While B was being shorn, I needed to buy groceries for two dishes which I had promised to make for dinner with our hosts. They would prepare a few traditional Langhe dishes, and I would make a Russian and an American dish, to show them what we might eat at home. Back at the salon, I had managed to ask if they could point me in the direction of a local grocery store. Not an easy task, since it turns out that ‘magasin/magazine,’ which is ‘store’ in both Russian and French, means ‘storage shed’ in Italian. You can imagine the weird looks after that request! With many hand motions and use of words I knew in Italian like ‘vegetables’ and ‘not restaurant,’ we figured it out.

They directed me to a small shop across the street run by a woman shopkeeper in her 60s. I did my usual riggamarole to indicate my very poor Italian, to ask if she spoke French or English (negative), and to ask for help. She agreed, so I said the Italian words for ‘cauliflower’ and ‘onions’ – in a comprehensible enough way, augmented by pointing. She wrapped those up for me. (Have I mentioned that you’re never supposed to touch or bag produce yourself, unless wearing rubber gloves in a big supermarket? Big no-no. An Italian lady picked up her own scallions at this little store while I was there, and you should have seen the dirty look that the shopkeeper gave the lady’s back.)

Then, I asked if they had some kind of prepared meat made of beef – rather than pork, and the shopkeeper looked at me as if I was deranged. Having indicated her confusion about why anyone would ever need a non-pork meat product, she was nice enough to start listing the possible uses of each (pork) meat in her counter. I picked one, just in case I couldn’t find an alternative later, and she sliced it thinly on her machine. And then the real fun started: the attempt to secure pickles. (For those wondering what I could possibly be making with cauliflower and pickles, these are two separate dishes.)

Knowing the word for cucumber, and seeing that their preserved and pickled vegetables were labeled ‘_____ marinato,’ I asked if she had ‘cetrioli marinati.’* After her initial confusion, she said no and pointed me to the other pickled things. I picked one, and then she said a bunch of stuff in Italian and pointed to another one, so I took that one instead. They looked the same to me, but what do I know? So, I paid, and I proudly put my bounty in the car.

But B’s hair was still a work in progress, so I walked along the town’s shopping street. There was a cute meat, cheese, and accouterments store with lots of cans and jars, so I went inside. Here, the very nice man in his 30s also did not speak French or English (or Russian, but they look at me like I’m nuts to even offer that as an option). I asked a similar question about marinated cucumbers, and he indicated that Italians don’t actually eat them, so they are very rare to see. He suggested a supermarket down the street, and he smiled when I explained in broken Italian that I was trying to make an American recipe for Italians. Sadly, my trip to the (mini) supermarket was no more fruitful, though I did manage to buy some non-pork hot dogs there. I was too tired to ask for a plastic bag – and they don’t keep them out or offer – so I stuffed the two packs of hot dogs into my purse and continued on.

*Among the English-speaking Italians with whom I have discussed this, I have gotten varying words for pickles, from ‘cetriolini’ (literally, ‘mini cucumbers’) to ‘cetrioli sotto aceto’ (literally, ‘cucumbers under vinegar’). They all thought my ‘cetrioli marinati’ idea was fairly ridiculous, but they all managed to understand me.