Dining Out/ Pizza!

So, you want food, eh? Funny thing, I'd already started on this posting. We must be in sync, though worlds apart. Or, you could all be part Italian.

You may have noticed the predominance of food and beverage serving establishments in little Paderno. This is the Italian way. There are eateries that serve only lunch, only gelato, or only coffee and tea and their necessities. There are many names to distinguish the various establishments: un ristorante, una pizzeria, un caffe, un bar, uno snack bar, un fast food (guess what they serve), una gelateria, una trattoria or una paninoteca. In order as named, these would be a formal restaurant, a pizza place, a cafe, a 'bar' - but not as we know them, as anyone can go in, over 16 can drink, other foods and usually a lot of coffee also happen, and they often have outside seating (or standing around) - a snack bar/ cafe, fast-food joint, ice cream parlor (more soon!), a Mom-n-Pop homestyle restaurant, and a sandwich shop.

Street scene in Bassano del Grappa with cafes.

Any of these can show up almost anywhere .They can be on mountain tops, along quiet rural roads, on back alleys, or on main drags. If they are there, people will go to them, and they will be packed for their designated eating times. Then they close for the entire afternoon, for all of Monday (common), for Monday and Tuesday, or for Wednesday (also common).Some open only for lunches, and have no existence at dinner time, some the reverse. If they open for dinner as early as 6:00 pm, we are lucky, but most open for dinner at 7, 7:30, 7:45.

It was with great excitement that we first heard that there was a pizzeria in San Zenone d'Ezzelini, a near-by village, with gluten-free pizza. We had to contain the excitement, however, until we checked to see if these pizze (plural form) were also egg-free, to fit our version of vegetarianism. So, two weeks ago we stopped by and quizzed the Signore who runs the place in our broken Italian and his non-existent English. He was pretty sure we were good to go, so we stopped by later to find out and then eat if......

The guy said that they opened “a sei,” at six, a minor miracle in and of itself. So as to not push with our eagerness, we arrived at 6:20. The lights were off, there was no movement, but the door was open.  We walked in, the guy was reading the paper. He seemed happy to see us, though, and turned on all the restaurant lights, told us, “Si, niente uova!”  (yes, no eggs!),  guided us to a table and handed us the gluten-free pizza menu. You can see that we were indeed the only customers: 

 The pizze were ready quite quickly:

Granted, their presentation is unorthodox to our perception, but the inner 4-year-old who doesn’t like things to touch stands in deep awe and appreciation of this pizza. We ordered the “verdure” (vegetable) pizza whose ingredients were listed as pomodoro, melanzone, pepperoni, cipole, zucchini e verdure cotto (tomato – which turned out to be represented by the sauce- eggplant, peppers – many a college student here has to learn the hard way that a pepperoni pizza here is vegetarian – onions,  zucchini, and chopped greens. This is exactly what we got. Each vegetable was nicely cordoned off to its respective quadrant, no mixing.

You might think that this an extremely large pizza, and it sure looked like a lot to us when it arrived. The crust is Napolitano style, however, and this means that it is incredibly thin. So even though one is eating something the size of a hubcap, it is indeed an individual portion. We do usually save a couple slices, though, to continue the enjoyment on the next day.

This restaurant has an impressive set of wood-fired ovens: a few for the pizze and a separate one for their “meat bar” which is what we call the grilling area. There, customers can belly up to the bar, point out the cut of meat they want and watch the chef grill it in front of them. Patrick, you’re drooling, and see, you didn’t even need a photo. This public style of grilling to order is common also in the agritourismo restaurants – restaurants that operate on the premises of small, local farms. The government of Italy has created incentives for farmers to be able to generate more income by having these kinds of establishments on their farms and they have proven to be quite popular and successful.The restaurants are required to raise a high percentage of the food that they serve in order to qualify for this status.

We have eaten at the Pizzeria d'Ezzelini now three times in the past two weeks, and last time took along 5 friends from the CIMBA faculty. The restaurant owner knows us and grabs the gluten-free menu when we arrive. Twice of the three times we were the only customers until maybe 7 pm, when families with little children start to arrive. We have to wonder if our maturity is in question since we eat so early... When the 7 of us ate last time, we lingered until 9 pm, and the place was just starting to fill up and get lively.

As an entertainment for customers, there is a video loop running up by the cash register, showing one of the chefs of the restaurant winning a prize at the World Championship Pizza Competition for "velocita" (speed of pie construction) and some of the other contestants in categories such as largest spun pizza crust, and presentation of final pizza. 

 Life is good! Mangiamo! Let's eat!