BellaOnline Forums Food and Wine Italian Food Italian Markets

Yum!

My daughter and I were talking about them last night. People who have not frequented specialty markets just do not realize how much good food is out there. We depend on the supermarkets but they don't carry everything, just a sampling. One store in the yogurt section carries 12 varieties. The other store carries only 6. I wonder what else is out there that we never get to try. While growing up in NYC, we shopped at a small A&P but frequented all the little shops - fish, butcher, bakeries, etc. They were wonderful. Prepared foods are OK but there is so much more to be had. After all those prepared foods are only one person's recipe.

Even outside the Italian Markets there are great foods available. I bought some great chicken & spinach sausages from Costco.

Yes, you can get good food in other places but there is an excitement in the atmosphere of any specialty market. Costco and other stores like it just doesn't have the same atmosphere although it is a market with all kinds of goods. I guess I feel that way because I don't get to a specialty market too often.

I think I purposely shop at my specialty Italian market to get the atmosphere I miss that I had when I was a child! It was wonderful to step into the little corner Italian deli shop, and smell as you walked in the combination of cheese,garlic, meats waife past your nose! The hanging salami, the singing of the deli man, I could just cry....such passion....While I do shop at other stores, but the first chance I get to get those "old days" feelings back I go and I spend!

Mary Caliendo
Tea Editor

Mary, you hit the nail on the head. The smells, the look, the feel of the market -

I remember hearing the chatter of people of talking, barrels of olives. And the deli-man telling my dad to reach in with the scoop and get some for the kids! We would squeal with joy as my dad handed us handfuls each of olives.

And of course my dad loaded up italian sausage,other meats and salami,and ricotta cheese! My mom made lasagna, and we were chubby, happy child immersed in an innocence of culture!

Yummy days gone by!
Mary Caliendo
Tea Editor

Yes, we were innocent and enjoyed every minute of the culture. We soaked it in. When I left NY that is the one thing I missed, the little shops, the wonderful variety of foods, and the culture - all the ethnic varieties that were there.

Angie, this is why I keep telling my kids all the goffey stories about growing up & Sunday Gravy dinners- because thay are no more and at least when they grow up they can repeat to their own children the way things used to be!

Progress has to happen, and it is too bad that so much gets lost along the way!

Mary Caliendo
Tea Editor

Yes, keep the stories alive. I do the same thing here. It's the only way to keep our heritage alive.