Italy in 5 Days: Margherra

After a brief wait in Florence when Raquel offended the locals, we boarded our train and made it to Margherra, a town just outside Venice. We marched thirty minutes, much further than our AirBnB host had promised past buildings with overgrown lawns that had fresh laundry drying on the line. Exhausted and annoyed we arrived to find the cutest AirBnB host the world has ever seen.

She showed us around her place, explained how the busses worked and asked if we were hungry. When we told her we were going to try to go into Venice that night, she gasped.

“But it is 9:30, the busses stop running at midnight, and you look so very tired and hungry.”

Well, maybe we should just eat instead.

“Yes, that is good. Come with me I will take you to a restaurant. It is good.”

So, dressed only in her pajamas and slippers, so led us around a corner, past a prostitute skillfully jiggling her wares and to the best meal we’ve eaten in Italy. But of course we didn’t know that yet. All we knew about Italian food was that it is overpriced and designed to look good on a menu. Taste is unimportant because most people will never return. We had decided days before to eat only while standing up. They may ruin a plate of pasta, but it seems against the Italian nature to serve lousy bread or salami. Yet here we were, about to sit down at a restaurant, throw our money away because we were hungry and tired and out of options.

“It is good, sit down,” our host said, and was gone.

We briefly debated setting out for somewhere else, but seeing as the only other human activity was prostitutes, we decided to go ahead and eat there. We sat down and the waitress began to chatter away in Italian. She obviously recognized me look of bewilderment for she focused her verbiage on Raquel.

“Yadda-yadda-yadda antipasti?”

“Uh…” Raquel replied.

 “Yadda-yadda-yadda primeri spaghetti?”

“Si?”

“Vino?”

"Si!"

Even I know that one.

The waitress vanished and Raquel turned pale.

“I have no idea what we just ordered.”

I shrugged. I was hungry enough to eat a horse. How bad could it be?

Twenty minutes later the waitress set before us an enormous silver platter piled high with crawfish, shrimp, mussels, clams, scallops, fish and ricotta cheese, all smothered in tomato sauce on top of spaghetti. it looked amazing, like something Poseidon would have for dinner. It was the most surprising and exciting dish she could have possibly brought us. I was already excited we had this visual feast instead of something like lasagna, where the flavor hides beneath the noodles.

We dug in. The Crawfish were brain-slurpingly good, the shrimp and scallops the perfect texture but the mussels… my gods the mussels. They were succulent and tender and went amazingly well with the tomato sauce. The clams became repositiroes for the ricotta. Each bite was half shellfish have tomato infused cheese. We washed it all down with half a liter of white wine and followed it with tiramisu.

It was utterly divine, or to quote the babe, “That meal was stupid good. Do you think she just saw that we didn’t understand anything and decided to blow our minds?”

I think so, and I think that’s the advantage of escaping the tourist destinations, with their monuments and overpriced everything. To go to Margherra was to see a piece of Italy not in the guidebooks, and to eat at a restaurant that needs people to eat there more than once. If you visit Italy I highly advise seeking out a small town that no one's ever heard of just to eat, and while in the big cities, stick to the street food and cheap bottles of wine from the cold drinks shops.

If you liked this story come visit Florence with us!

Greek Restaraunts and Waiters

 

Greek food is amazing. Everyone knows feta and olives but there’s much more to the cuisine. We’ve had roasted anchovies, crispy croquettes, lemony fish soup, and cucumber salads. Dining in Greece is also great because of the waiters. Everywhere we’ve been, except for one amazing bakery run by a grumpy baker, we’ve been treated as honored guests to be fattened and entertained.  

Crispy croquettes

It’s good to travel with Raquel because she eats half of my plate while I eat hers. The best meal we’ve had thus far was veal slow cooked with fresh green beans in tomato sauce and a massive hunk of mousaka. Raquel said the veal was so tender it fell apart when you looked at it, the green beans popped when sprinkled with feta, but we agreed the best was the mousaka. Potatoes and eggplant were roast to perfection then layered with spicy minced meat, house made tomato sauce, and topped with a layer of creamy béchamel sauce and (surprise) a sprinkling of feta. It was then put in the oven just until the top turned all brown and crispy. I know the ingredients and how it was prepared because when our waiter saw that we’d licked our plates clean he thanked us profusely, and when I told him it was even better than my dad’s mousaka, he proceeded to tell us, in perhaps too much detail, all of his secrets for the next fifteen minutes.

Fried fresh anchovies (better than the sardines)

There must be a fraternity the waiters join, and if you speak Greek to them they’re forced to lavish you in kindness. At a seafood restaurant on the island of Kea a waiter saw us looking at the menu and practically dragged us to the back of the place to look at the fresh fish.

Looks delicious! But we just ate.

He didn’t care. He knew we’d be back, we’d seen the fish after all.

We returned the same night and were greeted by the same man. He helped us pick out a scorpion fish (I like to eat strange things, and scorpion fish look strange) and two delicious red fish whose name I have forgotten. The scorpion fish has a texture something like crab and a rich almost meaty taste. Raquel could not stop eating its cheeks. The other fish was light, flaky and crispy with salt and I cannot remember because I thanked one of the waiters in Greek, and he practically fell over in delight. Soon as we finished our fish we were presented Mastiha. I tried to ask the waiter exactly what it was to which he simply asked, “You know Mastih? It is made of Mastih!” It is so delicious that Raquel actually drinks it, perhaps too quickly for when the waiter saw our empty glasses he snapped his fingers and they were refilled. Raquel slid her second shot of this wonderful drink to me (she’s still a lightweight, no matter how good the booze) and I proceeded to become pleasantly inebriated. On our way out we thanked our hosts, efharisto, to which they added, efharisto poly, or thank you very much. A meal and a language lesson. Marvelous.

Amazing rabbit and onions. Notice the
falling-off-the-bone quality

But our best host was a man in Hermopolis. He was thin and goateed and did everything with a flourish, whether it was pouring wine or clearing plates. He recommended the rabbit, and we thankfully listened to his suggestion. It came with caramelized pearl onions and pile of fried potatoes. We rounded out the meal with a bowl of fat fresh beans topped in feta and white wine. The rabbit was savory and decadent and was accented by the sweetness from the caramelized onions which popped in your mouth, braising the rabbit in their juices with each bite. Between morsels of rabbit we scooped up the beans and feta with our fried potatoes and watched our waiter. The only time he wasn’t singing was when he was acting like a monster to make little children laugh, doing pratfalls when he banged his head against the signboard, or clearing a table, an activity he liked to do without a tray, much to the chagrin of the other waitress, who would follow him to be sure he didn’t drop anything. He repaid her assistance by placing a potted plant on her tray anytime she got too close. Maybe it was just the wine, but we found it all hilarious.

And what’s better than a fine meal served with a personal touch? A week of them.

If you enjoyed this post, there's more! Click for a quick Greek lesson to earn free snacks  or for food in Austria!

 

Meat in Austria

The sound of crisp, freshly fallen bacon under foot. The playful shadows of the bratwurst branches. The glisten of a thin ham leaf, daring you to climb the breaded Weiner schnitzel tree trunk ever higher. The ham forest is the dream of Austria, to visit here and not embrace it, will leave you hungry.

Leave your vegetarianism at the border. It’s true you could survive off of coffee and sweets, but to deny yourself meat while in Austria makes about as much sense as not visiting the cathedrals. Both are magnificent, ubiquitous, culturally significant, and more fun than preachy vegetarians or atheists.   

Noble ham, why do the poets do not praise thee?
Is it because when they eat their mind gets lazy?

My first taste of meat in Austria came from simple ham. My cousin insisted we get it for breakfast. After a year in japan, I thought that ham for breakfast sounded absurd and gluttonous, but my taste buds disagreed. The first bite of salty, cured perfection brought tears to my eyes. I ate and wept and generally prayed to the Pig Gods for making their flesh so delicious.

And that was just the start of my meat-venture.

Late last Friday night, the rave taking place in a courtyard between two art museums was just winding down. Through twisty streets and hidden staircases we stumbled until we arrived at a dance club inside the emperor’s former stable that served sausages in its hallowed halls.

I sauntered up to the counter ordered a käsekrainer and waited for the guy behind the counter to serve me between his fierce dance moves. Käsekrainer is a sausage stuffed with cheese, and is even better than it sounds. I smeared the juicy meat in mustard, put it on a thick slice of rye bread, and piled fresh horseradish on top.

Perfection, or so I thought until the next day.

 leberkäse, pulled pork, and beer

For that was when I ate leberkäse which translates to liver cheese, though is neither. It is bits of leftover pork and beef mixed together and baked until it has a crunchy crust. I had it cut into a thick slab and served on rye bread with mustard. My cousin insists it’s a man’s food. If this is indeed the case then I am as manly as they come, for that first bite of leberkäse completed me. Its texture is similar to bologna, but with a crunchy crust. The piece I had was studded with pumpkin seeds, and the nutty bite punctuated the smoky richness of the meat wonderfully. Surely there could be no better!

Yet again, I was mistaken.

A buschenschank is where every meat-venture through Austria must end. It’s a small farm or vineyard that only serves house-made food and booze. This means that your bretteljause—a cutting board overflowing with cured meats, fresh cheeses, and hard sausage—is always cold, and can only be consumed with house made wine and schnapps.

I insist you consume the wine and schnapps, for I did not, and I suffered mightily because of the bratelfett. Bratelfett is a mound of rendered fat that is best eaten on bread with a slice of ham and a pile of fresh horse radish. It is rich. It is wonderful. It’s like eating butter made of bacon. I loved it. And hence, I should have drunk the schnapps. For I had only wine, so I awoke the next morning clutching my chest at the pork fat that had congealed inside of my arteries.

There is a treatement: gurktaler apfenkrauter, an herbed liquor that tastes like dandelion whiskey, which, while not necessarily a bad thing, is not the most pleasant way to start a morning. I survived, but many beers were needed to sustain the digestion.

So, come to Austria, explore the ham forest, but be sure to keep a flask of schnapps handy, in case you climb to the most succulent branches of Austrian cuisine.


The dreaded yet delicious bratelfett

If you enjoyed this post, there's more! Check out coffee culture or taboos in Austria. Or keep eating farther east with food from Japan.