Low-cost midlife crisis

I needed to go to Genova to take care of some train reservation business (the interrail app is seriously rubbish for reservations. It is, as I’m sure the kids say, a crapp. I will put together a list of all the things that people wanting to do interrail should be aware of. But not today). So a few of us set off for an afternoon in the big city.

I didn’t know much about Genoa. I knew it was really important historically – Christopher Columbus, Andrea Doria, Roberto Mancini and all that, but it never seems to feature as a tourist destination, unlike most other large Italian cities. But it’s bloody great. Some seriously impressive buildings, an amazing setting, and a real lively buzz.

Here, however, I’m about to do something surprising and criticise Italian food. Before I start I want to make clear that I love Italian food. If it makes any sense to talk about a national cuisine at all, then I might go as far as to say that Italian is my favourite such cuisine. But, Italy needs to have a long hard look at itself when it comes to sandwiches. It’s baffling. They make some good bread, they have delicious ingredients, and a real love of good food. And yet they make these godawful “tramezzini” things. Shit bread, shit fillings. Why? Is it a kind of pride thing? “We didn’t invent these sandwich things so we’re not going to make any effort to make them nice”. They even cut the crusts off the bread. Weird.

We were caught out by the eating hours thing and as we hadn’t sat down to lunch by 3 it was too late (that’s on me, obviously. I think it’s entirely reasonable that kitchen staff have a break), and as a result the only thing left for a non-cheese eater to eat, was the dreaded tramezzini. I don’t know how many times I’ve been forced into these things. But this, I swear, was the last. Sort it out, Italy. You’re better than this. You can buy bad sandwiches in most countries, but none of them are quite as bad as the tramezzini…