On Travel Part III

The final (and much more fun!) part.

Welcome to this week’s post, the third and final in a series of essays about travel, a topic that has been on my mind since we returned from Italy. You can read the first two here and here if you missed them! On Friday, paid subscribers will receive a recipe for pumpkin and chicken chili, a new favorite recipe around my house.

Here we are at our final post (for now!) about travel. As the weeks go by, our trip to Italy feels more and more like a fever dream from someone else’s life. Colin and I have talked for hours about trips like these, the ones we’ve been on that stretch for weeks, and how we can take threads of these experiences and weave them into everyday life. For me, you’ll be unsurprised to hear, those threads are often food-related.

I knew before I had even been to Italy that the way other cultures regard food was something that resonated with me, deep down in my bones. I’ve heard often that Julia Child said that she was meant to be born French, and I suspected that I might feel the same way about Italy. Of course, I did, but as I have yet to go to France (or, indeed, most other places in Europe and beyond), I don’t know that I feel so certain about a mistaken destiny as Julia did.

What I do feel certain about, though, is that living in Italy, even for such a short time, forces you to think differently about food. Food, in Italy, maybe in most places in Europe, is a wonderful, all-consuming, demanding way of life. And I love it.

Though I expected to come back with a catalogue of dishes I wanted to recreate, I instead found myself with a list of ways I want to replicate the cultural focus of food. I feel homesick for the way food and mealtimes dominate life and how that shifts the focus.

Here are the desires that I brought back from Italy: I want a fizzy, light drink with something salty in the afternoon. Then, for dinner, I want a plate of marinated vegetables and a glass of wine. Then, a long break before a plate of pasta, then another before a salad. I want something simple but sweet for after dinner: sumptuous fruit, intense chocolate, smoldering amaro, cloud-like cappuccino. I want to wonder if I’ve been forgotten in a corner or whether I’m meant to stay at the table, savoring my meal.

I want to spend all day cooking, planning, anticipating my meals. I want to get up in the morning and drown myself in espresso before wandering the aisles of a sprawling market. I want to decide what I’m cooking right then and there, staring at a pile of tomatoes larger than my couch, as I gather my Duolingo courage and my Euros. I want to be told in no uncertain terms that I have to try this kind of cheese, too. I want to demure, go home, and realize that I have been gifted a small piece of that cheese because missing out would be too tragic.

I want to be surrounded by strong opinions on every aspect of food. I want to be told, as I was by the woman who sold me bread, that I can only buy as much as I can eat in a day. I want to be looked at with abject horror, as I was by the fishmonger in Gaeta, when I try to buy seafood more than one day out from the dinner at which it will be served. I want to go back the next day to mollify his distress.

I want food to be the centerpiece in my life the way it is there. I want it to be the topic of conversation, the focal point. I want to be stopped in my tracks by a rack of golden pasta being lovingly caressed by a man with gray hair and kind eyes. I want to overhear impassioned arguments about which types of tomatoes are best for sauce.

I think some of this can only be fixed by going back to Italy (twist my arm). But I think some of it is available to me, here, in my every day life, with a simple change in perspective or attitude. This is what I crave, after a trip. This is the meaning of travel, the raison de voyager, so to speak. The takeaway, the tangible proof that we really did go to Italy. My emotional souvenir is a redoubling of my obsession with food and eating, and one that I will proudly wear on my sleeve as I dream of returning to a land where food shines brighter.

That’s all for our travel essay series! Thanks for sticking with me as I digest this wonderful trip. See you back here on Friday for chili, and next week for an essay on my favorite food: beans! As a reminder, if you love my travel photography and want it hanging in your home, you can buy it on Society6.