Here I am again from NY state!
I’ve been here now for 6 months and in only 4 I’m going back to Italy! It’s crazy isn’t it???
Staying for so long in a foreign country, as a foreign student I got the chance to make some observations about this culture and their costumes. I am a food LOVER, so I got to try very many different dishes because as we all know Americans don’t really have their own cusine but they have a mixture of different recipes from all over the world that are then americanized. My favorite one is french toast for breakfast with maple syrup and orange juice! You’ve no idea how good that is! It’s like bread put in some mixture of eggs, sugar, cinnamon and vanilla and then cooked on the stove in order to make it crunchy! After that you spread some butter on it and then you pour a lot of maple syrup to make it even sweeter!!! It’s sooo good!!!! Something else that is very good, but not for breakfast, is the meat loaf: its a mixture of beef meat, onions, potatoes and cheese (I know it sounds gross, but listen, it’s delicious once you taste it!) cooked in the oven. After it’s cooked for like 20-30 minutes, you pour some ketchup on it and you eat it! It’s really good! Some vegetables that you can find and cook in a delicious way are squashes and eggplants! My host mom cooks them in the oven with just some olive oil and salt and they come out very very very well!!! Oh, I found an amazing salad made of lettuce, dried cranberries, almonds and blue cheese! Guys it’s fantastic!!! These are only some ideas…hehe… if you come here and they ask you if you want some Italian dressing for your salad say yes even if you’ve no idea of what they’re talking about.. our dressing is just salt olive oil and maybe some vinegar…just erase what you were thinking of YOUR Italian dressing and take the one they have…it’s really good! It’s like a mixture of olive oil, balsamic vinegar, salt and lots of herbs and garlic…it’s delicious!
The pizza is pretty good too, but here they almost know only the one that we call “alla diavola” that here they call pepperoni pizza, when the peppers are not on it at all!!!
The ice cream is very good but very different from ours guys…first of all just the smallest cup is like our medium or even our biggest one! Then they have all the bases and you can choose which ingredients to put in it (kind of like when you order the frozen yogurt) and they mix them with the base you choose on a cold stone making the mixture something really smooth and soft! The product is awesome!!!
After this full description of good and fat food one would expect fat and huge teenagers… WRONG!!! Because the problem is that here lots of them are even thinner than us Italians guys!!! Especially the girls…all so skinny and sexy!!! Before living Italy I thought I would have had all fatter friends than me…WRONG!!! All of my good friends are way skinnier than me! You’d say then, do sport, Americans are famous to do lots of sports! And guess what? I DO lots of sport! It’s now 6 months I practice every single day…and still I gained weight! Guys, listen to me… no matter how many sports you do or how much you eat..it’s all about metabolism! And it’s really sad… but I also learned that I can like myself for what I am and if people like me that’s good, if they don’t, it’s not my loss! I’m really growing up here, and I’m getting to know who really loves me and who is just playing and having fun… It’s a really GREAT experience and I won’t ever stop saying it. It makes you grow and think more about human beings and the world. I already told you guys, I don’t know if you get this totally, you REALLY need to try this experience to know exactly what I’m talking about! And if you don’t, well, just try your best to know the people around you and to get everything you can from them!”
Chiara Broggi (4A)
Corrispondente dell’Umbertimes da N.Y – USA