Eating abroad: 10 days in Italy and France.

I guess it’s an easy statement to make, but I enjoy few things in life more than eating, drinking, and exploring in Europe.  It’s cliché; I know it.   Everyone hates that one friend who goes backpacking across the continent only to come home and rant on and on about how America has it all wrong and how the Europeans do it right.  What can I say? Maybe I’m that friend.   

Seriously, though.  The meals, the wine, the pastries, the coffee!  It's all just mind blowing.  They take pride in their meats, their cheeses, their produce, the raw ingredients.  Ethical and organic farming and production methods are commonly used.  They can tell when a tomato is artificially reddened or when meat isn’t pasture raised.  Am I saying they’re better than us?  In many ways, they are.  In many ways, they're not.  But let’s just focus on the food.     

One of my favorite countries is Italy.  Eating here is an art form and the fact that the regions boast their own unique versions of everything is beyond impressive.  It's unheard of to serve Tuscan olive oil in Rome and vice versa.  Imagine if we refused to serve Orange Juice from Indian River County because it was too far away and betrayed our own local senses of pride.   

Italy is roughly the same size as New Mexico or Arizona when it comes to square miles.  I'm not talking about getting Florida blueberries over Georgia ones.  I'm talking about insisting on Alachua County produce over Duval County.  It's that intense.  As a result, what you get when in various regions of Italy is a very distinct snapshot of flavor and tradition. 

Venice from the top of the San Georgio Campanile

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Two years ago, my wife and I spent 2 weeks in Rome, Florence, Pisa, and the Cinque Terre.  We were amazed at the variety of food we experienced in those regions.  After returning home and catching a re-run of Anthony Bourdain's No Reservations on Venice, we thought, "What was wrong with us?  Why didn't we go there!?"  Two years later, we decided to return and experience the region of Venetto, which includes Venice, Verona, Padova, and all of the delicious glory they had to offer. 

So, what is Venice like?  Simply put, it’s a moral dilemma.  What you have is a very small, tourism-based city with an inordinate amount of traffic coming through it.  Imagine if St. Augustine had 150,000 tourists pouring in and out per day and you start to get the picture.  For a city that once boasted 400,000 residents, its current population of 40,000 is a joke.  The city is essentially a miracle of human ingenuity sitting amidst a calm lagoon off the Adriatic Sea.  Unfortunately, however, it became a drive through Euro Disney World for idiots.  Boat after boat dumps hundreds of day trippers off at San Marco's Square - the city center - to take a bunch of shitty pictures of the main sights, get the free tour of the cathedral, eat some bullshit meal at one of the tourist trap cafe's, buy a stupid Eyes Wide Shut Venetian mask and some tacky Murano glass, hop back on the boat and drive off.  

Even worse than the day-trippers are the cruise ship passengers.  They stand perched atop these enormous monstrosities as they pass right through the Canale Di San Marco, causing a very disturbing image for anyone sitting at a café a few blocks inland.  As the ships pass the island, those on board get only a fleeting glimpse of the majestic city (the very city they flew across the world to, only to immediately board a damn boat). Activists complain that the vibrations of the motors and water displacement of the constant parade of cruse ships contribute to the sinking of the city, and when you see it for yourself, it's hard to doubt. 

The bottom line is this.  These 150,000 assholes are keeping Venice alive.  The situation reminds me of the rain forest dilemma.   People who live in rain forest countries need to cut the trees down in order to have land to raise beef and crops in order to survive.  But the land can only produce for so long without the tree roots to hold the soil together.  Also, removing the canopy allows invasive plants to procreate, thus making it very difficult to farm.  As a result, more trees need to be cut down in order to have new farmland.  And so on. 

What do you do?  Without the constant influx of tourists, there aren't many professions that can earn enough to survive in what is really a lifestyle that is impractical (everything has to be brought in - there is no land to farm and all they can produce themselves is fish).  

That being said, Venice is a place like none other.  The mysterious winding streets and canals, the silent squares of the residential outskirts, the much quieter city center at night.  It's a city of constant contradiction.  You could be pushing your way through a wall of flesh in San Marco, only to walk 2 blocks into a nearly desolate neighborhood with a quiet cafe waiting for you.  It's almost as if the tourists are like moths attracted to a light.  There is no reason they can't fly away from it, but they simply just don't. 

If you go to Venice, my advice to you is FLY FAR FROM THE LIGHT! 

Over the next few days, I intend to share some of my favorite meals with you right here.  I don't want to lay it all on you at once, so I'll split it up a bit.  While the quality of the food we enjoyed was unparalleled, I didn't return to the US dejected and depressed.  I returned determined to make the best of what we have to offer.  Certainly we won't have the same delicacies or food tradition, but we have to have something.  I returned inspired to try my best to cook the best food this region has to offer.  I admit that it will hinder my ability to eat out at local restaurants and think much of them, but I didn't think much of them to start!  I hope you enjoy these accounts and photos, and I hope they will help inspire you as well.