But the stuff they offer you is delicious!!!!! You can’t resist it! (especially if you came shopping hungry!) The cheese people often offer their samples together with a number of dips.

But you have to watch out. The first time I bought Reggione, I asked for about 400 grams. Now, they never slice reggione or any type of hard cheese like it. So he looks at me and says, “Is this OK?” indicating a point on the crust of the cheese. I have no idea how much cheese is going to result from breaking the cheese at that point in the crust. But he breaks it all the same and guess what? It weighs a whole kilo!! What a surprise. He says, “Is this OK?” I say, “No, I want 300 grams but 500 grams would be OK” He then breaks off a bit of the interior of the cheese, leaving me with a lot of crust for the cheese I have. I only do that once.

The fruit and vegetable market is upstairs. I go and buy a lot of fruit as I’m not too entranced by my ability to cook vegetables in my apartment. Fujis are one and a half euros a kilo today and I ask for two kilos and end up with four. I get a couple of enormous tomatoes and, just as I’m going, the stall owner takes me behind the stall and shows me some ladyfingers which he says he will sell me for one and a half euros a kilo. I buy the most beautiful hand of ladyfingers I have ever seen but I do wonder why the whole thing is so secret? I usually only have to buy plantains in “secret”.

I have a reinforced shopping bag for my fruit so I fill it up before making my way downstairs to the bread shop. They bake a variety of breads and today I try a very exotic loaf. I’m working my way from left to right in the showcase full of bread. I’m about halfway along now so the price of the bread rises as I buy the more exotic types.

The ladies wearing straw hats, who make the bread in the ovens behind, are from the Sud Tyrol, which has been Italian for over ninety years. But they still use the German conotation and speak German in Bozen or Balzano, as it’s known in Italian. It certainly doesn’t stop us from buying their excellent bread. That’s for sure!

Because of my sheer incompetence in dealing with the man who breaks the Reggione in front of me, I no go to a place which displays chunks of Reggione already broken. I can then choose my piece and achieve a better cheese to crust ratio. I’m also going to buy more of their stuff. It looks so delicious (and I’m even more hungry now!!)

The lady who serves me congratulates me on my choice of chunk. I feel suitably proud of myself. I ask her to suggest another cheese for me to try. She cuts off a sample of one on the counter and I say, “Oh yes!!! I’ll have 400 grams of that”.

She sighs, shakes her head, goes away, and returns almost immediately with three samples of similar cheese. “You must tell me which of these is the best”. I try all three, but they are all amazing. However, I just have to choose so I say, “That one”. “Good choice”, she says and cuts off the exact amount I actually want.

“Now you need some prosciuto, she commands. “Try these three”. Again, they are all wonderful but I make a choice and buy a small amount which looks huge when it has been sliced so thinly. Then I try four salamis and choose one. “They are very good and very cheap!”, she says approvingly. Finally she makes me taste a variety of thin things which taste vaguely like salami. I don’t actually like any of them but the wild boar type are fairly interesting so I ask to buy one. “You have to buy two. They are strung together”, so I buy two little thin things.

“Do you want any olives?”. “No thank you”, I say. But she almost yells, “You have to get olives and chianti to eat with this food!” I obediently try a selection of olives and choose a very plain juicy type of which I can see she doesn’t really approve.

“Don’t you like the spicy olives?”, she says. I just love olive oil so I simply say, “These are lovely – just right for me!” and I elicit a sighing approval.

They don’t sell chianti but I assure her that I would not dare to eat this wonderful food without it. She seems happy with that and with a parting, “See you next week”, I leave a smiling lady, happy that she has begun a little of my Italian food education.