You might say that I've been a bad blogger because I've bragged a heck of a lot about the kinds of things I can get here: gelato, good (and affordable) wine, excellent cheeses and salamis, unbelievably fresh produce, and silky, handmade pasta.
And to add insult to your injury - again, if these are things about which you care - I can walk two blocks to the Pantheon and one block to Piazza Navona (remember this image, as I'll refer to it later in this same post).
10 minutes, and I'm at the column of Marcus Aurelius.
But learning about what isn't available (and how that lack of availability is or is not handled) to you even in a first-world environment like this can speak volumes about the history, sensibilities and values of a different culture.
Let's proceed.
First, I want to address some of the utterly confounding truths about product availability here in the capital city of Italy.
There are about four ordinary grocery store chains as well as one 'bio' version, with all organic merchandise. I live within walking distance of all of them, and there are multiple locations for all them, too. They are all very small, in comparison to what most of the American (as well as European, probably) suburbanites are accustomed to.
None of them are the same as the others. And I mean that none of the locations of only one given chain are the same as the others.
You cannot visit three different versions of the Coop, for instance, and find the same merchandise. Only one of three will carry the berry yogurt you like, even though all three might carry the right brand. The Coop you like the most, because it is newer and cleaner, inexplicably only carries cherry yogurt. Every deli in every one of these places is also different. You cannot expect to find the same kinds of olives in all of them, and only one will offer a pre-roasted chicken to take home for dinner. Some will have elaborate produce sections, or even a full third of their space dedicated to wines, but only one will predictably have fish for sale. I tend to wonder - much the same way one wonders how much of their brain capacity is consumed by the otherwise useless memory of song lyrics - how much of my brain capacity is now occupied by a growing, encyclopedic knowledge of the inventories of the 6 tiny grocery stores in my vicinity.
What I want to think: this scenario is a kind of commercialized development that follows an older era in which you went to a different vendor for everything. You went to different venders for your fish, beef, pork and chicken. You went to different vendors for your fruits and vegetables. You went to even more varied vendors for your household goods. Once upon a time, Rome was a city of vendors and craftspeople who clustered in mini-locations throughout the city. We know this because of street names that still exist: the street of the hat makers, the mirror makers, the 'mountain of flour,' etc. So as a Roman resident of yesteryear, you spent your day(s) moving from one vendor to another, dragging some kind of means of conveyance for all of your purchased goods.
Even in the 21st century, where you can ostensibly get many, many things in one location due to the creation of grocery stores that are designed for one-stop shopping, you can't ever actually perform the activity of one-stop shopping here.
You can think of this as a romantic way to live, this business of establishing relationships with your fishmonger, your vegetable guy, etc. I know most of my vendors' names, and they at least know my face. My chicken man greets me like I'm a minor celebrity. My Italian lessons include sample, leisurely conversations between the casalinga (housewife) and her deli man, taking way too long to converse about what she needs from him.
But when you are pressed for time and you know that you have to hit all of your vendors before noon or 1:30 because that's when their 3 hour-minimum pausa (mid-day break for lunch and a nap) begins, it isn't easy. Particularly if you arrive at the macelleria and somebody's nonna is haggling with the butcher over exactly how much fat she wants in her cut of beef.
What would my warning be to any American who decides to pick up and live here? Radically adjust your American-trained expectation of 'plenty,' and not just of what you can see. Everything, scale-wise, will be much smaller. But also, if you arrive at 5:30pm after work at the Coop to get your favorite berry yogurt and the shelf is empty, it's EMPTY. There are no handy store employees busy stocking everything in site and therefore available to 'check in the back' for more. You are looking at an empty space on a shelf that will not be filled any time soon. There is no 'in the back.' And forget about asking when they might get that item back in stock. They don't know.
Clearly, there is no kind of inventory-taking that we are accustomed to having happen (totally behind the scenes in America, and largely if not totally computerized), in which an automatic order for the replenishment of the amount of any given commodity is placed well before it is completely gone. (or maybe there is that kind of invisible process, and only one guy - inevitably named Marco or Stefano - is taking care of ALL of them in Rome...when he's not on break). All that tracking is done through SKU numbers on the merchandise as it is rung up. So generally, or so you are trained to think in America or many other equally Westernized places, you experience no lack of anything that way.
Here, different story. That commodity is out of stock, there is no more to be had and that is true for the foreseeable future. Probably. Maybe. It could show up in a couple of days, or not. And they don't know anything about a re-stock date. Don't bother asking.
No really: they don't know.
OK, you might say, so you can't get your favorite yogurt. Cry me a river.
OK, I'll reply, would you change your mind if this happened at the pharmacy, and you really needed what you couldn't get?
This happened to me a few days ago: went in, asked for an OTC item that I've come to depend upon. I mean, really depend upon. I am accustomed to having to ask the pharmacist to order it because they don't stock it (and apparently, no amount of my repeatedly ordering it tells them anything about routine demand). The order is put in, and the item is delivered within a day or two at the most. I can handle this kind of inconvenience with no problem.
So when the pharmacist says, 'we don't have it,' I first ask if they can place an order. I'm then told yes. I prepare to pay ahead of time, and he stops me. "I can't get it for you," he says, after attempting to key in said order.
"But I've gotten it here - via order - before," I reply. "In fact, several times."
"Mmm-hmm," he says, "that may be, but I can't get it for you now. It's not available."
"When will it be available?" I ask, still confused.
He shrugs his shoulders. Wordless.
"Can you recommend which pharmacy in the city I might go to, instead?" I ask, STILL CONFUSED.
"No." No reason is provided for why this is so.
"Can you contact any of the other pharmacies for me, in order to find out who does have it or can get it?" I ask, not just confused anymore, but increasingly irritated.
"No."
"Why not?"
"I don't know what they do or don't have, or can or can't get. We don't work with each other. All pharmacies are separate businesses."
"Despite the fact that you all coordinate with each other on Italian holidays so that at least one of you in a given area of the city is still open?" I ask, incredulous.
Again: shoulder-shrugging.
Before you start thinking that I was dealing with a mere clerk, that's not how these places work. All of that adorable 'drop-off' and 'pick-up' stuff you do in different places in American pharmacies is non-existent here. The only people behind the counters are the pharmacists. They're not sequestered away from the customer, counting pills. And that's because all of your pills are purchased in pre-designated blister packs encased in boxes. No bottles. No dispensing meds from large, bulk inventories. (It bears mentioning that this definitely curtails the kinds of mistakes that pharmacists in the States can make, in terms of dosage, quantity or even the entirely wrong medication, so there's that to consider...against the landfills of mountains of empty blister packs).
So I was dealing with a licensed pharmacist, and he wasn't going to help me. He was convinced that he could not help me. There was this stolid immovability about him, as if he faced an insurmountable wall and we should both be completely resigned to the situation...which is not at all how Americans tend to operate.
I should add that this is definitely not the first time I'd encountered the 'nope, can't get any more of that' attitude, but I was struck by the fact that this involved medication. I wonder what happens to someone who really needs something that can't be skipped for a day or even a few more hours. I hope I never find out.
I have thought a lot about this phenomenon, and while I'm sure that there are reasons I've not come up with yet, my current theory is that this is an outgrowth of World War II. Nevermind that over half a century has gone by.
Mussolini's nationalist interests extended to even the kinds of building supplies that Italians could use. The intent was to restrict outside trade and be self-reliant in all ways, but this backfired when steel and iron rapidly rose in costs and drastically lowered in availability. Consequently, there are tons of blocky apartment buildings here, built of concrete but with little or no reinforcing metal girding them from within. This would be why you can see some crumbling, unsafe terraces and balconies in places.
Can't get steel or iron? Guess we'll just build stuff without it.
The same premise had to be true for any other sorts of material goods that were once obtained via trade. When that imported good was gone because the importing wasn't happening any more, it was just gone. And powers far stronger than you and your petty interests controlled mostly everything, so you just resigned yourself to it. Your trains, for once, ran on time, but they weren't carrying much in the way of goods you needed.
There was a time when some of us (who are old enough to remember) and many of our now-gone relatives knew exactly what this was like in America or Great Britain or other countries, of course. But we have largely lost that memory and mentality. We want our stuff, and we want it now. And if necessity plays a role, then everyone marshals efforts to get that stuff, because it is, we are certain, available. Somewhere.
Or so I thought.
And now, let's wrap this up with some commodities that are not generally available here. In some cases, I want you to think more about size than brand.
You will notice a distinct theme, here, in terms of a food type. There are, I think, about four or five Mexican restaurants in this city. One is pretty upscale, and the food is innovative. The others are more traditional and middle class. I just stumbled across news of another one that specializes in what is currently the rage in the restaurant business: street food. Namely, burritos. The Spouse and I are planning to go next week.
American expats all pretty much tell the same stories of what they do when they hit American soil for a visit: they drop their bags and find a Mexican restaurant. That's not a joke. Tex-Mex or alternative versions of Mex - including Cali-Mex - options are all fair game. And unless those expats have had the good fortune to have lived in a southeast Asian country and they have therefore never lacked for it, they are seeking out SPICY. While I want to address Italian spices in some other blog post, it bears mentioning here that mainland Italian cuisine does not really endorse heat. Maybe a dash of red pepper flakes in a tomato sauce, sure, but after that...no. So when you go to these Mexican restaurants in Rome and ask the Italian server if a given dish is spicy, they might say, 'oh, si, molto, MOLTO piccante,' and you'll fall for that a few times until you realize that they are sadly mistaken. Emblazoned on my heart is the image of The Spouse in the second Mexican restaurant we found here, months and months ago, sorely disappointed in the server's assurance that he was in for a spicy dish. Lower lip jutting out over his plate, chin on the verge of quivering, saying plaintively, "I just want something to be SPICY here, fercryinoutloud."
So the key here is to figure out how to make spicy Mexican food at home. Except getting a jalapeno from your produce vendor is impossible. Even serranos don't appear. Forget poblanos. No dried anchos, chipotles or guajillos. You can get a tiny red chili, but that's it. And the grocery store? For what, MILD salsa? Why? Tortillas? Ha! Canned chipotle in adobo sauce? No!
And only one place in the city might carry some of these canned and jarred items, and that's Castroni. God bless Castroni, even if they only sell the smallest versions of these containers - under the charming heading of 'ethnic food' - at some astronomical prices.
And speaking of the spicy, see below.....on the left is American sriracha, the so-called 'rooster sauce.' On the right, some other brand that must be marketed to French-speaking consumers in the West AND the East (because there is a sticker that proclaims: tres epices). Can't get the stuff on the left here. Can get the stuff on the right, but only from one market, all the way across town, where I *can* sometimes get cilantro, too. Shocking. The burning (I know, I know) question is whether it will wilt before I get back home with it.
The difference between these two items is telling, though. American sriracha is sweeter and less hot (don't argue with me, folks...your beloved, green-topped rooster sauce has been tailored to American tastes, so there IS sweetness where there really shouldn't be). The stuff on the right is actually what some die-hard fans will remember as original sriracha. Like, 'I'm on FIRE' sriracha. Note the slight change in scale of the bottles, too.
So if you're a fan of the green-topped rooster sauce and you come here, plan to pay an embassy employee or military member to get it from the commissary. When they go to Naples, that is, because that's where the military base and commissary are. We haven't gone yet, because it's hard to rationalize the gas, the tolls, and the three hours each way to go to what I understand is something like a large Walmart.
See, I'm not writing from a position of desperation. I'm writing more from a position of societal onlooker and occasionally frustrated kitchen worker.
See that 2.26 kg bag of flour on the left? That's American scale. I can't buy a bag of flour that is bigger than 1 kg here. Let's consider the implications of this. You can't drive to your historic-center grocery store, park and then drag your groceries out to the car that will carry them home. There is no parking lot. YOU are carrying your groceries home on foot. And your kitchen is the size of the American shower stall you use. Your fridge is the size of your high school locker, but shorter. You can't have anything big or in bulk because you can't lug it all home and you can't put it anywhere. The oven in which you'll be baking that cake is slightly bigger than the one you learned to bake in when you were young. And to my male readers, don't tell me you didn't use your sister's version of this. Cake is cake, and we all like cake.
And while we're discussing baking:
First, let's address those graham crackers. Nothing like them is sold in stores here. I got these at the commissary at the embassy, which has recently overhauled its inventory and offerings and no longer carries them. It's slowly being converted into a convenience store, much to my chagrin.
My sweetie likes pie. He especially likes key lime. I am thinking I will attempt to crumble McVitties (a British cookie sometimes found here) and convert them into a crust, but it just isn't the same. Sad!
Second, let's address baking chips. I *can* get them at Italian grocery stores, but only ONE type and ONE size. See below:
Standard bottle cap provided for scale reference for those chips. Miniscule! If you asked me to relate five generalizations about Italian cuisine, one of them would be: no extremes are endorsed. Nothing should be 'too (fill in the blank).' Not too spicy. Not too sweet. So the banner on the package states 'extra fondente,' which means 'extra dark' and therefore, almost no milk was added to the cocoa. It definitely has an almost bitter quality. So, the minimal amount of sugar will be used in the desert, and that, coupled with the dark chocolate, will result in a flavor that Italians can stand.
My kingdom for some other kinds and sizes of baking chips. When I think about what I gave away from my American pantry before I moved here...I wince.
Lastly, let's address condiments and spices:
I cannot for the life of me figure out why I can't find kosher salt here. And the rest of these spices, above and below, were muled here by friends and family kind enough to offer to bring something from home. I'm already making a mental note to pick up more garlic powder (and, it turns out, DILL....I can't find dill here either!) when I return home this summer. (Also, lurking in the back is one butternut squash, which I had to beg and beg my vegetable vendor to carry...Italians love lots of kinds of squash, but this one is not on their typical list).
I thought I would conclude this lengthy post with a few mentions of other, non-food things I either cannot buy or access here.
Forget the economy or bulk-sized shampoo or shower gel, friends. Same for OTC medicines.
And - this will sadden lots of people I know - I cannot access American Netflix. I am a subscriber, but I literally cannot access it. I get the Italian version instead. This does not mean, thankfully, that I must watch all programming in Italian, but it puts a severe limit on what I can watch. Many American programs offered on American Netflix are not licensed to run here, so I'm out of luck. Ditto for Amazon Prime. I'm still waiting to watch the last few seasons of Boardwalk Empire. This reality extends to most American cable channels too, so please don't talk to me about The Walking Dead.
If you're thinking that there are technological workarounds I should know about, stop right there. I know about them. And they used to work for people like me. But they don't anymore. It is next to impossible to cloak your online source well enough to fool any of these providers. They're onto us all and our VPNs and other shady ways of dodging the rules.
And speaking of rules, stay tuned for my next installment, which will address some of the rules of Italian living.
Meanwhile, I'll be squeezing the lemons I have into milk in order to create a facsimile of buttermilk, because that's not available here either.
(p.s. was finally able to order that OTC medication that I previously couldn't have. Waited over a month and during that time took an alternative I had to order online and have shipped here, but....success?)
(p.p.s. if you're curious about something that you could never, ever live without - while contemplating a life abroad somewhere like here - comment on this post with a challenge for me to find it in Rome. I'm game, and just might learn something.)
I should be ashamed of myself, since I've liberally posted pictures of truffles and tiramisu.
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| REALLY uncool: handmade pasta with truffles shaved on top. |
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| COULD have been cool: a student brought me a piece of homemade tiramisu. This would have been great, except for the fact that he admitted that he'd ordered too much for himself and he needed to give the second piece away. So glad you thought of me first, kid. (it still tasted great) |
You already know I have access to tons of well-fabricated leather goods. If it matters to you, then you are jealous of my walking distance from the flagship stores of many high-end designers.
And to add insult to your injury - again, if these are things about which you care - I can walk two blocks to the Pantheon and one block to Piazza Navona (remember this image, as I'll refer to it later in this same post).
10 minutes, and I'm at the column of Marcus Aurelius.
Or Largo Argentina...
I just came home from an Italian lesson at the U. S. Embassy and because the weather was still pretty good, I walked a mile and a third (well, after purposely getting a little 'lost' so I could see streets I haven't seen before, it was probably more like a mile and a half) home, past the Trevi Fountain, scores of restaurants of all price points, a Baroque church or five, and a ton or so of tourists, who are all here to have a piece of what I've described as available.
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| This is 'cafeteria food' at the embassy. For the cost of your Big Macs and fries for two, I can get this. And it's surprisingly good. |
But the title of this post is not about what you can't have, since you are also not here. After all, many of you can indeed find some means of transport, bring your euros, find some lodging and do your grand tour. Alternatively, you can go to some fine, non-Italian cities with a globalized, diverse population and probably find a niche or a 'little Italy' where there are specialty stores that carry the real stuff. And as for scenery, you might well argue that Rick Steves' programming on PBS is perfectly acceptable and perhaps even preferable, because you get a front-row seat to everything with none of the hassles, like tired, sore feet, a sunburn, TOO MANY PEOPLE, a realistic concern about pickpockets, and a language barrier. I would say that your defense of 'sofa tourism' is quite rational and understandable. I'm not going to judge you.
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| Even for The Spouse, the crowds can get a little too 'cheek by jowl.' Look at how...happy he is. |
The title of this post is instead about what *I* can't have or get. Let me hastily add that I'm not looking for your sympathy. Rather, I think it's important to know what you're getting into when you pack up and move to a foreign country that is - and at the same time, is not - really foreign. I'm obviously not writing this from a desert or even a different hemisphere (I presume), and it's for sure not a third-world sort of existence.
But learning about what isn't available (and how that lack of availability is or is not handled) to you even in a first-world environment like this can speak volumes about the history, sensibilities and values of a different culture.
Let's proceed.
First, I want to address some of the utterly confounding truths about product availability here in the capital city of Italy.
There are about four ordinary grocery store chains as well as one 'bio' version, with all organic merchandise. I live within walking distance of all of them, and there are multiple locations for all them, too. They are all very small, in comparison to what most of the American (as well as European, probably) suburbanites are accustomed to.
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| I am convinced that people I know - who live in multiple-thousands of square feet in what they call their 'houses' - have larger homes than most of the grocery stores in this urban environment. |
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| No shortages of tomato paste here. |
None of them are the same as the others. And I mean that none of the locations of only one given chain are the same as the others.
You cannot visit three different versions of the Coop, for instance, and find the same merchandise. Only one of three will carry the berry yogurt you like, even though all three might carry the right brand. The Coop you like the most, because it is newer and cleaner, inexplicably only carries cherry yogurt. Every deli in every one of these places is also different. You cannot expect to find the same kinds of olives in all of them, and only one will offer a pre-roasted chicken to take home for dinner. Some will have elaborate produce sections, or even a full third of their space dedicated to wines, but only one will predictably have fish for sale. I tend to wonder - much the same way one wonders how much of their brain capacity is consumed by the otherwise useless memory of song lyrics - how much of my brain capacity is now occupied by a growing, encyclopedic knowledge of the inventories of the 6 tiny grocery stores in my vicinity.
What I want to think: this scenario is a kind of commercialized development that follows an older era in which you went to a different vendor for everything. You went to different venders for your fish, beef, pork and chicken. You went to different vendors for your fruits and vegetables. You went to even more varied vendors for your household goods. Once upon a time, Rome was a city of vendors and craftspeople who clustered in mini-locations throughout the city. We know this because of street names that still exist: the street of the hat makers, the mirror makers, the 'mountain of flour,' etc. So as a Roman resident of yesteryear, you spent your day(s) moving from one vendor to another, dragging some kind of means of conveyance for all of your purchased goods.
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| Just put the last word on this sign into Google translate (from English to Italian), and you'll know what this little side street had in the way of vendors, once upon a time. Not now, of course. |
Even in the 21st century, where you can ostensibly get many, many things in one location due to the creation of grocery stores that are designed for one-stop shopping, you can't ever actually perform the activity of one-stop shopping here.
You can think of this as a romantic way to live, this business of establishing relationships with your fishmonger, your vegetable guy, etc. I know most of my vendors' names, and they at least know my face. My chicken man greets me like I'm a minor celebrity. My Italian lessons include sample, leisurely conversations between the casalinga (housewife) and her deli man, taking way too long to converse about what she needs from him.
But when you are pressed for time and you know that you have to hit all of your vendors before noon or 1:30 because that's when their 3 hour-minimum pausa (mid-day break for lunch and a nap) begins, it isn't easy. Particularly if you arrive at the macelleria and somebody's nonna is haggling with the butcher over exactly how much fat she wants in her cut of beef.
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| This guy can eyeball a cut of beef and tell you how much it weighs, within 5 or so grams. He's pretty amazing. But he also takes a healthy break at mid-day, so don't try to visit his shop between noon and 2:30. Oh, and he might not be open on Mondays. And he takes vacations sometimes, but he'll never post a sign outside the shop that tells you when he'll be back from vacation. And this is perfectly normal for him and everybody who knows him. It's how everybody does things. Did you say you were planning a dinner party? Have a back-up plan for the menu, just in case it's someone's vacation time. |
An also fundamentally crazy-making feature of commerce here is what I refer to as the Economy of Scarcity.
What would my warning be to any American who decides to pick up and live here? Radically adjust your American-trained expectation of 'plenty,' and not just of what you can see. Everything, scale-wise, will be much smaller. But also, if you arrive at 5:30pm after work at the Coop to get your favorite berry yogurt and the shelf is empty, it's EMPTY. There are no handy store employees busy stocking everything in site and therefore available to 'check in the back' for more. You are looking at an empty space on a shelf that will not be filled any time soon. There is no 'in the back.' And forget about asking when they might get that item back in stock. They don't know.
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| Kind of as a joke, but not really, I thought I'd provide you with a sight of something you *can* get here, if you look for it. Mind you, I've only seen this at one of the 6 different grocery stories I can go to here...and this is the only one of them that is never open on Sundays. How...American? |
Here, different story. That commodity is out of stock, there is no more to be had and that is true for the foreseeable future. Probably. Maybe. It could show up in a couple of days, or not. And they don't know anything about a re-stock date. Don't bother asking.
No really: they don't know.
OK, you might say, so you can't get your favorite yogurt. Cry me a river.
OK, I'll reply, would you change your mind if this happened at the pharmacy, and you really needed what you couldn't get?
This happened to me a few days ago: went in, asked for an OTC item that I've come to depend upon. I mean, really depend upon. I am accustomed to having to ask the pharmacist to order it because they don't stock it (and apparently, no amount of my repeatedly ordering it tells them anything about routine demand). The order is put in, and the item is delivered within a day or two at the most. I can handle this kind of inconvenience with no problem.
So when the pharmacist says, 'we don't have it,' I first ask if they can place an order. I'm then told yes. I prepare to pay ahead of time, and he stops me. "I can't get it for you," he says, after attempting to key in said order.
"But I've gotten it here - via order - before," I reply. "In fact, several times."
"Mmm-hmm," he says, "that may be, but I can't get it for you now. It's not available."
"When will it be available?" I ask, still confused.
He shrugs his shoulders. Wordless.
"Can you recommend which pharmacy in the city I might go to, instead?" I ask, STILL CONFUSED.
"No." No reason is provided for why this is so.
"Can you contact any of the other pharmacies for me, in order to find out who does have it or can get it?" I ask, not just confused anymore, but increasingly irritated.
"No."
"Why not?"
"I don't know what they do or don't have, or can or can't get. We don't work with each other. All pharmacies are separate businesses."
"Despite the fact that you all coordinate with each other on Italian holidays so that at least one of you in a given area of the city is still open?" I ask, incredulous.
Again: shoulder-shrugging.
Before you start thinking that I was dealing with a mere clerk, that's not how these places work. All of that adorable 'drop-off' and 'pick-up' stuff you do in different places in American pharmacies is non-existent here. The only people behind the counters are the pharmacists. They're not sequestered away from the customer, counting pills. And that's because all of your pills are purchased in pre-designated blister packs encased in boxes. No bottles. No dispensing meds from large, bulk inventories. (It bears mentioning that this definitely curtails the kinds of mistakes that pharmacists in the States can make, in terms of dosage, quantity or even the entirely wrong medication, so there's that to consider...against the landfills of mountains of empty blister packs).
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| Another plus to the blister pack craze is how well they pack, vs. bottles or other means we Americans devise for carrying our pills with us. But if anyone would like to weigh in on which recycling bin they belong in, I'm all ears/eyes...because I see foil and plastic fused together here, and I'm thinking that this is a recycling nightmare somewhere in the chain. |
So I was dealing with a licensed pharmacist, and he wasn't going to help me. He was convinced that he could not help me. There was this stolid immovability about him, as if he faced an insurmountable wall and we should both be completely resigned to the situation...which is not at all how Americans tend to operate.
I should add that this is definitely not the first time I'd encountered the 'nope, can't get any more of that' attitude, but I was struck by the fact that this involved medication. I wonder what happens to someone who really needs something that can't be skipped for a day or even a few more hours. I hope I never find out.
I have thought a lot about this phenomenon, and while I'm sure that there are reasons I've not come up with yet, my current theory is that this is an outgrowth of World War II. Nevermind that over half a century has gone by.
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| This is an image of Mussolini's Fascist Party headquarters in 1934, which is coincidentally on one end of Piazza Navona, the same building from which I took that earlier picture of the piazza. It has since been returned to its status as an important villa that houses one of the many civic museums here. What I love (ahem) about this image is the glowering face combined with a chorus of yesses...because this post is in some ways all about impossibilities. |
Can't get steel or iron? Guess we'll just build stuff without it.
The same premise had to be true for any other sorts of material goods that were once obtained via trade. When that imported good was gone because the importing wasn't happening any more, it was just gone. And powers far stronger than you and your petty interests controlled mostly everything, so you just resigned yourself to it. Your trains, for once, ran on time, but they weren't carrying much in the way of goods you needed.
There was a time when some of us (who are old enough to remember) and many of our now-gone relatives knew exactly what this was like in America or Great Britain or other countries, of course. But we have largely lost that memory and mentality. We want our stuff, and we want it now. And if necessity plays a role, then everyone marshals efforts to get that stuff, because it is, we are certain, available. Somewhere.
Or so I thought.
And now, let's wrap this up with some commodities that are not generally available here. In some cases, I want you to think more about size than brand.
American expats all pretty much tell the same stories of what they do when they hit American soil for a visit: they drop their bags and find a Mexican restaurant. That's not a joke. Tex-Mex or alternative versions of Mex - including Cali-Mex - options are all fair game. And unless those expats have had the good fortune to have lived in a southeast Asian country and they have therefore never lacked for it, they are seeking out SPICY. While I want to address Italian spices in some other blog post, it bears mentioning here that mainland Italian cuisine does not really endorse heat. Maybe a dash of red pepper flakes in a tomato sauce, sure, but after that...no. So when you go to these Mexican restaurants in Rome and ask the Italian server if a given dish is spicy, they might say, 'oh, si, molto, MOLTO piccante,' and you'll fall for that a few times until you realize that they are sadly mistaken. Emblazoned on my heart is the image of The Spouse in the second Mexican restaurant we found here, months and months ago, sorely disappointed in the server's assurance that he was in for a spicy dish. Lower lip jutting out over his plate, chin on the verge of quivering, saying plaintively, "I just want something to be SPICY here, fercryinoutloud."
So the key here is to figure out how to make spicy Mexican food at home. Except getting a jalapeno from your produce vendor is impossible. Even serranos don't appear. Forget poblanos. No dried anchos, chipotles or guajillos. You can get a tiny red chili, but that's it. And the grocery store? For what, MILD salsa? Why? Tortillas? Ha! Canned chipotle in adobo sauce? No!
And only one place in the city might carry some of these canned and jarred items, and that's Castroni. God bless Castroni, even if they only sell the smallest versions of these containers - under the charming heading of 'ethnic food' - at some astronomical prices.
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| That's right, chips-n-salsa addicts: no tortilla chips in grocery stores. Niente. |
The difference between these two items is telling, though. American sriracha is sweeter and less hot (don't argue with me, folks...your beloved, green-topped rooster sauce has been tailored to American tastes, so there IS sweetness where there really shouldn't be). The stuff on the right is actually what some die-hard fans will remember as original sriracha. Like, 'I'm on FIRE' sriracha. Note the slight change in scale of the bottles, too.
So if you're a fan of the green-topped rooster sauce and you come here, plan to pay an embassy employee or military member to get it from the commissary. When they go to Naples, that is, because that's where the military base and commissary are. We haven't gone yet, because it's hard to rationalize the gas, the tolls, and the three hours each way to go to what I understand is something like a large Walmart.
See, I'm not writing from a position of desperation. I'm writing more from a position of societal onlooker and occasionally frustrated kitchen worker.
It should be mentioned here that if you are into baking and pasta making, there is no shortage of flour types here. I'll cover those in another post, but suffice to say here that there is also no shortage of standard wheat flour alternatives. I can easily obtain chestnut, chickpea and rice flours. I've been told that Italy has a higher than average celiac population, although this article does not support that. It does, however, address how being celiac and a lover of Italian travel is surprisingly, and totally, manageable.
And while we're discussing baking:
My sweetie likes pie. He especially likes key lime. I am thinking I will attempt to crumble McVitties (a British cookie sometimes found here) and convert them into a crust, but it just isn't the same. Sad!
Second, let's address baking chips. I *can* get them at Italian grocery stores, but only ONE type and ONE size. See below:
Standard bottle cap provided for scale reference for those chips. Miniscule! If you asked me to relate five generalizations about Italian cuisine, one of them would be: no extremes are endorsed. Nothing should be 'too (fill in the blank).' Not too spicy. Not too sweet. So the banner on the package states 'extra fondente,' which means 'extra dark' and therefore, almost no milk was added to the cocoa. It definitely has an almost bitter quality. So, the minimal amount of sugar will be used in the desert, and that, coupled with the dark chocolate, will result in a flavor that Italians can stand.
My kingdom for some other kinds and sizes of baking chips. When I think about what I gave away from my American pantry before I moved here...I wince.
Lastly, let's address condiments and spices:
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| I'm sure that Americans in particular would find this laughable, but 'food tourism' now definitely includes, for me, shopping in other countries' grocery stores, just to see what non-perishables I can bring back. Hence, a tin of mustard powder. |
I thought I would conclude this lengthy post with a few mentions of other, non-food things I either cannot buy or access here.
Forget the economy or bulk-sized shampoo or shower gel, friends. Same for OTC medicines.
When you walk into your local Target or super-Walmart, and wander into the giant aisle - bordered by shelving units with their uppermost shelves so high up that many Italians couldn't dream of reaching them without a ladder - that JUST carries shampoos, pushing your huge trolley with four children in it PLUS the goods you occasionally toss in, remember this image.
The phrase 'spoiled for choice' is real, people.
And - this will sadden lots of people I know - I cannot access American Netflix. I am a subscriber, but I literally cannot access it. I get the Italian version instead. This does not mean, thankfully, that I must watch all programming in Italian, but it puts a severe limit on what I can watch. Many American programs offered on American Netflix are not licensed to run here, so I'm out of luck. Ditto for Amazon Prime. I'm still waiting to watch the last few seasons of Boardwalk Empire. This reality extends to most American cable channels too, so please don't talk to me about The Walking Dead.
If you're thinking that there are technological workarounds I should know about, stop right there. I know about them. And they used to work for people like me. But they don't anymore. It is next to impossible to cloak your online source well enough to fool any of these providers. They're onto us all and our VPNs and other shady ways of dodging the rules.
And speaking of rules, stay tuned for my next installment, which will address some of the rules of Italian living.
Meanwhile, I'll be squeezing the lemons I have into milk in order to create a facsimile of buttermilk, because that's not available here either.
(p.s. was finally able to order that OTC medication that I previously couldn't have. Waited over a month and during that time took an alternative I had to order online and have shipped here, but....success?)
(p.p.s. if you're curious about something that you could never, ever live without - while contemplating a life abroad somewhere like here - comment on this post with a challenge for me to find it in Rome. I'm game, and just might learn something.)
