At home we cook. When we’re in San Marino and Italy we eat in restaurants. The food is good. On the menu, local dishes we like. We have favorites places where, when we go back, everyone is almost always still there. It’s old home week. That adds to the pleasure. We feel almost local. But it’s no longer cheap. Cheaper than the US, I would say. But not by much.
Today, for the fun of it, and for the economy of it, I cooked lunch. First I shopped.
The “grocery store” is a few blocks down below our apartment in San Marino. It’s a two-story affair with food on the first floor and everything else (pots, pans, laundry and cleaning supplies, shirts and shoes, socks and underwear, dental supplies, all manner of paper products, office supplies, electrical appliances), I mean everything else imaginable that you might need, up there on the second floor. It’s like Kroger, with a hardware store dropped on top of it, and a general store dropped on top of that. It’s called Conad. That’s Consorzio Nazionale Dettaglianti. In English: National Retailers Consortium. There are hundreds of Conads in Italy. A normal Conad, like the one down there, will stock 7000 to 8500 items. Then there’s Spazio Conad (spacious Conad), 16,000-19,000 items. And little Margherita Conad, around 1500 items. Why Margherita I don’t know. Maybe, you know, daughter of Conad?
By down below I mean down two long stairways beside, behind, and below our building, a total of 100 steps, maybe more. It always feels like more when you’re walking up. Down the steps you go, and then, after the steps, a few blocks of sidewalk and two gentle curves gently sloping down, and you’re there.
When this Conad first opened, the ladies in town were like, Oofah, an expression of frustration, anger, and disappointment. It was part of the transition, small town to bigger town, old town to newer town. The term “supermercato” had entered the Italian lexicon. Conad meant the ladies had to walk farther to shop for. . . everything. It also meant Antonella might not survive.
Up the street in Serravalle you used to be able to find not everything but almost. There’s still a butcher up there. His name is Alan. And a little market consisting of a counter with deli meats and cheeses and the proprietor Antonella back there, and Leo her husband who stocks a few groceries and some fruits and vegetables, and sometimes their son at the cash register.
I would have gone up to Antonella this morning, but I wanted to buy wine. Last time I was there I bought good prosciutto and a chunk of cheese; killer prosciutto cut while you wait (Would it be all right if I taste that? Sure you can) and packaged old style, not enclosed in a clear plastic ziplock bag but wrapped in brown paper that’s folded and sealed with a piece of tape or a sticky price tag. But there was no wine. And they tend to run out of milk. Antonella is a maybe store. Maybe they won’t have . . . whatever you’re looking for. It’s an emergency store and probably still the old lady store, for those residents that shop every day and don’t drive, that can’t take the stairs. I’ll get there, I think. No, I’m already getting there–Do I really want to take all those steps, and can I come back up the steps loaded with groceries?
If we shop big at Conad, we drive. If I shop small, I walk. I better walk. While I still can.
In our apartment is a cute little kitchen. It’s about half the size of our kitchen back home. Four-burner gas cooktop and, below it, a small electric oven; double stainless steel sink with a drip rack for dishes in a cabinet above the sink; a 60’s era defunct dishwasher that a carpenter friend over here built shelves for and converted into a cupboard. Next to the sink, a little fridge. You take a Subzero or any standard American coffin-size fridge and divide by four, and you get the European fridge. Between the range on one side and the sink and fridge on the other side is a kitchen table that seats four. That means when you cook, you’re doing laps around the table: range to fridge, back to range; range to sink, back to range. No, you don’t get dizzy, but you think the shortest distance between two points is a straight line, while you’re walking in semi-circles.
Economy? Here’s how you stretch your euros. Yesterday I bought two handfuls of green beans for .73, three zucchini for 1.50, stracchino cheese for 3.00, bread for 3.25, and a bottle of red wine down there on the bottom shelf for 2.45. The wine must have been on special because the price on the receipt was 1.79. (You might think, Rotgut? No, just the opposite. In winespeak we might say “an amiable companion to your improvised lunch.” And look at that: 12 % ABV.) In the fridge back home, from a restaurant a few days ago, I had two pieces of leftover chicken and some roasted potatoes I was going to reheat. I thought: I should do this every day. At home I shop for lunch every day. I can do that here, with the added benefit of the walk, which includes the added challenge of the long ascent up the 100 or more steps.
And then, the semi-circle walk in the kitchen. To keep things simple, and to add to my step-count, I cook the vegetables in the same pan, first the zucchini, then the beans. While the beans cook I cut and season the zucchini. I strain and season the green beans while the chicken and potatoes warm in a pan on the stove.
It’s all good. I don’t mean “it’s all good” as we say in the States, like don’t worry about it, it’s all good. I mean it all tastes good, really good. Yes, with Conad and chain stores like it–in a couple locations San Marino also has Coop, another big chain–you feel like San Marino and Italy have moved in the direction of industrialized food production and delivery. Old world transitioning to new world. Conad is a chain, after all. The Antonella days may be numbered. But there is still the expectation on the part of consumers, the understanding of quality: it’s a demand. The two vegetables I cooked yesterday were excellent, better than what I find in the US except on rare occasions. Way better. I bought bottom shelf wine, the bargain Sangiovese. It was a test. The wine more than passed the test. It was excellent.
What the heck.
Distance is a factor. Italy is a small country. The wine traveled 50 miles, from the Marche region where the grapes grew and the wine was produced, to a Conad distribution center, then to the San Marino store. Judging by the color and feel of the vegetables, they came from very close by. The cheese was from Cesena, 25 miles up the coast.
Today, another throwback to old world. It’s Tuesday. Marco and Rosanna Stanchini will be in the piazza, 50 meters up the road, right here in Serravalle. They have a van, and tables, and an awning, and local fruits and vegetables, and their stuff is great. I’ll join a gaggle of old ladies up there, discriminating shoppers all. I’ll buy what they buy and chat them up. Maybe green beans again today. How can green beans be astonishing? I mean really. But they just are. And leafy greens, bietole and cicoria, to blanch and chop and warm in a skillet with olive oil, a little garlic, and salt.
And the olive harvest is still in progress. Marco will have a basket of new olives, just picked. You cook them with sausage on the stove. An old lady told me so. Alan the butcher will see me a few hours from now.
Yes, please! Cheers ! 🍷