3. And today's snack is...

Hello all,

Waking up this morning I was greeted with bright, hot, glorious sunshine. Donning a short-sleeved shirt I made my way to a new examining centre (Maddolina) only to be shown into what had to be the coldest room in the building, made even colder later by the onset of heavy rain. Still, had the sun continued, I might have wanted to wear today's featured sunglasses, simply known as 'Sunglass' (made in traditional 'Italina style'), and manufactured by Mr. Michael Lu of Wenzhou Aoya International Trade Co.,Ltd. in China.

Today I thought I could write a little about the little snacks brought by teachers to help 'lighten' the examining workload. The place I was in on Monday and Tuesday this week was a delight - they'd appear at the lunch break and leave me with some pizza or panino (notice not panini as that's clearly the plural which we mistakenly use in the UK, as anyone who's gone through 20 hours of Italian lessons will be able to point out) and leave me to eat in peace without being badgered about how well the exam candidates have been getting on. Nice. The first day (check the first blog) was some pizza and a panino.

The second day, some more pizza, but this time it was the Italian equivalent of a chip butty - the pizza without cheese or tomato sauce but with chips on it [pictured], scoring 4 out of 10 on the Ben's tasty meter. There were also some little sausage roll-type things. A touch dry and scoring only 3 1/2 out of 10 while the actual bit of pizza got 5 /10. The tomato sauce made all the difference.

However, earlier on in the day for mid-morning break, I was brought a pastry snack filled with a light, lemon cream [pictured]. This, washed down with some fruit juice they provided filled quite the second breakfast hole and got me through to the lunchtime pizza with chips described above. This bready/Danish affair rated 8/10. Very good.

But being a whole day's worth of exams, how is anyone supposed to manage without an afternoon tea break and a snack to eat then as well? I mean, I'd been a full 90 minutes since lunch and I still had an hour's worth of examining yet to go. At this point, it's time to bring on the giant jammy-dodgers made with fresh crumbly pastry, the kind which turns to a cement-like mixture once you start chewing it. Thank goodness for the tea to help the mix. These pastry items scored only 6/10 on account of them being a little too dry for early afternoon tea but still being really quite nice. Perhaps it was the fact that I had to eat them out of obligation more than anything else that reduced the tasty rating. Anyway, they clearly look delicious and the cream-filled one far beat the chocolate one. The picture doesn't do their size justice as the cup of tea is in the foreground. For reference, they were about 8 or 9 cm in diameter.

Obviously when I tried to protest about the food and tried to pay for the delicacies on offer, the teacher-liaison simply replied that they were sweet, just as she was trying to keep me. Well, you can't have an un-fed and un-watered examiner can you? You never know what awful grades they might start to dish out.

This brings me onto today's food. I had the dubious pleasure of being escorted during my break and lunch meaning that there was little down-time to recover from the exams. However, the upshot is that you don't have to fend for yourself. At break I was offered some pizza but thought it a little early to engage in such food at 11am. I did notice many students gobbling away on the school-provided pizza and wondered why they weren't all balloons, but then that's the joy of a youthful metabolism. Though the spots on the kids might be easier to account for.

So just having a fruit juice during the break, it was lunch in the school cafeteria that was the high point. In a little side-partitioned area, visually away from the hub-bub of hundreds of screaming students, I had a delightful bowl of farfalle (the little bow-ties) in tomato sauce for a first course followed by four fish fingers and salad for the second.

I must confess the fish fingers were a surprise after all the freshly made food, but why not? The salad worked as well. Not being able to take a picture of the food, being in company, I'll assume you know what four fish fingers and a side salad looks like. A touch dry but lunch got an overall 6 out of 10.

Still, the best examining food experience (15/10) I ever had was two years ago when I was visiting a 'trade' school in the middle of nowhere with cookery school attached. Apparently the trainee chefs never had anyone to cook for, so my arrival was an excuse to push the boat out, and push the boat out they did; far enough that I'd have had trouble swimming back to the shore, especially after how much I'd eaten. After four exceptionally delicious courses (the mozzarella was fresh from the farm attached to the school!) and some chilled wine (the local vineyard), I was thankful that the candidates were all good enough to pass well, as I would've felt guilty about failing anyone there. I'm sure that thought never even crossed the minds of the local liaisons.

Anyway, I finish at 13:30 tomorrow so I'll have to scavenge for myself for lunch. Still, there's always the morning break to throw a pastry or two into the mix.