After a group trip to the market where our friends selected their ingredients, they took them back to their kitchen to cook. The markets in Italy are significantly smaller than those in the United States, and most of the food is fresh. Once in the kitchen, the sauce was made with vegetable broth. Our friends boiled celery, onions and carrots to create this broth. Once the water had absorbed the flavors of the vegetables, they added the rice. This way, the rice was flavorful, and the process added a purple color thanks to the onions! The whole process took about twenty minutes. While the rice was cooking, the sausage was prepared on the stove before being added to the rice once everything was fully cooked. The risotto and sausage made up our main dish! On the side, we had roasted vegetables. They were all fresh from the market; my friends in the food program cut them, added locally made olive oil and then put them in the oven. Then, we simply had to wait for everything to cook! The final step was to add the bread to our plates. The crostini was purchased from the bakery, and we added olive oil when we ate it to make it even more flavorful. Finally, with risotto, vegetables and crostini, our meal was complete.
Yes, the food was connected to the local environment! All of my classmates and I went to the market to select our food. We visited an indoor market, where we found a variety of options, including processed and packaged items, such as pre-made crostini, as well as completely fresh produce. We also visited an open-air market.
