Turin – Food Shopping Adventures

Since Turin is a city, there are no shortage of grocery stores.  We’ve been here for several months now and have discovered stores that satisfy all of our needs and wants.  When we first moved here, we just frequented the regular grocery stores, as we had too many other important issues to handle.  But, now that we have more time, we have set out to discover all the ‘Mom & Pop’ shops.

Our nearest large grocery store is Lidl – a 10 minute walk.  It is a German grocery chain, however, here it has mostly Italian products.  (We had a Lidl in North Raleigh that had both American and German products). Here, as in the States, it carries mostly off-brand products with only a few brand-name ones.  We found their produce to be very good, as most are grown locally or within other regions of Italy.  Here in Italy, unlike the States, vegetables are seasonal. Certain produce are not year-round, with the exception of imported red peppers from Spain.  Prices are quite low, even on brand-name items.  We usually buy our paper products, olive oil (our favorite is Molini brand), milk, butter,  and eggs at Lidl.  We have also purchased chicken and sausage and found it to be very good.

Animal products, in general, are all raised in Italy. No matter if you shop in a grocery store or at the Farmer’s Market, everything is weighed, including iceberg lettuce and celery.  Items are typically not sold as ‘a head’.  You also have to wear plastic gloves to handle the produce.  You weigh the produce, and place the price tag label on it, not the cashier.  Though there are still exceptions where the cashier weighs it.

There is a HUGE grocery chain store called IperCoop that we had discovered while staying in the AirBnb.  Now that we have moved to our long-term apartment, it is quite a distance away.  We now have to walk and take a tram to get there, which takes approx. 50 minutes roundtrip.   We do go once in a while, as we find their prices to be competitive.  When I say HUGE, it is big, even by US standards.  It is like a Super Walmart or Super Target.  It has a pharmacy, electronics, and gardening section, besides the usual bakery and butcher.  Their produce is great – Farmer’s Market fresh.  I wish it were closer, as it would be our go-to grocery store.  I am going to digress here a little bit – the IperCoop reminds me a lot of when I was growing up and I would go shopping with my Mom to Shop-Rite in Hudson.  Hudson had a large Italian-American population, so we were able to buy items in-store, that we were never able to find once we moved to North Carolina.  Of course, in Italy, we see these very same items that aren’t in your average American grocery store. Yes, we’ve eaten them all!

There are also numerous mini-markets throughout the city, equipped with meat, produce, etc. – just on a smaller scale than a regular grocery store.  We don’t purposely go to them, but when we are out and happen to see one, we stop in to see if there is anything we may need or what they are offering.

Our all-time favorite is the outdoor Farmer’s Market.  Our closest one is about a 15 minute walk in the San Salvario area of Turin on Via Madama Cristina.  It is open every day, except Sunday.  (Stores are closed on Sunday, except for Lidl).  There are many Farmer’s Markets throughout the city.  This happens to be our closest one and it is big enough to have everything we need. Besides produce vendors, there are cheese, meat, bakery, fish and flower vendors.  Everything is grown locally in the countryside outside of Turin.  The vendors bring their produce of the day and it is all so fresh! My favorite so far are Piccadilly Tomatoes.  They have the most intense fresh-from-the-garden taste!  It is more of an effort to shop at the Farmer’s Market, due to having to speak (a bit in) Italian!  Remember, no pounds here! Everything is in kilograms, (2.2 pounds= 1 kilogram).  You are not allowed to touch the items.  You have to tell the vendor which one you want, or how much.  If you touch produce, you will get yelled at.  Ask me how I know 🙂

Squash flower blossoms are one of my favorites.  Again, my Mom used to make them. Of course these are seasonal, as the squash are picked very early.  The squash are so tender and the blossoms are delicious.  Erick had them for the first time and enjoyed them too. We also purchased fresh Agnolotti pasta – a Piemontese specialty.  They can be stuffed with a variety of fillings, including horsemeat, beef, rabbit, pork or veal with spinach.  I didn’t ask the vendor what filling was in the ones I purchased; maybe I should have, but it was delicious anyway!

After we leave the Farmer’s Market, we usually head to the bakery nearby.  Who doesn’t love the smell of freshly baked bread? We go to Panificio Ficini Valter on Via Claudio Luigi Berthollet.  Everything is weighed in Italy and I mean EVERYTHING.  You don’t pay for one loaf of bread – instead it is weighed.  I don’t have pictures of bread. I guess it gets eaten up too quickly.  For a large ciabatta, you will only pay about €1.20 (approx $1.34).  Even in Lidl, they bake bread and it is super cheap and delicious.  For a baguette, you will get charged €.39 (approx $.44). Bread shops here also make slices of pizza and panini. It is all so delicious.  Another bakery we go to, which is a 10 minute walk from home is Perino Vesco on Via Cavour.  They are all amazing!

Next stop is the butcher.  Erick and I are not huge meat-eaters, however the meat is so lean and fresh here, that we always want to buy something.  Chicken breasts are truly a deep yellow color.  All the beef is so lean and tender.  Of course, they will cut everything to order. We go to the one closest to the Farmer’s Market – it doesn’t have a name.  It literally just says “Macelleria” on the outside sign. Right now, I can’t even think what street it is on.  There are butcher shops closer to our apartment, so I’m sure we will visit some others soon.  They are all so crowded (including the bread shops) that it is difficult to take photos and I don’t want to get yelled at 🙂

Now to talk about foods that we are used to buying in the US – I cook a lot of Italian-American food, but there comes a time we want something different.  We were in Conad (another grocery store that we really like) one day when Erick spotted some fixins to make Tacos! That is one thing I like about living in a city in Italy – better access to other ethnic foods that you wouldn’t ordinarily find in smaller towns.  Lidl from time to time will do an “American” week or “Mexican” week, but since we’ve been here, have not seen it.  Well, we didn’t have to wait for “American” week! Conad has taco soft shells, and salsa ALL the time! No brand-name items but they tasted just as good.  There was no taco seasoning, but we substituted chili seasoning instead – it worked!

Another food item that is difficult to find here are pierogies.  They are a great alternative to potatoes, rice and noodles.  Thankfully for Google, I found a grocery store called Mix Markt. This time a 20 minute walk took us to this (Eastern)European/Middle Eastern/Russian market.  It had items of course that we had never seen before nor could identify! 🙂  We found potato pierogies from Austria – Bingo!  The highlight of this grocery store were these cans of fish or should I say cans of crap! 🙂

We believe this is Carp (misspelled) in a can – goldfish? Who knows?  Imported from Portugal.  Either way, Crap or Carp, no thank you!