Just as making pasta needs to be difficult to be good, so does preparing the tomatoes that make a lot of the pasta sauces. Passata, or sieved tomatoes, is easily bought in bottles or tins, but few people in the valley will use the bought variety. In July and August you can see in the courtyards of the houses huge cauldrons on bonfires. It’s tomato time again. They are boiled, skinned and put into preserving jars. More often than not preserving jars with wide tops are not used. It’s too easy that way. Traditionally we have always used 1-litre beer bottles – the ones with a narrow neck. Each member of the team has a small stick, about the size of a pencil, and each tomato – the plum variety – is pushed into the beer bottle with the stick: slowly. I have helped perform this operation with 90 kilos of tomatoes, all going into beer bottles. The theory, as always, is that it can’t be good unless it’s difficult. The narrow necks of the crown-capped beer bottles ensures that air has a slim chance of entering and spoiling the tomatoes. Personally, I’d rather lose the odd tomato to mould than fill another beer bottle.
So ingrained is this idea that it turns up in jokes. One of the simplest pasta sauces is aglio e olio, olive oil warmed with some garlic and optionally some chilli. If a wife presents this to her spouse at lunchtime it is called pasto del cornuto, cuckold’s lunch, since it takes so little time to prepare that the wife could have spent the morning with her lover. This would clearly be impossible, even for a superwoman, if home-made tagliatelle were on the menu.
There is a widespread distrust of any commercially produced foods. I long ago discovered that by offering my friends in Gallinaro a glass of commercially produced wine, I would first get sympathy for having to drink such an unpalatable liquid, and then I’d be given few litres of the real stuff. I remember once testing out how far this prejudice would go by taking to Italy a couple of bottles of Château Malescot St Exupéry 1970 and having it with supper. The effect was the same. Don’t care what it costs, it’s pasteurized and filtered, probably adulterated and not worth having. The Comino Valley has always been a wine-producing area, but the science of making wine for laying down is neither understood nor appreciated. Wine is made in the autumn for next year’s consumption. It is made to be drunk young, and does not last well. The taste of young, unpasteurized, unfiltered wine is very different from the taste of a classic claret. But when it is good, it is nectar.
The old theory that difficult is best applies to making wine as well. For years wine-making in Gallinaro followed the same ritual: the crushed grapes were tipped into the fermenting barrel and then, fermentation over, it was racked off into 50-litre demijohns. This means over the course of the year a lot of humping, heaving and sterilizing heavy glass demijohns. Nicola is almost alone in using the new fibreglass containers that hold 1,000 litres and dispense with twenty demijohns. The local experts claim they can detect a taste of resin in the wine. The old, hard way is best.
Much of the time spent during the day is devoted to food, not just preparing it, but buying it. Watch an Italian woman buying fruit. She will not even contemplate picking up a kilo-bag of oranges. She will pick oranges from a pile, one at a time, squeeze each one, check for blemishes and slowly put together her choice. This is repeated for all the vegetables that she needs. Everything is examined minutely; only produce that fits her exacting standards will be bought. Time spent in selection is not considered time wasted.
Huge bakeries with fleets of vans supplying bread for an 80-kilometre radius are unheard of. Even tiny villages have their own bakery, so that fresh bread can be bought twice a day. Italian bread has the same property as French bread – it goes hard quickly – so supplies are bought little and often. Despite the fact that there is a bakery in every village, people still travel to find the best bread. There is a bakery in Ponte Melfa known as Cesinella which has a permanent queue. People from villages at the other end of valley come here to buy bread and pizza, passing four or five bakeries on the way.
Living in Ireland, where fish is plentiful, cheap and almost completely unappreciated, I find the Italian attitude to fish remarkable. In Italy fish is a treat, a special food for special occasions and not a penance for Fridays. It is also expensive; a meal in a restaurant will double in price when fish is served. For an honoured guest at dinner the menu will certainly contain fish, or will be entirely composed of it. Again, time and trouble are no obstacle when it comes to obtaining it. Although it can be bought frozen in supermarkets or fresh in the markets, it is not unusual for people in the valley to drive to Formia or Gaeta, a 130-kilometre round trip, to buy their fish at the quayside. Nobody considers this exceptional or extreme behaviour. How else can you be sure the fish is as fresh as possible?
What it all comes down to is that Italians believe food is important. It is discussed as endlessly as the English discuss the weather. It is the one sensory pleasure that can be enjoyed several times a day, right up to their demise.
There is one concept that Italians apply to food that sets them apart from many other races – the idea of a larder, a cantina. When my friend Graziano was a student living in a bedsit in Rome, I would see him only at weekends. One day he was extolling the virtues of bagna cauda, a tasty but difficult pasta sauce that takes a bit of preparation. I voiced my surprise that a student living on his own would take so much trouble to make a meal for himself. No, no, no, I was missing the point. You don’t make la bagna cauda each time you fancy it; you make a couple of kilos one afternoon and put it in the storeroom. From then on, you have a quick and easy snack available. The penny dropped. That’s why you spend a day making sausages for the year ahead, why the tomatoes are bottled in such quantity.
One of the great delights of summer in Gallinaro is the endless round of dinners and parties. Many of these evenings, and also evenings spent in Sinella’s bar, end up in someone’s cantina in the early hours. I’ve always associated midnight snacks with school dormitories, but in Gallinaro during the summer they are nightly occurrences. If you have anything planned for the next day, they are best avoided. On at least two occasions I have been carried home, fruity cabernet sauvignon having caught me unawares. Demijohns of wine are decanted, the prosciutto is brought out, the salsicce are produced, cheeses are sliced. No preparation is necessary – all you need is bread. The delights of an Italian country kitchen are instantly available for sharing with friends. It’s surprising, but even when I was not hungry, I have been able to eat as much as anyone else. The salty hams, sausages and cheeses bring on a thirst, which can only be slaked by more wine. As ever, good times in Italy mean plenty of wine and plenty of real, genuine food.
A well-stocked cantina will be stuffed with fruit, root vegetables, nuts and mushrooms, all gathered in their due season and stored for later consumption. There will be sausages and prosciutti hanging from the ceiling, and little wicker baskets that are the traditional moulds for the curd cheeses and ricotta. Mushrooms, although lower in the pecking-order than truffles, are prized. Nearly everyone knows the main varieties and nearly everyone goes out to gather them. Italians will tell you that mushrooms only last a day. And in Italy this is true, not because it’s the life-span of the fungus, but because as soon as they pop their heads out of the ground there will be an Italian there to pick them. You really do have to get up early in the morning to gather mushrooms, because if you don’t, someone else will get there first. The contrast with Ireland is dramatic. In Ireland mushrooms are not gathered, but are left to complete their natural cycle. I have watched ceps growing in roadside verges which over a week matured to 500 or 600 grammes, which is when I picked them. Porcini, or ceps, the boletus edulis, are the most prized. They are easily dried and can be reconstituted in water at a later stage, making them ideal candidates for the cantina.
The pre-occupation with good, genuine food, unadulterated and natural, prompts one of Italy’s best-known excesses: shooting. Anyone with a love of songbirds will find the Italian habit of eating them hard to accept. I suspect that, given a wide array of game to kill, the ave
rage Italian hunter would not necessarily take songbirds as first choice, but since anything larger than this has long been eradicated from Italic shores, they’ll do. If roast pheasant is out of the question, then thrush it will have to be.
I am told that in Italy there are ten million licensed guns. That’s a fair chunk of the adult population, and of the male adults, it must be well over half. Attempts by government to control shooting founder on this block of votes. The Italian gun licence is an interesting creature. It applies not to the weapon, but to the user, so one licence means as many guns as you like, providing they are of the same calibre. A rifle requires a separate licence from a shotgun, but apart from this limitation a licence validates any number of guns within its category. The other oddity of the Italian gun licence is that it gives the holder the right to walk on any part of Italian territory – even someone’s back garden. This rests on the established precept of Italian law that all land is ultimately vested in the state, therefore the state can give permission for its lands to be walked. Nowhere is inviolate, although some areas are being preserved as game sanctuaries.
Some animals have re-established themselves surprisingly well despite the hunting. Because many of the workers in the Comino Valley now work in industry, and many have emigrated, much of the land which was once cultivated with vines or olives is now abandoned. This suits the wild boar well – there is cover, less human contact, and food in abundance. At night on my terrazza we can hear their muffled grunts in the valley below.
Shooting birds has become so pervasive that one of the first things a visitor to the Italian countryside notices is the lack of birdsong. Gallinaro still has its share of inedible birds – swallows and owls – but little else. Already there have been referenda to attempt to curtail shooting, but so far to no avail. What gives me hope for the wildlife is the characteristic extreme behaviour of the Italians. About ten years ago, especially after the winter floods, rivers and streams had borders of a remarkable fruit – nearly every overhanging branch, up to the level of high water, was covered with plastic bags. They had become so ubiquitous, and Italians so lax at disposing of them, that the state of the rivers became a scandal. The eventual reaction was equally extreme. Italy became one of the first countries to insist upon biodegradable plastic bags, and it seems to have worked. It is my guess that when awareness of the lack of songbirds becomes general, Italy will introduce the most stringently controlled shooting in Europe.
To take another example, when my son was a baby we would go from shop to shop looking for baby food that was not full of sugar. Eventually we discovered that it was available in chemist shops in the diabetic section. We were considered odd, cranky, for limiting his sugar intake, but now, en masse, the Italians have gone the same way. Now you can’t find baby food with added sugar anywhere.
It seems the middle road is not one Italians will take. They like extremes, in all aspects of their life, including politics. They embraced fascism whole-heartedly and rejected it equally whole-heartedly. Nothing comes in moderation, least of all moderation.
6
Naples and the Law
Although prior to the founding of the modern Italian state the Comino Valley was part of the Kingdom of Naples, culturally its links have always been with Rome. The reasons for this are partly geographical – it was easier to get to Rome – and partly historical, since the valley was one of the first regions to come under Roman dominance in the first millennium BC; Arpino, which borders the valley, was the birthplace of Marcus Tullius Cicero, Agrippa and Caius Marius. It was the first city to be granted the right of Roman citizenship, which amongst other things conferred preferential trading rights. After the Roman defeat of the Samnites the valley became part of the Roman Adiectum, and Atina, the largest of the valley towns, become a praefectura.
The influence of Naples is still felt, however. Tales are told of Francesco, the last king of Naples, loved by his subjects since he spoke only Neapolitan, and never Italian. As soon as you leave our valley and go to Cassino, Naples seems much closer. The manner of the shopkeepers, the dialect, even the flora, become similar to those of Campania, the region centred on Naples. A casual visitor may not spot these likenesses, but even the least observant will notice that the nearer you get to Naples, the better the coffee tastes. This curious phenomenon is confirmed even by many who dislike Naples and Neapolitans. Quite why coffee should taste ambrosial in Naples is anyone’s guess. Personally, I think it’s the water.
It’s hard to be indifferent to Naples. It arouses strong feelings among Italians, who either, like me, are in love with it, or hate all that it represents. Certainly the street markets are more like souks than their European counterparts. The streets are narrow, crowded and noisy, washing hangs across them like bunting. There is a vibrancy in the air that is hard to pin down.
There are many myths about Naples: it is violent, you’ll get ripped off, they’re all on the dole, every sweatshop in Italy is here, it’s lawless, the people are feckless, and so on. There is a grain of truth in all of this, but it comes nowhere close to describing Naples.
As soon as you get to the end of the motorway to Naples, there are hawkers selling bootleg tapes and all manner of geegaws to contend with. It is the opening salvo in the city’s attempt to part you from your money. You may not be in the market for contraband diamonds or cigarettes stolen from the American PX stores, but anyone with something to sell will seek you out. At a garage on the outskirts I was singled out at once – a car with foreign number plates has much the same effect on Neapolitans as honey has on bees – and in no time I was offered from the boot of a car a video recorder, a camcorder and a television. The fact that I only had the equivalent of £50 on me did not deter the salesmen.
‘Just the video then,’ they said.
I wasn’t quite sure I’d heard correctly. ‘I’ve only got 100,000 lire.’
‘Well, just buy the recorder, then,’ they repeated, pointing to one of the boxes in the boot of the car.
Through the shrink-wrap, on which the guarantee was sellotaped, I could see from the box that it was the latest model from JVC. I reached into my pocket, greedy and eager. Then I remembered that my wife, who was sitting filing her nails in the car, had the money. I walked over to our car, a hustler in tow. He showed the box to my wife.
As she continued filing she turned to me and asked, ‘Have you seen what’s inside the box?’
I hadn’t.
Meanwhile, on the pretext that hanging around a garage forecourt with hot goods was bad for his health, my newfound friend continued to press me. ‘I have to sell this lot quick. I have to get to Sicily. I’m selling cheap for a quick sale. Come on, what’s 100,000 lire? It’s a giveaway.’
‘Can you open the box and let me have a look at it?’
He took the box and went back to his car, which I noticed had Neapolitan plates. Thank God my wife does not have her head turned as easily as I do. Caveat emptor is a phrase to keep in mind in Naples.
When we got home I started to tell the story to a friend.
‘My God,’ he interrupted, ‘you didn’t buy it, did you? A box of bricks would be expensive at 100,000 lire.’
Anyone could tell you a similar tale. Some end well, like mine; others with further embarrassment when the bricks are paid for and unwrapped at home before an expectant audience. Oddly enough, I have yet to be done in Naples and so have nothing but love for the place. Dealing with the hawkers is not hard really. The Neapolitans are extraordinarily polite and will for the most part take a polite refusal as long as your voice carries no uncertainty. A smell of indecision will keep them on your tail for two blocks.
My uncle once told me of how he’d been offered ‘gold’ bracelets in Naples. He looked at the bangles appreciatively, and asked: ‘How much are they a kilo?’
The seller was a little taken aback.
‘Well,’ my uncle continued, ‘you surely don’t sell them individually?’
The seller stepped back, and wrap
ped up his wares. ‘Come non fu detto [as if nothing has been said], dottore,’ and left.
Naples is a city of hustlers and they learn young. At most traffic-lights in the city, you will be accosted by urchins who want to wash your windscreen, sell you tissues or disposable lighters, or all three. That is, if you are allowed to stop at red traffic-lights. I stopped at them once, and nearly got rammed from behind. Angry Neapolitans passed me on both my right and my left, cursing and gesticulating. Driving here is a bit like fairground dodgems and the rules seem to be about the same. Certainly, it’s the only I city I know where traffic-lights are universally ignored. I was once driving a friend who lives just outside Naples through Rome. When I stopped at some traffic-lights along with the rest of the traffic, he turned to me and said, ‘They’re very disciplined drivers up here, aren’t they?’
If I were hungry, let me be hungry in Naples. I have walked down narrow alleys and passed someone on their doorstep eating spaghetti and have been offered some. It is still the custom here to offer to share your food with anyone who passes while you might be eating. ‘Favorisci?’ – ‘Would you like some?’ There is a solidarity in centuries of poverty, a common thread that joins the people against the vagaries of fortune and government. Neapolitans know the art of arrangiarsi, making the best of what you have. They are quick, flexible and cunning. They are proud, honourable and ethical by their rules. You are unlikely to be mugged in Naples – in Rome, yes, but not in Naples. Here they will part a fool and his money with alarming rapidity, but not through violence. Their weapon is cunning and adaptability. One smart hustler is currently working the traffic jams with a cellular phone. He’ll let you make a call from your car for 5,000 lire. For someone who could easily be stuck for two or three hours, that’s a real service. The day the new law came into effect making seat-belts compulsory, the street vendors were selling white T-shirts with a thick black diagonal band. This is the kind of opportunistic anarchy that makes Naples such fun.
North of Naples, South of Rome Page 8