The Pleasures and Perils of Food

I woke up this morning –late late morning it must be said—to the aroma of onions and tomatoes. Saturday must be ragu day for somebody. Well, it just confirms what every cook and wine geek says--that the sense of smell is as important as the sense of taste. (Hmm. I’m employing a lot of dashes in my writing today. It just makes me feel so breezy and carefree when I do that, like somebody who wears a lot of silk scarves). Back to my point about the sense of taste. The other afternoon I took a cooking class in which we made gnocchi, small potato dumplings. Let me tell you that gnocchi is A LOT of work. The biggest bang for one’s buck was putting a couple of little leaves of basil on top of the layered gnocchi/tomato sauce/mozarella. That millisecond of work made the whole kitchen smell like a summer garden.

Cooking classes seem to be a growing trend in Italy. Week-long courses are readily available and some are tied in with agroturismo in which you live in somebody’s home in a rural setting. For me, the afternoon class was really enough to give me a taste (if you’ll pardon the pun) of Italian cooking basics. We met at the language school, Madrelingua, (which I am enjoying and would recommend, so I've linked it) and the six of us that comprised the class took a ten -minute walk to the home of our chef-teacher. She was a young woman, obviously enthusiastic and well-organized. She managed to coordinate the tasks so that we ended up with gnocchi, polpette (meatballs) and tiramisu. Unfortunately she was one of those fast talkers who was extremely hard to understand. (She was speaking Italian after all). It’s a good thing that a cooking class is mostly demonstration or I think we would have all been totally mystified.

The most interesting aspect of the class for me was checking out the gadgets she used which were dedicated to very specific tasks. To puree the tomatoes she had something called a passapomodoro (which would be translated I think into "tomato pureeifier"). It looks like a salad spinner with a crank that pushes the juice and pulp through mesh, leaving the seeds and skin. The other item resembled one of those hand-held cheese graters, the ones that look like a garlic press except that the holes were large. This is actually a potato press. You put pieces of cooked potato in the storage area and squeeze the handles. The potatoes get extruded through the holes and this is how you get them ready to be mixed with eggs, flour and parmesan for the gnocchi batter. Now I understand why the one we have back at the apartment didn’t work so well with parmesan cheese. Generally I’m very much opposed to having gadgets around the house that only do one thing. They take up a lot of space that we don’t have. However, I can definitely see the advantages of both of these. I was very interested to note that the CD’s and books in our teacher’s house were mostly devoted to punk musicians. I like imagining her making gnocchi for Sunday dinner to a Sex Pistols soundtrack.

When it comes to food, every tourist, traveller or expat is thrust into a situation which requires diplomacy or (for the brave or foolhardy) honesty. I’ll always remember meeting the daughter of my landlady when I was studying in London. Her name was Pam. She was about five years older than me but seemed like she was about forty-five. After hearing that I was from the United States she said, “I don’t like your bread.” Well, how would you feel to be blamed for the processed bread of an entire country ? This was 1978 after all, well before artisanal bakeries starting popping up all over the States. I have to say that my relationship with Pam was never very good. I don’t think I could ever quite get past being unjustly linked to Wonderbread.

It was quite a different story the other day, in terms of food diplomacy. We were talking with an Italian friend who lives in our neighborhood and she told us about a wonderful butcher a few blocks from our house, a very traditional place and well-regarded. Oh, and they sell horsemeat exclusively. I want to bring this to your attention so that if you come to Italy and see a store called Equine Macelleria you will know that it is indeed a horse butcher. Equine isn’t a family name. Our friend was quite enthusiastic about the product. It is easy to prepare, strong-flavored but tasty. And all of a sudden I am hearing my husband say in a bright, enthusiastic voice, “We’ll have to try it !” At least I think it was him. In real life he is not this keen to try things like horsemeat. He can be quite fixed in his views and he’s not afraid to take unpopular stances. (He has been known to say that Ella Fitzgerald lacked gravitas. I mean who on earth criticizes Ella Fitzgerald ?) But as I said, residing in another country can bring out the diplomat in a person.

Am I perhaps being closed-minded ? Should there be more horsemeat in our country instead of less? Kentucky’s economic base could be greatly expanded. I’m picturing KENTUCKY RACEHORSE JERKY: They thrilled you on the track. Enjoy them as a snack ! Oh gosh, did I really write that ? Please forgive me, especially my horseback riding friends, but I’ve been having trouble sleeping so my mind has been wandering and not into very profound territory as you can see.

It occurs to me that I did not mention that the friend who waxed poetically about the horsemeat had invited us to dinner this weekend. Wouldn’t it be something if she served horsemeat due to Bill’s keen show of interest ? We discussed this later on and he referenced Anthony Bourdin’s travel/cooking show in which he eats scary food. I reminded Bill that Anthony Bourdin gets a zillion dollars to eat bunny ears or whatever. All we have is this blog.

Walking and Talking

I have come to the conclusion that I am a really out-of-shape. Yesterday we spent several hours walking around, having a look at the museum of Medieval History. It wasn't a particularly demanding sight-seeing day as those things go, but by the time we got home every muscle in my legs ached. This I don’t understand. Bologna is flat and surely my years of living in central Virginia with its hilly if not mountainous terrain would have given me the requisite physique for this trip. I’m beginning to think that the aches and pains are due to walking on stone. Bill, on the other hand, thinks it’s because when I speak Italian to people I get on my tiptoes, putting undue stress on my calves. And he may be right. Why I do this is anybody’s guess, but it does take every bit of my attention to carry on a conversation in Italian and I probably tense up. So, in order to improve my conversational skills and hopefully get off my tiptoes I am going to take a few individual lessons at a local language school. Hmmm... taking a language course to improve my physical fitness. That has to be a pretty unusual strategy.

I stopped by the school yesterday and took a test to determine my level. It was Upper Intermediate, which was disappointing to me. Surely all those years of practicing and studying should give me a higher rating, but sadly, I’m not a detail-oriented person when it comes to language. I can never remember when to use in, a, or da. I am a busy person and I just don't have time for a lot of prepositions. At any rate, I’m glad that when I answered the self-evaluation question (before getting my test results) I selected the response “I have a good knowledge of Italian” instead of “I have such an amazing fluency in Italian that it borders on the poetic.” That really would have been embarassing.

Awkward segueway coming up here. Speaking of conversation, which I sort of was a moment ago, when we left our apartment yesterday afternoon to go to the park, we passed a group of four women in a courtyard just down the street. They were sitting on benches in animated conversation. When we returned home two hours later they were still there, still animated. It is amazing to me how central conversation is to Italians of every age. By way of comparison, think about the times you might have taken your child to the park. (If you live in Charlottesville Pen Park is a good example—large enough to have a decent sized sampling of people.) Think about how many of the parents are on cell phones while their kids are playing (including you or me). A lot right ? Maybe half the parents there ? That hardly ever happens here in the Bologna parks. The large one a few blocks from our apartment is packed with kids and parents after school. While the kids are playing,the parents are talking. Certain areas of the park seem to be reserved for the seniors. These are the areas with several benches grouped together. Every afternoon we find groups of them in animated conversation. I am interested in the fact that it is always men and women together. They are generally dressed very well, the women in dresses and the men in “grown up” slacks. It is very rare that you would see a man in his seventies in jeans. And cell phones ? Hardly a one.

This after-school park ritual has been a wonderful opportunity for us. Boris has met kids that he can ride bikes and play soccer with, and Bill and I have gotten to know some of the parents. When you start to speak to the residents it is almost like a curtain is drawn back and you see parts of Bologna that you miss in the guide books and tourist areas. So, now we know where to buy the best lasagna. We learned what the schools are like. We have commiserated about how boys hate to do homework. We found out that the reason the playground is roped off was that a child died last year falling off a deteriorating swing. Now the city has to check every single bold and chain on every piece of equipment. Which will apparently take months.

With my newly acquired information about where to get the best lasagna, I headed over to the local pasticceria yesterday. The price for a small container was shocking. So shocking that I can’t even bring myself to write down the price in this blog. But I paid up and brought home the precious container. When I told Bill what I paid he asked why I bought it. Well, that was the first thing he said after he recovered from fainting. I answered, “Because I didn’t want to disappoint you !” Boris nodded his head fervently. He had been looking forward to the lasagna all day. So, it has come to a pretty pass. A layered pasta dish has become central to our lives. We think about it all day and we’re willing to pay whatever it costs. I kind of get the whole drug addict thing now.

Chinese Food Bolognese

When I was growing up, Sunday night was Chinese restaurant night. We kept the tradition temporarily alive last night as we headed over to Nuova Cina Ristorante (New China) a couple blocks from our apartment. It really looked strange to see “China” and “Ristorante” sharing a sign. By the way, the Cina is not a typo. To get the “ch” sound in Italian you put a C before an e or i. Adding an h gives it a K sound. So there you go, a mini-lesson in Italian pronunciation.

The restaurant looked exactly like a Chinese restaurant back in the states with shiny Chinese landscapes rendered in various colored foils. The menu confused us for awhile. Half of it was devoted to various types of ravioli and spaghetti. Since we chose this place in order to take a break from those items I have to say we were a little disappointed. Not to worry though. I spotted Sweet and Sour chicken which I haven’t eaten since probably 1965, and as I ordered it memories of Pekin House in Chicago enveloped me. I wish I could have gotten a drink with an umbrella in it, but that did not appear on the menu. (At the Pekin House my grandmother would have ordered a “Whiskey Sour but not Too Sour.”) Bill opted for Chicken with Peanuts. Boris really wanted a stir-fried noodle dish, but when we didn’t see anything like that on the menu I tried to explain to the waitress that in the United States we often ordered “lo mein” in Chinese restaurants when we wanted noodles. Well, I don’t know what reaction I was expecting. I guess I was hoping that by saying “lo mein” I would impress her with our amazing Chinese food expertize. Maybe she would give me a special wink or whip out a special menu for Those in the Know. In reality all I got was a blank stare. So we took our chances (or let Boris take his chances) and ordered Spaghetti with Vegetables and Pork for Boris. We avoided but were intriged by the Spaghetti al Riso, spaghetti with rice. Could that actually mean spaghetti and rice mixed together ? Well, when I saw various plates being brought out to other customers it dawned on me that Spaghetti al Riso were rice noodles. Aha ! The light dawned ! So, spaghetti was just an all-purpose word for noodles and ravioli was the term for dumplings ! It all made so much sense ! Boris’s spaghetti was comprised of “glass noodles” and looked pretty much like something we would order in a Chinese restaurant at home.

Our food was reassuringly slow in coming which suggested that they were actually cooking it instead of nuking it. Everything was pretty good and pretty cheap. It wasn’t especially memorable, but as my mother used to say, “Not every meal can be a gem.”

Gastronomically Yours

Before we left for Italy I was talking with a friend about our plans for our time here. I admitted to being tired of making art, not even sure I wanted to set foot in a museum. I really had not idea how I would spend my time. My friend answered, “Oh well. You have your food.” So, I guess I’m known as a foodie, which is fine, but now I can’t get this strange picture out of my head of me sitting at a table heaped with comestibles which I greedily hug to me, a tableau vivant of gluttony. How appropriate ( and how calculated !) was our ending up in a city that is known as La Grassa—the fat. Yes, Bologna is one of the world’s great food cities, one of the centers also of the Slow Food movement.

There is no lack of food markets in Bologna. They’re everywhere. The other day we were leaving the Piazza Maggiore in the center of town, where the cathedral, Basilica Petronio is located. Turning down a narrow street we discovered it was lined with tiny vegetable, meat and fish shops as well as bakeries selling breads, cakes and pasta. To give you an idea of how surprising this was to me, imagine strolling in the center of a large American city , maybe Times Square in New York or the Loop in Chicago, and being able to do all your ordinary food-shopping right there at not one, but twenty shops. I’m not talking about shops of the Dean & DeLuca variety, although many of these shops could put that foodtique to shame, but “regular” places. A huge part of why this works in Bologna is that its residents are used to picking up groceries for a day or two and bringing them home on the bus. (At this writing I think a small grocery store is set to open near Charlottesville's downtown mall. I'll be interested to know if people can get used to the idea of a grocery store without a parking lot.)

In restaurants and shops we have been amazed at the wide range of pastas, many of which we haven’t seen in the states. There are tortellini, stuffed pasta, which are about the size of a penny.. A slightly larger version is tortelloni. Then there are the quadretti which are tiny, and I do mean tiny squares of pasta. The squares are about the size of a molecule. These, I learned, are meant to be put into broth for a few minutes.

The other day we went out to eat (not something we do very often because restaurants are quite expensive) and I ordered something that I think was called ballonzini. These were shaped like tortelloni but each one was about the size of a tennis ball. I found this pasta to be quite endearing; they would be the sort I would end up with after making two or three of the small tortellini. I would just throw up my hands and speed up the whole process by making them huge. Anyway they were filled to overflowing with a ricotta and ham filling that was very nice. The sauce was butter mushroom and I counted three types of mushroom. Yesterday Bill had a really nice pumpkin ravioli which had a sauce I'd never tasted before. It was mainly balsamic vinegar. The sauce was amazing, almost the consistency of honey and definitely on the sweet side (probably from added sugar). It reminded me of a Chinese barbecue sauce. Boris and I kept dipping into it with our bread, although I think we left a little bit for Bill. All of our pasta dishes have been very rich, as you can tell. I really think Bill and I need to come up with a strategy between us where we order one pasta dish and a salad (these tend to be quite large). As it was, we asked for boxes to take home our leftovers. I am pretty sure that this isn’t “done,” but it seemed a crime to leave it.

Speaking of “done” things, judging from mentions in guidebooks, it seems like everybody now knows that to order a cappuccino after 11:00 am is to give one away as a a tourist (like that guidebook and parachute-sized map spread out on the table wouldn’t do that anyway). John Grisham, in his Bologna travelogue/mystery, The Broker also goes on about this at some length. The explanation seems to be that having milk late in the day is bad for the digestion, but if that’s the case, I don’t understand why it is permissible to order caffe macchiato—espresso with steamed milk.

Today is Saturday and I am very proud of myself for getting to the market near our house before it closes. Last week we all made the assumption—a wrong one—that the supermarket was open Sundays. Luckily the pizzeria was open.