The beautiful and colorful streets of Rome, an already made ministrone soup mixture at the market, Italian shoes at Piazza Espangola!fthe

The most fun thing for me at all of these little markets is finding the true meaning of regional food. In the United States, the only experience we have with regional food is the asparagus festival in Stockton, wine in Napa Valley, and maybe a few things we find at farmer's markets. But peaches in Tahoe do not represent the region, as they most likely come from Sacramento somewhere (if we are lucky it came from that close by). In Italy, everywhere I went had something new featured on the menus, and the markets had a completely different array of food!

So in these pictures show how the long-stemmed purple artichoke comes from the southern-central area of Italy. And the grapes that will be shown are long, skinny, and look a little dimented. I have never seen these before, as these only exist in Italy and especially this area! Even the apperativo (with a buffet) was a specialty of Rome.

In Florence, I tried Papa di Pomodoro. This was a soup specialty only in Florence litterally made from basil, garlic, bread, and tomatoes! It was so simple, yet I will always think of Florence when I make it again. (Recipe below, definitely worth a try. Quick, easy, and AMAZING!) In Florence I also had cioccolotto, which is hot chocolate Italian style. It is so thick with hot chocolate that you need a spoon to eat it because it is almost like pudding. This you can ONLY find in Italy, I have never experienced anything quite like it in my life.

In San Fruttuoso (near Sestri Levante), they were famous for their pesto and something called "troffi". Troffi is a pasta that is made with some added potato, so almost gnocchi, but is skinny like pasta. It was created to perfectly retain the pesto onto the pasta.

And of course, in Cinque Terre, the sea food tomato/wine sauce spaghetti was a specialty there, considering it was on the sea. The mussels, clams, shrimp, and pine nuts (from the nearby pine trees) were all found likely within a mile or 2 of the restaurant where I was eating.

Even in Riomaggiore, the fifth town of Cinque Terre (the only one we got to explore), there was the specialty lemons called "Limones di Riomaggiore". There were lemon trees in almost every single backyard.

Pictures and videos of all of these are to come!