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"FacebookPinterest\n\nLong ago it was the fountains of Rome and the statues of Florence that lured us to Italy, but that was when Americans were starved for culture and romance, not for a decent roadside meal.\n\nThese days travelers returning from abroad marvel at Italy's Autogrills, the restaurants located along the national toll roads that stretch flat and ribbonlike into the distance, like strands of tagliatelle. These unassuming self-service spots remind us of an altogether different time, when we would come upon malted-milk shakes and sprinkle-topped sugar cones as we drove the highways of our forty-eight states. While Autogrills do not furnish these particular classics, their epicurean pleasures are innumerable, beginning with superb cappuccino selling for less than $1 a cup.\n\nIn modern America, anything consumed within a hundred yards of our automobiles is either packed in Styrofoam or tastes like Styrofoam and tends to be gulped so swiftly the difference matters not at all. The food we consume at way stations is so unsatisfying it is perfectly feasible that the people who change the oil in your car receive the same training as the people who change the oil for your French fries. It is no wonder we gaze upon the Autogrills with the same awe we once reserved for the canals of Venice.\n\nThere are no Autogrills in Venice, of course, because there are no roads in Venice. Autogrills, for the most part, exist only on Italy's six-lane autostradas. (These are not to be confused with the less exalted superstradas, even though in our national lexicon the respective positions of these roads in the highway hierarchy would be reversed.) Recently, I have noticed a few Autogrills in Italy's cities, a blurring of traditional values I do not admire. Away from their natural environment, they seem diminished, resembling snack shops more than culinary oases.\n\nItalians are not as overwhelmed by Autogrills as are Americans, but that is because they are gastronomically different from us. They are not deprived. For them, Autogrills exist merely to tide them over between the feasts cooked by their wives before they pull out of their driveways and the banquets cooked by their mothers when they arrive at their destinations. An Italian will pull in for lunch at an Autogrill, consume four courses (pasta, salad, cheese, espresso), linger over his Parmigiano-Reggiano and red wine and ultimately say, \"It was all right.\" They accept leisurely Autogrill meals as their due, because they refuse to eat inadequately under any circumstances, even on driving trips, and they believe it is perfectly fine to show up late, no matter who is waiting impatiently for them.\n\nIt is Americans, reeling from precooked patties, who are taken with Autogrills. They now include them on their travel itineraries, much as they do shopping excursions to Prada in Milan.\n\nAutogrills come in various sizes. The largest have stand-up counters in the front that offer snacks, plus cafeterias in the rear where the inexpensive multiple-course meals are hard to resist. Wine is available, because Italians believe eating without an alcoholic beverage is a greater sin than driving after an alcoholic beverage.\n\nHaving eaten, the departing traveler must wend his way through an imitation Dean &amp;amp; DeLuca grocery mart stocked with legs of ham, hogsheads of beer, six-packs of cheap Lambrusco wine, bottles of Jack Daniels sour mash and Johnnie Walker whisky, liters of extra-virgin olive oil, stockpiles of affettati misti (cold cuts) and slabs of cheese. The five-liter kegs of Beck's beer sold unchilled are presumably not for quaffing en route, but the one-liter cans of Fa Danish lager are ice-cold and should effectively fill the needs of any trucker who cannot endure the tedium of a trek across Europe without the comfort of a frosty one by his side. A generous selection of pornography further eases the burdens of lonely long hauls.\n\nThe smallest of the Autogrills resemble coffee bars. They offer pastries, snacks and drinks but have no cafeterias. Everywhere, shelves are stocked with United Colors of Benetton multihued-condom packets, although it is unclear whether this is because profilattici are in enormous demand or because Benetton is the corporate owner of the Autogrills. Also available at most stops are neckties wrapped in cellophane, the ideal accessory for any Italian motorist caught going 150 mph in his Ferrari and required to appear immediately in court.\n\nThere is something else at every Autogrill that has made them so beloved: toasted sandwiches.\n\nThese are not the same as American grilled-cheese sandwiches, the kind so poorly made in luncheonettes that the bread burns before the cheese melts. At Autogrills the customer chooses from among six or seven varieties of yet-to-be toasted sandwiches on display in a glass case, and then a highly trained warming technician flawlessly heats the selected item in a countertop machine resembling a waffle iron. The resultant sandwich is golden brown, grease-free and somewhat squished.\n\nI cannot think of another chain-restaurant product as admirable as these squished sandwiches, now that the Big Mac is so carelessly made. To me, the toasted sandwiches alone raise the Autogrills to the roadside eminence of our all-but-vanished Howard Johnson's, the ones that promised twenty-eight flavors of ice cream. Even the sandwich names\u2014Capri, Positano, Vesuvio\u2014raise a shiver of anticipation. My favorite is the Rustico, which contains unsmoked bacon, tomato, oregano, provolone and Emmentaler\u2014cheese, of course, is an essential ingredient of any successful warmed sandwich. Least appealing to me is the Cotoletta, a creepy yellow-hued breaded cutlet of some pounded meat, possibly veal, on a roll.\n\nAutogrill toasted sandwiches are to American grilled sandwiches what poultry prepared on a George Foreman Lean Mean Grilling Machine is to fast-food chicken: fresher, simpler, more wholesome. They in no way resemble the cold, unwelcoming sandwiches made with pressed meats and artificial cheeses and slathered with margarine or mayonnaise that we normally consume at lunch. Autogrill sandwiches are as pristine as health food. My only complaint is they could use a little salt.\n\n\n\nEarlier this year, I drove from Milan to Rome, taking the seaside route and eating only at Autogrills along the way. What I did not experience by traveling in this manner is the regional cuisine of Italy. I passed through five distinct gastronomic (and political) regions\u2014Lombardy, Piedmont, Liguria, Tuscany and Lazio. Had I been inclined to sample the local products, I might have feasted on white truffles, braised beef, stuffed pastas, osso buco, fresh fish, wild boar, bread soup, oxtail stew, grilled baby lamb chops and fried artichokes.\n\nHerein lies the distinct disadvantage of dining by Autogrill alone: Delicious as the toasted sandwiches, the fresh blood-orange juice and the foaming cappuccinos may be, the food in the cafeterias isn't, I'm sorry to report, much more thrilling than standard cafeteria food. The cold meats and cheeses\u2014the heart of the Italian antipasto\u2014were far superior to what I might have found in an American self-service restaurant, but that level of quality is commonplace throughout Italy and not limited to Autogrills.\n\nThe best dish I ate was a plate of prosciutto, which I expected to be excellent, inasmuch as I was dining near the cutoff to Parma, where prosciutto is cured. Spaghetti alla carbonara (pasta in cream sauce with unsmoked bacon) was correctly cooked al dente, a pleasant surprise, but the sauce was dry rather than silky. Two standard grill items, \"supreme\" of chicken (a breast) and entrec\u00F4te of beef (a thin rib-eye steak), were pristinely fresh but absolutely without seasoning, saved only by the pseudo-charred flavor imparted by an indoor grill. None of the vegetables were more than ordinary, but the portions were gigantic, one order sufficient for two. An acceptable half bottle of Chianti went for $3.50, a price impossible to duplicate in an American roadside establishment, even if one were motoring through California and inclined to settle for a local Merlot.\n\nThe charm of these establishments is not in their external appearances, although the capital A in the Autogrill sign contains a swoosh that adds an air of insouciance. The smaller spots have a ski-chalet look to them, but the largest, the ones that stretch over the tops of the six-lane roads and cater to travelers coming from either direction\u2014are starkly unattractive. They might well have been designed by an Eastern European industrial architect melding a Kmart with a Quonset hut. Eating at a table high over a median strip is a little like picnicking at a Grand Prix race; the background serenade is the whine of cars zooming along at incredible speeds.\n\nThe standard Autogrill decor is somewhat pop art\u2014at one of them a budding Michelangelo had transformed a Matisse into a cartoon. The telephone booths are Jetsons pods, very space-age '60s. Seating areas are fundamental and almost identical: wood-grain tabletops and plastic wicker-like chairs. The employees appear to take pride in their workplaces. At one, I happened to refer too loudly to the dining area as a cafeteria\u2014after all, I was sliding a tray from station to station\u2014and the pasta lady looked up at me and snarled, \"Not cafeteria! Ristorante.\"\n\nIf Autogrills resonate in the minds of American travelers, it is because they are throwbacks to penny-candy stores, twenty-four- hour diners and other dying American institutions that provided elemental comfort at fair prices. Their very existence is a tribute to the values of our Italian brethren. They may be passive during international conflicts and downright inert when asked to vote out corrupt politicians, but they can always be counted on to rise to the challenge of eating well."^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
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