Amici di Ambrosia

Not long ago, after I had eaten tagliatelle made with fresh pasta and truffles, I got up out of my chair and said that “this dish was miraculous and that I must go out to the kitchen and kiss the cook.” My friends who I affectionately call “The Honorary Society of Amici di Ambrosia” laughed and applauded,” Bravo, said like a true Italian.”

Our Italian friends are gourmets, culinary purists who seemed to consider eating not only a homage to life, family and friends but a benediction where the table was an alter to the gods of gastronomy. They were devotees of ambrosia and could drive miles out of their way to eat regional specialties or to a distant village to get a delicately cured cheese or ham.

They could greet you on the beach and instead of talking about the wind and weather might say “I have the culatello I was saving for you, I want you to come and taste it, that is if someone in my family hasn´t eaten it already because it was so exceptional.” They knew wines and olive oil. They took turns cooking or went out to eat together, sometimes to restaurants in the hill villages or in town, places that didn’t need to call attention to themselves with kitschy décor or advertising.

These gems were often hidden behind a plain or even shabby façade like a 1920’s speakeasy with no indication that it was a restaurant other than a discreet recommendation from Guide D’Italia over the door. As often as not, there wasn’t a fixed menu. While the waiter poured Prosecco, the cook might come out and exchange pleasantries with the patrons. He described each course that he was serving that day and what he recommended, or gave an account of the fish that were in the nets that morning.

I asked once in all well-meaning, that in another situation might have been considered an impertinence, how fresh the fish was. The chef slid his frameless spectacles down the bridge of his nose and looking over them with a fleck of a smile in his eyes replied, “if the fish is not flopping around when you bring it into the kitchen it is not fresh.”

You don’t have to look any farther than the kitchen to find the ethos of Italian culture. Despite its enormous quantity of historical monuments, archeological treasures, poets and artists in Italy it is the  food and the culture that are synonymous. You can even find dog food that is formed into the shape of penne rigate and a taxi driver who picked you up at the airport making normal small-talk might give a lecture on the evils of over cooking pasta or which prosciutto was best and which regions had the best oils and cheeses. Everyone seemed to be an expert on food and how it should be eaten and they revealed their secrets willingly. When you met someone they could as readily talk about one of their culinary experiences as the weather.

As we ate primi piatti one evening  consisting of a delicate “pasta al triglie e zuchini,”  pasta with mullet and squash, I was curious about what gave the sauce it’s creamy texture and asked “was there parmesan in the recipe". The person alongside me said, "NO, NO, NO" as though it might have been forbidden to mix cheese and fish by the Italian constitution; a cook never mixes fish and cheese.  Why not? “Cheese will destroy the delicate flavor of the fish.” Point taken. Most Italian recipes are deceptively simple and a decent cook may bend the culinary rules a little but should be careful about blatantly breaking any of them or being too creative.

In one of my favorite movies, the “Big Night” two brothers, Primo and Secondo well renowned cooks from the province of Abruzzo, where our second home is, immigrate to the U.S and open an Italian restaurant. They want to give Americans a taste of the finest Italian food. In one scene Primo who is a gifted chef  makes one of his customers an exquisite creamy risotto when the guest asks him for a side dish of spaghetti and meatballs Primo is affronted and said that he would never serve two starches in the same meal, and that there was no such dish as spaghetti and meatballs in Italy. The restaurant was failing because customers didn’t want gourmet food, their American palates wanted what they thought was Italian food and in an attempt to save their business the brothers arranged to have a grand reopening and invite celebrity guests.

They spent days cooking a feast. In the last scene after all the preparation and cooking, when all the guests have left, they sit down to eat. Primo asks Secondo what he would like and he replies,” “just an omelet, maybe with a piece of bread” and thinking about that scene I realized that sometimes the simplest tastes are the most delicate.

 I have a fond memory of seeing two men exchange greetings while waiting for the bus. They sat on a stone bench and both were similarly clad in the uniform of Italian octogenarians: grey gabardine trousers, and light blue nylon shirts as though they were characters in a Fellini film from the 1960´s. One man opened a shopping bag and pulled out a long green bean. “From my garden the last of the season” and handed it to the other man. “Grazie,” he replied, and I heard the sound of it snapping as he broke it in two and bit into it. I watched the two strangers sitting in the morning sun eating fava beans like children sharing a bag of caramels and realized that we sometimes make life a bit too complicated.

A meal was not simply eaten for sustenance; it was a seamless melding of necessity and pleasure, an everyday homage to life, family and friendship where the ceremony began with Prosecco and ended with a small cup of thick espresso. Your survival instinct dictated that you lived after the motto “eat a little of a lot.”  You learned that because the meal that usually began around nine in  the evening could contain :  antipasti de mare, antipasti de terra, primo, secondo, carne, insalata, formaggio, dolce, frutta, white and red wine, dessert wine, espresso and grappa or limoncello.  Once, at what Kersti and I thought was going to be a little celebration, we lost count of the antipasti after the twentieth dish. Dinner was a ceremony that took hours. There was never any reference to empty calories or nutrition. There were no fads here, kelp and kale and Atkins and whatnot. You ate what was in season with good olive oil and people in general were slim and in good form. You might think that their bodies would be a testament to their love of food but they were more a reinforcement of the soundness of the Mediterranean diet.  

The dinnertime conversation often revolved around the meal and its components, not at all meaningless polemic or an evaluation, more like an essential part of the meal. One evening around the table after we had tired of discussing local politics, national politics and local politics again, we discussed the cacio e ovo, one of the traditional dishes of Abruzzo that we had just eaten. Cacio e ovo, are about the size of golf balls and made from cacio cavallo cheese and egg mixed with bread crumbs and fried in olive oil and served in a smooth tomato sauce. I asked about the consistency of the breadcrumbs, wanting to know how finely they should be grated. After a half hour the discussion hadn’t progressed at all: we never got to the bread crumbs because there wasn´t a consensus as to what kind of bread to make them from.

Kersti and I were house guests in Venice, a World Heritage Site basically unchanged over the last six hundred years where you felt as though you had tumbled down the rabbit hole and came out in another century.  It has over four hundred bridges and a maze of canals where there always seemed to be a new one to discover. During the day our hosts showed us the city from angles that the unguided tourist might never see and in the evenings plied us with Venetian specialties. Cars and scooters had to be left in the parking garages in the nearby towns on the mainland so you either walked to where you were going or took a taxi boat, or if you went sightseeing with a fat wallet, a gondola. The day before I heard a gondolier sing Volare with a touch of humor using Italian words that any tourist could recognize:  “spaghetti-ohoh, lasagna-ohoh, mozzarella, ohohohoh2. His rich tenor reverberated through the stone lined passages and everybody who heard his verses had a good laugh. Most Italian glossaries had a whole section that was dedicated to the explanation of the most common foods so he could have sung an opera using their names and never have to repeat himself.

One morning over coffee and a robust Italian breakfast, consisting of several biscuits instead of one, our host said, “Oh by the way I’ve invited some people for dinner tonight. I told everyone that you were a wonderful cook and that you wouldn´t mind throwing something together for us.” Before I could back out everyone agreed in chorus, giving me no time to make excuses as to why I couldn’t. All I could think of were the problems: strange kitchen, were the knives sharp and were there all the ingredients that I needed? None the less, a little flattered, I graciously accepted the challenge. I said to myself that I’d improvise and just then the idea of me cooking for people that I had never met seemed plausible.

Thinking that I’d have all day to shop and prepare the meal I’d plan my menu in the store or at the market, building on an idea and then using what was in season or available. I cooked a little like a troubadour played his songs, always recognizable but two versions might not be exactly the same. I used a recipe like it was a fake-sheet to a basic melody where I changed the chord progressions a bit according to my mood. But I knew when you cooked for Italians it was important to adhere to one basic principal, never confuse tastes. Spices and condiments were like a guitar riff. They should be discernible and accentuate the composition but not overpower it.

I was going to cook for people I didn't know and in a moment of doubt I wondered if self-confidence and self-deceit were two sides of the same coin, or did self-confidence come from practice and routine or an awareness of one´s abilities and limitations? It usually took four or five hours for me to plan and shop and then prepare the food for a dinner party in my own kitchen. But instead of going to the market and standing over the stove, we spent a fantastic day sailing with our host, first cruising through the outer canals and then out onto the lagoon and continuing on to the islands of Murano, Torcello, Burano and SanFrancesco. 

We anchored up in the bay to eat lunch, a few sandwiches I imagined, until he served four courses of traditional Venetian cuisine with two different wines. He had also brought along a portable stove to make espresso because he regarded coffee from a thermos as undrinkable. After lunch and siesta on the deck we continued our sightseeing,

I was wondering when we were going to turn back so I could shop, wash, slice, dice, pare, mix, blend, grill, fry, boil and roast, and for every hour that slipped past and every Venetian monument I saw, I removed a dish from my menu, and when I realized that I was only going to have a few hours to prepare for the evening I knew it was time for a compromise. By late afternoon I was beginning to feel the first quiet signs of panic.  This was going to be a “catch what catch can meal.” I changed the menu again, scaling it down even more, and decided on a few relatively simple dishes from the traditional Swedish smorgasbord.   They would be exotic if you have never eaten them and could pronounce them in Swedish. We’d use the pickled herring and knäckebröd that we had taken with us from Sweden as gifts to give to some other friends. They would lend an authentic touch to the meal. Kersti would as usual set a beautiful table, so we would win some points for presentation. I was conscious of how important balance and harmony were to a well prepared meal and hoped that might compensate for other shortcomings. I had admired and strove to emulate the composition of the South Indian thalis that I had eaten during my years in India, a selection of dishes that complimented each other with contrasts of spicy and bland, sweet and sour. Together they were tastes that excited and then calmed, almost like the arrangement of a symphony or a raga.

We tied up late in the afternoon just outside our house and I hurried off to do my shopping. Venice is probably one of the most picturesque and unique cities in the world. It is steeped in baroque charm and renaissance grandeur, but all I could see was the display on my iphone, its minutes disappearing, one by one. The barges and boats that were berthed along the canals were a cornucopia of seafood, vegetables, fruit, cheeses and meats, an epicurean paradise where the lavish assortment of foods was a feast not only for the palate but for the eyes. There was a flurry of activity as the other shoppers searched for the delicacies that would be part of their evening meal. I had revised and simplified my menu again, now the fourth or fifth time since morning when I realized that the guests would be arriving in less than three hours. I was running late and swallowed hard as I felt my stress threshold approaching. My pulse increased a little more as the wizened donna in front of me, clad for a night at the theatre rather than a shopping foray along the canals, rummaged in a threadbare silk purse after coins.  She pinched each one between her thin fingers and held it up in the light, myopically examining it, then hesitating a few seconds before placing it in the outstretched hand of the vendor. 

I improvised. The evening´s menu wouldn’t be fancy but I could do it quickly and from memory and found what I needed without too much problem and since it was from the Swedish smörgåsbord I could break the rigid Italian rules for preparing fish.

Starter = skagentoast- shrimp mixed with caviar in a bed of homemade mayonnaise blended with sour cream, finely chopped red onion and topped with sprigs of dill served on diagonally cut slices of buttered toast with the crusts removed

First course = The two types of pickled herring from the supermarket at home in Sweden, firm one inch chunks in a marinade of onion, peppercorns distilled vinegar and sugar served with knäckebröd (flat, hard baked rye bread cakes). The herring would be washed down with shots of Swedish Absolut Vodka (available, surprisingly, in the supermarket)

Second = thinly sliced poached Norwegian salmon with a sauce  made from light Dijon mustard, vinegar, sugar and crème fraiche with an extra egg yolk added and whipped lightly to make it airy

Third = Jansson’s Frestelse, potatoes sliced in thin strips and layered with anchovies along with diced onion and butter covered in thick cream and baked in the oven until the potatoes are soft and have absorbed all the cream

Fourth =  Swedish meatballs ( köttbullar) small meatballs about fifteen millimeters in diameter made from equal mixtures of double ground pork and beef, with a little diced red onion, egg, bread crumbs and cream, fried in butter

Dessert would be simple= strawberries were in season and were part of the Swedish mid-summer tradition, so it was homemade strawberry ice cream on a mirror of  strawberry glaze, decorated with strawberry slices and mint leaves.

We’d drink Birra Morretti, good Italian beer. Wine wasn’t a traditional Scandinavian beverage. Beer would suit the menu nicely. Moretti was a little bitter and not too dark like most Swedish beers.  Vodka shots according to tradition would go with the pickled herring, which along with the knäckebröd, would give the meal an authentic touch.

But there were always opinions as to what should be drunk and when and the subject was always open for discussion. We recently hosted house guests from Italy and I had made a nice starter from crayfish tails then a risotto marinara with fresh shrimp and followed by a filet of pork with chanterelle mushrooms that were in season and plentiful in the forest that year and sautéed apples from our garden to garnish the meat. It was a warm summer evening. I had brought up and chilled a few bottles of Pinot Grigio, a lively white wine that suited the temperature outside and would be ok with the risotto and even thought that it would be suitable for the fillets. One of the guests came out to the kitchen and apologized. ”Francis scusa, this wine shouldn’t be served with the pork". I didn´t protest or say that I liked its chill and fruitiness and that there was a changing attitude toward whites and rosé. I didn´t have the time for a long discussion or the inclination to clarify and defend my choice of wine with an expert. Not so much to rectify my mistake as to make a quiet statement, I brought up several well aged bottles of Brunello di Montalcino, the pride of Tuscany, that I was saving. As I was putting the final touches on our dinner my discerning guest came back with the unopened bottles and after apologizing yet again, “scusa Francis,” said that we shouldn’t drink this wine either. “Why not” I asked, “of course it is ”molto, molto, buono” he replied, “the best, but it will overwhelm  the pork.” And of course he was right on that score also, and I knew it as I came up from the cellar, but I naively thought that no one would make a fuss over the royalty of Italian wine.

Because I had cooked that evening I had the honor of being “capo di tavalo,” and sat at the head of the table. I sat close to the stove so that I could oversee the dinner. After each course I heard, “very good, buono, complimenti” and the poached lax and dressing was a success as were the potatoes with anchovies and cream. As the trays were emptied and the dinner conversation shifted, we touched on the subject of regional specialties. I related the anecdote about a rain-checked tortellini dinner and then the legend of how the dish was invented. Regarding our cancelled dinner: The mother-in-law of a friend in Vasto made tortellini almost every day, more or less as a hobby in the manner that some women knit or crochet. She was well known for its quality and filled the freezer and supplied the whole family. She also gave it to friends and neighbors and everyone had a continual supply. She mixed the dough, kneaded it, rolled it out cut the squares and filled them with ricotta or a meat filling, then formed them into small triangles. Then she prepared its broth, boiling it for hours and then double straining it to remove the excess fat and clarify it. Tortellini according to northern Italians could only be eaten in broth, anything other than broth was considered barbaric. The broth was made from beef marrow bones and the meat from an old stew hen. Our friend called early in the afternoon on the day of our scheduled dinner and apologized. The butcher didn’t have the proper hen for the broth, and nothing else would do. He would have one the next morning and wondered if we could postpone the dinner to the following day.

Legend has it that both Bologna and Modena claimed to be the home of tortellini. They couldn’t decide which so they decided that it originated in a village between the two towns.  The story is that a beautiful woman took a room in the local inn and as she was dusty and tired after her travels, asked the inn keeper to warm water and draw a bath. After he filled the tub, he closed the door and smitten by her beauty, peeped through the key hole to watch her undress, but all he could see was her navel. Disappointed he went down to the kitchen to continue cooking. He rolled out his pasta dough and began forming it and when he looked down at his work he saw that his fingers had made replicas of the beautiful woman’s navel, the only part of her that he saw through the keyhole.

Just as I was putting the finishing touches on this story, Kersti said that lunch was ready. We ate a simple cold plate, “piatto freddo". This is Italy so simple was: prosciutto San Daniele and ventricina salami from the foothills above Vasto, four vegetables, four cheeses, two hard, two soft, fresh bread from the neighborhood bakery and Pecorino wine, the drink of the Abruzzi shepherds, of course, followed by espresso and cantucci that I had baked that morning.

How did my Venetian dinner go? The guests cleaned the platters and talked about the meal the next day, and even if I wasn’t going to get mentioned in “Guide D’Italia, I knew our friends would ask me to cook for them again, that in itself a great compliment.

Buon appetito!