One of the things I like very much about staying in AirBnb’s is the ability to cook meals for ourselves and especially to visit the supermarkets, stores, vegetable and fruit sellers and the weekly farmers markets for food and other good stuff.
Going to the supermarket in another country is always a rich cultural experience. And I find it helps improve your understanding of the local language. Now don’t think Wal Mart or Safeway here. I am talking about the much more usual small Supermercatos found in every little town and large city in Italy. These stores while small by our standards, are chock full of everything you may need.
Shopping for food in any other country is always fun (I think) and can be a bit confusing. But you have to plunge right in. Now that we are more than halfway through our month stay here in this seaside hamlet in the Salento we have been shopping a lot. We have tried supermercatos in several of the surrounding towns and settled on our favorites. We are becoming known and recognized by the guys behind the meat, cheese and olive counters. And while I always order everything in Italian they don’t expect it to be perfect. But I always get exactly what I wanted so it is working.
Finding what you need may take a bit longer but you do stumble over a lot of interesting products along the way. While the markets in France took the prize for the absolute best vegetables I have seen anywhere, Italy’s are very very good. There is often a person who will handle the vegetables you want and weigh, bag and put the price on them. Or there may be plastic hand covers and bags and you may have to bag them and use a computer scale to price them.
Eggs like most of the world outside of the US and Canada are NOT refrigerated and YES they are fine to eat.
Well after all of that it’s time to check out. Bring your own bag. But they also sell them cheaply. This is where things get interesting as there is so much interaction. But everyone has been patient with us and now that we are up to speed with the process we are not holding anyone up.
Prices for many things we have found to be cheaper in most cases than the US and on some things drastically cheaper. We buy olives in bulk from the big jars behind the case near the meat and cheese section and while these same kinds of olives are about $8.99/lb in the US they are only about $4/lb here (yes I converted it from kilos and Euros). Cheese and wine are the other big bargains. We bought a hunk of Parmigiana Reggiano that weighed more than 1/2 a pound and cost 3.24 Euros or about $3.82. That cheese in the states would have been $10 - $12.
Good wine has been very cheap and much of it very good. You can get a good drinkable bottle for as little as 2 Euros but spending a bit more gets you some pretty good stuff.
This all makes for the wine and antipasti tray we have most every evening as we are waiting for the BBQ to get fired up a real deal and a real learning and cultural experience too.
We have been in Italy since May 9th and this is our 4th Airbnb in the country. While we didnt cook a lot in Rome or Florence or Naples we have done a lot here. We are now in the far south in the Salento, this is the “heel” of the Italian boot and we have a marvelous little 2 bedroom house overlooking the Adriatic. This coast of Italy is stunningly beautiful and lacks the hordes of tourists that infest Amalfi and the Cinque Terre to say nothing of Rome and Florence.
For those of you with more time to spend and want to delve more deeply into the Italian way of life this is a great way to do it and a great part of Italy to do it in.