.jpg)
When you’re an Italian in an EVS program, your roommates are generally happy to have you around.
Why?
Because they suppose you know how to cook as a chef, Italy being famous also for its food.
So while they are already lost in a daydream made of steaming lasagna, creamy spaghetti alla carbonara, pizza of every flavor with delicious fresh ingredients and sweet, soft, tasty tiramisu, you stay in your corner, smiling awkwardly while they keep talking about the dishes they’d like to try, too embarrassed to step in and ruin this moment.
Because, actually, you can’t cook.
Maybe neither an egg.
At home I usually cook, but I’m used to prepare above all simple recipe that are far below the expectations of people here, so I know that sensation quite well.
Furthermore, we often have to cook in old kitchens, and that complicates things even more.
Imagine, for example, to use an oven without degrees on it.
So, if baking is already rocket science for you, just imagine how it will be funny doing it with these amazing tools.
Yes, dear reader, you who, notwithstanding your Italian blood, can ruin even ready-made meals, you who are the shame of your grandmas when it comes to kitchen stuff, will have the opportunity of cooking rice without a colander or trying to cook fish in an evil pan that will reach a billion degrees in two minutes.
Plus, you will have to be quick, very quick, since the others wants to cook, as well.
Does it remind you about something ?
Yes, it’s practically Masterchef or some other cooking show.
But you’re playing to merely survive.
My first dish in Craiova was a plate of watery rice and carrots I prepared without a colander, oil, spices or cheese.
Basically it was just water with boiled rice and pieces of carrots floating in it, something so sad that even after watching Lars von Trier’s Melancholia I felt less depressed than while eating that meal.
Useless to say, that evening I went to dine out.
To try traditional Romanian food, of course… but let’s say the truth, I couldn’t have had survived to another dish like that.
During the following days, between a lunch out here and an event there, I had barely the time to cook, and I tried a lot of traditional food from Romania and other Countries, discovering new flavors, recipes and ingredients that are pretty uncommon in Italy, such as different kinds of ciorba, a Romanian soup, cabbage salads and more.
Then, that day came.
It was my turn to cook something.
A part of me was eager to make some traditional recipes, so I decided for something pretty easy, a quick frittata di pasta, that basically is fried eggs with pasta inside.
Useless to say, something went awfully wrong.
I suppose it happens, when you decide to cook one kilo of spaghetti in seven eggs.
Since there was no oil, too, I fried eggplants in the butter.
The final result ?
A weird mix of pasta, burned vegetables and glue like eggs seasoned with disappointment.
Still, my roommates ate it, saying that it was delicious, and that they didn’t knew the original recipe, anyway.
That’s how I found out to have really good, kind roommates.
However, just when I almost gave up and sold my soul to fast food restaurants, I decided to try again.
After all, I was not so bad at home, so I made up my mind to manage to cook again, something at least eatable this time.
And it worked.
My first success was a simple recipe, just chicken and salad, but it was tasty enough to don’t make me regret I spent money for the ingredients.
Time passed, and recipe after recipe I became bold enough to try something new: I decided to try making pizza.
And it was a success.
It was perfect ?
Of course not, but it was a beginning.
The second one was better, the third better than the second, so I had the courage to offer it to my roommate, too.
For the fourth, I understood I had to change one of the ingredients, and the result was even better than the previous ones.
In the end, I didn’t forget how to cook, I just had to adapt to the new situation.
So, if you will be in trouble, too, here are some advice for you:
Keep it simple
If you’re just a beginner, don’t start with complicated stuff.
I know you’ll be missing the dishes you ate at home, but, unless you can already cook well,
keep in mind that changing tools adds more difficulties to the task. A lot more, if they’re
not so good ones or some of them are missing.
So, at least for the first days, just keep it simple and do easy, fast recipes.
When you’ll start to be used to your new kitchen, you’ll be able to make delicious dishes, with more ingredients and preparations.
Make a list of ingredients
Don’t just go to the market and buy random food.
Buy all basic ingredients you’ll certainly need every day, as salt, oil, sugar, flour, butter, spices, onion or garlic and so on.
Then, make a list of what you may need, thinking to the dishes you’d like to prepare for that week.
For instance, if you want to make some carbonara, you’ll need pasta, bacon and eggs, if you want to make a soup you’ll need totally different ones.
It’s surely easier (and smarter)doing this way than just buying things and trying to figure out how to use them when you have it already in the fridge.
Follow the recipe
It may seem quite obvious, but it’s not so.
Following the recipe, above all if you’re trying to bake something, is very important.
So, if you’re not doing the classical pasta or rice dish for which you take all the things you have in the fridge and put everything in a pan (that was my main source of nourishment during university years)be careful to follow the instructions step by step, above all regarding the doses. Little trick: if you don’t have a scale (and yes, probably you won’t have one) search for the equivalent doses measured in cups and spoons.
Maybe it won’t be perfect, but doing this way you’ll have something very similar to the original one.
Don’t be scared to try new things: learn new recipes !!!
Don’t limit your diet to the recipes you already know: now that you have to cook for yourself, you have the possibility to study and improve your cooking skills !
Try new recipes, accordingly to your skills, and don’t surrender if the results are not so good the first time.
Keep trying, and you will see the results.
You can’t eat ready-made dish every day, or always eat in restaurants, so is important for you and your health to learn to cook with fresh ingredients.
And, after all, this could be the best occasion: you’re surrounded by other volunteers coming from different Countries, who can teach you their own traditional recipes !
Last, but not the least, don’t assume that just because a person is Italian, he or she can cook as a pro.
Yes, there are two Italians volunteers here in Craiova who can cook very well, and I can assure you that their dishes are traditional and delicious, but, for instance, I can’t.
I mean, I learned how to flip a pancake just yesterday, during the activities in Ancaar centre.
So, keep enjoying our Italian food, but let’s also think out of stereotypes.
