This past Saturday (I know this is long overdue), I went on an art history field trip to Ravenna, a small city outside of Florence known for it’s fabulous early-christian frescos. The frescos were absolutely breathtaking. I found that I constantly had to remind myself of what I was looking at: thousands of tiny pieces of glass stuck onto wall after enormous wall, tomb after tomb…all by hand. It was truly mind-blowing and humbling to stand in a church covered in one of the earliest, most beautiful, colorful, and surprisingly abstract art forms. Little did I know, however, that the city of Ravenna was also known for something else: Piadine. Piadine are similar to pita bread in that they are round and flat, but they are saltier and oilier, and are the perfect blanket in which one can bundle up classic, local flavors. “La Piadina” (original name I know) is known to be the best place in town to get these bundles of salty goodness so I naturally stopped by for lunch. In this tiny little place, once you have placed your order, the chef takes a piadina off of a tall stack of them and gently places it on the open grill along with the others that are already cooking and then fills it with your whatever you ordered. If they run out, someone shouts something very loudly and quickly in Italian up to the second floor and instantaneously a fresh stack of piadine are lowerd down in a basket on a pully system. It was the best bread basket I have ever seen. Anyway, I ordered roasted pork, which is very unlike me, but I thought to myself “when in Rome...or Ravenna.” It was a good decision.
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| Le Piadine ready to be placed on the grill |
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| Holding my savory roast pork piadina |
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| A doorknob |
This past Saturday (I know this is long overdue), I went on an art history field trip to Ravenna, a small city outside of Florence known for it’s fabulous early-christian frescos. The frescos were absolutely breathtaking. I found that I constantly had to remind myself of what I was looking at: thousands of tiny pieces of glass stuck onto wall after enormous wall, tomb after tomb…all by hand. It was truly mind-blowing and humbling to stand in a church covered in one of the earliest, most beautiful, colorful, and surprisingly abstract art forms. Little did I know, however, that the city of Ravenna was also known for something else: Piadine. Piadine are similar to pita bread in that they are round and flat, but they are saltier and oilier, and are the perfect blanket in which one can bundle up classic, local flavors. “La Piadina” (original name I know) is known to be the best place in town to get these bundles of salty goodness so I naturally stopped by for lunch. In this tiny little place, once you have placed your order, the chef takes a piadina off of a tall stack of them and gently places it on the open grill along with the others that are already cooking and then fills it with your whatever you ordered. If they run out, someone shouts something very loudly and quickly in Italian up to the second floor and instantaneously a fresh stack of piadine are lowerd down in a basket on a pully system. It was the best bread basket I have ever seen. Anyway, I ordered roasted pork, which is very unlike me, but I thought to myself “when in Rome...or Ravenna.” It was a good decision. 
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