Cooking With Fernet Branca

by James Hamilton-Paterson

You blench? Just a bit leery, are we? But listen: I have discovered that this single drop transforms the dish from merely very interesting into an unblushing classic. In such a tiny quantity paraffin is completely harmless, if that’s what’s worrying you. Nor can you taste it as such, any more than you taste the chocolate in that Mexican classic, rabbit in chocolate. It simply becomes something else, something inimitably itself. It is, well, alien, like the hint of industrial processes somewhere in the background of Knize Ten eau de cologne. Just be courageous! Coraggio! as I sing in the character of Orazio (who is trying to steel himself to cut out the heart of his poisoned friend and turn it into a paperweight by marmelizing). Add that drop, stir everything together, cover the pot and cook for two hours in a low oven (170°C).

  In the meantime you can sift the flour into a bowl and work in 100 gm of the bright pink lard from the sampered beet and 100 gm of the faint pink lard from the sampered pomegranate rinds. You will need to add just enough Fernet to make it all cling together in a ball that can be briefly kneaded and rolled out into a half-inch-thick sheet of the oddest pastry you ever did see. Frankly, it looks like pink marzipan, for all the world like something that might be stockpiled by a Battenberg cake factory. Put it hastily into the fridge for half an hour. Then transfer the contents of the casserole (resist the urge to taste it but admire that deep smoky, plummy, geological smell like processes taking place deep inside a star) to a large, round, ovenproof dish. Lay a strip of the pastry on the pie dish’s moistened rim; place a tall cake ring in the centre of the dish with a saucer laid upside down on top and carefully drape the pastry over all, sealing it well around the edges. The shape should resemble a UFO; it is very much up to the cook’s individual ingenuity to add verisimilitude. I use small embedded olives for a ring of portholes. Then back into the oven with it for another forty minutes at 190 °C until it is the dark pinkish-brown of an unknown alloy heated to glowing by entry into a planet’s upper atmosphere.

  Beyond this point we enter the realm of the sacramental, and words all but fail me. All I can say is that Alien Pie, hot from the oven and with a jaunty buzzard feather stuck in the top, should be eaten on a terrace overlooking a distant ocean above which the remnants of sunset brood like old wounds seeping through a field dressing. It is one of those experiences poised exquisitely between sorrow and oblivion.

  30

  No matter how dubious the enterprise on which you’re embarked, you can’t beat the red-carpet treatment. I fizzed across the Alps from Pisa and was met at Munich airport by a Bavarian fixer with a turd-coloured Mercedes limo. There-after I was wafted to a hotel. Asked to guess, I might have imagined the Kempinski Four Seasons or the Bayerischer Hof would be adequate lodging for a ghost writer. To my surprise and pleasure we drove through the old city on the inner ring road straight towards the Hofbräuhaus, by which time I realized Nanty’s minions had booked me into the Hotel Rafael.

  My suite would have made the Centre Court at Wimbledon look poky. And until the words ‘by their fruits ye shall know them’ popped into my head it hadn’t occurred to me that St Matthew had divided his time between being an Apostle and being a researcher for the Guide Michelin, for his observation is that of a seasoned traveller. Whereas in most hotels the complimentary fruit basket contains the bananas, oranges, apples and flavour-free grapes recently relieved from a long spell of duty on the dessert trolley in the restaurant downstairs, that of the Hotel Rafael was full of rambutans, mangoes, passion fruit, guavas, soursops, pomeloes and the fabled Nepalese persimmon.

  In an envelope propped on my pillow in a nest of Mozartkugeln was a note from Nanty and a ticket for next evening’s farewell Freewayz gig in the Olympiahalle. The note suggested we meet on the hotel roof after dinner for a swim. In due course I ate in the restaurant, one of those meals one only ever eats in a first-class hotel when someone else is footing the bill. There was a little too much of everything and I had the unsettling feeling that it was improper to read and eat at the same time. As a matter of fact, reading a book over a solitary evening meal in a foreign restaurant is normally one of my greatest pleasures, following the particular enjoyment of choosing a meal from a menu in a language I can’t understand. Not knowing what I shall shortly be eating is just as exciting as not knowing what I shall be reading in half a chapter’s time. The most extraordinary things arrive at the table, like the ‘gourmet’ dish I didn’t realize I had ordered in Romania and which seemed to consist of tubing and flames, a sort of urinary tract flambé. It was full of Georgian brandy and rather good. I also well remember a meal in Dakar last year (Per Snoilsson was awarding prizes in the Paris-Dakar rally) which began with fig blancmange, went on to a soup that tasted agreeably of roast bricks, and ended with a deep-fried camel harness that was unaccountably delicious. You never can tell. Adventure – that’s what I crave; and the older I get the fewer the lines I draw.

  This dinner, though, was a little too perfect, too comprehensible (menu in English, English-speaking waiters), and it was plain that the Hotel Rafael’s guests didn’t much like surprises. There were also too many men with starched shirtfronts hanging about, waiting to scurry at my behest. No sooner had I become engrossed in chapter 2 than I could feel their accusing eyes on me and would look up guiltily as though I were deeply insulting the chef by not giving his creations my fullest attention. The result was that I couldn’t really enjoy either book or meal. After the joys of Alien Pie (half of which was waiting for me in a fridge up a mountainside three hundred miles away) there was something depressingly ordinary about this five-star meal.

  I always think rooftop swimming pools have a cachet all their own. For one thing, they represent a rigid digit waved gaily in the face of all human intuition and convention. The abominable folk wisdom of the human race just knows that pools of water form in holes in the ground. Nonsense, says technology, and promptly builds them in mid-air above historic city centres. This architectural chutzpah pays off by providing a genuinely new kind of experience – in this case lying afloat high above Munich’s Altstadt on a hot summer’s night. Each time I belched, a faint cloud of white wine and Spätzle drifted aromatically away. I decided I loved Bavaria. My only worry concerned my rented swimming trunks. These were made of an over-elasticated material and clenched me in a manner that did nothing for my profile, as I had observed with a pang in a mirror by the changing rooms. Somehow they made my derrière vanish almost entirely. A cruel illusion, and I –

  ‘Gerry, hi there! You made it!’

  A small Olympic swimmer surfaced next to me complete with racing cap and almond-lensed goggles.

  ‘Nanty,’ I gasped, spluttering. ‘Good to see you. Wow – dig the racing cap.’

  ‘It’s getting old, that joke,’ he said, briefly dipping his face beneath the surface and enabling me to view his clearly naked scalp. Oh God, not again. He came up with a smirk. ‘Dig the trunks.’

  ‘This underwater lighting produces some very odd distortions,’ I told him earnestly.

  ‘What you don’t see is what you get,’ he said, and laughed.

  Was there just a smidgin of cruelty here or was he just trying to be witty, a job far better left to Samper? ‘You sound like an AIDS awareness poster.’

  ‘I was quoting. It’s the title of one of our biggest hits. You really, really don’t know anything about the biz, do you? It’s great. It’s like coming across an undiscovered tribe. Come and meet the boys.’

  I had already noticed a group of likely lads sitting with some girls in one corner at a table covered in costly bottles. From a distance they looked reasonably harmless. Not actually cute, perhaps, but at least professionally winsome, like the Osmonds as I could dimly remember them from my infancy. I could tell that alcohol was rapidly eroding this patina to expose a solid stratum of brattishness. Now and then a raucous, champagne-fuelled laugh went ricocheting round the pool, for the rich we have always with us. (You’re beginning to wonder about my easy lapses into Biblical knowledge? Wonder no more. My wicked step
mother Laura – she of the spotted bottom and frizzy hair – belongs to an evangelical sect and I grew up to scriptural quotations.) I hauled myself out, bathrobed myself securely and followed Nanty. He introduced me to Sput, Zig, Johnny and Petey. Sput had touched up his acne with dabs of Zitaway, nearly invisible to all but Samper’s practised eye. Petey was trying to grow a moustache and wore the same sloppy expression as the others, which I recognized easily as that of people whose facial muscles are becoming temporarily paralysed by alcohol.

  ‘Petey’s our bass player, best in the biz. Zig’s keyboards, Split’s drums. Johnny and me just fill in. Okay, the girls. This is Mel, Moonshine, Lissa, er, Beate? And Lisbeth?’

  These last two, who looked young enough to be at home doing their homework, were clearly local girls signed on for the occasion. I filed them all away as best I could as I stood dripping beside the table. So this was a boy band off duty? True, once I’d troubled to see beyond the slightly ageing effects of drunkenness I could appreciate they were all quite young. None of them struck me as outstandingly good-looking but that was probably quite deliberate. It was the boy-next-door looks that had the widest appeal. Even so, we were a long way from Sunnydale. The ghost of Fothermuckers was beginning to materialize, with its hint of pubic lice and promise of blowing chunks into hotel swimming pools. Petey’s tattooed arm thrust an open bottle of champagne at me. I noticed that it was by no means The Champagne Top Drivers Squirt, being a vintage effort by the widow Clicquot. Nothing but the best for these lads. Well, I was an old hand at this when-in-Rome lark. We Sampers are veritable chameleons. I took a respectable swig from the bottle. Then another.

  The evening became increasingly blurred. I remembered bottles smashing. I remembered many more arriving at the table together with more girls and people I took to be groupies and road managers or something. A good deal of skinny dipping took place. I remembered squeezing Mel’s behind experimentally, and then my own surreptitiously, to reassure myself that it was merely a matter of my swimming costume. And I remembered Mel giggling as Nanty came over and said, ‘I see you’ve met the wife.’

  ‘You’re not married?’

  ‘Why not? Sure, not where the fans are concerned, we’re not. But in the real world yeah, Mel and me’ve been together six years now. She’s my guru.’

  ‘Golly, not the vegan queen?’

  ‘Oh bollocks!’ said Mel, maybe cheerfully, and pushed me backwards into the pool clutching a champagne bottle.

  It all went on a long time, I think. Once the skinny dipping had begun most of the hotel’s other guests willingly abandoned the pool to Freewayz and their entourage so the general boisterousness and noise were largely contained on the rooftop. Some meaty young men in jeans hovered in the background trying not to look like bouncers. At one point one of them rescued either Lisbeth or Beate from a watery grave. The Hotel Rafael was on top of it all, clearly used to these celebrity goings-on. As Nanty observed, when you’ve had Mick Jagger and the Stones staying many times, to say nothing of Rod Stewart, you learn to roll with the punches. In my function as fact-gatherer I strolled about, now admiring Munich’s skyline (particularly the Olympic Tower, which more or less marked the site of next evening’s gig) or else the Roman bathtime cavortings with what I hoped was the benign half-smile of an older brother. I’m afraid I became what Nanty had called ‘totally stocious’.

  Some time in the small hours I drifted down to my suite on a cloud and found Mel in my bed, fast asleep.

  Marta

  31

  Dearest Marja

  Your call the other evening was a lovely surprise. As I told you, from time to time I’d been looking up from work thinking ‘Why don’t they ever ring me? Why does it always have to be me that takes the initiative?’ but I wasn’t including you in that, my love, just the men, just our brother and father … Of course you were right – it’s partly Voynovian males being Voynovian males & this image they have of the phone only being good for barking orders down. Any other use such as long gossipy calls keeping in touch with family & friends is strictly for women. Inevitably Pacini’s film makes it easy to visualize: a young woman in a silk nightdress – probably a countess – curled up on her vast double bed amid rumpled pillows in mid-morning (read: after a night of passion), gossiping to her cronies about her husband’s impotence & her latest lover’s performance, the fingers of her hand sunk deep in the crisp white curls of a toy poodle … A dated male fantasy, Der Rosenkavalier meets telefoni bianchi. I bet that’s still Father’s image & it could even be Ljuka’s as well Incredible.

  But I think the real reason they won’t call me is more awkward. Because I’ve gone abroad they imagine it’s me who’s rejected them so it must be up to me to get in touch & reassure them I still love them. A girl’s job. Something like that, do you reckon? And that in turn covers up for Father’s phobia of telephones & especially of calling abroad & perhaps getting the wrong number or someone who doesn’t speak Voysk or even – my God! – somebody who doesn’t know who he is. Honestly, it’s so damned feeble!

  Anyway, thanks to your last call (& far from taking it on a poodle-strewn bed I was in the kitchen mending that lovely little metronome Father gave me for the Conservatory and which Gerry had drunkenly sat on, knocking off one of the tiny marquetry panels from the tip of the case) I can quite see this news about the date for Voynovia’s joining the EU will have given Father more urgent things to worry about than daughters who defect abroad to write pornographic movies. I think you’re right. Parts of the EU are vaguely law-abiding, others more patchily so, but all are bureaucratically self-pleased. Either way it will inevitably mean the clan’s old high-handedness having to be moderated to some degree. Perhaps this seems more obvious to someone living abroad? Maybe Father will have to retire to somewhere like Marbella? Or rather no, not there. Apparently it’s full of Russian mafiosi, half of them ex-KGB officers whom Father no doubt knew in the OKU.

  These are things I can’t say to you over the phone, my dear, you know why. I also like writing these letters to you. In a funny sort of way I feel closer to you when writing than I do talking on the phone – explain that if you can: definitely uncontessa-ish. (Incidentally, I was a bit surprised the other night to hear you say my voice sounded ‘slurred’. I most certainly was not drunk. I think there’s something the matter with this line up here in the mountains. I’ve noticed it before.) In any case, the important thing is my premonitions grow stronger that something’s going to happen – or at least going to change – & I really wish you’d come here. You could use this house as a base for as long as you wanted – you absolutely would not be in my way or ‘disturbing’ my work as you sweetly put it. It’s so lovely here, relaxed & civilized. Listen to me Mari: I truly think you’ll have to make a break sooner rather than later. I increasingly feel we two daughters must make our own way in the world, otherwise we will always be compromised.

  Are you shocked? I mean, by a sort of distance you can feel opening up between me & the family? I am. I admit it. I feel I’ve changed quite a lot since coming out here, & entirely for the better. Who knows where this ‘career’ of mine will lead, if anywhere? But it’s making me feel truly independent for the first time – I never did in Moscow – or at least the mistress of my own fate. It’s exhilarating. Dear Mari, you’re so talented I just know you’ll have no problems here. That gift of yours for languages means you can head in practically any direction. It’s so enviable, & never a day goes by as I struggle with Italian or English when I’m not jealous of you & your facility. Really, my only fluent language is music. I think my Italian probably is becoming fairly reasonable now altho’ I catch myself in the most awful lapses. The other day I heard myself ask Pacini ‘Cos’ hai fattato?’ I mean, can you imagine, after all those conversation sessions with la Santoliquido in Voynograd – the poor thing would have a fit. It’s pure baby-talk: ‘What have you didded?’ No wonder he laughed & laid his hand rather intensely on my arm. He must have thought I was ironizing our inti
macy (which of course exists only at the professional level of getting his film successfully into the can, but he’s galant). And as for my English, I’m afraid I probably sound like a dudi, altho’ it’s true I have no idea if Gerry himself sounds like one. I’m just assuming, which I probably shouldn’t.

  Great excitement here a few days ago. Pacini decided he wanted to shoot my house for a scene in the film involving a fisherman and his wife. He saw the place some time ago & thought it just right in its unreconstructed, time-warped squalor (like its inhabitant). At the time I said Why not? without really thinking. But really, filming’s no joke. Had I known how much time it would involve (3 days!), not to mention invasion & the turning upside down of all one’s private stuff, I would have told Piero to go off and build a set. Anyway, it’s over now. For a while, though, there was endless noise & bustle outside as they were setting up establishing shots of the exterior – you wouldn’t believe the cranes & dollies & lights & cables & clutter & technicians wandering about with a sandwich in one hand and a screwdriver in the other looking for something to screw. Mercifully Gerry turned out to be away & has been for almost a week now so far as I can tell. I don’t know why I’ve got an uneasy feeling about him, & his absence makes me wonder if he really mightn’t be seeing lawyers. Did I tell you he’s claiming Uki’s helicopter scared off his alleged celebrity client? He sort of implied he might have to ‘consider’ legal action. Silly pompous man – the fuss he makes over trivia. But I guess that comes with the type. Plus, of course, Gerry’s real problem is he’s bored (& drunk & lonely) & it’s only the bored who have the time & energy to waste dreaming up vengeful legal actions that couldn’t possibly succeed. All the same, as I say, I’m uneasy but quite glad he wasn’t around this week. For one thing, I shouldn’t have been able to keep him away from the house. The great Piero Pacini alone would have been enough to guarantee Gerry’s hanging around, probably with supplies of bizarre snacks from his kitchen to excuse his presence. But add to that filming & muscular young technicians wandering around without their shirts on … Surely irresistible to the Gerrys of this world.