Zio
Angelo and his wife Margherita were certainly not gourmet cooks, but the
endless fragrant stream of tagliatelle that emerged from their little
kitchen was so delectable the place was always chockablock with visiting
merchants and farmers. My mother could hear them singing snatches of Aida,
interspersed with Mussolini’s voice on the radio coming through the
floorboards.
Her
two sisters were rushing about with bowls of hot water. So was Nonna Maria
my grandmother. But the one my mother wanted was my father, and he was far
away. He was also captain in the Italian army and he’d been ordered to
Spain to help Mussolini’s pal Franco take over the Government. Before
leaving he’d sent my mother and my two sisters to Roverbella, the
village where she’d been born, to have her baby in the inn on the main
road that belonged to his brother Angelo.
On
his return he told my mother that the day that I’d chosen to be born on
September 29, 1936 – was the day the Spanish rebels issued a decree
nominating Franco as head of state. But he’d rather have been at home
with his wife and new baby son.
Three
years later World War Two broke out. Life got so difficult the family
moved back to Roverbella from Belluno where we were living in a little
villa. My mother was attached to Roverbella, but the truth is you’d
battle to find a less attractive village. Muggy in summer, foggy and
frozen in winter, it’s not at all picturesque like those Tuscan havens
tourists love to visit.
Instead
of being set among cypresses on top of a rolling hill, it’s as low in
the flat Po valley as you can go, with nothing on the horizon but poplar
trees, and no cypresses except in the graveyards. The old buildings lack
charm, the piazza is insignificant, and the main road is a constant hum of
tourist traffic and lorries from Mantova to Lake Garda. One of those
lorries killed my Zia Margherita as she was fetching bread for the
trattoria.
It
doesn’t matter that the land is as flat as a pizza though, because
it’s so rich. People have thrived on these fertile Lombardy plains since
the time of the Etruscans. Not many of those born here leave – unlike
the four million starving southerners who fled to America around the turn
of the century, seduced by the American agents swarming the country with
alluring tales of the promised land. In the part of the Po valley where I
grew up there was always enough to eat. People might have been exploited
by the landowners, but the crops were always abundant, the animals fat.
You’ve
never seen sows like the sows of Lombardy. They’re the size of a small
Fiat. The males are much smaller, but fortunately blessed with genitals
shaped like a corkscrew, otherwise those record-breaking litters of 18
piglets would never happen.
It’s
the land of plenty. You just have to throw a seed on the ground for it to
grow. As a result food is a passion, to the extent that a normal afternoon
greeting in Roverbella when I was growing up would be “Have you had a
good meal?” When my relatives weren’t discussing the future that
Mussolini was cooking up for us with Hitler, they were discussing what
they were cooking up in their own kitchens.
I
was about four when I first saw Nonna Maria slaughter a goose. She
strangled it with the help of a strong man and a broomstick. I found the
whole thing fascinating. I have to confess I felt nothing for the goose.
For me it was just food. I couldn’t wait to kill and cook a bird myself.
One
day I caught a sparrow in a trap, with a piece of polenta. Then I did what
I’d seen my mother do. I plucked it clean, slit it and got rid of the
insides, then put it in a little pan with butter and a sage leaf. Even
then I knew that the preparation of what you were going to eat was
important.
One
of the relatives I admired most was the butcher married to my father’s
sister Andromaca. Zio Umberto was a huge man with cheeks as pink and firm
as a fillet steak. He had a handlebar moustache and biceps we were all in
awe of, and there was always a good clean smell of fresh meat hanging
about him. He wasn’t what you might call a brain surgeon. (His nickname
was Gheo, the sound the geese make and that should tell you something) But
he was one of the strongest men in the village. He could tear a deck of
cards in two with his bare hands. When he pinched my cheek it would hurt
for two hours.
He
and his brother Ernesto were Italy’s cycling champions. Cycling is still
second only to soccer in Italy. When Zio Umberto was 23 he and his tandem
partner Nino Bixio became world champions. That was 1900. They were
presented with two huge urns in Paris by Regina Margherita. As a kid being
told the story I always wondered why Bixio had got an urn, considering he
always chose the back seat and left Zio Umberto to do all the pulling.
Even
in his seventies my uncle did the slaughtering. He did it with his little
Beretta. The slaughterhouse was the size of a small shed, and it was in
our communal back courtyard, near where we used to plant the tomates. Our
gang always played Tarzan in that yard on the walnut tree and when we saw
the cow being delivered we’d rush to the door of the slaughterhouse to
watch. Zio Umberto would push us out of the way, press his pistol to the
creature’s forehead and shoot. The
fillets were reserved for the privileged few. That’s how it was in Italy
in the war years, even in the Po valley. But we didn’t starve, unlike
the city people.
There
were always rabbits in the fields, fish in the streams, frogs in the rice
fields. Like the mother pig, the land was unstinting in its generous
nourishment. We grew up attached to it. And where else in the world could
we cycle along the riverbank from village to village.
Roverbella
had a population of about 3000 in those days and things haven’t changed
much since. People still have a shop in the front of their houses. We had
the corner property with my mother’s newsagency below. Next to us was a
general dealer run by two spinsters who lived with their brother
Squerzoni. He was a moneylender who we all knew had haemorrhoids, which
served him right because the whole village hated him. He’d somehow
managed to repossess just about everything my family had given him in
pawn, including the silver canteen of cutlery my father acquired during
his glorious pre-war years.
Cremonini
the coffinmaker lived next door to Squerzoni and he was a cherub in
comparison. His coffins were custom made and he never set foot out of the
house without his folding wooden tape measure. If you looked a bit off
colour you could be sure someone would nudge you and wink and say, “Hey,
is it time to send Cremonini to take the measurements?”
On
the other side of us was the haberdashery of Teresa and her widowed
mother. Spagnoli the baker lived next door. Then there was the butcher
shop belonging to Zia Andromaca and Zio Umberto, and next to them the
ironmonger Zio Gino, who was married to my mother’s sister Enas…
MARIA
TOFFOLI’S RISOTTO WITH FROGS
Nowadays
Roverbella housewives buy Vietnamese frogs’ legs in the supermarket,
neatly frozen like calamari tubes and delicious when properly prepared.
But they can’t beat the taste of the little fat green spotted frogs that
live in the paddy fields around the village.
I
used to catch them at night in the rice-fields. I’d go with a torch and
a piece of wine-cork at the end of a fishing rod that would bounce in the
beam of light like a fly. The frogs would leap up air and swallow the
cork.
My
mother used to also get them from the rice-field workers. They would
appear at the front door clutching a jiggling stocking which made an ideal
bag because it would stretch with the weight of the frogs jumping around
at the bottom, and they couldn’t escape. My mother would buy a dozen and
keep them in another stocking until suppertime.
The
killing was never done by my father. He didn’t set foot in the kitchen.
Everything was done by my mother or Nonna Maria. They were the experts. My
sisters weren’t too keep on this part but of course I was.
My
mother would cut off the head and front legs, pull the skin down and cut
the feet off. Then she’d open them to clean them. If there were eggs
inside black and white, the size of caviar – she’d leave them because
they added flavour. Then she’d toss the frogs in flour, deep-fry them
and serve immediately, salted, with wedges of lemon and slices of grilled
polenta.
Fresh
like that they were crispy and delicious, and tasted rather like chicken.
We’d eat the whole thing, bones and all.
Later
as the long hot summer evening grew dark, we’d sit outside getting some
cool air like everyone else, greeting the passers-by and watching our
neighbour Spagnoli cooling down the pebbles on the road outside his bakery
with a watering can. The lights would be switched off to discourage the
bugs. We could see the stars very clearly in the inky sky and the night
would be filled with the frog chorus from the paddy fields: RARGGGK
RARGGGK.
Frogs
were considered such a delicacy locally that they were the speciality of
the restaurant my cousin Maria, Angelo’s daughter, had in Pellaloco for
25 years. A frog standing on its hind legs was on the sign outside and on
the wine label. Maria’s Risotto Con Le Rane was famous and the place was
always full of travelling salesmen from Milan, stuffing themselves.
CA’
DEL
LAGO’S OSSO BUCO
Friday
evening has always been aria night at Ca’del Lago. That’s what makes
Franco Carteri’s country house restaurant on the road to Valleggio
unique.
Tourists
love it.
I
don’t know how the whole thing started. Perhaps he gave them a free
meal. But ever since, customers have spontaneously broken into song during
the meal. They have untrained but beautiful soprano and tenor voices and
they sing all the songs people know, the arias and Neapolitan romanzas. If
it’s a chorus like “Va Pensiero!” from Verdi’s Nabucco or
“Libiamo! Libiamo!” from La Traviata, the whole place joins in, and
the tourists stop eating, eyes on stalks.
When
he was there, Franco was a huge drawcard with his imposing appearance and
his imposing personality. He was the cliché Italian, tall and lean with a
tanned muscular jaw, a million flashing white teeth, thick straight black
hair and black eyes. Even better looking than a young Sean Connery and not
so hairy. He was the only one of us who could swim against the
fast-running currents of the Roverbella canals. He’d show off by
swimming upstream, as we all sat on the hot grassy bank with our feet in
the water, the sweet juice of wild grapes running down our chins and our
ears filled with the sound of cicadas.
The
Carteris got their good looks from their father. He was another of those
Latin lover types foreign women swoon over, but he had half a leg and was
a militant Fascist. There were men like him in every village: devout,
active black shirts, vehemently pro-German and anti-British, unlike most
Italians who just wanted to get on with their lives.
The
day the British Spitfire was shot down near the Carteris’ farm we were
all in the streets watching. When the white parachute slowly floated down,
we could see the tiny figure suspended there like a seed below
thistledown.
As
soon as the pilot’s feet hit the ground Franco’s father rushed up and
made the fastest civil arrest in Italian history. He handed the poor
bastard over to the Germans without even giving him a cup of coffee. If
he’d landed on any other farm they would’ve hidden him. No one liked
the Germans. Even at that stage two-thirds of the population were against
the war.
Franco
took to wearing a black shirt like his father, even though he was never
involved in politics. But he didn’t dare wear it after the war. He
would’ve been beaten up by the Communists, even though he was a good
boxer himself and would probably have made it a career if he hadn’t been
thrashed by the champ in the next village. It was only after he opened his trattoria that he started wearing a black shirt again, as well
as medallion with the head of Il Duce on a gold chain round his neck.
Perhaps it was good for business. A lot of German customers who were
staying at Lake Garda used to come to the restaurant. He called it
Ca’del Lago because of the pond.
There were turkeys, rabbits and geese
wandering all over the place. At one stage he started collecting wild
animals and even managed to acquire a pet lion, a pathetic toothless
creature you could only feel sorry for. God knows where he found it.
France never had a menu or a wine list. His daughter Cristina now runs it
and she doesn’t either. When you arrive, a jug of local wine is plonked
down on the table. You ask, “What are we eating tonight?” And they say
“Tonight it’s Risotto with Fish or Polenta with Roast Guinea Fowl or
Osso Buco.” The choice is small and never includes dishes perceived as
foreign, like pizza. It’s traditional Northern Italian country food,
like Osso Buco.
AGNOLINIS
ALLA VISCONTI
The
stone bridge under the castle at Borgheto is famous all over Italy as the
setting for the world’s biggest outdoor banquet. It happens every year
in August: one long table stretching all the way across the bridge over
the Mincio River, with 4000 people sitting down to eat. The local
speciality agnolini is the main dish in a five-course dinner served by
waiters in bow-ties.
This
bridge was the setting for the Visconti movie in which I was an extra.
Senzo was one of Visconti’s ornate period sagas based on the Italian War
of Independence, a real box-office epic starring Alida Valli, a truly
luscious creature. I played a peasant to get away from the shooting. I had
to put a kid on a cart full of hay. That was all I did and I repeated it
about a million times until Visconti was happy. He wasn’t very
interested in us extras, unlike his chirpy young assistant, Franco
Zeffirelli who was always talking to us.
One
afternoon we were hanging around pretending to smoke the hideous-tasting
cigarettes we used to make out of the beards of mealies, and watching
Visconti and the lead actor, Massimo Girotti, eating agnolini for lunch at
the inn under the trees below the bridge, that’s still there: Trattoria
Borgheto. My friend and I went over to ask Girotti for his autograph and
the actor asked what my name was.
Later
he told my friend I had the kind of face they were looking for at
Cinecitta. I never went there to try my luck though. To raw young country
boys like us, those beautifully dressed, gloriously smelling city types from
Rome were so foreign they could have been from outer space. Certainly not
to be trusted. So I never got the chance to become the next Marcello
Mastroianni, which is probably just as well.
Nowadays
whenever I’m home I make a point of visiting Borgheto for the agnolini.
It’s not the sort of thing people normally make in their own kitchens
because it takes two days to prepare. But here’s how they do it in
Borgheto.
BOLLITO MISTO
You
can't translate Bollito Misto into English. Mixed Boiled Meats sounds like
third grade hospital food that's had the guts boiled out of it. Nothing
could be further from the truth. Bollito Misto is one of Northern Italy's
best-kept secrets. It's two delicious courses cooked in one pot.
You
start with agnolini that have been cooked in the beautiful broth that
several delicious meats have been boiled in. Then you eat the meat itself,
served in what remains of the broth. There's usually a loin of prime beef,
half a capon (a fat castrated cock about four and a half kilos) an ox
tongue, cotechino sausage, pig's trotter, and if you're lucky a bit of
veal head from a suckling calf, which gives it a nice jelly and is covered
with a delicious sticky thick skin.
Simmer
the meat with onions, carrots, celery, peppercorns, bay leaves, salt and
pepper for at least three hours, just below boiling level. You serve it
with home-pickled vegetables and two kinds of sauces: salsa verde and
salsa rossa.
To
make salsa verde, blend together finely chopped Italian broad-leafed
parsley (not the English one which has no taste) the yolks of two
hard-boiled eggs, a few capers, one fillet of anchovy, a fistful of white
bread soaked in vinegar, salt and lots of olive oil.
To
make salsa rossa, sauté in olive oil, a fistful of parsley and a few garlic
gloves, both finely chopped, with two glassfuls of tomato purée and half a
glass of red wine vinegar. Let it simmer until the vinegar has evaporated.
Because
all the different types of meat that you need to make it will feed 15 to
25 people, you normally find Bollito Misto only at banquets or in
restaurants. It comes along on a trolley and it's cut off for you right
there. What a banquet.
My
favourite restaurant for Bollito Misto between Mantova and Verona is in
the village of Dossobuono di Verona, five kilometres outside Verona on the
Mantua road. It's called Ciccarelli but everyone refers to it as La
Madonnina because of the statue of the madonna in a shrine built into the
wall.
GRILLED POLENTA
Polenta was once regarded as plebeian food. There was a
time when you couldn't persuade anyone outside Northern Italy to eat it.
Now you see polenta in restaurants all over the world, from Melbourne to
Manhattan. I've even had it in a foreign restaurant served in fancy little
grilled rounds under baby quails. It's become as fashionable
internationally as balsamic vinegar, sun-dried tomatoes, radicchio and
cold-pressed extra virgin olive oil. The speed at which this kind of thing
happens amazes me. Some wandering chef somewhere picks up an obscure dish
or ingredient, launches it internationally and off it goes.
Nowadays
you can even buy instant polenta that's ready in three minutes, but it
doesn't taste as good as the real thing, which is never pre-cooked,
Polenta Bramata.
Of course the real manna from heaven is grilled polenta. Make a
fairly stiff polenta and pour it hot from the pot on to a board or large
casserole dish. Let it cool and then cut into wedges. Brush with olive oil
and sprinkle with herbs and seasoning before grilling or putting on the
fire. The longer you leave it, the stronger will be the baked corn taste.
Grilled polenta is also delicious served with a topping of
strong-flavoured cheese like gorgonzola, parmesan or fontina.
GNOCCHI AI TRE FORMAGGI
While
there were always packets of polenta and rice in any mother's kitchen
cupboard, she didn't routinely keep a sack of potatoes in the pantry,
unlike those Irish peasants last century who used to get through a sack a
day because they hadn't discovered pasta. Potatoes have simply never been
a stock item in an Italian kitchen, even though it's the most economical
crop to grow. The yield of the potato is many times that of grain.
Potatoes are an enormously practical food source. You can dig them out
whenever you need them and neither animals, frost nor marauding soldiers
can destroy them.
For
some reason though, potatoes have just never had much appeal for us. When
we do eat them, it's usually in the dumplings we call gnocchi. The perfect
potatoes for gnocchi are grown in the hills of the Veneto region. The
lorries used to come down into the village square packed with them. The
farm workers sitting on top of the sacks of jute filled to bursting with
big potatoes with dark reddish skins.
My
mother used to send me to buy them, with instructions to bring back only
"the good potatoes from the hills, good for the gnocchi." She
would boil them in their skins and as she peeled them they'd break up in
her hands, because they were good starchy potatoes, not waxy and compact,
but light in texture, the sort that make lovely fluffy gnocchi.
Contrary to what foreigners seem to think, gnocchi are
not difficult to make. Boil a kilo of potatoes and crush them in one of
those Italian potato ricers that look like giant garlic- crushers. It's
called a schiacciapatate and it's the correct way to mash potatoes for
gnocchi because it doesn't flatten them and squash all the air out.
Let it cool, then mix with 200g of flour, an egg
and salt to taste. Now, work it with your hands on a
wooden board, as if you were kneading dough, until it's nice and smooth.
This is where the importance of having starchy potatoes comes in. Then
roll handfuls into long thin sausages the size of your little finger,
about a centimetre in diameter.
Cut
into pieces two or three centimetres long, making an indentation with your
thumb in the middle of each one to prevent the centre being too hard. Toss
them lightly in flour to prevent sticking, and lay out flat while boiling
a big pot of water.
Put the gnocchi into the boiling water. They will rise to the
surface, cooked, in about a minute. Fish them out immediately and place in
a buttered, heated dish. Pour over whatever sauce you're eating with them,
and then sprinkle with grated parmigiano. You want either a simple tomato
sauce, a meat ragu or a creamy sauce made with gorgonzola and pecorino, in which case we call the dish Gnocchi ai
Tre Formaggi: gnocchi with three cheeses.
Eat
it with a good red wine like Bardolino."
