Why Italians Love to Talk About Food (66 page)

To begin with, pride in the insuperable quality of the espresso, authentic Italian espresso, prepared the way God intended.

The next object of Italians' pride is gelato. Enthusiasm for the national ice cream exists more in theory than in actual consumption, since many adult Italians, albeit with regret, give up gelato so as not to get fat. But, in general, Italy has reason to boast of its cold desserts industry. The legendary (from a technological standpoint) art of chilling anything—water, sorbets,
¹²
gelato
¹³
—has been linked to Italian know-how since the Middle Ages.

It is ironic that Italians, pioneers of the freezing industry, suffer simultaneously from an amusing phobia: a wild hatred of anything that is frozen. Frozen foods in supermarkets are purchased reluctantly, mostly out of necessity (to have supplies in the freezer in case of emergencies). As soon as the tiny image of the snowflake is spotted on the menu of a restaurant (indicating that the dish was prepared with frozen fish or meat), the immediate tendency is not to order that dish; indeed, some customers actually lose their enthusiasm for the restaurant itself. Proud of the wonderful taste of his own fruit (“In America the fruit looks beautiful, but has no taste”), the Italian buyer eyes with distrust exotic fruits imported both in summer and winter (“They must have frozen them”) and is attracted instead to seasonal products, all the better if grown right there in Italy.

This mistrust rivals the hatred for genetically modified foods (which no one in Italy has actually ever seen, since their importation is prohibited by law). Conversations on these topics provide material for newspaper articles, and the discussion of newspaper articles is a pretext for new conversations. Thus, the
Corriere della Sera
's shocked correspondent in Japan lists the prohibitive prices of fruit in a Tokyo supermarket: cherries are counted one by one and a basket costs $100 or more; a single shiny, red apple or four strawberries cost $60; the same for a banana or fifteen grapes “so identical that they appear to be made of marzipan.” Until the classic conclusion:” and of course they have no taste.”
¹⁴
The epithets “shiny and red” or “identical” (in reference to the grapes) are intended to shift reader's horror at the exorbitant prices of the products to their unnatural aspect, to their presumed “artificiality.” In this way, the reader is subtly encouraged to rejoice: in Italy, thank heavens, a kilo of cherries, in season, costs four euros, and those cherries may even be worm-eaten—hurray!

 

That's the way the culinary code works: it transmits messages. Messages of self-respect, pride, contentment, and sharing. It enables significant social differences to be leveled out and even makes it possible to sidestep disgrace. The prince of Savoy, Vittorio Emanuele, having returned to Italy after a political exile that lasted almost a lifetime, was imprisoned in Potenza for corruption a few years later (in June 2006). When asked by journalists how he would endure prison and the shame, he replied: “In Italy we eat well anywhere, I have always said so.”

Ippolito Nievo, in
Le Confessioni di un italiano
(Confessions of an Italian), wrote:

 

One eats more in Bologna in a year than in Venice in two, in Rome in three, in Turin in five, and in Genoa in twenty. Though in Venice one eats less because of the sirocco, and in Milan more thanks to the cooks. As for Florence, Naples, and Palermo, the first is too fussy to inspire its guests to gorge, and in the other two, the contemplative life fills the stomach through the pores, without troubling the jaws. One lives on air, infused with the volatile oil of cedar and the fecund pollen of fig trees. How does this relate to the rest of the matter of eating? Perfectly, because digestion works by virtue of activity and good humor. A quick-witted, varied conversation which skims over all the sentiments of your heart, like a hand on a keyboard, which trains your mind and tongue to run, to leap here and there wherever they are summoned, and which excites and overexcites your intellectual life, prepares you for a meal better than all the absinthes and vermouths on earth. They did well to invent vermouth in Turin, where they talk and laugh little.
¹⁵

 

This important feature of the language of culinary allusions could not have been better described. In the perception of Italians, good humor, integrity, and intelligence are to be found wherever one eats with appetite and where digestion functions well. Many judge the quality of the merchandise by the happy, satisfied look of the vendor. Gourmets use very precise rules that help them find high-quality ingredients. Take, for instance, the ingenious rule invented in the sixteenth century by Castore Durante: to compare the quality of vegetables and fruit, he suggests observing the outer appearance of keepers of vineyards, orchards, and fields. Durante affirms that the more satisfied and fat the custodian is, the better the orchards and vineyards will be, since caretakers predominantly eat what is entrusted to their care.

All the literature suggests that the Italian who eats with gusto and is an expert in gastronomy cannot be a scoundrel, a swindler, or a liar. Even the police judge people according to this principle! Andrea Camilleri's Commissioner Montalbano changes his opinion about a witness, from suspicious to totally reliable, the moment he discovers her attitude toward food:

 

“Well, signora, thank you so much . . . ,” the inspector began, standing up.

“Why don't you stay and eat with me?”

Montalbano felt his stomach blanch. Signora Clementina was sweet and nice, but she probably lived on semolina and boiled potatoes.

“Actually, I have so much to . . .”

“Pina, the housekeeper, is an excellent cook, believe me. For today she's made pasta alla Norma, you know, with fried eggplant and ricotta salata.”

“Jesus!” said Montalbano, sitting back down.

“And braised beef for the second course.”

“Jesus!” repeated Montalbano.

“Why are you so surprised?”

“Aren't those dishes a little heavy for you?”

“Why? I've got a stronger stomach than any of these twenty-year-old girls who can happily go a whole day on half an apple and some carrot juice. Or perhaps you're of the same opinion as my son Giulio?”

“I don't have the pleasure of knowing what that is.”

“He says it's undignified to eat such things at my age. He considers me a bit shameless. He thinks I should live on porridges. So what will it be? Are you staying?”

“I'm staying,” the inspector replied decisively.
¹⁶

 

It was precisely while talking about food that Goethe revealed the Italians' astonishing nobility of spirit, unlike the incivility and arrogance that were more widespread in other populations:

 

The sun was shining brightly when I arrived in Bolzano. I was glad to see the faces of so many merchants at once. They had an air about them of purpose and well-being. Women sat in the square, displaying their fruit in round, flat-bottomed baskets more than four feet in diameter. The peaches and pears were placed side by side to avoid bruising. I suddenly remembered a quatrain I had seen inscribed on the window of the inn at Regensburg:

 

 

 

Comme les pêches et les melons
Sont pour la bouche d'un baron,
Ainsi les verges et les bâtons
Sont pour les fous, dit Salomon.

 

 

 

Evidently this was written by a northern baron, but one can be equally sure that, if he had visited these parts, he would have changed his mind.
¹⁷

 

 

Indeed, since the time of the ancient Romans the subject of food in this fruitful land has assumed joyous tints for the most part—excluding, of course, the periods of wars, epidemics, and natural disasters. The relationship between man and food, even when humble, was often characterized by serene dignity:

 

. . . I saw an old Corycian, under Tarentum's towers,
where the dark Galaesus waters the yellow fields,
who owned a few acres of abandoned soil,
not fertile enough for bullocks to plough,
not suited to flocks, or fit for the grape harvest:
yet as he planted herbs here and there among the bushes,
and white lilies round them, and vervain, and slender poppies,
it equalled in his opinion the riches of kings,
and returning home late at night
it loaded his table with un-bought supplies.
¹⁸

 

Imbued with the attitude of the ancient poets toward the land and daily life, following in the footsteps of illustrious predecessors who had formerly described Italy, such as Ferdinand Gregorovius, Jacob Burckhardt, Vernon Lee, Stendhal, and Goethe, and of course observing with his own eyes, Pavel Muratov also idealized the Italian peasant:

 

[One is] filled with a profound benevolence toward the Italian populace. Such a fantastic, diverse crowd is to be found in the narrow city streets! Such warmth and kindness toward foreigners, such dignity and self-awareness, such ability to to be among people yet remain oneself, to be part of the crowd and not lose one's human face! In such a crowd panic is unthinkable, it bears no resemblance to a blind, bestial flock, everyone knows his place and recognizes that of others, no one drives or pushes anyone, and even in moments of heightened excitement, a vulgar word is never heard.
¹⁹

 

To make sense of this earthiness, which also contains great spirituality, a lengthy study was needed. A substantial part of the facts and information contained in this book was perceived from “inside.” Living in Italy for twenty years, the author has by this time absorbed Italian concepts and, to some extent, has learned to distinguish the subtle nuances. Still, whatever people may say, some things are more evident from the “outside” looking in. In this sense, the author of this book has benefited from a privileged position: in effect, she has both an insider's vision and the gaze of an outsider. Goethe understood this mechanism, and on November 7, 1786, confessed: “When I was a young man, I sometimes indulged in a daydream of being accompanied to Italy by an educated Englishman, well versed in general history and the history of art.”
²⁰

It is precisely the culinary code, I believe, that is the universal key to understanding Italy and its “authenticity.” Some years ago a curious passage by the brilliant Russian philologist Michail Gasparov drew me to the idea of taking up the theme of food:

 

O. Sedakova said: “Umberto Eco in his paper tried very hard and passionately to demonstrate that there is no authenticity in the world, nor can there be. Yet when we went to lunch, he studied the menu so carefully, I thought: No, something authentic does exist for him.”
²¹

 

In my quest to find the key that would unlock the authenticity and mystery of Italy—to discover the secret of its combination lock, as it were—I traveled the country from north to south. And most of the time the doors of the temples of gastronomy opened for me. At other times I was able to peer through the window. The window that looks into kitchen. There inside is Beatrice.

*
The Seggi were the aristocratic body of Naples's city government.

A beccafico.
Fish preparation: small fish, split open and without the heads, are sprinkled with bread crumbs and cheese and baked in the oven.

Affogato
. Immersed in boiling liquid.

Al cireghet.
Piedmontese name for egg with butter.

Alla cacciatora.
Browned in oil with rosemary, garlic, and red pepper, then braised in wine.

Alla canevera.
Enclosed in an ox bladder, then boiled in hot water with a special hollow cane stuck in to act as a vent and let air out of the bladder.

Alla diavola.
Stewed in vinegar with black pepper, hot red pepper, and tomato sauce.

Alla giudia.
Fried in boiling oil.

All'agro.
In sour sauce.

Alla livornese.
Stewed in tomato sauce with olive oil, garlic, onion, bay leaf, and parsley.

All'americana.
In shrimp sauce.

Alla piastra.
Cooked on a red-hot slab.

Alla romagnola.
With peas and tomato sauce.

Alla tartara.
Raw, minced, with spicy sauce.

Alla toscana.
Marinated for twenty-four hours with lemon rind, olive oil, bay leaf, tarragon, and chervil, then stewed with potatoes and mushrooms.

Alla vaccinara.
Cooked over low heat in a tomato sauce with celery, chopped pancetta, white wine, onion, and carrot.

All'uccelletto
. Cut into small pieces and fried in oil, garlic, and rosemary.

Arracanato
. Cooked in a pan on the burner with olive oil, tomatoes, white wine, oregano, garlic, and parsley (such as mussels and anchovies
arracanate
).

A scapece
(from the Spanish for “marinated”). Fish preparation: fried, then sprinkled with bread crumbs, and seasoned with olive oil, vinegar, garlic, and mint. Eaten cold.

Bagnomaria
. Cooked in a bain-marie, a small pot placed in a larger pot of boiling water. It is not the same as steam cooking, when the product is placed in a basket or sieve.

Brasato
. Braised over low heat (braised beforehand and then kept a long time in a hot oven).

Escabeche
. The same as
a scapece
, q.v.

Gratinato
. Baked in the oven with a golden crust, usually of grated Parmesan, more rarely in a béchamel-and-cream sauce.

Grigliato
. Roasted on the grill.

In cagnone.
Seasoned with a sauce of butter melted in a pan with garlic and sage (boiled rice).