How to Eat Your Way Through Italy

I knew we had made the right decision fairly quickly.

It’s not often that I have turned down the “meat” portion of a meal, but by this point the clothes around my midsection were already feeling a lot tighter than just an hour earlier.

And I knew we weren’t finished yet.

Even when we were in Ecuador, I could not help but look ahead to our travels to Italy. Granted, it was generally when I was eating a mediocre piece of chicken with flavorless rice.

I knew that Italy was going to be almost entirely about two things: food and wine.

Sometimes, you call this lunch, especially in Bologna.

We arrived in Bologna, a city known by some as the birthplace of Kappa Sigma and by most others as a wonderful place to fill yourself to nearly comatose.

Bologna is a beautiful medieval town, paved with cobblestone streets and shadowed by the same towers that have stood for hundreds of years.

Our plan was to see the sites while occasionally stopping for a glass of wine. And with each glass, we also were given some crackers or cheeses or cured meats. It’s possible that you could live in Italy for years without ever needing lunch.

So by 8 p.m., when our dinner reservations finally rolled around, I kind of felt like I was getting called up to the Major Leagues.

Fran and our friend Karyn, who joined us in Bologna, had been here before and talked endlessly about a restaurant they’d been to.

Osteria Broccaindosso had a lot to live up to, so we were a little disappointed to see it fairly empty upon our arrival. They handed us menus, and we weren’t quite sure what we wanted to do.

That’s when Karyn, who speaks at least a little Italian – much more than Fran or I do – told the server that we would prefer that they just start bringing us food.

It was something they knew how to do, and they did it well.

Before long, appetizers started appearing one at a time. There was salad, tomato with mozzarella, sausage with white beans, and squash flan.

The staff cleared our table and then quickly started delivering, among other things, tagliatelle with ragu, ricotta tortalini with butter and sage, and dry passatelli with zucchini.

It may go without saying, but there was far too much of each dish.

I was resettling myself in my chair, hoping some of the food would reposition and therefore open more space for more food.

That’s when the head server offered us the meat dishes.

Without a doubt, Fran saw the desperation in my eyes. I had been hearing legends about the desserts at this place. I knew it was either meat or sweets.

We hesitated, but in the end we opted to sprint straight to the finish.

Fran and Karyn (pictured) grabbed
a small share of each dessert.
I ate the rest.

Chocolate mousse was first, followed by a crème brulee. These were no individual portions. It was family style, and we were invited to take as much as we wanted.

A few minutes later, the servers pushed a nearby table up to ours. We had run out of space, and they still had more to deliver. There was apple pie, brownies with vanilla custard, chocolate cookies, and some sort of berry custard creation. There’s a very real possibility that I am missing at least 1-2 other desserts.

When we had been on a cruise through the Baltics a few weeks earlier, my entire family joked about ordering multiple desserts in the main dining room and then heading up to the buffet to get dessert. We thought we had reached some sort of new low – or high, depending on how you look at it.

In Bologna, I’m pretty sure we reached a new level.

Somehow I walked back to where we were staying, somewhat convinced I would never have to eat again.

That of course ended the following day, when we arrived in Tavarnelle and found a restaurant cooking up T-bone steaks on a grill in the town square.

It's amazing how easy charades becomes
when you are telling a butcher how big
you want your steak cut.

The waiter sent me next door to the butcher, who carved off a chunk that was at least two inches thick.

I’m pretty sure I will not go hungry on this leg of the trip.