Visiting Salerno
(Italy) by Savvy Mom Ruth Paget
We went to Salerno (South of Naples) to look for a more bucolic place to stay than Naples on our vacation.
When
the train came in to the station, we found out that as in France, August the 1st
is the beginning of a month-long vacation exodus to the South of a country. The train resembled a sardine can, because
there were so many people in it.
We
hopped in and held on around the curves going to Salerno. I lost balance a few times along with some
other people standing on the train. I
just laughed knowing the tickets were oversold.
Absolutely
no one in Salerno spoke English. I was
able to get directions in Italian. At
the tourism bureau, Laurent spoke in German to find out the names of some
hotels.
Everything
was full except for a place about 2 miles outside of town. I was willing to go there after lunch in an
air-conditioned restaurant. We found a
fast-food place called Golden Burger and ate there.
I
knew all my walking would burn off the fat in those fries in no time and ate
every last one of them.
After
eating, we walked to the hotel, which was about two miles away from the train
station. We made our reservations and
looked around our neighborhood. There
were many apartments and markets in this area.
Salerno’s streets were also very clean.
(When I was growing up in Highland Park (an enclave inside Detroit)
Michigan, the streets were cleaned every two weeks for public health measures.
There
was a famous Medieval medical school in Salerno that focused on nutrition and
commissioned tucinae paintings showing the Mediterranean Diet of their
day. Clean streets for walking to the
market must have come down from this period.
The
next day, we changed hotels from Naples to Salerno, which required taking a
full train again and bus out to our hotel.
We stood with our suitcases and swayed around the curvy mountains down
to Salerno.
We
unloaded our bags, took cold showers to deal with the heat, and went out to buy
some yogurt. We ate and slept until 4:30
p.m. Laurent went out and bought
roll-up, reed mats for the beach.
After
swimming, we rested on our mats and watched the sun go down.
As
we were going out for dinner, the hotel managers invited us in for a glass of
sweet, white wine and slices of watermelon.
They were happy that a couple on their honeymoon had come to stay in
their hotel – The Hotel Suisse. Laurent
and our hotel managers chatted away in German.
We
went to the restaurant next door where Laurent ordered spaghetti all carbonara
with proscuiutto or pig’s cheek as the ingredient depending on the supply in
the local region.
This Italian version of this dish is good, but
I like my American better. I fry up a
ton of bacon until crispy, drain it, and chop it up. (Pancetta is bacon without
salt added or pork bellies.)
I add grated parmesan or gruyere and cream to
the bacon and serve this over spaghetti or whatever cooked pasta I have on
hand. (I know the value of the
commissary.)
I
ate large cannelloni filled with ricotta cheese while Laurent regaled himself
with deluxe pork.
Then,
we ate a light summer entrée of seafood salad with octopus, shrimp, scallops,
and mussels in a lemon-and-oil dressing.
I
went to sleep on a full stomach all happy with a real Italian seafood
meal.
By
Ruth Paget, author of Eating Soup with Chopsticks and Marrying France
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