Italian Autogrill: Slow Food Done Fast — Along The Roadside

@reuters
Italian Autogrill: Slow Food Done Fast — Along The Roadside

By Terra Brockman (Zester Daily)

“Great food” and “highway rest stop” are not phrases I would normally utter in the same breath. But that was before I experienced the Italian Autogrill.

At about 500 locations across Italy, you can get gas, go to the bathroom and then, very likely, have a better dining experience than at most Italian restaurants in the United States.

Perhaps you’d like to choose your steak from the glistening display of fresh meat, and tell the chef how you’d like it cooked. Or maybe the pasta station, with its many pots of boiling water waiting for your choice of pasta and sauce, is calling to you. How about a spaghetti alle vongole prepared while you wait? In those few minutes while the pasta is being cooked to perfection, and the clams are opening up in their white wine sauce, you might wander over to the antipasti station and choose a beautiful plate of prosciutto, mozzarella and arugula. Then, since you are in Italy, pick up a nice half bottle of local wine and settle in for what could very well be one of the best meals of your life.

The Autogrill offers not only great food but valuable insights into the values and priorities of a culture. Italians enjoy modern life, efficiency and convenience as much as anyone, but modernity and convenience need not compromise food. At the Autogrill, whether you go for the whole dining experience, or just grab a freshly made panino, you will get healthy, delicious food made with great ingredients and great care. It’s slow food fast. Or fast food slow. Either way, the Autogrill is where the fast life of the autostrada meets the Slow Food values of quality ingredients prepared with pride.

Now, like one of Pavlov’s dogs, I start salivating at the sight of the bright red swooping A of the Autogrill franchise, and make excuses to stop there more often than strictly necessary.

Capri Sandwich

Prep time: 10 minutes

Cooking time: None

Total time: 10 minutes

Ingredients

1 piece of focaccia, split in half, or 2 slices Italian, French or sourdough bread

Mayonnaise, to spread, as thickly or thinly as you like

Sprinkling of dried oregano

1 leaf of lettuce

1 thick slice of tomato

2 or 3 thin slices of prosciutto cotto

1 generous piece of fresh mozzarella, ideally from a fresh ball of mozzarella di bufala

Directions

1. Warm the bread in the toaster oven, taking it out before it’s actually toasted.

2. Swipe some mayonnaise on what will become the two inside parts of the sandwich and sprinkle with oregano.

3. Assemble your sandwich, starting with lettuce on the bottom, followed by the tomato, prosciutto and mozzarella.

The antipasti station at an Autogrill in Italy. Credit: Copyright 2016 Terra Brockman

Advertising

Start your day with National Memo Newsletter

Know first.

The opinions that matter. Delivered to your inbox every morning

Narcissist Trump Disdained The Wounded And Admired The War Criminal

Former President Donald Trump, Gen. Mark Milley and former Vice President Mike Pence

We’ve long known who Donald Trump is: narcissistic, impressed with authoritarian displays, contemptuous of anyone he sees as low status, a man for whom the highest principle is his own self-interest. It’s still shocking to read new accounts of the moments where he’s most willing to come out and show all that, to not even pretend to be anything but what he is—and holy crap, does The Atlantic’s Jeffrey Goldberg have the goods in his new profile of outgoing Joint Chiefs of Staff Chair Mark Milley, which focuses on Milley’s efforts to protect the military as a nonpartisan institution under Trump.

Keep reading...Show less
Ben Wikler

Ben Wikler

White House

From Alabama Republicans' blatantly discriminatory congressional map, to the Wisconsin GOP's ousting of a the states' top election official and attempt to impeach a liberal Supreme Court justice, to North Carolina's decision to allow the majority-Republican legislature to appoint state and local election board members, News from the States reports these anti-democratic moves have all recently "generated national headlines" and stoked fears ahead of the 2024 presidential election.

Keep reading...Show less
{{ post.roar_specific_data.api_data.analytics }}