 |
| Beautiful Goats. No Cows. |
I just spent three
weeks in Italy and not once did I see a cow.
Not one cow!
We drove through
Tuscany and the most we saw was a herd of goats.
Beautiful,
tan-coloured goats but no substitute for a cow.
I’m concerned the
cows have been put aside in boxes and the land entirely given over to the whims
of the free range grape.
The wine did taste
very happy.
It made me very
happy at least, until it made me sad and then I mourned the missing cows.
The real concern
however was the lack of Pepperoni on my pizza.
I opted for a ‘Rustica’,
confident that I understood the ingredients it promised.
Aglio (garlic)
Cipolla (onion) Caperes (capers) Pepperone (Do I really need to translate?)
But when it arrived
I was shocked to find there was nothing on it!
Well there was
garlic and onions and capers – but come on, they weren’t the reasons I chose
the pizza. It was about as exciting as a Margerita!
It was all made
worse by my husband’s choice of a ‘Disco’ which was one whole meaty pizza
covered by another whole meaty pizza.
I was supposed to
be on holiday not Vegan bootcamp!
I got up to review
the menu and found that I hadn’t been seeing things. It definitely said ‘Peperone’.
So I pointed this
out to the waitress who responded as expected, ‘Aaaaah! Peperone! Peperonci!’
Which I imagine was
a bit like saying, ‘Ah, You say pot-ay-to, I say po-tah-to!’
Relieved the
spiciness was on its way I settled back to watch my husband take on the
challenge of 2 pizzas in 1.
Ten minutes later
the Chef turned up with my pizza, all smiles and eager to please.
I thanked him graciously
before looking down at my plate to find that now added to the garlic, onion and
capers was chopped YELLOW PEPPERS!
Really? Would
someone really love yellow peppers that much to insist on having them added
after?
Sometimes you have
to learn the hard way.
It turns out
Pepperoni is a corruption of Peperoni,
the plural of Peperone, the Italian
word for pepper, NOT SAUSAGE.
If you want
Pepperoni then ask for Salamino Picante.
And that, dear
readers, is about as educational as this blog gets.
Now, would someone
like to tell me where those cows went?