Local cheese, cured ham, salami and crostinnis in Civita di Bagnorigio, Lazio, Italy:

Civita di Bagnorigio, La cantina di Arianna

Before I even start talking food, if you haven’t visited Civita di Bagnorigio on your visits to Lazio in Italy, you really must go. What a beautiful place this is with the most spectacular views, it’s as though time has stood still…bar the tourists that is.

After a very steep walk up to the dying town of Bagnorigio, we stopped at a little eatery just passed the main square called “La cantina di Arianna” recommended by Rick Steves, (a well known American food and travel writer). It promoted “Slow Food”, so we knew the ingredients were sourced as locally as you could get. Sometimes it’s the simplest and freshest prepared food that taste the best, isn’t it?

That’s what we got when we visited Bagnorigio for the afternoon. It was far too hot a summers day to even contemplate eating anything cooked, so we decided on a crostinni each and a sharing platter of locally cured ham, salami and mountain cheese. What a treat it was! The crostinnis arrived, mine coated in a thick layer of black truffle paste and the other with the most freshest looking artichoke hearts I’ve ever seen, both lightly drizzled with great quality local olive oil. After consuming the crostinnis in the most quickest but enjoyable way possible, we moved on to our now arrived sharing platter. The quality of the ham, although not aged Parma ham, was certainly as good as and the flavour was beautifully salty and sweet. The salami was, to be expected, equally as tasty. A far cry from the crappy water filled ham and cured meat you see back in the supermarkets in Britain.

As I mentioned before, this part of Italy embraces the “Slow food” movement so you can be guaranteed that the produce you eat comes from the surrounding local area.

After many years this is something that has been adopted back in Britain, however not quite as prevalent as I would like and I think most British foodies may agree.

I wish the British supermarkets would listen more to what we want and stock more locally produced foods and support local food suppliers and makers. We could really learn a thing or two about how countries like Italy appreciate what they produce.

https://www.google.co.uk/maps/@42.6276307,12.1135095,19z

Porchetta Sandwiches in Orvieto, Umbria, Italy

L’oste del re – Corso Cavour 127 Orvieto

Okay so I’m sure you’ve all enjoyed a great roast pork sandwich from time to time over the years. Unless you’re a vegetarian, which in my eyes is a tearful travesty. (no offense veggies) If your British, it usually comprises of a soft bread roll filled full of moist pork with beautifully crisp crackling and smothered in apple sauce, sounds amazing eh? Yes, I would whole heartedly agree, but after experiencing what I have to say is the best pork sandwich of my life in Orvieto recently, I realised there was no going back. My experience began when we visited a busy looking little eatery called “L’oste del re” in the heart of Orvieto one hot August afternoon. The menu was sparse but I didn’t mind, all I wanted to try was one of these Porchetta pork panini’s that I had been reading about for months before our trip, which was a specialty of the area. We were not disappointed; the customers seemed to be ordering nothing but the stuff. We ordered a Porchetta panini each, which arrived in a simply prepared flatbread. The meat had been stuffed with fresh fennel, thyme and rosemary and slow cooked for many hours leaving it beautifully moist and unctuous. The sandwich was finished off with a light spattering of the meats cooking juices and a handful of the finest and thinnest pork crackling I have ever had. This really is as good as it gets, you’ve not had a pork sandwich until you’ve tried one of these, oh my dear god it was good!

The Italians are known for their Porchetta and in this part of Southern Italy you can see it sold in abundance on most street corners and out of many local food vans. Italians really know their stuff when it comes to meat, that’s for sure. If you’re ever in this part of Italy you really must try one, they are not to be missed!

Opening Statement: "Left over venison"

After many a year of obsessing over all things food related and being inspired by a recent trip I had to Italy (leaving my taste buds tingling) I came to realise that great food experiences need to be shared and talked about. So with that in mind, I knew it was time for me to attempt to share my own food joys with people who love and appreciate good food as much as I do.

After all, my theory is, (as I’m sure it is for most foodies) we all need to eat food to survive, so why not take pleasure in everything we eat?

Hence the reason for my made up word for the title “The Gluttonomist” the definition meaning: A glutton for all things food.

Ever since I can remember I’ve had, perhaps some might say an unhealthy fascination with food. I probably got this from my Mothers love of cooking and baking, which was a constant source of happiness for me and my siblings growing up. In my eyes she is still the greatest home cook of all time and I can only hope that one day I will be as good a cook as her.

My earliest memories of growing up in the Highlands of Scotland were an invaluable start to my love of gastronomy. My family lived in a small croft house in the middle of nowhere and my father, being a Ghillie working for the local estate at the time gave us the accessibility to eat all of the finest foods that the Highlands had to offer. Most of my childhood was spent eating the freshest brown trout and salmon caught that day, spring lamb, mutton, freshly picked cockles and mussels. One of the things we ate the most of though was venison, which was eaten in abundance most of the year round; so much so that my parents would have to disguise the flavor of the meat in stews and sausages just because we ate so much of it. I have many a strange memory of dead stags laying in the bathtub and my parents carving up huge hunks of meat on the kitchen table ready to chop, mince and freeze. Our cats had a field day and were always close by ready to pounce on any scraps of meat that may fall on to the floor. Ahh, how times have changed, what I would give to have some leftover venison now!

 

Moving away to England for university made me realise just how good we ate compared to most and I’ll always remember to never get complaisant about how lucky me and my family were to have such abundance of fresh great quality food. I was very lucky indeed.