Is this a picture of an Italian lunch? Sort of.
One of things I had looked forward to with a passion with regards to my 2013 European vacation was what gastronomic treats I would be exposed to during the journey.
Ah, Italy. Pasta. Bruschetta. Lasagna. Florentine Steak. Foodie utopia.
Rome. The Eternal City. The place where it all happens.
Rome. The home of Chicken Hut.
Wait, saturated fat and breaded meat in Rome?
Have I swallowed some form of hallucinogenic drug?
Based on what I had seen, and tasted, I believe that I was in full control of my faculties. What I got a whiff off, in cardboard, in styrofoam, was oh so good.
Chicken Hut is an international fast food franchise chiseled along the lines of a KFC, or, Popeye's. Fries, Chicken Tenders, Chicken Sandwiches- you name the deep fried treat, and they've got it. Why on Earth did I end up eating American fast food in Rome, you ask? Well, after having had Italian food for 2-3 weeks, I guess my family, friends, and I wanted to chow down on something less complex and little more familiar.
Chicken Hut busted through the doors of my final days in Rome. My family and I had been billeted at the spartan Hotel Buenos Aires in the Lazio Region. The hotel was by no means ugly, but for the rates they offered, and the amenities which they had (or the lack thereof), you could probably do better in Rome.
If I remember correctly, I had a large order of French Fries, and a huge chicken sandwich which would make KFC's Zinger look like a flea, and a large Coke.
My meal at Chicken Hut was filling, satisfying to the palate, but one that left a poignantly strange aftertaste. This served as the beginning of the end of the "fantasy". It was the start of a slow yet inevitable descent back to reality. I would leave Rome 2-3 days after this awesome encounter cholesterol-rich, artificially flavored, poultry. This meal was one of a set of "last meals" with people I had grown to appreciate and consider to be friends for the long haul.
It fascinates me to no end how we tend to voluntarily- or otherwise - collect many fragments of memory from our travels which point to such depth of thought, such moving insights, such life altering truths. Chicken Hut was not just a stomach filler. It was a signal, a signal that all good things would indeed need to come to an end, and that good things need not come at such a high price, or, in the most glittery of packages.
More grandiose sights, more intense emotions, wilder adventures, brighter lights, more amazing sunsets, faces of people, come and gone, some perhaps, never to be seen again, defined my trip to Europe, and have defined many of my trips around the globe.
There is always, however, value in paying mind to the pebbles on the road. One pebble, does not a road make. Multiply that by a thousand, a million, a trillion, and what you've got is, potentially, the greatest story YET TO BE told.
MC
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