Naples part XIV: Food

I realize now that I have somewhat neglected an important aspect of traveling: Stuffing my face. Oh, I've posted the odd picture of a particularly sumptious dessert, or a huge baguette but I haven't really blogged about it. This wrong will be righted from now on! Henceforth, food shall have the exalted place it is owed, as a subject worthy of blogging.

As I've written repeatedly, Italian food is generally much better outside Italy than inside it. Preferably it should not be touched by Italian hands, or indeed any other body parts at all. (The one thing they know how to make is their sweet, sweet ice cream - gelatto.)

Naples is actually the first place in Italy where I've been served a pizza worth the name. It had plenty of tomato sauce and cheese and meat on it, and the taste was quite good. Not spectacular, but good. A solid B+, with the + thrown in for effort and locale.

Some of the other stuff I tried in the area wasn't that successful. At a restaurant in Marciano, another frazione of Massa Lubrense I was tricked (ok, persuaded) into trying pasta with squid. The pasta itself was ok, but there was this watery smell and taste to it from the squid and I didn't finish it.

I had a couple of mediocre spaghetti bologneses in various places in Sorrento, and a somewhat better penne arrabiata. This spicy dish is also something the Italians are quite good at. I had a dry, thin immitation of a pizza outside the entrance to Herculaneum and a dry sandwich in Pompeii. Not a culinary feast exactly. The one thing that surprised me was actually the huge cake that my landlord in Termini gave me. It was quite sweet, especially when sprinkled with the vanilla sugar that came in a separate package.

When it came to beverages, I drank water, orange juice, diet coke and coke zero and t'was all lovely. I don't gargle with the devil's mouth water, nosirree! As mentioned before, Ivan drank the limoncello (a drink Sorrento is famous for) my landlord gave me. I also got a bottle of local wine from my landlord, which I graciously donated to my three American guests. It was gone the next morning... I also ate something I never thought I'd try - vegetable soup! 'Tis true! Jo made it, and it was quite good, though of course it lacked the taste of sweet, sweet dead animal. Can't win every time I guess.

I'm posting this pic again. A good thing is worth seeing twice!


The squid pasta. Eh.


The salami pizza at Herculaneum. Cardboard with sausage on.


I sliced off pieces of cake and ate it every day. When I left I had to throw away the rest, but I believe that if I'd made the effort, that thing could have sustained me all week.


A real WTF-moment. Bags of chips with SWEDISH text in Italy - what gives? The words "med löksmak" means "onion flavored" in Swedish. Yes, I speak the language of the enemy.