Are there any foods one should AVOID while in Florence?
 

It may sound like a funny question, but is there any certain dish or type of food that one should avoid eating while in Florence?

Or do you have a funny story about a meal in Florence that was not as good as you thought it should be?

Be mindful of foods with too much salt if you can. There is a long story of salt in Tuscany and of how it was tide to affluence. ...if people gave you a meal that was salt abundant they were REALLY TREATing YOU. I think that was a midevil tradition. Unfortunately, that does not work well with contemporary tastes and the culture of salt continutes in Florence. This is how it was explained to me anyway.

I found the use of salt to be the single most discouraging quality of food in Tuscany. You can find meals that don't douse with salt but you will get some surprises on the hunt.

My funny story is that I had so much salt in my diet that on the 5th day I was sooooo bloated that when I walked I sounded like bottle of seltzer being shaken. LOL TRUE!

I'm not sure what you mean by "food that one should avoid eating while in Florence". MacDonald's hamburgers, maybe?

I found the neighborhood trattorias had some of the best food I've ever had in my entire life, anywhere. Including Paris. Very reasonable, too.

The question is that there may be certain local foods that are not palatable....sort of like the experiences some have had in different countries where they think they are about to eat a boiled egg, and realize that are instead about to eat a small bird fetus (sp?)--can't remember the exact name of the baby bird.

That is what the question was posing....what are some foods to avoid in Florence.

I've always managed to avoid it, so I can't speak firsthand, but I think in France and Italy and Portugal and Spain, and who knows if elsewhere, avoiding tripe is a good thing for most people :).

But otherwise don't worry - it's most unlikely that you are going to be confronted with any Chinese delicacies involving bird fetuses or even Swedish-style delicacies involving fermented fish or anything that is shocking to the palate of most Westerners.

I bought a sandwich in Florence that I thought was just cheese. When I bit into it I realized that there was something else in there. I opened it up and it looked like
raw bacon. I guess it serves me right for not learning Italian.

I just can't imagine being in Italy anywhere and being advised to avoid something. So, there is nothing to avoid. (except American fast food places)

and tripe....blegh....

If you're very faddish about food, cotechino and zampone, sausage-y products that use the bits of the pig that don't go into pork chops, might worry you. But they're rare as far south as Tuscany, and are fine for most of us.

There's a commercial product in silly boxes, masquerading as cake. At Christmas it's sold as panettone, at Easter as Colomba or Colombina. The rest of the year it's sold in hardware stores as a doorstop. There are a few Italians devoid of tastebuds, and these people tell me this product is actually OK if you buy the versions that aren't made by chain bakeries.

Personally, I've never uncovered one that tasted any different from the box it came in. It's practically impossible for Italians to make bad food. These things are the exception that proves the rule.

Don't have a Florentine steak if you don't like your steak rare.

Can someone with Italian language skills tell those of us who don't like rare steak how to ask for it more well done?

Ask for the steak to be cooked "ben cotto" or "medio." FYI "al sangue" is rare.

But they will despise you & give you the worst meat :-)

if you have to be on a low salt diet, how can you convey that without being insulting to the chef? in italian, per favore, i have already mastered that in english.

Tripe and cockscombs are favorite regional foods that you probably will not want to try. You will probably see several street stands serving tripe. One of the finest restaurants in Florence, Cibreo, serves a specialty of a stuffed chicken neck. It's difficult to get a reservation here so you won't have to face that one. And the crostini served before a meal is spread with a pate of chicken livers.

"And the crostini served before a meal is spread with a pate of chicken livers."

Hmm, was that supposed to make us NOT want to eat there, or to run there as quickly as possible? In my case it would be the latter.

Neopolitan, I will race you (and lose) to get to those crostini. But it sounds like the OP is perhaps a bit squeamish. Hopefully she or he is not going to Rome, cause the list of "foods to avoid" there would be really long, between the pajata, (cow intestines on pasta); the guanciale (pig cheek) the oxtail and all the rest.

Actually,even better,the pajata is baby sheeps intestine,with the milk inside!

Now you are talkin'! And lest we not forget that Roman dish, Fritto Misto alla Romana which often contains coratella, the heart, lungs, liver and windpipe of a lamb, minced and fried. Back in Tuscany, you may be able to find (and avoid) grifi, which are braised calf cheeks.