Would you give your right arm for a decent meal? If you’re in Florence, Italy you can keep all your limbs intact and just hand over some fruits and vegetables in exchange for a restaurant-quality meal. The restaurant is opening later this month, and is using the barter idea to help out customers who might be feeling like they can’t dine out in the current cranky economy. And yes, an economy can be cranky.

L e Maiala will also accept cash or credit cards, notes Digital Journal, citing Italian publication Corriere Fiorentino, as well as plenty of other barterable goods like handicrafts.

The fun part of paying with produce? Whatever you bring will be cooked up as part of your meal, in addition to other locally-sourced ingredients. Bringing in a homemade scarf will not result in scarf-as-meal, of course.

“With the crisis that we’re all living through today, we’ve met those, who in times of hardship, think they cannot afford dinner — but we counter that by offer the option to pay in food instead of real money,” said the owner.

I’d like to show up with a random selection of stuff like honey, tomatoes, leeks and maybe throw in a curveball like say, a geoduck. But then I suppose I’d have to eat whatever cuisine resulted from such a combination. Self-challenge, consider yourself accepted.

Florence restaurant lets patrons pay for food with fresh produce [Digital Journal]

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