Meals at the Convitto
European Cuisine
Hi, this is Jared again. My Mom asked me to write something about my meals at the Convitto. This was my dinner. I can describe the food here in two words – molto bene! That means very good.
As you can imagine, we eat a lot of pasta dishes. They don’t taste like the ones at home. Even the lasagna and pizzas taste different.
The pizzas here seem fresher. It’s hard to explain what the difference is. They don’t even look the same. There’s not a lot of sauce on them, and on the ones I’ve had they haven’t spread cheese all over the way they do at home.
Most of our meals included a pasta dish.
One of the pizzas I really like has proscuitto and arugula. I’ve also had pizza with just cheese and basil and was surprised at how good it was. Here in Italy they cut the mozzarella into circles like pepperonis. They also drizzle olive oil on the pizza before we eat it. They’re delicious and not as heavy as the ones at home. Most of the pizzas I’ve been eating have been out, and not at school.
Breakfasts here at the Convitto are also different. They don’t have cereal. They also don’t have eggs. That is one thing I’d like to change because I’m trying to increase my proteins and it’s difficult when the first meal of the day is usually light. Here, I usually get a caffe (something I never drank at home), a glass of juice and a sweet fruit bread. I keep forgetting to take a picture at breakfast time.
Healthy variety per meal but they repeated meals almost weekly.
We have a lot of fruit and vegetables to choose from. We get our food buffet style and are allowed to go back for more helpings. They don’t care if we take fruit or breads back to our room with us.
There are shops nearby where we go on the weekend to get supplies. I usually get a few juices, nuts and nutella. Before we leave for practice, we usually spread some nutella on bread (we eat it like peanut butter) and then put that sandwich in a ziplock bag to eat on the bus or way to practice.
We can eat as many helpings as we want.Italian version of American Meals
Every weekend they do what they call an American meal. Those are my least favorite. They do hotdogs a lot and there’s nothing on them. I’ve tried to explain to my friends what a chilli dog or chicago dog is or just how much better a hotdog is if it’s covered in ketchup and other condiments. What we get is just a plain hotdog in a bun. Their burgers are also plain. I was so happy to have a real grilled burger when I got home for Christmas.
The “American” meals were my least favorite.
They also pass out a snack every day. Most of the time it’s a sweet bread. It’s not really a cake, but that’s the closest thing I can compare it to. It was really tasty.
