Grocery Shopping in ITALY for the First Time

Hi, I'm Harper. Ciao, I'm Eva. Welcome back to Pasta Grammar in Italy. We are about to do a job in Italy. We're here in Eva's hometown in Calabria and we don't know exactly how long we'll be here so I better get used to Italian life. And the first step is buying food. Back in the U.S. we've done several videos where Eva has learned the ins and outs of American grocery shopping and now it's time to turn the tables. She's brought me here to her local grocery store and I'm going to see what there is to eat in this town. So, Harper, are you ready for this big adventure? I think I can stomach it. Okay, so there's like a lot of different flour here. They're all specialized. It's like this one's for pizza, this one's for pasta. Nuvola? Nuvola means cloud, which means that the dough is very, very fluffy. Oh, and this is like Manitoba. We have that in the U.S., yeah? And as you can see, this is an American. Look at the pizza. Oh, yeah. Because here in Italy we don't grow the Manitoba, so this is the American and then this is the classical flour. Hey, look, it's my favorite sausage, pepperoni. Yep, sure enough, pepperoni in Italy means just bell peppers. Something is definitely drawing my eyes and my nose, which is the meat and cheese deli over here. I want to know what all of it is. You can ask whatever you want. Now, what would you like? Everything. Number one, okay, look at this. What is that? This is cheese outside and spicy Calabrian salami inside. Cheese and salami together. It reminds me of in the U.S., you know what a peanut butter and jelly sandwich is? Yes, I know. Well, everyone eats peanut butter and jelly together, so they finally just decided, let's just mix them together in one jar. Everyone keeps eating meat and cheese in their sandwich. Just put them together. What about this guy here? This is what we call a pancetta. Oh, so it's kind of like bacon. It's not bacon, Harper. This is completely different from your bacon. This looks interesting. It's a deep red and it looks very soft. What is that? Harper, that is the queen of the Calabrian salami or cold cuts. Because that is Nduja. That is the real one. And it's a fresh salami that you can easily spread on bread or on bruschetta. Should we try some? I think so. That is mozzarella. Then over there we have the ricotta. Sheep ricotta, which means that it's made by the milk of sheep. Because in the south of Italy, it's much more common to find the sheep milk instead of the cow milk. And here we have the burrata. So in my opinion, Harper, if I can suggest, we should try the ricotta. Because the ricotta in Italy is completely different from the ricotta in America. I'm in. Let's try it. Perfect. They're so cute. And they're delicious, Harper. Eva, you've got bagels. But they're like hard, stale bagels. No, Harper, they are not bagels. This is bread. We call it friselle. And I'm very excited that I can show you now how we eat this here in Italy. Sure enough, Eva told me back in the U.S. that cream cheese is a thing here. And you just call it Philadelphia, right? This, for us, is Philadelphia. Here we have the pasta section, of course. I'm actually a little surprised because most of what I'm seeing in terms of brands and stuff is actually pretty similar to what we have in the U.S. There's DiCecco. We've seen La Molesano. I've seen Rumo. Garofalo. So it doesn't look that different from what we have in America. But, Harper, here we have several shapes of pasta that you don't find in America. Look at this, Harper. What is that? These are called candele. But in a common language, these are ziti. This is ziti? This is the real ziti for us. And, Harper, we have the pastina. Oh, this is for kids, right? This is for kids. So our children, when they start to grow, they start to eat pastina. Train them young. And then, Harper, we have our original specialty. This is filet. It's a Calabrian pasta? It's a Calabrian pasta. It's unbelievably good. And the traditional recipe for this is with nduja. Or with the onions from Tropea. Or with beans. Oh, so this you would use for a pasta e fagioli. This is our pasta e fagioli. I recognize these. These are the ladyfingers that you use to make tiramisu, right? These are our savoiardi. The ladyfingers that they are ripe to make the tiramisu. But also in Italy we have this. Pavesini? Pavesini. So, if you want to make a tiramisu in Italy, you can be on the Pavesini team or on the Savoiardi team. Which is your favorite? Really? Yes, sure. Sorry. I'm learning all kinds of new things. So we're here in the coffee section. And correct me if I'm wrong, but it looks like the only option is espresso. It's the only coffee that exists in the world, Harper. This has to be one of the weirdest looking foods I've ever seen. What are these? This is a traditional cookie from Calabria. Their name is Nacatole. They are homemade. They are deep fried. And growing up these were one of my favorite cookies. So I take it that means we should try it. Absolutely yes, Harper. Harper, come here! This is the best cookie that you can have in Italy. Plasmon? Yes, Harper. This is a cookie for a child, for children. Every adult would love to keep eating just these cookies in Italy. So it's our secret desire. Okay, well if this is all Italian's secret desire, I should probably try it. I think so. Eva, what is this? This is the solution to the delicious Italian food. You drink this to digest. Do they sell this by the crate? Well guys, it's time to head home and try some of the goodies we got. I'm very excited, but first a quick word from today's video sponsor. These days, many people are finding themselves with some extra time on their hands. Why not use that time to learn a new skill, explore an old passion, and get creative? 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It's so adorable. So you're telling me that ricotta is very different in Italy, huh? Completely. You will try this and you will discover that you can't live without Italian ricotta. Buon appetito. Oh, wow. Yeah. That has a lot of flavor to it. In America, it's very bland. It's like, I like ricotta when you, for instance, mix it with sugar and make cannoli. But this is like, you can just... Eat by itself. Just eat it. I know. It has its own flavor that is very difficult to describe. Yeah. But this is the taste of the ricotta. It's hard to describe. Also, the texture is quite different. See, this is much more... The texture is more like American cottage cheese. Yes. It's not as smooth as American ricotta. That can be a meal right there. Should we try the Nduja next? This is the time for the queen of Calabria. Nduja. It looks amazing. It looks like unlike anything I've ever seen. It's red. It's very red. It's spicy. It's red. It's full of taste. Okay, right now we are going to make a very simple slice of bread with some Nduja spread on. But here in Calabria, we use the Nduja for pasta, for pizza, on the bread, for bruschetta. And you know what? We start to eat Nduja also with chocolate. Really? To recreate the spicy chocolate. I can see that. Chocolate and Nduja together. So it's technically a sausage, right? See? Because it's made by pork meat, salt, and spicy pepper. But you can like spread it on things. It's like a spreadable sausage. See? Because it's soft. It's not hard like the normal sausage that you find in a normal grocery shop. So, Harper, I'm glad that you're going to try for the first time your Nduja. Buon appetito. Wow. It's like a... It has a similar taste to like a Louisiana hot sauce, but in like a sort of soft, spreadable paste form. It's amazing. Pizza with this would be so good. Is there vinegar in it? No, it's pork meat, salt, spicy pepper. That's it. I can see this becoming like the next Sriracha sauce. I can see it too. The problem is getting it in the U.S. We found it once at Whole Foods, one brand. It's made in the U.S. And Ava was like, oh, let's get it. It's Nduja. And we tried it. And it was... First of all, it didn't look anything like this. It was brown. That was brown. The real Nduja is red. And it tasted horrible. It tasted like cat food. I was like, what? Why would you want to eat this? But obviously the real thing is amazing. Now you can understand why. Now I'm excited to try these. I guess they're cookies. These are our nacatoli. Nacatoli? Nacatoli. And these are my biggest sin every time I come back here. The shape is so bizarre. I don't really... I get how they make it. So they roll it around like a cannoli mold kind of. Yes. And fry it. But why is it this shape? And because it looks cool. This kind of shape. Come on. Fair enough. Buon appetito. That's very good. It's very, very good. It's not nearly as dry as I thought it would be. They look just kind of like dry biscuits. But they're actually... They're not maybe moist is the wrong word. But certainly not as sort of crumbly and dry as I thought. And they're not very, very, very sweet. But there's a lot of flavor in there. What is the dough made out of? The dough is made by flour, eggs, a little bit of white wine, some sugar, because as you said, they are not too sweet. Because our dessert are not too sweet. And they are fried. Nothing else. They are perfect. How do they stand up, though, to the... What did you call them? Dream of all Italians? The Plasmon children's biscuits? This is the cookie that every Italian child had as a child. They are simply the best cookie that you can find in all over the world. Hmm. It's not what I imagined the best cookie in the world looking like. But, buon appetito. Guys, they're animal crackers. We have the same thing. But they come in an animal shape. We have them, too. They're animal crackers. We have them, too. Yeah. They're similar, right? Not in Italy. I don't know. Not in Italy. They're a little different. I get a hint more of, like, cinnamon from these, I would say. And these are a little bit lighter. They're not as dense as our animal crackers. Not quite as dense. They're a little more wafer-y. But they're animal crackers. They're okay. I don't really get it. I would take one of these over that any day. Last up, we have our bagels. Friselle, Harper. No bagels. Fri-se-lle. They look like bagels to me. How do we eat them? They seem like a rock. I show you how we eat Italian friselle. Frisella. So it's kind of like a bruschetta. It's a kind of bruschetta, but it's made with this kind of bread. We decided to do this with cherry tomatoes because it's one of the traditional ways which you can eat frisella. But then you can decide also to put just some olive oil, spicy pepper, anchovies, some, for example, very good mozzarella. Important is that you do what we say, sponzare. Sponzare means put the frisella under the water so it becomes soft. Just add water. Buon appetito. Buon appetito, Harper. Mmm, that's very good. I thought the whole dipping it in water thing was kind of weird, but it's actually really good. Well, thanks for watching, guys. I hope you enjoyed joining me on my first look in a typical Italian grocery store. I think some of the products that we encountered along the way may be available online. I don't know for sure now, but in the description below, I will do my best to put links to what you can get in the US outside of Italy so that you can try them at home if you want to. We'll be back soon with another video, so stay tuned. Hit the subscribe button if you haven't already and follow us on social media at PastaGrammar. We'll see you next time. Ciao!