A little knowledge is a dangerous thing ....

One of the best things about Italy is the food (another, of course, is the wine) and the catering at Domus Pacis has been excellent. But for two meals, we had to fend for ourselves in the old town of upper Assisi. The first was Wednesday dinner and I found myself with a group of people (including an American Jesuit, an Irish theologian and the formidable Fulata of the women's desk at the World Council of Churches). We found a cute little restaurant down an alley off the main piazza (old Italian cities are like that) and enjoyed an unpretentious, homely set menu for €16. So far, so good. But as we left, the chef intercepted us with 'a domani, pesche fresco'. We didn't know much Italian, but we understood that they had fresh fish tomorrow. And Thursday we had to find our own lunch, so a bunch of us headed back to del Carro for their pesche fresco.

The staff tried to explain what the fish menu involved, but they knew no English and we had little Italian. I tried to piece together the words I understood and make some sense out of them. I heard 'spaghetti vongole' and 'pesche al forno' and presumed that meant we'd have a first course of spaggetti with clams and second of fish baked in the oven. But there had been other words which I'd not understood and ignored. In fact, we had triggered a massive enterprise in the kitchen, that would take them (and us) over two hours to work through. First, we were brought large bowls of shell fish: baby clams and mussels. They were good. Some time later (and after wine and bread) the next course appeared: huge bowls of spaghetti with more clams and half a lobster each. At this point I realised that we were no longer on the €16 menu! It was magnificent, but of course there was more to come. After another long wait we were presented with small stuffed and baked fish with potatos.

By this time we were already late for our next conference session, so had to forego coffee and just take a sip of the complimentary limone liqueur. The fish menu turned out to be €30 a head - not at all bad value for what we had, but not really what we'd expected when we'd walked in. A great meal (though perhaps at the wrong time of day), an adventure in good company and a cautionary tale about assuming you know more of a language than you really do.