I’ve always thought that when I have a kitchen to remodel the first thing I’ll install is an extra faucet on my sink to
dispense seltzer water. I love bubbles in beverages. If boring flat water disappeared completely and the lakes and natural springs and every faucet in the country
started running with only seltzer, that would be fine with me. You can understand, then, why a jar I saw today in an Italian market caught my eye. The shape of whatever was in the jar was too intriguing to pass up and one of the ingredients was sodium bicarbonate, which meant bubbles. The next ingredient was Zucchero, which meant sugar. I realized I was pretty much buying a cross between a sugar cube and an Alka-Seltzer. But for $3.75, I was willing to gamble that maybe the jar held something more exciting, something that would turn any beverage into a
delicious, fizzy concoction. To get right to the point, my first instinct was right. When I threw a dozen white twiggy things into a glass of water it tasted exactly like sugary Alka-Seltzer. Then, although it clearly said on the package to add water, I couldn’t resist putting one directly on my tongue. Before I spit it out into the sink, it fizzed and foamed in my mouth and I realized that I had basically discovered the Italian version of
Pop Rocks Candy. I can’t say that I would recommend buying “Effervescente Tortoroglio” to put in a glass or on your tongue, and probably the jar I bought will sit in my cupboard until December when I will use the white twiggy things as fake snow on a ginger bread house. The thought of an Italian grandmother dropping “Effervescente Tortoroglio” into everyone’s glass at the end of dinner to help digest the gigantic meal she just served is kinda heartwarming though. You can even buy the stuff in a
keepsake glass, although why you’d want to preserve the memory of indigestion, I don’t know. The sugar was probably added to this product in an attempt to make it taste better, but when it comes to curing indigestion, bitter is really the way you want to go. A bitter flavor, whether it comes from herbs, or hops in beer, or an arugula salad, gets the salivary glands going and your stomach juices flowing. Bitterness sends a signal to the brain to get the digestive tract in gear. When I was waiting tables for awhile, a fellow server frequently came to work hung over. She always
sipped on a glass of seltzer water with a heavy dash of angostura bitters from the bar and swore it was the best cure for an upset stomach. This girl was not the sharpest tool in the shed and when she started coming to work drunk instead of hung over, she got fired. But it turns out she was right about those angostura bitters. Also, the bitter, herbal flavor of a traditional cocktail, Italian Campari subdued somewhat by a squirt of seltzer, is also good for the belly, which means all those Italian grandmothers are on to something too.
started running with only seltzer, that would be fine with me. You can understand, then, why a jar I saw today in an Italian market caught my eye. The shape of whatever was in the jar was too intriguing to pass up and one of the ingredients was sodium bicarbonate, which meant bubbles. The next ingredient was Zucchero, which meant sugar. I realized I was pretty much buying a cross between a sugar cube and an Alka-Seltzer. But for $3.75, I was willing to gamble that maybe the jar held something more exciting, something that would turn any beverage into a 
delicious, fizzy concoction. To get right to the point, my first instinct was right. When I threw a dozen white twiggy things into a glass of water it tasted exactly like sugary Alka-Seltzer. Then, although it clearly said on the package to add water, I couldn’t resist putting one directly on my tongue. Before I spit it out into the sink, it fizzed and foamed in my mouth and I realized that I had basically discovered the Italian version of Pop Rocks Candy. I can’t say that I would recommend buying “Effervescente Tortoroglio” to put in a glass or on your tongue, and probably the jar I bought will sit in my cupboard until December when I will use the white twiggy things as fake snow on a ginger bread house. The thought of an Italian grandmother dropping “Effervescente Tortoroglio” into everyone’s glass at the end of dinner to help digest the gigantic meal she just served is kinda heartwarming though. You can even buy the stuff in a keepsake glass, although why you’d want to preserve the memory of indigestion, I don’t know. The sugar was probably added to this product in an attempt to make it taste better, but when it comes to curing indigestion, bitter is really the way you want to go. A bitter flavor, whether it comes from herbs, or hops in beer, or an arugula salad, gets the salivary glands going and your stomach juices flowing. Bitterness sends a signal to the brain to get the digestive tract in gear. When I was waiting tables for awhile, a fellow server frequently came to work hung over. She always 
sipped on a glass of seltzer water with a heavy dash of angostura bitters from the bar and swore it was the best cure for an upset stomach. This girl was not the sharpest tool in the shed and when she started coming to work drunk instead of hung over, she got fired. But it turns out she was right about those angostura bitters. Also, the bitter, herbal flavor of a traditional cocktail, Italian Campari subdued somewhat by a squirt of seltzer, is also good for the belly, which means all those Italian grandmothers are on to something too.
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