A Broad in Venice: Five Star Food at the Freshest Prices

Eating is not only a general requirement for human survival, it is a primary source of enjoyment for many of us. We indulge in tasty treats, foot the bill for luxurious three-course meals and look the other way at massive grocery bills.

When it comes to obtaining your sustenance on a vacation, typically your only option is to eat out. (Unless you are a crafty penny saver and thought to make a week’s supply of sandwiches before departing.)

When I first arrived for my five weeks studying abroad in Italy I was forced to live this lifestyle, racking up huge tabs at various pizza-pasta joints around Venice.

While this was delicious, in just a few days it became clear that I would not be able to enjoy this luxury for very long.

Now, settled into my apartment with 13 other IU students, we have all started to learn the tricks for eating well and eating cheap while studying abroad.

My first word of advice, stop eating out. In a tourist town like Venice, every restaurant is unreasonably expensive. In Europe it is not customary to leave a tip for your server, so the extra price is worked into the bill. Serving here is a profession, not your part time college job, so servers rely on higher wages, not gratuity.

Cutting out high class dining doesn’t mean sacrificing top quality food. Our apartment, provided by IU, has a fully functioning kitchen for all of us to share.

Within the first days we located the local grocery store, called the Billa, and loaded up on all of the essentials for breakfast, lunch and dinner. I purchased a week’s worth of food for the equivalent of two meals eaten at any local restaurant.

By “week’s worth of food,” I don’t mean packs of Ramen and cereal. In Italy all things fresh and healthy are actually the most affordable. While trolling the aisles of the Bloomington Kroger, I load my basket with Hamburger Helper and other budget friendly items, while mournfully passing the majority of the produce section.

Here it is the complete opposite, fresh and exotic fruits and vegetables have become the focal point of every meal. In the morning I make sandwiches with fresh cheese and tomatoes. For lunch I dine on peaches, pears, plums and strawberries of a quality I have never enjoyed before.

And dinner, let me tell you about dinner! With so many people in one apartment it would be impossible and unreasonable for each of us to attempt to make our own dinner. It would be a case of too many cooks in the kitchen to the extreme. Group dinners not only save us time and money, but have also proven to be a great bonding activity.

If every person pitches in one small element of the meal no one spends too much, and we can make complicated and delicious dishes. We have also begun dividing the tasks between prepping, cooking and cleaning so no one gets stuck doing too much.

And if the grocery store seems too far out of the way, or just not fresh enough, this whole island is teeming with markets.

Just outside our scuola, street vendors have stands selling the freshest produce available on the island. In the mornings at the Rialto Bridge, dozens of vendors set up stands to sell produce and fish, plucked fresh from the ocean.

We explored this particular market in an attempt to find a delicious bit of fish to cook up. I shopped around the various vendors until I located my crown jewel: a massive salmon fillet for the price of 11 euro.

To go with this beautiful beast we obtained fresh asparagus, zucchini, eggplant, tomatoes, garlic and peppers all within the confines of this Rialto market.

All of our fresh market goodies were less than 20 euro and prepared a five-star meal for an apartment full of hungry students.

During your abroad experience take advantage of the local cuisine, find what is fresh in your area and perfect the art of collaborative cooking. You wont break the bank, and you will return home a more cultured chef, a course load you didn’t even realize you were signing up for.

­— kaycohe@indiana.edu