Educated readers will recall from their Asterix that whenever the Gauls allow themselves to be captured or choose to raid the surrounding Roman encampments, the Roman officers are always lounging around sampling a heaped array of delicious food and drink without a care in the world. Until Caesar finds out. Italy, to its credit, is still a bit like that.
I never had less than a very fine espresso on an Italian train – when the café/bar was actually open- and it never cost more than €1.50. Even an excellent espresso dopio and a cappuccino in a provincial station bar only cost €3.60. Dare to imagine that in a UK station or high street multiple.
All over the country, a single espresso, served in a cup, quaffed inside a café, outperforms most of its UK equivalents in quality, brew and speed of service. It is also often €1. There is seemingly none of the UK coffee culture, by which I mean the multiple drink fetishisation, both good and bad, that is prevalent in Britain. Neither the sweetened milk-based infantile drinks of the cloned high street franchises, nor the cold brews, V60 drips, bullet coffee or civet bum-beans of some of the cutting edge artisans. In Italy you have an espresso, or if it’s before midday, you may countenance a cappuccino if you are a small child. You could, if really necessary, have a macchiato. All the rest of our variants are simply surplus to requirements: the average coffee in Italy is just so good.
On the more basic Intercity service, I presumed disorder would erupt as the café kiosk was shut and the train Wi-Fi was down. Italian stoicism reigned though and the passengers chatted and ate their snacks. They had no doubt eaten before they boarded, had coffee and a tiny pastry in the station and were planning to meet family and friends when they disembarked to discuss what they could eat, would eat and then to eat it.
The Freccia Rossa (Red Arrow) Intercity was a different matter. Rapid, comfortable and clean. In the onboard café a diminutive, muscular, efficient ginger baldy man happily slammed out high quality espresso dopio or cappuccino from a tiny basic but proper espresso machine at €1.50 a pop, breezily keeping pace with demand from the whole train. It was like an inverse ScotRail.
Now that we understood local customs, across our shared table Sancho and I deployed the two different bergs of pungent cheese that we bought from the village farmer’s market the previous day along with the sourdough bread and the organic grapes. With pips in. The was subtle approval throughout our carriage.
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When in Rome…. or at least on an Italian train…
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