Food for my Cupboard

March 12, 2008

Today I finally caved in and went grocery shopping. Picking up groceries in Italy is a very different experience than in the states, where you hop into your heated or air-conditioned SUV and zoom down the highway doing sixty or so to your nearest Ingles, Publix, or Super Walmart. My grocery run started out with a brisk walk down the hill. It only takes a couple of minutes to walk from Kehoe (the dorm) to town, though the walk back up takes at least ten minutes of very steep climbing.

Since I knew that I wanted to buy bread, I took the shortcut to town (so called because though it isn’t actually a shorter walk, it’s considerably less steep. This obviously doesn’t make a difference going down, but it does going up - hence the name). Unlike the main road from school that goes directly downhill along the edge of town and overlooking the city walls, the shortcut veers off to the right, cutting through the upper part of Cortona where it ultimately spits you out just outside the edge of Piazza Signorelli and, most conveniently, my favorite bakery.

The bakery is run by a youngish woman who understands enough English to make transactions easy. When it’s not too crowded, I’ll attempt to tell her what I want in Italian, otherwise I’ll just say “Io prendo” (I’ll have) and point. The store is tiny with cookies, pastries, and sandwiches behind glass in the front and different types of bread stored in baskets behind the counter. In the morning it’s hectic, with people cramming in to make their purchases, dropping coins on the counter at the same time as they’re rapidly ordering in Italian. Old ladies crowd to the counter, exchanging pleasantries with the owner and smirking at my obvious incomprehension of the surrounding conversations. Small dogs are brought in with their owners while large dogs, German Shepherds being the dog of choice, are left standing outside. Most bread in Italy is extremely hard, but I’ve found one type that’s deliciously soft and moist, which is what I usually buy. Important note: never buy more than two days’ worth of bread at a time, because if you keep it any longer than that it’ll get too hard to eat (aka: no preservatives). I learned this lesson the hard way, of course. Out the door – pull going out, don’t push! I’ll never adjust to this random oddity – and on to the fresh market.

The fresh market is held in a garage type space off of Piazza Signorelli every morning. Here you can find a wide array of vegetables and fruits for a relatively cheap price (I paid about 1,80 euro for two oranges, four tomatoes, and a lemon). A friendly woman runs this store as well, always calling out “ciao” when I enter or leave and smiling at my attempts to speak Italian. Unlike American grocery stores, Italians generally don’t appreciate customers handling the produce, so once again I merely point and call out what I want.

My last stop was Molesini’s, the teeniest grocery store I’ve ever been in that consists basically of a narrow path between crowded shelves. Since dinner on weekdays is provided for students, I really don’t buy much: fresh cheese and meat for sandwiches, some pasta and pesto or tomato sauce for a weekend meal, some cookies to keep in my room (if you try keeping that in the kitchen, it’ll mysteriously disappear), and some juice. If you ask nicely at the counter, the owner will even give you a bright red, cloth bag with the store logo on it for your groceries.

Shopping complete, all that is left to do is to make my way back up the hill. The bottom’s not too bad, but by the top your hands are aching and your calves burning. This requires a minimum five minute break next to the city wall to put down your bags and gulp in some fresh air under the guise of enjoying the view. If someone else happens to come along, of course, you pretend to be in top physical condition and boldly stride up the hill, loudly proclaiming that walking faster makes the climb go by quicker. =D