Quinto di Maggio

One of the few things we miss about the US is Mexican food. We have yet to find a Mexican restaurant in Italy. Three of the Americans on the team are from San Diego, so they have also been going through Mexican food withdrawal. To satisfy our cravings we decided to throw a Mexican fiesta potluck in honor of Cinco de Mayo. Taber and I decided we would make tacos...little did we know that trying to find the ingredients for tacos would take us to every grocery store in Reggio. We woke up early, with grocery list in hand, and headed to the grocery store down the street from us. At first, we had no problem finding everything on our list, lettuce, tomatoes, limes, onion... Besides only finding unripened, rock hard avocados, we had no problem in the produce section. Then came the cheese, sour cream, tortillas, and spices...not such a breeze. Italy has amazing, delicious, fresh cheese, and SO many options . What Italy does not have to pre-shredded "Mexican" cheese. There was not a pre-shredded cheese among the hundreds of top quality Italian cheeses. Eventually, we found a "Provolone Picante" (spicy provolone) that I would later shred. Shredding cheese is not a tough chore, unless you are shredding cheese for 10 (including 7 hungry baseball players). Next on the list came sour cream...again no sour cream in sight. The spices gave us the same issue, we settled on chili powder, salt, and pepper. While looking for canned chilies, we found sour cream! It was called "Mexican Soured Cream" and cost 5 euro for a small (no, tiny) jar. The tortillas ended up being quite an easy task. The tortillas here are not authentic tortillas, but the different taste is hardly recognizable. They are a little thicker and break easier than tortillas we are use to, but still tasty. We picked out some chicken, making sure it was actually chicken and not horse, and headed home. Yes, they sell horse meat here. Dusty, our roommate, had to go pick ingredients for his 7 layer dip, so I tagged along in hopes of finding sour cream that did not come in a jar. After three grocery stores, it was clear I was not going to complete my mission. I settled on plain yogurt and spiffed it up with hot sauce. Dusty was unable to find avocados softer than a baseball, so he boiled them in hot water to make it possible to cut them. He also had to buy a taco making kit to get taco seasoning and taco sauce. Abe, a pitcher on the team, also boiled his avocados and put them in a blender to mash them up for the guacamole. His guacamole was from an old family recipe...even with unripened avocados it was delicious.
Despite the lack of Mexican ingredients Italy has, every dish turned out fantastic. We did not start the party until close to midnight (the team did not get out of practice until 10:30) but it was worth the wait. Our Mexican food cravings have been fulfilled.
Thanks to Reggio's limited Mexican food resource, we now know how to get to and our way around every grocery store in town. Judging by the empty bowl, yogurt with hot sauce is a good topping for tacos.
We have been out riding our bikes and enjoying the nice weather, not too many new adventures to write about...which is why we are able to write a long post about our Cinco De Mayo experience. Next weekend Reggio is playing in Parma. It is only 15 minutes away and suppose to be a great city. We are looking forward to it.