all roads

Ciao a tutti! I am now back from Italy and pretty much back on California time and ready to sit and blog. The trip was a-mazing. I don't know if the miso offered a goat to the gods before we left or what, but Fortuna was definitely on our side for the entire two weeks. I'll update more in later entries about specifics from the trip, but for now I'll just stick with the most pertinent question: is it possible to be vegan in Italy? Yes, yes it is. Was I vegan in Italy? No, no I was not.

My downfall was being a broke grad student who relied on the free breakfast provided by the apartment where we stayed in Rome. The landlady gave us a little card for the coffee shop across the street, which entitled us to a pastry and a cup of coffee or tea. There were (obviously) no vegan pastry options, and I was not about to go spend money on breakfast when a perfectly good marmalade croissant was sitting there for free. So it started with pastries and continued on in a downward spiral of pecorino, gelato, and ricotta ravioli. When in Rome, right?

But you can be vegan in Italy. I think every restaurant we went to had pizzas loaded with veggies and no cheese. There were plenty of pastas in marina. And even the gelateria by the Pantheon had a section of soy options. So in some ways Italy might just be the best country for vegans. Very strong-willed vegans who have no problem with a stifled culinary experience in the country that has probably the best cuisine in the whole world. But that's just my opinion.

One thing I did have trouble with was getting enough protein and iron. Beans only show up in soups and soups only show up in nice restaurants. Since breakfast was usually pastries, and our lunches were usually bread and cheese from a local market or pizza, legumes only made the rare appearance. Actually, beans were a little scarce in every place but Tuscany. Once we got to Florence there were Tuscan bean soups and even entire side dishes of 'fagioli' (typically white beans with garlic and olive oil). I also foolishly forgot to bring vitamins, and while I pretty much felt fine the whole trip, I'm definitely dragging a bit since I got back (though that could also be due to the large stack of ungraded final exams that await me).

I am (pretty much) back to being vegan in the states. We picked up some pecorino and pesto to have with the trofie pasta we brought back from Riomaggiore for dinner last night. And we went ahead and baked the chocolate chip cookie dough that has been in our freezer for many, many months. But by Monday I'm thinking I'll be back on the vegan wagon. And I'm looking forward to it -- the pesto in Vernazza was amazing and the soft cheeses at breakfast in Cortona were out of this world, but by the end of the trip I was pretty much done with dairy. And there is very little here in the alto that would make a convincing argument for eating cheese again. I think...