My wife and I had just flown from Los Angeles to Milan, and then we drove a car from Milan to Turin. We had been traveling for about 20 hours straight including cars, planes, and waiting at airports and I was exhausted, grumpy, and hungry. We were in a strange place where we knew nothing and we were barely able to navigate through the unfamiliar and confusing street layouts of cities designed before there were cars and people who knew how to design cities. Usually when we eat in a new place, we do lots of research and make sure we select carefully, so we don’t have a disappointing food experience. After 20 hours of travel, we didn’t care that much and asked the person who checked us in at the hotel for his recommendation. He told us there is a really nice fish place around the corner that he goes to all the time for dinner, and that a friend of his was the owner. So I thought “what the hell…I just need calories. It’s Italy, how bad could it be?” Little did I know that I was headed to one of the most memorable eating experiences I have ever had, that caused me to see the world in a different way. That’s a pretty big thing, and it might be slightly exaggerated, but on to the food.
The Fish and Chips
Fish and chips has never been an extraordinary ‘omg’ food experience. I remember eating frozen fried fish sticks when I was a kid, and if it wasn’t for the fried part it would have been terrible. As an adult, fish and chips is still fun because you get the fried part, and you can always dip it in tartar sauce, or vinegar, and it becomes satisfying street food, or pub food, but nothing more really. Certainly nothing to gush about or crave except when you’re drinking or drunk. My perception of fish and chips all changed with a few bites from what Sciamadda served us, and what unsuspecting locals eat on a regular basis, not knowing that they have the Harry Potter of fish and chips in walking distance. Let me try to describe what made it so special for me. All other fish in the fish and chips will generally have a firm texture, so when you bite into it, you can sense the fishy texture. It’s fish right, so there should be a fishy texture.
What was different with this fish and chips was that there was very little fish texture when you would bite into it. Instead, it was a dreamy fish flavored buttery soft boiled egg type texture, but it was all fish. What I thought was acceptable for fish and chips before vanished in a few instances, and was replaced with a new understanding of what fish and chips could be. I was left puzzled, and I’m still puzzled to this day why we can’t find this in the US. Later in the chip, er trip, we would eat in Rome, and I was curious to see if this was a common way to prepare fish and trips. The restaurant in Rome prepared it the same way, with the soft fish texture on the inside of a crispy outer battered shell. I hope that someone who reads this can explain to me how this is accomplished, because I NEED to know.
The Minestrone
I’m really not a soups kind of guy. Sure I can enjoy the occasional tomato bisque, and chicken noodle soup when I have the flu, but soups don’t get my food soul excited quite like a dry aged perfectly cooked filet does. That also changed after a few spoonfuls of the minestrone from Sciamadda.
What made it so special is that the vegetables that were used for the soup were remarkably flavorful and vibrant. It hurts to think about all the canned soup I ate in my childhood and how dull, bland, boring, and flavorless it was. It was calories and salt, and nothing else. But this minestrone was alive with freshness, and I came to understand that the restaurant was using local produce from the Piedmont area of Italy, and this was about as farm to table as it can get. I’m sure there is some kind of metaphor or allegory for how life can turn so many of us into dead cans of flavorless soup, while a few of us get to live lives bursting with local flavor and vibrancy just like this minestrone soup. But that’s a little complicated because I don’t want to compare human lives to a bowl of soup. Instead I will simply marvel at how my food soul was glowing after this meal.
Everything Else
Of course the restauant served more than just fish and chips and minestrone. We also had pizza, scallops, ravioli, octopus, and a really nice tiramisu which were all equally flavorful and satisfying, and a great way for Italian food to say ‘hello’ to us. This helped to set the food mood for the rest of the trip. If I knew that these fish and chips and minestrone soup would be at the end of 20 hours of traveling, I might be a little less grumpy.
