Food, Part II

"What the hell is that?" ~ Chris Cutler

 I wrote a perfectly wonderful blog entry yesterday while we were in Firenze, and it disappeared into cyberspace.  Therefore, you are stuck with this one until tonight. Sorry.  I wrote it quickly to make up for the Internet's failures.

I've mentioned that I can quickly tire of pasta, so I try to eat some sort of protein other than cold cured meats every few days.  When we were at the Vatican a few weeks ago, we chose to eat unch a self-serve restaurant close to Vatican City.  The food looked pretty good, and while I usually think of self-service as a place where I get the food I want myself, this was a place where you looked at the food in a case, said, "Che é? (What is it?)," and ordered.

I immediately ordered a caprese salad (above left), and saw a sign reading, "Salccicia e patate al forno" over a covered hot roaster.  One of my favorite things! Sausage and roast potatoes. Two of us ordered it, and the guy who sloshed the grub onto our plates practically threw them at us before turning to the person behind me and saying, "Next-a."

If you look at the photo of the food above, it might not look too bad to you, but the sausage I was expecting was Italian sausage, not what we got.  Bologna in a casing (aka hot dogs) may fall under the category of sausage in some books, but let's get real. It's a hot dog.  Würstel. Sausage. HOT DOG.
I wager the guy thought, "Stupid Brits won't know the difference" before he threw the wieners on the plates. (You may remember that people here always ask if I'm British.")

No, don't get me wrong. I like hot dogs once in a while, but not when I'm in Rome and especially not when I have my heart set on sausage and *especially* when I don't have ketchup, mustard, and pickles for it. I ate the equivalent of one (There were three and a half cut up on the plate.) and left the rest.

Here's my big "TIP O' THE DAY:" Don't buy sausage and roast potatoes anywhere near Vatican City.  Don't. Just don't.