Goodbye diet at the Games, athletes crazy about pizza and pasta

If the opening ceremony of the Winter Olympic Games in Milan Cortina was a triumph of Italian spirit, the people that feed thousands of athletes Olympic Villages. And so the food and wine proposal developed, explains Elisabetta Salvadori, Food & Beverage manager of the Milano Cortina Foundation, “is designed to enhance the excellence of Italian cuisine“.

The excellences on the menus

Which, for an extremely regional cuisine like the Italian one, with excellence and typical dishes that change every region, if not even every city, is easier said than done. And so the menus are divided according to the competition venues. Any examples? Omnipresent the Granapadano and the Prosecco Doc but in Livigno we find it on the menu bresaola from Valtellina while in Predazzo i dumplings.

But with some constants: pizza and pasta.

“Pizza reigns supreme – explains Salvadori – made in different ways and colours. Pizza and pasta are among the most served and it is there, in the canteens of the various Olympic Villages, where there is the greatest crowding: if there is a place where you can create a queue it is right at the carbohydrate station. Obviously there is also rice and other sources of carbohydrates such as potatoes and focaccia, it is not an obligatory choice, there are many alternatives”.

Food for fuel

“The concept we worked on was that of “food for fuel” to say that athletes must find all the nutritional elements to best face their tests with a variety that can satisfy all cultural and religious sensitivities”. So what does an Olympic Village canteen look like? It is a “normal” buffet canteen but with stations dedicated to the main nutritional elements, in order to help athletes in composing a balanced meal.

The stations

There is therefore the carbohydrate station (precisely the most crowded always), then the cold protein station with typical cured meats, the hot protein station with second courses, the cold plate station with cheeses and the international food station as well as an area dedicated to those with special needs for health, cultural or religious reasons. And the dessert? Obviously it’s not missing. If the muffins went viral at the Paris Olympics, Milano Cortina decided to focus on something equally viral “lava cakes” (in Milan), and heart of hot chocolate and the classic tiramisu (in Livigno).

Menus that are much more than simple curiosities if we consider that the dining areas of the Olympic Villages, open 24 hours a day, welcome 600 seated people in Milan, 400 in Cortina and 400 in Predazzo. All for a total of 4,500 meals a day including breakfasts, lunches and dinners in Milan, 4,000 in Cortina and 3,000 in Predazzo.
As if to say that if every meal was piled on a tray we would obtain a tower 60 kilometers high, 18 times the height of the Tofane di Cortina.