I’ve been trying a lot of food lately. I haven’t said no to anything that has been offered to me. This is something I was really looking forward to. In America, we have a few meals in our head that we think Italians eat: pizza, pasta, and cheese. And yes, they do eat all of those things. But, there are so many different types of these things that make the Italian cuisine ENDLESS. Did you know there are over 400 types of cheese?!? I wish I could try them all.
In Italy, every region is known for certain types of food as well. For example, certain regions are very proud of a certain type of pasta dish, while others are very proud of their seafood dish. Certain cheeses and wines are from specific regions as well.
Pecorino Cheese
I’m starting with this because WOW. I can’t believe I’ve been missing out on this for all these years. Pecorino is a hard cheese typically from Rome. I LOVE it. It is mainly used for grating and is best on any type of pasta. It’s sort of like parmesan, but 100 times better.
Carpaccio of meat
Thinly sliced, raw meat. It derived in Venice and is normally served as an appetizer. I tried this a few weeks ago. I’m not one for raw food at all. I’m also picky about textures. I think that is mainly why I didn’t like it. We put olive oil and salt on it to taste. It was very strange to eat. I don’t think I would try it again, but I’m glad I did.
Mussels and Clams
I have never been a seafood eater, but lately I’ve been trying it all. Again, I think some of the reason I didn’t want to try certain things is because of the texture. Mussels and clams always creeped me out because of the slimy-looking texture they have. But, one day, I just ate it- and I actually liked it. The dish I tried was Spaghetti alle vongole, a popular dish in the South of Italy.
Blue Fish
I ate blue fish. It looked like I grabbed it with my bare hands out of the ocean, soaked it in vinegar, and ate it.
Raw Salmon
This I wasn’t a huge fan of. I just can’t wrap my head around eating raw food, haha. The family eats thinly sliced salmon with salt and olive oil and they LOVE it. I didn’t hate the taste, it was just the texture that turned me off from it.
