Amore and Amaretti (2 page)

Il pasto non vale un'acca se alla fine non s' ha la vacca

The meal means nothing if it does not end in good cheese

My understanding of Italian food begins to take shape in Gianfranco's Umbrian village. Most Sunday nights, after the benches are stacked on top of tables and the floor mopped at his restaurant, we set off on our midnight journey; tomorrow is our day off. Two hours out of Florence, passing glassy, spectral Lake Trasimeno, the hill towns of Tuscany are replaced by the hill towns of medieval Umbria. Gianfranco races all the bends, fuelled by Chianti, not bothering with seatbelts, belting out Battiato songs. I sit cross-legged beside him, tired eyes mesmerised by points of light in the rushing blackness. His village in my mind always seems to be arising out of the mist, its few streets coiling past low doorways and bars, the butcher shop with a burning cigarette resting on the chopping block. And yet most of my time there is spent at the service station and its accompanying bar, both run by Gianfranco's sister.

We pull into the heavy silence of the sleeping village; Bar Due Raspi – Two Bunches – glows dimly, warmly. Gianfranco's sister raises two children, husbandless, in the attached house, assisted by Mamma. In the kitchen little feasts are left for us under cloths: a round of aged pecorino, a hunk of prosciutto, hard-boiled eggs and spicy salami, plump new broad beans and a dome of cheese bread. Gianfranco splashes rough red wine into tumblers and carves off chunks of cheese and passes me salami slices speared on the tip of his pocket knife. I feel like a rosy-cheeked maiden from another century, in the absolute stillness of a country village, with a man I am not terribly sure I know – but whom I feel terribly sure I love – who is offering me the great gift of this experience. I seem to exist solely for him, and in our whispered conversation and the simplicity of the setting there seems to be the possibility for more joy than I ever considered possible.

And of course there are the lunches. On Sundays we only work the evening shift, so at midday we often drive to share a meal with friends. I had never cared about lunch, until I was introduced to Sunday ones in Tuscan vineyards. Celebrations of food and wine amongst friends and family, they transcend the notion of mere meals and transform into a theatre for the senses.

It has much to do with the setting, the compelling beauty of ancient surroundings, of land which has yielded produce for millennia, of eroded stone walls and roads which wind through hills, and row upon row upon row of vines. There is little more glorious, in summer, than sitting through hours of golden afternoons at a long wooden table with twelve or sixteen or twenty others, in winter warming limbs and souls with fires and food and wine.

Gianfranco has friends at Montespertoli and we go there often, mostly for winter lunches. We crunch up the circular gravel driveway and arrive at the back door, which leads into a vast stone kitchen filled with people. The ancient stove roars with flames, heating an assortment of saucepans, which steam forth wonderful aromas. Someone is carving a prosciutto, Claret-red slices sliding off the edge of the knife. There are women to stir the saucepans, wash the salad, slice the bread. I make myself useful by carrying cutlery to the dining room, where men pose around the leaping fire, clutching glasses of Campari and smoking. Hand-painted jugs of water and flowers clutter the table. I set for eighteen people, folding paper napkins into tiny triangles beside each plate. Two-litre bottles of home-grown Chianti, translucent red, line up like soldiers. Outside the tall windows, mist wraps around bare trees and church spires.

Platters are placed on the table: slices of wild-boar salami, tiny spicy venison sausages, rounds of toast topped with coarse chicken-liver pâté sweetened with Marsala, shiny black olives tossed in garlic and parsley. Wine is tipped into glasses and wedges of crusty spongy bread are passed around. Lunch has begun.

Pasta comes next, a deep ceramic bowl of steaming spaghetti in a simple tomato sauce fragrant with fresh basil, or a rich cream redolent of wild mushrooms. On top of the fire have been placed two metal grills, which clip together to enclose the main course: thick slabs of prime beef, a handful of quails, fat home-made sausages. Passed around the table they are black-striped and crisp from the flames, perfumed with fresh rosemary, garlic and good oil.

Afterwards there is a chunk of Parmesan, aged and crumbly, and a tangy pecorino from Sardinia to eat with a large bowl of various fruits. This is the winding-down stage of the lunch, when women begin to push back chairs and carry out plates and men light up cigarettes and pour whisky. Coffee brews aromatic from the kitchen, conversation subdues, becomes sleepy, comfortable and confidential. Pastries accompany the coffee: a wealth of shortbreads, crunchy almond biscuits, macaroons and iced eclairs bulging cream. Vin Santo, sweet and dark, is poured into small glasses; outside the evening has begun to descend, and Sunday lunch settles.

Whereas at Montespertoli the high stone walls surround the house like a stronghold, and the sense of place comes only once you have passed the gates and commenced the descent down winding roads that curve through the fields of grapes and olives, Claudia and Vincenzo Sabatini's villa sits on top of a hill, and looking down from the verandah you can see the vineyards stretch for miles. Even in winter clustered around their smaller hearth, warming hands, we always have the windows throwing up vistas of rich land, visions of space and ordered growth.

And in summer it is all there below. Slow yellow afternoons pulse with warmth and the tiny incessant rhythms of a million twitching insects. The verandah has canvas drapes to shut out the sun, and the table is cool. As we arrive we are handed a glass of Vincenzo's wine – not of his making but wine he collects weekly in huge vats from the villa next door, which he decants and stores in his cellar. Claudia is tasting the pasta sauce for salt: she looks harassed but happy, hair escaping from her bun and her apron spattered with flour. She has been making
pappardelle
, wide uneven strips of pasta that will be served with hare sauce. Vincenzo, having dispensed wine to his guests, is washing lettuces from his garden then drying them in his salad-spinner. Our movements are languid. We eat home-grown egg tomatoes drizzled with green olive oil and fresh basil, thick slices of moist white mozzarella, paper-thin cuts of cured beef dressed with oil, finely chopped rocket leaves and shavings of Parmesan cheese, mushrooms marinated in lemon juice and garlic, strips of red and green capsicum bathed in oil, garlic and parsley, slices of spicy pancetta. There is crusty bread to mop up the juices, and Vincenzo's wine is flowing freely. Next comes Claudia's pasta, rich and gamey. Then a pause before she brings out a casserole of pheasant scented with red wine and herbs. There is silverbeet sautéed in garlic, and tiny chunks of potatoes oven-roasted with rosemary and rock salt, and Vincenzo's salad gleaming with oil. Afterwards comes a whole fresh ricotta cheese, and ripe pears.

Much later, in the fading day, with the beginnings of breezes lifting leaves and stirring the air, Claudia brings out coffee and her famous biscuits, which it is never possible to eat in moderation, whose secret recipe she has given me and which I have lost. Cicadas start up their buzzing hum, and the vineyards lie pale and ghostly in the moonlight. I am drowsy, aware of the desire to freeze time so I can always remain in this comfortable chair, breathing in the fragrant evening air, all senses gratified.

Gianfranco buys another restaurant with several partners. It is in the centre of Florence, with the Uffizi and a replica of David around the corner. I am in the enormous kitchen wearing an apron, being shown how to finely chop onions; how to make a basic tomato sauce; how to flick my right wrist so that the contents of a frying pan flip briefly in the air; how to cook pasta, separating the strands of spaghetti with a giant fork and knowing the exact moment when to drain it, just a touch ahead of al dente – firm to the bite – so the extra minute or so of tossing it in its hot sauce will render it perfect. I learn how to make
crespelle
– paper-thin crêpes – and béchamel, soups and slowly simmering stews, panna cotta without gelatine; and I learn the elaborate process of layering that goes into creating pasta sauces, like the
salsa puttanesca
.

Gianfranco becomes less patient and more critical, however. There are days when I can do nothing right. I see the flipside of his creativity, a sort of madness. Saucepans fly, crashing into walls. An hour later, he is carving a rose out of a radish, his face gentle and his fingers graceful. For a country boy, those fingers are strangely delicate, almost feminine – each night he scrubs his nails vigorously with Jif.

Six months later, I am running the kitchen of the restaurant while Gianfranco escorts customers to tables. And we are living together, having moved into a flat nearby. I have grown thin with the long, unforgiving hours of work, but mostly with love and anxiety.

One summer midnight I am the only woman in a carload of murmuring men. We park near the river not far from Gianfranco's village and I watch as torches thread through the darkness and down to the edge, where bottles of bleach are poured into the water. Downstream, more torch lights illumine men wading with plastic bags, into which they throw the dead trout. I am appalled, disillusioned, excited and terrified all at the same time.

The next day, a long table is set under trees at lunchtime. There are dishes full of steaming potato gnocchi with rabbit sauce, and platters of trout simply grilled. Everyone eats the sweet pink fish; nobody becomes ill. Glasses are raised to the fishermen.

Other times we go hunting for mushrooms. Autumn is the season for porcini – these treasures lurk around the base of chestnut trees and oaks. Often the size of dinner plates, they are as fleshy as meat. Many
trattorie
place baskets of porcini at the entrance, and, like lobsters at Chinese restaurants, they are selected by the customer, weighed, cooked and served. Studded with slivers of garlic, brushed with good olive oil and grilled is the best way to enjoy these musky, musty gifts from the forest floor, with their flavour of faintly sweetish decay.