This is Part 2 of a series of travel stories in Italy from Katie Martin. Venezia – first stop after finding our accommodation was a supermarket. Having done our homework, we knew there were no dedicated gluten free (GF) restaurants in Venice, but there was a GF shop – MEA Libera Tutti. It was such joy to wander in and be greeted by a big smile and shelves of GF goodies. The owner also helped us out with details of which restaurants were safe to eat in Venice. We bought some delicious gf pasta and other goodies from this shop, mince and tomato paste from the supermarket and back to our apartment to make Spag Bol. This somehow tasted different than the spag bol we often made in NZ. Much more delicious with more flavour. Another night in Venice we made homemade pizza with delicious bases purchased from the GF shop – yum…. One day, for lunch, I found some rocket and lettuce at a vegetable stall and grated some Parmigiano Reggiano over the top. Another popular homecooked dish was egg bread – to use up the stale GF bread we were travelling with; beat up a couple of eggs, add a dash of milk and salt and soak the bread. Amazing how some bread soaks the mixture up and other doesn’t… Then fry in butter.
We did try to eat out once in Venice. Tom really wanted to have his first go at a real Italian pizza – none of this homemade stuff…. He ordered a margherita pizza and I ordered a pasta carbonara (Hugh had a plateful of octupus….). I was handed a plate full of very delicious looking pasta – which looked exactly like the non GF option my husband had so just to double check “is this gluten free?” “Oh, no it’s not, did you order GF?” My goodness, that could have been a disaster. I had indeed ordered GF, in fact I had made a big song and dance about it, when we booked our table, when we first sat down and again when we ordered, checking that the pasta was cooked in clean water etc… A reminder to ALWAYS check before eating. I do think it might have ruined our trip…. Tom’s pizza was obviously GF and they assured us it was. They were very appalled at this near disaster and very apologetic. The good news is that neither of us had any symptoms. So the food they had served us was indeed free from cross-contamination.
On our final night in Venice we decided to splash out and buy a drink at one of the restaurants in Piazza San Marco. Each fanta costs $NZ30. Needless to say, we didn’t stay for another.
Article provided by Katie Martin, a member of the Coeliac New Zealand Board. Photo credit: Tom Martin.
