Jul 5, 2007

Italian Antipasti/Appetizers

Pizza – pasta – pancietta – gelato – panini – limoncello - bruschetta – prosciutto - and more ....

Now I am back home from Italy. I am back home from Rome, where I have spent some lovely weeks. Well, the hot weather was not always enjoyable. The well equipped apartment at 4th floor of an ancient building (without elevator) was located only a few steps from Piazza Campo de´ Fiori.

Piazza Campo de´Fiori is perhaps the most famous of Rome's many markets. Here you can buy all your fresh fruit and vegetables. This is a square with many faces. In the morning: A colorful food market. In the mid-afternoon: The garbage trucks arrive and the square is cleaned by a large team of street cleaners. The garbage trucks generates very high noise levels. Late afternoon: Rather quite. At night: A very lively place with its bars, pizzerias, restaurants, street musicians, clowns and mime artists.

There was a historic food (butcher) shop (Antica Norcineria Viola), located on the ground floor of the old house where I was staying. This food shop have an excellent selection of cold cuts, and good Italian antipasti meats. "Sausage curtains" were hanging over the counter. The nice man behind the counter was very generous, and offered free taste of Italian pork sausages.

Antipasti

Antipasti party

A lot of Italian dishes are of the quickly cooked, promptly eaten variety, and Italian dinners often begin with an antipasti. One night we visited a Vineria, ordered and had "antipasti ". However, afterwards we were too stuffed. There was no room in our stomachs for "secondo piatti" (main course) and "dolche" (dessert).

Italian meat antipasti

Italian cheeses

Next time I am inviting friends for a late evening snack, I am planning to invite them to an "Italian Antipasti Party".

INGREDIENTS:

* A plate with assorted Italian cheeses.
* Assorted thinly sliced meats, such as salami, prosciutto and Parma ham.
* Small bowls with marinated olives.
* Red Italian wine.
* Lots of fresh bread, and a fruity olive oil, of course.

©2007 This post was created by Karin at My Recipes http://minareceptsamlingar.blogspot.com and has not been approved for use by any other site.

4 comments:

Patricia Scarpin said...

Karin! How great to have you back! :D

I would love to take part in this late evening snack of yours. :)

Karin said...

It´s great to be back, Patricia.

I am a true cheese lover, and those Italian cheeses were great. It´s a pity, I always get a heartburn when I eat too much cheese, and I had left my Novalucol at home.

Cynthia said...

Glad you had a good time Karin. I've heard that antipasti parties are great. Looking forward to pics of when you host your party.

Karin said...

Cynthia: Well, I don´t think there will be any party pictures. I don´t feel comfortable with posting private pictures (for security reasons). They are cached by search engines for ever, and you can never be too cautious. Internet is not a safe world. Someone can "lift" the pictures off my blog and use them in whatever way they want.