Grocery shopping 2019: quantity, quality and detours

Grocery shopping in Rome can be a pain - no 24-hour true supermarkets (no Wegmans - Buffalonians and Brooklynites). At the same time, it can be a great pleasure - as in, no 24-hour true supermarkets. We shop in open-air markets (our favorite, in Piazza San Giovanni di Dio, we've written about several times), mini-marts (ditto), the dying classic alimentari (small grocery/deli), and specialty shops. Among the pleasures we enjoyed in 2019, above - the incredible offering of wines under $3 in our local "super" (not at all large by US standards) market - and those above aren't the cheapest - you can also buy wine "sfuzi" - from a tap - fill up your own bottle, at even lower prices).

We also found this gorgonzola-by-the-scoop fascinating (photo right). The spoon and the amount of cheese is significantly larger than you can imagine from this photo. And, it's Euro 14.90/kilo, or about $7.50/pound - not that anyone buys a pound of gorgonzola at a time. At the deli at another not-very-large "super" market.

Part of what made our eyes pop is simply the quantity of what's being offered that one doesn't see in the US - the numbers of bottles of wine, the size of the gorgonzola, the multitude of waters (below), and the list goes on.














Left: in front of a Pigneto mini-market we found this list of prices for water - yes, that's all for different brands of bottled water (at least until you get to the Coca-Cola at the bottom). All selling for under Euro 3 (about $3.30 today) for 6 bottles of 1.5 liters each or more than 2 gallons of water. Romans still like their bottled water, even though the local water is quite good - though hard. Climate change may erode this practice over time.

Above, a small portion of the elaborate variety of desserts
at our local cafe'/pasticceria (Fattore) in Pigneto.

Left, enough salumi and prosciutto for you? (At a local, small market in Pigneto.)







It's not just food and drink.  Below, we found this plethora of "sfuzi" (unpackaged - bring your own container) laundry detergent at a local market:

Of course, you also can choose between 3 different kinds of asparagus (when in season) - at our old standby, the tin-shed open-air market in Piazza San Giovanni di Dio:

At the same market, we also could buy fruit and vegetables for the a single price/kilo - Euro 1.49 - by the way, that included bottles of wine.

Kiwi from Lazio

There's also the practice - likely an EU law, but also important to Italians - that requires the markets to label the source of all the produce, as in this Tivoli market (looks good close-up, but unfortunately seems like it's on its last legs):

Lemons from Amalfi

Tarocco oranges from Sicily "natural,
with leaves"

Melinda apples from the Trentino
(northern Italy); "offerta" = sale price

The alimentari (small, classic, usually Italian-owned and run, grocery/deli) near us in Monteverde displayed its dog food outside:

and inside was a photo of "Mama," who, it was explained to us, made the mozzarella:

Two more unusual presentations in 2019. One, a tiny stand that offered a plethora of baked goods from Ciociaria, a province near Rome noted for its food (and for the Academy Award-winning film, based on the book by Alberto Moravia, starring Sophia Loren, "Two Women" - in Italian, "La Ciociara" - the woman from Ciociaria):

"Ciociara bread- cooked over wood"

And, finally, we encountered - still in Pigneto - a street blocked off. The solution for which was one had to walk through the Todis grocery store to get around the block:

Yes, that's me, taking the detour through the store.

Dianne

Rome's most "used" Fountains

Among Rome's great pleasures are its fountains--about 1,000 of them, according to one authority--and not just because they're beautiful or stylish, or because they testify to Rome's abundant supply of fresh water. As any thirsty traveler will tell you, most of them are also useful, even essential, especially in the summer months, when the city swelters in the heat.


RST has identified two fountains that are especially busy, crowded with tourists, locals, and the faithful slaking a thirst.  Each, predictably, is located in the heart of a tourist area, and each has a certain style--even if that style is sometimes mediated by a plastic bottle or the crush of the needy.

The first, below, can be found in Piazza San Marco, that little rectangle of semi-sanity adjacent to Piazza Venezia and across the street from the Altare della Patria.

The second is just to the north of Piazza San Pietro [the right side, as one faces the basilica] - note the fountain's shape - Pope's hats and St. Peter's keys to the church.

Drink up, Rome.
Bill

The Aqueduct Hunters: water and 2000 year-old mysteries

It's not often we go gaga over another blog, but the Aqueduct Hunters hit us in a sweet spot.

We're entranced by Rome and water (as those of you who've read even just a few pages of Rome the Second Time no doubt know - the first chapter is titled "The Waters of Rome"). We've also fantasized trying to find the source of some of the aqueduct waters, and have been close (Lago Bracciano, Horace's farm, etc.). But these Aqueduct Hunters are the real thing. Their recent discovery of the source of Aqua Traiana (as in Trajan's Aqueduct, from the 1st century AD) made international headlines. And, they've started a blog where you can follow them on video sloshing around inside these 2000-year-old aqueducts - one such slosh started at the Villa Medici atop the Spanish Steps - a cistern there is in the photo at right.

Recall we're the ones who located (with the help of some scholars) the 15th century eel trap for the Acqua Paola (Pope Paul's Renaissance aqueduct): that square building covered in graffiti in the midst of a traffic circle (no, we didn't put that on the itinerary -but at left, a photo). And, we try to interest you in the ancient cloaxa maxima, basically an old Roman sewer drain, even covered as it is now in old plastic bags and other detritus (photo below).

So naturally, these hunters appealed to us. Not to be missed:

http://romanaqueducts.blogspot.com/2010/03/that-rascally-fig-tree.html - we've added to our Other GREAT Rome websites on the right of the blog.

And, we've opened and closed this post with a couple photos from the Parco degli acquedotti - because it's above ground that they're so beautiful.

Dianne -

PS - and if you wonder why the Italian for aqueduct is sometimes acquadotto and sometimes aquadotto - it's the difference between the Renaissance ones (with the "c", the Italian spelling) and the Ancient ones (Latin, without the "c").

Two-bag Ladies: Grocery Shopping in Rome

They're "two-bag ladies," and they can be observed in large numbers, especially in the morning, in every Rome neighborhood: one or two plastic bags in each hand, transporting the day's groceries home from the market or one of the small shops that line the streets.

You won't find tw0-bag ladies in U.S. cities (New York may be an exception), because Americans drive to do their grocery shopping, usually at huge big-box stores where they lay in supplies for a week or more. There are no such stores in Rome proper; the largest grocery store in our Monteverde Nuovo area is about 1/10 the size of the Wegman's supermarket we frequent in Buffalo. And almost no one drives to the smaller ones that do exist, probably for fear of giving up a precious parking space near one's apartment; the parking lot at the SMA, a few blocks away, could be converted to a soccer field and no one would complain.

So they walk. Two-bag ladies, less often two-bag men (the men are to be seen chatting at the tables outside the bars, waiting for their women to show up with the groceries). And for the heavier loads, they use an inexpensive, highly functional two-wheeled cart. See photo at left.

The system works fine. It depends on a large number women who don't mind shopping every day or nearly every day and who don't have paying jobs to go to. Italy's weak economy, and weak feminist movement, produce women of this sort, and its pension system--featuring retirement at age 50--creates an ample supply of older folks for whom shopping may be the highlight of the day. Another requirement, met by the condominums that line every street, is high population density; no one need walk very far.

The fly in the ointment is Roman fondness for bottled water. The water comes in packages of 6 plastic bottles, suspended from a thin plastic strap, for carrying purposes. The unit weighs about 12 kilos (according to the bathroom scale) or about 26 pounds, and the uncomfortable strap requires alternating hands every 50 feet. Only a dumb American would carry this home. Hence the two-wheeled cart (above). Dianne says home delivery is common.

If the system has a downside, it is that the regular grocery stores--the supermarkets--are strange--Felliniesque, one might say--perhaps because so few shop in them regularly. Our SMA is on two floors, requiring the shopper to get from peaches to bread via one small elevator. The Todis, a discount chain --see photo at right--is on one floor, but it's not much larger than a 7/11, and it seems to exist to fuel nostalgia for Cold War Communism. Bill