The Food Taster

by Peter Elbling

  CHAPTER 6

  'Che bruta sorpresa,' my mother would have said. 'The unhappy surprise.' Unhappy? Oi me! The slices of swan grew so big I could see nothing else. I thought I saw maggots feasting on them, worms slithering through them, green pus oozing from the sides. I looked at Federico. A river of saliva sat on his fat bottom lip. I could feel everyone's eyes on me — nobles, knights, wives, courtesans, servants. I remembered the hatred on the servants' faces earlier in the courtyard. Could one of them have poisoned the food? Miranda had already lost her mother and without me her life would be worthless. Although I did not wish to annoy Federico, God knows I wanted to do everything I could to please him, I put the knife down and said, 'Thank you, Your Excellency, but I already ate.'

  The duke blinked, stared at me, then blinked again. His face quivered with rage. His teeth gnashed, his bottom lip fell to his chin.

  'Taste it! For the love of God, taste it!' Cristoforo screamed.

  Federico pushed back his chair, leaned over the table and snatched up the knife. All around me people cried, 'Taste it! Taste it!'

  I had no doubt that Federico was as good with a knife as he was with his sword, so I quickly picked up a slice of swan's breast and bit into it.

  I had only eaten meat a few times in my life; pork on the feast of San Antonio, a few chickens, and once a sheep that had become lame when we were driving the flock. Whenever my father ate meat he said, 'This is the way meat should taste,' just because it was meat. But the times I ate it were so far apart I could never remember what it tasted like from one time to the next. But this breast, this breast, I have never forgotten. When my teeth sank into it the flesh fell apart in my mouth. The juices trickled over my tongue like brooks in springtime. Someone groaned with pleasure. It was me!

  Duke Federico slammed his fist onto the table. 'Swallow it,' he yelled. He did not have to tell me twice! I would have eaten the whole bird if I had had the chance. My throat opened, my stomach reached up to pull the food down, and yet the breast did not move. As much as one part of me yearned to swallow, another part did not. This other part of me said, 'What if the breast is poisoned? How soon will I feel it? What will it feel like? Is it too late?' Something tickled my throat. Perhaps it was just my imagination, but when I felt that, I tried to pull the meat out of my mouth. Platters crashed to the floor, dogs barked, the guests rose in panic. Then my hands were grasped behind my back and the meat forced down my throat as if I was an animal.

  I once saw a miller die from drinking bad water. He rolled over and over on the ground trying to tear his stomach out with his hands. His eyes bulged, his tongue grew thick in his mouth. He screamed he would leave his mill to the man who brought him a knife to end the fire in his belly, but his wretched wife forbade us. His cries lasted until morning and then he lay silent, his lips gnawed away by his frantic teeth.

  But this meat did not burn my mouth, nor did it tear at my throat. My stomach did not feel as if it was being torn apart by a griffin's claws. I did not feel anything other than a wondrous sensation. Every part of my body sighed with satisfaction. Sconces flickered, flared up, and died down. Eyes darted from me to the duke and back again. When several moments had passed and still nothing had happened, the duke grunted, pulled the platter toward him, picked up the other slices with his hands, and ate them. That was the sign to the guests to begin eating. One moment every eye in the hall was on me, and the next I was invisible.

  'Do you want to get me killed?' Cristoforo shouted when we returned to the kitchen. He was so angry his goiter had turned as red as his face. 'Just do what you are told or I swear if Federico does not kill you I will.'

  I later found out being Federico's cook could be as precarious a position as a food taster, for when it came to food Federico was more suspicious than an old fool with a young bride, and would strike first and ask questions afterward. Cristoforo did not have time to continue his ranting, for the kitchen servants were busily preparing more dishes. Every now and then my stomach rumbled and I thought — This is it! This is the poison! But when I did not fall sick, I realized the rumbling was just my stomach getting used to having food inside it. The curly-haired boy, whose name was Tommaso said, 'Stay close by. Federico will need you again.'

  I stayed by the serving table, where the meats and other foods were prepared, and watched as the guests nibbled at dainty little sausages, chewed on chicken legs, gobbled down slices of veal, and sucked the marrow out of bones. The color of their sleeves changed from red to mustard to brown as they dragged the food through a half-dozen different sauces. They spoke of politics and art and war. When someone sneezed, a hunchback with a big head, big ears, a black beard, and eyes that bulged beneath his spectacles began a discussion about table manners.

  Just as I was walking behind him, he said, 'In Venezia they get rid of snot like this,' and holding his nose between his thumb and forefinger, the little toad turned away from the table and blew a huge wad right onto my leg. Everyone laughed. I was furious because I had just been given this pair of hose and I did not know when I would get another.

  Five more times I was called to taste the duke's food. I remember salted pork tongues cooked in a blood-red wine, fish galantine, vegetable ravioli delicately sprinkled with cheese, a farinata, a thick pudding of wheat grains with almond milk, and saffron for the venison. There were also capons. Capons with fritters, capons with lemon, capons with eggplants, capons cooked in their own juices. They loved it all! God in heaven! How could they not have loved it! As for me, each time I had to taste something I feared I would die. My stomach growled like an angry bear, but nothing happened.

  So after tasting dish after dish without any ill effect, I said to myself — Ugo, perhaps the food is not poisoned. And since this might be the only time you taste food like this, why not enjoy it!

  Just then Cristoforo served Federico a platter of flaky-crusted yellow pastries bursting with cream and sprinkled with sugar, called Neapolitan spice cakes, and best of all, pear tarts wrapped in marzipan. My mouth filled with enough saliva to drown an ox. I prayed Federico would choose the pear tart first. He did. Steadying myself not to show my excitement, I raised the tart to my mouth and bit into it.

  O saints be praised! To those who say cooking is not as great an art as painting and sculpture, I say they have their head up their culo. It is far, far greater! A sculptor's work is eternal, but a cook's greatness is measured by how fast his creations disappear! A true master must produce great works every day. And that sniveling creep Cristoforo was a master. If you can imagine a warm doughy base crumbling against the sides of your palate, the sugary pulpiness of a soft brown pear lying on your tongue like a satisfied woman, Eden's succulent juices filling up the canals between your teeth, you would not even be close! You would think that I, who had never tasted such a delicacy, would have gladly surrendered myself to this pleasure, maybe even risked death and grabbed another bite. But I did not. Believe me, it was not because I did not want to, but because I could not! Something had changed in me. I received no pleasure from the tart at all. None. Niente! My taste buds had been robbed of all power of enjoyment. I left the table staring at the pear tarts and spice cakes with such disappointment that tears came to my eyes.

  It is the same to this very day. Meals which have inspired men to poetry, women to open their legs, and ministers to reveal state secrets leave me unaffected. Even when I am not tasting for the duke, when I am here alone in my room, a single candle illuminating my solitude, with only bread and cheese for sustenance, I feel nothing. But it is a small price to pay. For if I had been allowed to enjoy food all these years, in time I would have become less vigilant, and the duke's enemies wait for such moments. No, much as I want to enjoy food, I love life even more.

  It was now so late that the birds were awakening, but the banquet was still not finished. A thin man with yellow teeth, huge eyebrows, and a runny nose stood up to speak, and I noticed the servants slip quietly out of the hall. I tried to follow, but they closed the
door in my face and I heard them giggling on the other side.

  The thin man cleared his throat and began by saying, 'Septivus, the lowest of all orators, gives you, Duke Federico Basillione DiVincelli, the greatest of all patrons, his warmest thanks.'

  I do not remember exactly what Septivus said that night, but I have heard so many of his speeches since then I could recite them in my sleep. First, he praised Duke Federico as if he was Jesus Christ and Julius Caesar rolled into one. Then he said that if Cicero had been here he would not have said, 'We should eat to live,' but, 'Let us live to eat,' because this was the most magnificent banquet he had ever seen. 'By eating the fruits which God bestowed upon the Garden of Corsoli, we ingest paradise itself.'

  As if it was not bad enough that I could not enjoy the food, now I had to listen to this fool praising it! 'This magnificent feast,' Septivus cried, 'not only puts us in harmony with nature, but also joins our hearts with those sitting beside us. Today, injuries are healed, quarrels are forgotten, for food is man's greatest healer.'

  I could hear my father shouting, 'What the devil is that idiot talking about?'

  Then Septivus went on to praise the mouth because in return for food it nurtured words. 'These words, spiced by the food, celebrate the union between man and nature, man and society, and the body and the spirit. Did Christ not say, 'This is my body, this is my blood?' This blending of body and spirit leads us to another hunger which God alone can fulfill!'

  He paused to sip some wine. 'In the truly successful banquet the conversation is neither too stupid nor too intelligent, but flows so that everyone can join in.' He waggled his finger. 'For there is nothing worse than one person dominating the table with a long, boring speech which undoes all the pleasures the stomach has—'

  'That is right. Nothing,' Duke Federico said. 'I am going to bed.' He lurched to his feet and stomped out of the hall like a drunken ox. Within a minute the room was empty.

  The pink fingers of dawn were already reaching over the hills when Tommaso said, 'Now we eat,' and led me to the servants' hall.

  CHAPTER 7

  I wonder what Septivus would have said about the servants' meal. Meal? This was not a meal. Meals are prepared in a kitchen. This was prepared in a graveyard! For every breast of quail or capon served at the banquet, we were given a beak or a talon. For every goat leg, we were given a hoof. For every sausage, a horn or tail. No one spoke. No one made a speech or cracked a joke. Instead we crammed around the table, the pale yellow light of our candle of pigs' grease lighting our weary faces, and used what little strength we had to pretend that what we were eating was as delicious as what we had served. Suddenly, I remembered Miranda. 'My daughter, I must find her—'

  'She has already eaten,' Tommaso said, sucking on a scorched black chicken's claw as if it was the tastiest morsel in the world. 'Have some dessert.' He dumped a bowl of figs, grapes, and plums onto the table, each piece so spoiled and rotten I could hardly tell one from the other. Then grabbing some bruises in the shape of an apple, he said, 'Come, I will take you to her.'

  With a cocky stride, he led me through a maze of hallways and staircases, biting into his apple and spitting out the pips, until we came to a small room across from the stables in which three boys were fast asleep on their pallets. Miranda was curled up on another under a tattered blanket.

  I grasped Tommaso's arm. 'Thank you for your kindnesses.'

  He was looking at Miranda's face, which even in the ill-green light of the sconces was soft and beautiful. 'Buona notte,' he replied and, cocking his head to one side, he left, whistling to himself.

  I lay down next to Miranda and cradled her to me. Her fresh, strong smell enveloped me, and I pressed my face against hers and thanked God for keeping her safe from harm. But although I was exhausted I could not sleep.

  Oi me! I have slept with sheep, goats, pigs, but all of them together were not as bad as the wretched stink in that room. Nor was it just the smell, but the yelling and arguing and weeping of the boys as they thrashed about, tossing from one side to another, kicking their legs backward and forward as they tried to outrun their nightmares.

  But even if everything had been quiet and that pisshole had smelled like a Turkish harem, my mind refused to be silenced. I wanted to know how Luca had tried to poison Federico. I wanted to know why, if I had to taste food, God did not allow me to enjoy it. I wanted to know, if someone did sprinkle poison over the meat or coated a pudding with it, how could I tell? Pota! How could I stop them?

  However starved I had been on the farm, at least I was free. Now I was a bird trapped in a net waiting for Death, the eternal hunter, to collect me. And that day could be tomorrow! Or the day after. Or the one after that. Any meal could be my last. My heart beat so loudly it rang in my ears. I stood in the doorway to the courtyard to clear my head. The palace was silent. The moon was fading and the face in it barely visible. But then before my eyes, the face changed to that of my father and then my cursed brother Vittore. Vittore laughed. 'Ugo is in the middle of all that food and he cannot taste it!' The food I had eaten welled up in my throat.

  After I vomited, I picked Miranda up in my arms and carried her out of her room. People were sleeping everywhere, curled up against one another in the hallways and alcoves, and under benches. Every room was crowded with huddled forms, some under blankets, some without. Miranda opened her eyes and when I told her we were going back to our farm, she pulled my arm and said, 'No, I like it here, babbo. I had meat—'

  'But Miranda,' I whispered. 'They have made me Duke Federico's new food taster. His old one, Luca, was the man who had his tongue cut out.'

  The sleep fled from her eyes. I stood her up on her feet. 'Babbo, I do not want you to be poisoned.'

  'No, nor do I. That is why we must—'

  Suddenly, there was a growling and in the moonlight I saw Federico's dog, Nero, his teeth bared, his ears pricked back lumbering toward us. Miranda, who loved animals, was as scared of him as I was, and hid behind me.

  'Nero!' said a voice from the shadows. My heart leaped out of the window. Duke Federico was limping toward us.

  'Scusate, Your Honor,' I bowed deeply. 'My daughter had a dream—'

  'You are the taster,' the duke said.

  'Si, Your Excellency.'

  'Come here.' I hesitated and he repeated. 'Come here! Do not worry, I try not to kill more than one person a day.' Putting his weight on my shoulder he grimaced and lowered himself onto a nearby bench.

  'Now pick up my foot.' It was bandaged and swollen with gout and I did not know where or how to grasp it. 'Underneath!' he snarled. 'Underneath!'

  Praying that I would not drop it, I picked up the foot as he instructed, it did not help that Nero's mouth was inches from my face, and raised it toward the bench.

  'Careful!' Federico shouted and Nero barked loudly.

  Sweating so much I could hardly see, I gently laid his foot down as if it was a newborn child. Federico leaned his head back against the wall and gave a great sigh. I did not know whether to leave or stay where I was. Then he said, 'What are you doing?'

  I realized he was not looking at me, but at Miranda who was stroking Nero's massive head. She immediately withdrew her hand.

  'You like dogs?' the duke asked.

  She nodded. 'I like all animals,' and she reached out her hand to Nero's face again. O blessed saints! Was there ever a braver child?

  'I should have had a daughter,' Federico grunted. 'My eldest son will want to kill me soon enough.'

  I wanted to ask him if he thought his son might poison him, but just then Federico scratched his big toe and cursed with such anger I decided it best to remain silent. Then, as if he had forgotten we were there, he said harshly. 'Go back to sleep!'

  We hurried to our room.

  Miranda was soon breathing quietly, but I lay awake thinking. Although it was true Federico was vicious and cruel, he had good reason to be so if people were trying to poison him. However, as they say, 'A coin has two sides,' and I h
ad seen a glimpse of the other. He liked children, maybe not his own, but small girls anyway. Or at least he did not dislike them. Surely, this was a good omen. He also said he tried not to kill more than one person a day. It was a jest of course, but in every jest is a kernel of truth. Pota! There had to be or otherwise Corsoli would have long ceased to exist.

  I marveled at the path God had led me on that day. He had given me the opportunity to serve a great duke; to rise to a better position than my father or my brother could have ever dreamed of. Surely that was why Federico had killed Luca. Why the stag had run across my farm and why the man with the gray beard had spoken when he did. God had answered my prayer and saved Miranda from starving. I vowed to return His love by being the best food taster Federico had ever had.

  CHAPTER 8

  I must have slept after all, for when Tommaso woke me the sun was shining and the guests were preparing to depart. ‘I have something for you,' he said.