In my last post I compiled a list of signs of adjustment to life in Matera. But those were just little signs, part of a daily routine that I am heartily enjoying. It was necessary, however, to adopt another Italian habit—the siesta—in order to sustain this daily routine: I am always running about. Sei sempre in giro, said my room mate the other day, but so it is. The shop schedules here are so varied as to require careful strategizing in order to accomplish basic errands. The fact that, as a teacher, I work in the morning, when most of the shops are open, and come home around 2 o’clock, during the siesta, makes organizing errands even more difficult. Yet I wouldn’t exchange this running about from shop to shop for one stop at the supermarket.
I wake up about 6:45. As soon as I enter the kitchen, I open the balcony windows and start preparing the caffe’. No longer do I use a coffee maker: instead, I use a caffetiera, which is a device with three sections. In the bottom section you put the water. Then you heap the filter with coffee grounds. The filter is placed in the bottom section, and on top of the filter is placed the third section, which vaguely resembles a tea kettle. Within three minutes, the water boils up through the filter into the top section. Before pouring, you must stir the coffee, as the strongest brew boils to the top. Until last week I drank the coffee straight, with perhaps half a cucchiaino (one of those adorably tiny spoons) of sugar, but now I copy my room mates and drink coffee with milk—or rather, milk with coffee. And it’s proprio buono.
My school schedule varies from day to day, though on Mondays and Thursdays I start at the first hour, at 8:15. In the licei, the days are divided into hours: first, second, third, and so on to the sixth. They start one after the other, with no break that I can divine except for the recreazione, or recess. The lack of breaks makes hopping from one school to the other difficult, but fortunately there is a shortcut between the two. And somehow I always have time to stop by the coffee machine in the sala docenti, or the teachers’ room. America needs to adopt this wonderful machine: Imagine a vending machine with an array of buttons, each of which offers drinks like lemon tea, cappucino dolce, cappucino al ginseng, espresso, caffe’ lungo… You put the money in the slot (40 centesimi for a lemon tea), select your drink, and within 50 seconds a piping-hot drink appears, complete with foam, if you selected a coffee.
I adore teaching; but I will save my account of the schools for another post. My working day ends typically at 1:15, though there is one particularly grueling day when I don’t finish until 2:15, which means that I don’t get home until 3, and that I don’t eat lunch until 3:30 (if I’m lucky). But Materan food is well worth the wait! The walk home is about 20 minutes. On the way, I stop at the fruttivendolo across the street from the school, and then, if need be, I stop at la DIVA to buy the necessities for the day—milk, water, etc. Cheese and meat I hardly ever buy at the supermarket (which is supermarket in the most diminuitive sense; Americans blinking might miss la DIVA). Instead, I go to my macelleria of choice, which is a couple of alleys away from my house. I’m sure that the butcher there only says Mi dica, out of politeness: He knows that the foreign girl is going to ask for two slices of chicken, or turkey if she’s really adventurous. (Ah, but I am going to surprise him within the week with the unprecedented request for an entire turkey.)
Sometimes I buy cheese at the macelleria, but as last week I made friends with the owners of a caseficio a block away from my house, in the future I will vary my dairy purchases between the macelleria and the caseficio. In Italy, casefici are small shops where you can buy dairy products right from the source; instead of merely distributing the cheese and milk, the shop owners produce the items on the family or partner farm. Thus far I have not been too adventurous in my purchases of cheese; but I am still intoxicated with the joy of buying fresh mozarella, which comes in many different forms. Of these I can only name a few—nodini (little knots); bocconi (balls of mozzarella); treccie (braids); stracciatella (shredded); sfoglie (sheets)… and so on… Each of these types is for a different purpose, such as melting on pizza or eating in salad. The other day I discovered la scamorza, which is a fist-sized sphere of cheese, similar to mozzarella but firmer. At first, untutored girl that I was, I ate it chopped in little pieces in pasta, but yesterday my room mate showed me how to eat la scamorza sciolta: You cut circular slices of the cheese and place them directly in a frying pan, cooking them until they just begin to melt. You then remove the slices and dress them with olive oil and salt. The texture is neither hard nor spongy in the way that mozzarella usually is. Che buono!
So lunch is clearly an important affair. Even if I’m ravenous, arriving home after 2 o’clock, if the stove is free or if I’m not eating with my room mates, I pull out the pasta pot. Another small change must be added to my list: I am thinking about abandoning the American custom of eating everything on the same plate. Instead, I shall eat my primo piatto (pasta) on one plate, the secondo piatto (chicken or meat) on a second plate, and care nothing for the washing up that must follow. As I said in my last post, the meal is not complete until I have made coffee, which I drink straight in a minute cup. (Though I will admit that finishing one’s coffee in one mouthful is still a strange sensation.)
After lunch, I try to study, but usually the walking and the lunch prove too much and I doze for half an hour. Then, depending on the day, it’s off to the library to study some more or to prepare the next day’s lesson. After 6:30, which is when the library closes, I start the evening round of errands—here to buy the cheese; there to buy the meat; here to buy the band-aids; there to buy the baking sheet; to this supermarket to buy the honey; but to this supermarket to buy the eggs; and to yet another supermarket to buy the pasta. Errands are not conducted on the basis of convenience; I keep a running list in my head of the best deals and plan my trips accordingly. These trips can take me around the city, back to the center, and around the city again. In truth, I often plan these trips so; because starting around 5 o’clock, the city starts to hum with an energy that makes staying inside impossible. Although most people go out on Saturday and Sunday nights, even on week nights the streets are crowded with people leaving work, shopping for dinner, or just strolling.
In the next post, I must tell you about shopping in Matera. Until then, Buona Notte!
Tuesday, November 16, 2010
Sunday, November 14, 2010
One Month
Ciao a tutti,
If I had any wish to prove that I am not a compulsive blogger, than I have surely accomplished that aim. I'm sorry for having neglected you all for a month. But perhaps it is better than I write to you only now, after a month has passed. Looking back, I can track the changes in my lifestyle since I arrived. They are not great changes; it is the little things that help one in adjusting to a new culture. The other day, the principal of the liceo scientifico asked me the usual question ("Come ti trovi a Matera/Are you happy in Matera?"), adding "Ti stai integrando/ Are you integrating with the city?"). Well, you know that you've been in Italy for a month when:
1. You shudder to think of lunching on a mere sandwhich. Lunch means pasta, at the very least.
2. You think nothing of seeing women hiking in the mountains with suede shoes, even suede boots, because you yourself are wearing suede ballerinas.
3. You scorn pedestrian crosswalks, or if you use them, you do not wait for cars to stop for you.
4. Even if it is 70 degrees (Fahrenheit; I estimate, because I am still learning the Celusis system), you do not remove your jacket, nor your scarf. It is autumn; therefore, I wear a jacket and a scarf.
5. Lunch is not complete until you have had a coffee. Without the coffee, how can you be expected to continue the day?
6. You don't start to think about making dinner until 8 o'clock, and even then it seems rather early to dine.
7. You wish friends "Buon Pranzo" (Have a good lunch!). You also ask, as an alternative to discussing the weather, "Che cosa hai mangiato oggi?".
8. And finally, the most revolutionary change of all (at least for me): You begin to question the necessity of eating breakfast (fare la colazione) all'americana. Instead, you begin to appreciate the attractions of breakfasting on only coffee and milk. However, I can only pull this off after having eaten pizza at 11 o'clock the night before, as happened this past Friday night.
9. Which leads me to another sign of adjustment to Italian life. When you order a pizza at a restaurant, you actually order a pizza, all of which you eat. You never, ever take the leftovers with you.
Just as I am fascinated by small details of Italian life, my Italian room mates are intrigued by my American habits. For example, the first morning that we breakfasted together, they were incredulous to learn that I eat una fritata (an ommlette) for breakfast. Even if my omlettes are quite plain, consisting of eggs, milk, and either olive oil or butter, my room mates still think my breakfast excessive. However, this did not prevent my room mates and their friend Cele, who is very curious about exotic foods, from experimenting, in order to, as my room mate said, "understand what Lauren-Claire eats." When I left for school, they were preparing their own version of my fritata -- with Nutella. However, this Nutella was added after the fritata cooled, as Rossana, when I asked her just now, was anxious to make clear. I can hardly wait for Thanksgiving, when I hope to share some typical dishes with my room mates and some mutual friends who are intrigued by our American holiday. But will I be able to find a turkey? That is the question. In Matera, whole turkeys are not to be had until Christmas. Will I be able to enlist the help of my neighborhood butcher to find an entire turkey?
Alla prossima!
If I had any wish to prove that I am not a compulsive blogger, than I have surely accomplished that aim. I'm sorry for having neglected you all for a month. But perhaps it is better than I write to you only now, after a month has passed. Looking back, I can track the changes in my lifestyle since I arrived. They are not great changes; it is the little things that help one in adjusting to a new culture. The other day, the principal of the liceo scientifico asked me the usual question ("Come ti trovi a Matera/Are you happy in Matera?"), adding "Ti stai integrando/ Are you integrating with the city?"). Well, you know that you've been in Italy for a month when:
1. You shudder to think of lunching on a mere sandwhich. Lunch means pasta, at the very least.
2. You think nothing of seeing women hiking in the mountains with suede shoes, even suede boots, because you yourself are wearing suede ballerinas.
3. You scorn pedestrian crosswalks, or if you use them, you do not wait for cars to stop for you.
4. Even if it is 70 degrees (Fahrenheit; I estimate, because I am still learning the Celusis system), you do not remove your jacket, nor your scarf. It is autumn; therefore, I wear a jacket and a scarf.
5. Lunch is not complete until you have had a coffee. Without the coffee, how can you be expected to continue the day?
6. You don't start to think about making dinner until 8 o'clock, and even then it seems rather early to dine.
7. You wish friends "Buon Pranzo" (Have a good lunch!). You also ask, as an alternative to discussing the weather, "Che cosa hai mangiato oggi?".
8. And finally, the most revolutionary change of all (at least for me): You begin to question the necessity of eating breakfast (fare la colazione) all'americana. Instead, you begin to appreciate the attractions of breakfasting on only coffee and milk. However, I can only pull this off after having eaten pizza at 11 o'clock the night before, as happened this past Friday night.
9. Which leads me to another sign of adjustment to Italian life. When you order a pizza at a restaurant, you actually order a pizza, all of which you eat. You never, ever take the leftovers with you.
Just as I am fascinated by small details of Italian life, my Italian room mates are intrigued by my American habits. For example, the first morning that we breakfasted together, they were incredulous to learn that I eat una fritata (an ommlette) for breakfast. Even if my omlettes are quite plain, consisting of eggs, milk, and either olive oil or butter, my room mates still think my breakfast excessive. However, this did not prevent my room mates and their friend Cele, who is very curious about exotic foods, from experimenting, in order to, as my room mate said, "understand what Lauren-Claire eats." When I left for school, they were preparing their own version of my fritata -- with Nutella. However, this Nutella was added after the fritata cooled, as Rossana, when I asked her just now, was anxious to make clear. I can hardly wait for Thanksgiving, when I hope to share some typical dishes with my room mates and some mutual friends who are intrigued by our American holiday. But will I be able to find a turkey? That is the question. In Matera, whole turkeys are not to be had until Christmas. Will I be able to enlist the help of my neighborhood butcher to find an entire turkey?
Alla prossima!
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