Street Food

     It was the first day of class, and I was nervous as hell as always. However, the topic of the day is street food! I thought to myself "What an easy first day topic right"? Wrong. When it comes to Italian street food, they do it right. Every single dish is simple, yet complicated in the weirdest of ways.

Italian street food has a deep history from cannoli in Naples to piadina in Emilia-Romagna. Each region has a different street food that they feel represents them.

     When you think of street foods, you might think of some quick-fried food that takes all of five minutes to prepare. When it comes to Italian Street Food, however, everything was tricky and had a different flavor profile than what we actually believe is Italian food. Take the Arancini for instance, we have been conditioned to believe that it was just left over risotto that we throw together and deep fry, while still being the rice that is used to make risotto, was so damn complex that I couldn't believe my taste buds when I first bit into the delicious morsel. In the states, we just fill ours with some sort of cheese that we think is mozzarella, but here in Italy, they fill the damn thing with the most beautiful Ragu, local Mozzarella and Saffron. My tastebuds sparked back and forth after I tasted this food, and I loved every second of it. So far, so good!


Question of the day;
What outside influences, from surrounding countries are evident in the street foods of Italy? 
As we went into learning about Italian street food, I began to see the major cultural outside influences that affect Italian street cuisine. From the north, we see the many Germanic influences that came from the fall of rome. Many of the street foods offered revolve around both meat and dairy. From the South, we see many more dishes made from either fish or rice, with different legumes thrown in. These items are used heavily in Arabic culture, and came from both international trade during the Roman Empire and the Arabic invasion of the south post Roman Empire. Through both of these influences, we can see the contrast between cultures.