Of all the shops and restaurants in Matera, my favorite is the Casa del Pane, the paneficio (bakery) in the piazza Vittorio Veneto, the heart of Matera. There is bread, of course, but the shelves are also laden with packages of biscotti. (But when I say biscotti, I don’t just mean those banal crescents sold by Starbucks. In Italian, biscotti is the generic term for “cookies.” I mean strazzate, bittersweet with the elusive taste of almonds, chewy and soft or crunchy with a glazed crust. I mean moretti, which are like little pancakes, dense and chocolaty. I mean friselli, which would make a Starbucks patron feel more at home with their crescent shape and chocolate chips. And the taralli, a Materan specialty that by American standards don’t even count as cookies, salty as they are. I will tell you some other time about these crunchy, addictive 0’s.)
Walking into the shop is like being hugged. You find yourself nestled between, on the left, shelves thronged with biscotti and on the right, a glass counter that wraps around the shop, high as my shoulder and filled with dolci and salati. Behind the counter, shelves line the wall to the ceiling. These shelves are stacked with bread, the famous pane di Matera, whole wheat bread, olive bread, bread crusted with cheese, bread flecked with herbs, bread braided and twisted into whorls. The warm air wraps around you as soon as you walk in. And the incredible thing about this paneficio is that the aromas are never the same, even if the merchandise does not change noticeably. Some days the air is heavy with yeast; some days the aromas are sweet; and some days just standing in that shop and breathing is like sipping soup, so warm and thick is the air with salt, tomatoes, oregano, and potatoes. Above the shelves floats a paper mâchè angel, a bundle of blue drapery and rosy dimples: this is a trophy removed from the float during the annual Festa della Bruna (more about this festival of Matera’s patron saint later). The legend goes that if you tear off a piece from the float carrying the saint’s effigy you will have good luck for the rest of your life.
Although I have been a regular at this paneficio for almost five months, I have hardly begun to sample its delights—though the strazzate I can answer for; the pane di Matera is as perfect as any loaf of bread that you will find in Matera; and as for my favorite focaccia, the one that glistens ever so slightly with olive oil, flecked with oregano, and encrusted with tomatoes-- well: let me just say that there are few better things in life than leaving school, ravenous, at three o’clock, and biting into a warm, doughy piece of focaccia. Two weeks ago, though, I ate a pastry that had intrigued me for some time. Six inches long and thick as best-seller, the studente is basically a log of chocolate sheathed in a butter crust. The chocolate filling is dense, crumbly, and slightly bitter, rather like a brownie that doesn’t want to ingratiate itself too much with its public.
Delicious as the studente is, I found myself making this invidious comparison with the brownie. Maybe I’ve been away from home too long. Maybe I haven’t had enough chocolate lately. But this weekend I decided, what the heck, I’m going to make brownies.
I have a long and troubled history with the brownie. I blame the fact that in my home brownies were made with the No Pudge Brownie mix from Trader Joes, in deference to my mother’s austere diet. When I began baking, I did not have any models to follow. My brownies were always too cake-like, too bitter, too blonde, too vanilla-y, always too too and never enough. The fact of the matter is, until yesterday I had never managed to make an acceptable brownie.
Yesterday morning I did my homework on Epicurius.com. I perused the ratings, analyzed the reviews, calculated the ratios between the number of reviews per recipe and the number of people who would try the recipe again. At 5:10 yesterday afternoon I put the tray of brownies in the oven. The recipe said that they should be left to bake for 25-30 minutes, or until a toothpick, inserted in the middle, came out trailing crumbs. The recipe didn’t know what a lame oven I have. At 5:30 I began to check my brownies. Still gooey, though with a top that was alarmingly close to done. For the next two hours I did battle with the oven, wrapping my brownies in ever-increasing strati of aluminum foil, adjusting the rack to different levels, flipping the pan over so that the heat could reach the insides (I found out—I had never checked before—that the oven’s one source of heat is located on the top. Really useful.) I flipped those brownies more times than a pizza maker flips the dough. At 8:00 precisely I commended my soul and culinary reputation to the kitchen gods and pulled the brownies out of the oven, because I wasn’t about to be late for dinner.
I think that, for once in my life, my brownies passed muster. One of my friends was so enthusiastic about them that he made me bring them to the paneficio to “blow his mind away.” The brownie really is a revelation to Italians daring enough to try them. It’s unabashedly decadent-- no masking of the chocolate with olive oil or ambiguous flavors like almonds or amarena. A brownie just is. Chocolate.
We gave a piece to the baker. At first he wanted to take a side piece, but we insisted that he take a middle piece, which as you know, is pure chewiness and no rind. Then he said that he would eat his pezzetino after lunch. No, no, said my friend, eat it now while it’s fresh. The baker took a cautious bite. He didn’t say anything. His expression didn’t change—though maybe he blinked. But then he looked at me and said, “If you don’t manage to find another job as an English teacher, you can always come here and put on an apron.”
My friend turned to a signore who was watching the proceedings with interest. Did he want to try? Also this signore ate his brownie reflectively, then began to discuss it in detail with the baker. It was delicious, they said, but then, Americans are good at making sweets. This dolce was rich, it had a robustness that was proprio buono. “Robustness” is one translation for what they said, but I would love to translate literally the word carnevolezza: a meatiness. Please, the next time that you are describing a brownie, don’t fall back on the over-used “chewy” and “gooey”: try “meaty.”
A highly gratifying weekend. Not only did I succeed in making a batch of brownies, but they were lauded by Materani, who take great pride in their cuisine. “Americans are good at making sweets!” That settles it: I am now determined to spread truth, justice, and the American brownie.
Epilogue
Operation Share the Brownie goes but slowly. I must contend with the composition of the Italian oven: the main heat source seems to be located at the top, which makes obtaining the balance between unburnt crust and chewy insides a harrowing process. A few weeks ago, though, I made brownies with one of my private students. A fellow foodie, she secured the family kitchen one evening after our lesson so that we might make this American sweet. The mother was very anxious that we have all of the right ingredients, though, typically, her attitude towards the measurement of these ingredients was rather more cavalier. We poured the batter into a large, shallow pan, which already made me nervous about the outcome. I was already nervous enough to forget to preheat the oven; so we had to wait for the oven to heat up as we did the washing up.
While we waited for the brownies, my student and I set to work preparing dinner. The mother had already made the dough for the focaccia; my student and I had the fun part of spreading the toppings (Just a sidenote: Considering how fundamental pizza and focaccia are to the Italian diet, it’s surprising that they don’t have an equivalent word for “topping.” Instead, you have to say “the ingredients that you put on top” or something similar.) But in-between pouring tomato sauce and drizzling olive oil, I fretted about those brownies.
As usual, after the prescribed cooking time (25 minutes), the brownies were still liquidy. Forty minutes passed. 50 minutes. My student’s father, back after a long day’s work, wandered into the kitchen and, gnawing a piece of bread, mentioned the fact that he had skipped lunch. I feared that not only I, but the brownies, were about to become non grata. After one hour the mother, my student, and I held a counsel of war and decided to retrieve the brownies. We peeled back the aluminum foil and inserted a toothpick. The recipe says to bake the brownies for 25 to 30 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into the pan comes out with crumbs attached. We scrutinized the toothpick and found one miniscule crumb. Those brownies were done. Mi sento come se fossi Cristoforo Colombo quando ha scoperto l’America, I joked (I feel as if I were Christopher Columbus when he discovered America).
In spite of that one crumb, the brownies were well over-done. They even verged on the tough. But my hostess gamely cut them into quadretti and served them with due ceremony after the focaccia. I begged the family not to think that these sad squares were brownies, but my hostess insisted that they were proprio buoni. Should I trust her? Even if she were just being polite, such was her politeness that she ate two pieces.
Since that experience, I have made more brownies and shared them with other Materani. For the most part, they seem bemused by the chocolateness of the brownie. But that is why I like the brownie so much; it’s frank, like Americans. Frank, unpretentious, but effective. Might I propose the brownie as the new hamburger?
Sunday, April 17, 2011
Sunday, March 6, 2011
Christmas in Matera, II: Christmas Eve Dinner
Although I missed home terribly during the Christmas season, I count myself lucky to have shared Christmas dinner with Materani. Both Christmas Eve and Christmas Day I spent at the homes of friends, and both events afforded a culinary experience not soon forgotten.
I’m not sure what Americans typically eat on Christmas Eve. Since I was very young, my family has always had pizza, either homemade, or as life gets ever more frenetic, pizza ordered from Vocelli’s or Papa John’s. But I’m sure that a very small percentage of Americans this year ate a meal similar to what I had. To start, the hostess offered us appetizers of champagne, pizze rustiche, and pettole. (Pizze rustiche are like inverted pizzas, pettole, as you will recall, are the fried batter balls.) When we sat down to table, we found dishes heaped with cozze, mussels. These are eaten with your hands, and indeed, it is strenous work to snap open the shells, to extract, in the end, only a shred of meat. Soon each plate was stacked with shells.
Then the gamberetti (shrimp and squid) were passed around, with a bit of lemon for flavouring. And then—well, being untutored in the typical American cuisine for Christmas Eve, I didn’t have any expectations, but I wasn’t quite prepared for—oh, octopus salad? Don’t mind if I do.
L’insalata di polpo consisted of violet pieces of octopus tentacles, suckers intact. Determined to try everything, I accepted a small portion, and found, actually, that octopus is only remarkable in that it is chewy. Quite chewy.
We ate regular salad, well-oiled, before embarking on the second course, spaghetti with vongole. Italians have a knack at making a tasty dish with few ingredients—pasta, oil, salt, perhaps some butter, and the principal garnish, be it vongole, as in this case, or flecks of peperone crusco. The third course was served to those who did not complain with enough conviction of a full stomach. Thus, I ate pesce di spada (swordfish), slightly spicy and quite tender. Later, I asked my students if that night’s menu was traditional, and learned that fish is to Materani what pizza is to the Marrelli-Kelley clan on Christmas Eve.
My favorite part of the meal was, perhaps, when the hostess placed baskets of nuts and fruit on the table. My Italian-American mother had often told me of how at Christmas her family ate nuts and fruit. Christmas morning, the children found oranges in their stockings (I never did understand why citrus fruit was considered such a treat in sunny California). We peeled fruit and waged war on the nuts with little attention to where the peels and shells landed. I marveled as my hostess, after watching my pathetic struggles with the schiaccianoci (nutcracker), broke walnuts with her bare hands. After the fruit-and-nut course, the hostess simply gathered up the tablecloth.
I may not be an expert on American culinary habits, but I’m pretty sure that sweets are a-plenty on Christmas Eve. If I had been in America, I would have sampled the full complement of sweets set out by my mother—Christmas cut-outs, pfefferneuse, gingerbread men, chocolate truffles, my mother’s Springerly cookies (a requisite to every Christmas because they are fat-free), Trader Joe’s peppermint sandwich cookies, oatmeal cookies, chocolate chip cookies, candy canes, and to drink, hot chocolate or cider. The sweet finale to that night’s dinner was, in comparison, restrained. As the host passed around goblets of champagne, the hostess cut slices of panettone alla tartuffe, panettone with the soft part marbled with chocolate and the top crust glazed with chocolate.
At the stroke of midnight, the family flocked onto the balcony to greet Christmas Day, waiving sparklers and crying Auguri! We then exchanged auguri, kissing each other on the cheek. It already being Christmas Day, there was no need to wait to open presents: children and adults exchanged gifts. And then, I’m not sure if it was sleepiness, or perhaps it was the thought of another Christmas dinner to be eaten the next day that made us wish each other one more time “Auguri to all, and to all a good night.”
I’m not sure what Americans typically eat on Christmas Eve. Since I was very young, my family has always had pizza, either homemade, or as life gets ever more frenetic, pizza ordered from Vocelli’s or Papa John’s. But I’m sure that a very small percentage of Americans this year ate a meal similar to what I had. To start, the hostess offered us appetizers of champagne, pizze rustiche, and pettole. (Pizze rustiche are like inverted pizzas, pettole, as you will recall, are the fried batter balls.) When we sat down to table, we found dishes heaped with cozze, mussels. These are eaten with your hands, and indeed, it is strenous work to snap open the shells, to extract, in the end, only a shred of meat. Soon each plate was stacked with shells.
Then the gamberetti (shrimp and squid) were passed around, with a bit of lemon for flavouring. And then—well, being untutored in the typical American cuisine for Christmas Eve, I didn’t have any expectations, but I wasn’t quite prepared for—oh, octopus salad? Don’t mind if I do.
L’insalata di polpo consisted of violet pieces of octopus tentacles, suckers intact. Determined to try everything, I accepted a small portion, and found, actually, that octopus is only remarkable in that it is chewy. Quite chewy.
We ate regular salad, well-oiled, before embarking on the second course, spaghetti with vongole. Italians have a knack at making a tasty dish with few ingredients—pasta, oil, salt, perhaps some butter, and the principal garnish, be it vongole, as in this case, or flecks of peperone crusco. The third course was served to those who did not complain with enough conviction of a full stomach. Thus, I ate pesce di spada (swordfish), slightly spicy and quite tender. Later, I asked my students if that night’s menu was traditional, and learned that fish is to Materani what pizza is to the Marrelli-Kelley clan on Christmas Eve.
My favorite part of the meal was, perhaps, when the hostess placed baskets of nuts and fruit on the table. My Italian-American mother had often told me of how at Christmas her family ate nuts and fruit. Christmas morning, the children found oranges in their stockings (I never did understand why citrus fruit was considered such a treat in sunny California). We peeled fruit and waged war on the nuts with little attention to where the peels and shells landed. I marveled as my hostess, after watching my pathetic struggles with the schiaccianoci (nutcracker), broke walnuts with her bare hands. After the fruit-and-nut course, the hostess simply gathered up the tablecloth.
I may not be an expert on American culinary habits, but I’m pretty sure that sweets are a-plenty on Christmas Eve. If I had been in America, I would have sampled the full complement of sweets set out by my mother—Christmas cut-outs, pfefferneuse, gingerbread men, chocolate truffles, my mother’s Springerly cookies (a requisite to every Christmas because they are fat-free), Trader Joe’s peppermint sandwich cookies, oatmeal cookies, chocolate chip cookies, candy canes, and to drink, hot chocolate or cider. The sweet finale to that night’s dinner was, in comparison, restrained. As the host passed around goblets of champagne, the hostess cut slices of panettone alla tartuffe, panettone with the soft part marbled with chocolate and the top crust glazed with chocolate.
At the stroke of midnight, the family flocked onto the balcony to greet Christmas Day, waiving sparklers and crying Auguri! We then exchanged auguri, kissing each other on the cheek. It already being Christmas Day, there was no need to wait to open presents: children and adults exchanged gifts. And then, I’m not sure if it was sleepiness, or perhaps it was the thought of another Christmas dinner to be eaten the next day that made us wish each other one more time “Auguri to all, and to all a good night.”
Christmas in Matera, I: It's beginning to look a lot like... Halloween?
I almost missed Christmas this year. Americans are used to an inundation of Christmas signs—lights, wreaths, fake snow in California and real snow in New York, trees in the windows, Christmas soundtracks in every store—right after Thanksgiving. If it weren’t for the psychedelic lights in the piazza, your uninitiated tourist, visiting Matera between December 1 and January 12, might think that Matera decided to cancel Christmas that year. Slowly, I learned to recognize the signs that Christmas was coming, though for the first two weeks I hummed “It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas” with a sense of irony.
Take a look in the Five and Ten, glistening once again, goes the song. Take a look in the tabacchi, and it’s not with candy canes and silver lanes aglow. (Although, one day I was standing in the check-out line at one of the smaller supermarkets when I saw a tub of candy canes. I was so shocked that I started coughing. Upon closer inspection, I found that the tub held candy canes in every flavor except peppermint.) Instead of Rudolph, Santa, and Frosty, there was La Befana, the traditional Christmas dispenser of treats and jollity. Although Italians have adopted the anglophone custom of Santa Claus, I suspect that they are mystified by this big, avuncular, old man. And I am just as mystified by the sight of Christmas trees decked, not with gingerbread men and glass globes, but with witches on broomsticks.
I found two Santa Clauses this Christmas season, both the figures that start singing when you walk by. I grew to be quite fond of the Santa Claus outside Morelli’s Emporium on Via Margherita. I used to take that street just to hear a hearty ho-ho and the first two lines of “Jingle Bells.”
The Materan Christmas song repertoire seems to consist of two tunes, the first verse of “Jingle Bells” and “Tu scendi dalle stelle” (You came down from the stars), a carol traditionally sung by shepherds. In fact, if it had not been for the Santa Claus outside Morrelli’s Emporium, and a rather hardy old shepherd who roamed the streets, wailing on his zampogna (bagpipes), Matera would have been silent during that most sonorous of seasons. I know that while in the U.S. I griped about the Christmas tunes played ad nausea wherever there was a radio, but it was an eerie experience to go Christmas shopping without the accompaniment of “Jingle Bell Rock,” “Let it Snow,” and “Chestnuts Roasting on an Open Fire.” In America, the air thrums with music and good cheer. In Matera, the shop owners have to pay an association (SIAE, Società italiana degli autori ed editori) whenever they play music in their shops, even radio music—a veritable case of the Grinch who stole Christmas.
I tried to compensate for the lack of festive music by sharing Christmas songs with my students. I gave them the texts, with key words missing, and asked them to fill-in the blanks. Such was my determination to spread Christmas cheer that I recklessly played “I’ll be home for Christmas” and “Have yourself a merry little Christmas,” songs that are better not heard 3,000 miles away from home. But if the Materan streets and shops were curiously silent, the students needed little encouragement to start singing. I cannot imagine a class of American high schoolers spontaneously breaking out into song. I will never forget the day that I played Bing Crosby’s “White Christmas” for one of my beginning classes. They asked me to play it again so that they could learn the words, whereupon they linked arms and sang, every student. The earnestness with which they braved the sustained note in “may your days be merry and briiiiiiiiiiight,” brought a lump to my throat. I have no doubt that night’s snowfall—a miraculous event in Matera, where, so they tell me, it never snows—was due to the five times that we sang “White Christmas.” I do hope that next Christmas Bing’s song surfaces in the Materan repertoire.
Take a look in the Five and Ten, glistening once again, goes the song. Take a look in the tabacchi, and it’s not with candy canes and silver lanes aglow. (Although, one day I was standing in the check-out line at one of the smaller supermarkets when I saw a tub of candy canes. I was so shocked that I started coughing. Upon closer inspection, I found that the tub held candy canes in every flavor except peppermint.) Instead of Rudolph, Santa, and Frosty, there was La Befana, the traditional Christmas dispenser of treats and jollity. Although Italians have adopted the anglophone custom of Santa Claus, I suspect that they are mystified by this big, avuncular, old man. And I am just as mystified by the sight of Christmas trees decked, not with gingerbread men and glass globes, but with witches on broomsticks.
I found two Santa Clauses this Christmas season, both the figures that start singing when you walk by. I grew to be quite fond of the Santa Claus outside Morelli’s Emporium on Via Margherita. I used to take that street just to hear a hearty ho-ho and the first two lines of “Jingle Bells.”
The Materan Christmas song repertoire seems to consist of two tunes, the first verse of “Jingle Bells” and “Tu scendi dalle stelle” (You came down from the stars), a carol traditionally sung by shepherds. In fact, if it had not been for the Santa Claus outside Morrelli’s Emporium, and a rather hardy old shepherd who roamed the streets, wailing on his zampogna (bagpipes), Matera would have been silent during that most sonorous of seasons. I know that while in the U.S. I griped about the Christmas tunes played ad nausea wherever there was a radio, but it was an eerie experience to go Christmas shopping without the accompaniment of “Jingle Bell Rock,” “Let it Snow,” and “Chestnuts Roasting on an Open Fire.” In America, the air thrums with music and good cheer. In Matera, the shop owners have to pay an association (SIAE, Società italiana degli autori ed editori) whenever they play music in their shops, even radio music—a veritable case of the Grinch who stole Christmas.
I tried to compensate for the lack of festive music by sharing Christmas songs with my students. I gave them the texts, with key words missing, and asked them to fill-in the blanks. Such was my determination to spread Christmas cheer that I recklessly played “I’ll be home for Christmas” and “Have yourself a merry little Christmas,” songs that are better not heard 3,000 miles away from home. But if the Materan streets and shops were curiously silent, the students needed little encouragement to start singing. I cannot imagine a class of American high schoolers spontaneously breaking out into song. I will never forget the day that I played Bing Crosby’s “White Christmas” for one of my beginning classes. They asked me to play it again so that they could learn the words, whereupon they linked arms and sang, every student. The earnestness with which they braved the sustained note in “may your days be merry and briiiiiiiiiiight,” brought a lump to my throat. I have no doubt that night’s snowfall—a miraculous event in Matera, where, so they tell me, it never snows—was due to the five times that we sang “White Christmas.” I do hope that next Christmas Bing’s song surfaces in the Materan repertoire.
Carnevale in Matera: La Mattinata
Matera, February 18, 2011
I think that most of us are familiar with the romantic serenade: a masked musician stands beneath the balcony of his lady-love, wooing her with songs. But a rowdy group of masked singers, armed with tambourines, maracas, and a cupa-cupa, clamoring for vittles—what do you call that?
A mattinata, as I learned last night.
One of my friends belongs to a cultural association called I chicchi del melograno (The Pomegranate Seeds). The group decided to revive the Materan custom of the mattinata. In the days of peasants and landlords, during Carnevale the peasants would disguise themselves and descend upon the house of the padrone, making as much noise as possible, and clamoring for food and drink. Whatever the padrone had in the house was to be served. In the traditional song, the peasants inform their padrone that they are well aware that a pig has just been killed—so out with the grub, and give us a flask of wine while you’re at it. Just like a serenade (deriving from serata, or evening), the mattinata takes place at night. Why is that, when mattinata means “morning”? I learned why the day after.
We revelers convened at 10:30 p.m. on a hill overlooking central Matera. I was sitting in the car, chatting with my friend and two Melograno members, when I noticed that other cars had gathered around us. Within ten minutes we had a cavalcade of cars, engines running, ready for a signal from the lead car. We arrived at the apartment complex of our first victim around 11. Twenty of us crept through the halls, up the stairs, muffling giggles and instruments. We clustered around the door, someone rang the bell, and once the door opened, a short, seventy-something-year-old man broke into lusty song. The singing did not last very long, as we were missing both guitarists. Singing soon petered into talk and jokes while the victims scrounged their kitchen for something to serve. While Stefania, our conscripted hostess, laid out olives, potato chips, beer, and coca cola, our host prepared spaghetti for a spaghettata. Within minutes Stefania brought a bowl the size of a small kiddy-pool heaped with steaming spaghetti to the table. It was a plain dish, only spaghetti dressed with olive oil and specks of pepperone crusco, a specialty of the area. The pepperone is not spicy at all, but rather bitter.
(Note: The spaghettata is one of my favourite Italian customs. It is not just the making of spaghetti, but the making and sharing of spaghetti with friends late at night. Once my housemates, returning from a concert around 3 o’clock in the morning, held a spaghettata. I, sleeping in the next room, never heard a thing, finding only the pot in the sink the next morning.)
We ate, talked, went through several rounds of brindisi. By then it was 12 o’clock, officially the next day. Mattinata accomplished, right?
Four months in Matera, and I still have rather rigid American notions about time. We had only begun. At house number two we were joined by guitarist number two, guitarist number one being our previous victim. Thanks to the guitarists, we sang steadily for an hour. I did not know a single word to any of the songs, but I was not alone. The Materan dialect is so different from standard Italian that some members brought bi-lingual copies of the songs. While I was reading the lyrics, a Melograno member asked me, Lo capisci?
Per niente, I said, pointing to the Materan lyrics. “This might as well be Arabic.” Then, pointing to the Italian lyrics, I added, “This at least is Greek.”
But if I could just vocalize the songs, I could at least dance. Linking arms with Lucrezia, I began to dance to the song in ¾ time. Sway, two-step, clap at the second step, loud clap and twirl at the end of the phrase. Stefania ran to join us, and we had a troupe. We danced to every song after that, choreographing a different sequence for each dance. Stefania tried to teach me the pizzica, but I would not advise undertaking the leaps of the pizzica at one in the morning.
After another round of brindisi, we flocked to the cars for house three, on Via Santo Biagio, in the outskirts of the Sassi. We wound our way through cobblestone streets, passing under arches hanging with ivy and other plants that I don’t know. All of the Melograno members are open-minded, mellow people, rather like San Franciscans. The home of victim number three reminded me of my relatives’ home in San Francisco: the kitchen jostled the sitting room, wooden stairs led to intriguing lofts, and books bristled in every corner. As there were more bookshelves than furniture, we settled ourselves on the hearth, on stools, on the stairs. I did not manage to secure a seat, so I swayed my way through the evening, sometimes, I’ll admit, disguising my sleepy swaying as the movements of a dance. (N.B. The Italian verb for unsteady moving, traballare, can be roughly translated as “dancing across,” or perhaps as “exaggerated dancing.” So this was really a case of traballare.)
Eventually, my sleepiness obliged me to traballare my way home. I do hear tell that the mattinata went on into the wee hours of the morning—otherwise it wouldn’t be official, right?
The astonishing thing is that the next morning, as I wended my way to school, I met some Melograni in the piazza, looking far more awake than they had a right to be. What is it? The siesta? The caffè? The spaghetti? Or perhaps the notion that morning doesn’t begin until one o’clock?
I think that most of us are familiar with the romantic serenade: a masked musician stands beneath the balcony of his lady-love, wooing her with songs. But a rowdy group of masked singers, armed with tambourines, maracas, and a cupa-cupa, clamoring for vittles—what do you call that?
A mattinata, as I learned last night.
One of my friends belongs to a cultural association called I chicchi del melograno (The Pomegranate Seeds). The group decided to revive the Materan custom of the mattinata. In the days of peasants and landlords, during Carnevale the peasants would disguise themselves and descend upon the house of the padrone, making as much noise as possible, and clamoring for food and drink. Whatever the padrone had in the house was to be served. In the traditional song, the peasants inform their padrone that they are well aware that a pig has just been killed—so out with the grub, and give us a flask of wine while you’re at it. Just like a serenade (deriving from serata, or evening), the mattinata takes place at night. Why is that, when mattinata means “morning”? I learned why the day after.
We revelers convened at 10:30 p.m. on a hill overlooking central Matera. I was sitting in the car, chatting with my friend and two Melograno members, when I noticed that other cars had gathered around us. Within ten minutes we had a cavalcade of cars, engines running, ready for a signal from the lead car. We arrived at the apartment complex of our first victim around 11. Twenty of us crept through the halls, up the stairs, muffling giggles and instruments. We clustered around the door, someone rang the bell, and once the door opened, a short, seventy-something-year-old man broke into lusty song. The singing did not last very long, as we were missing both guitarists. Singing soon petered into talk and jokes while the victims scrounged their kitchen for something to serve. While Stefania, our conscripted hostess, laid out olives, potato chips, beer, and coca cola, our host prepared spaghetti for a spaghettata. Within minutes Stefania brought a bowl the size of a small kiddy-pool heaped with steaming spaghetti to the table. It was a plain dish, only spaghetti dressed with olive oil and specks of pepperone crusco, a specialty of the area. The pepperone is not spicy at all, but rather bitter.
(Note: The spaghettata is one of my favourite Italian customs. It is not just the making of spaghetti, but the making and sharing of spaghetti with friends late at night. Once my housemates, returning from a concert around 3 o’clock in the morning, held a spaghettata. I, sleeping in the next room, never heard a thing, finding only the pot in the sink the next morning.)
We ate, talked, went through several rounds of brindisi. By then it was 12 o’clock, officially the next day. Mattinata accomplished, right?
Four months in Matera, and I still have rather rigid American notions about time. We had only begun. At house number two we were joined by guitarist number two, guitarist number one being our previous victim. Thanks to the guitarists, we sang steadily for an hour. I did not know a single word to any of the songs, but I was not alone. The Materan dialect is so different from standard Italian that some members brought bi-lingual copies of the songs. While I was reading the lyrics, a Melograno member asked me, Lo capisci?
Per niente, I said, pointing to the Materan lyrics. “This might as well be Arabic.” Then, pointing to the Italian lyrics, I added, “This at least is Greek.”
But if I could just vocalize the songs, I could at least dance. Linking arms with Lucrezia, I began to dance to the song in ¾ time. Sway, two-step, clap at the second step, loud clap and twirl at the end of the phrase. Stefania ran to join us, and we had a troupe. We danced to every song after that, choreographing a different sequence for each dance. Stefania tried to teach me the pizzica, but I would not advise undertaking the leaps of the pizzica at one in the morning.
After another round of brindisi, we flocked to the cars for house three, on Via Santo Biagio, in the outskirts of the Sassi. We wound our way through cobblestone streets, passing under arches hanging with ivy and other plants that I don’t know. All of the Melograno members are open-minded, mellow people, rather like San Franciscans. The home of victim number three reminded me of my relatives’ home in San Francisco: the kitchen jostled the sitting room, wooden stairs led to intriguing lofts, and books bristled in every corner. As there were more bookshelves than furniture, we settled ourselves on the hearth, on stools, on the stairs. I did not manage to secure a seat, so I swayed my way through the evening, sometimes, I’ll admit, disguising my sleepy swaying as the movements of a dance. (N.B. The Italian verb for unsteady moving, traballare, can be roughly translated as “dancing across,” or perhaps as “exaggerated dancing.” So this was really a case of traballare.)
Eventually, my sleepiness obliged me to traballare my way home. I do hear tell that the mattinata went on into the wee hours of the morning—otherwise it wouldn’t be official, right?
The astonishing thing is that the next morning, as I wended my way to school, I met some Melograni in the piazza, looking far more awake than they had a right to be. What is it? The siesta? The caffè? The spaghetti? Or perhaps the notion that morning doesn’t begin until one o’clock?
Thanksgiving in Matera, 2010
One of the questions that Materans are bound to ask, on first meeting me, is da quanto tempo stai in Italia (How long have you been here)? You would think that after four months I would be accustomed to this question, but no. Every time I have to count the months. Have I really been in Matera for four months? October, November, December, January, and half of February.
At this juncture my conscience emits a discreet cough. And have you really let four months go by without updating your blog?
I left you all in the suspense of not knowing if I would succeed in procuring a turkey for Thanksgiving Dinner. Doubtless you have since moved on to other things, and ceased to wonder if I celebrated Turkey Day with a whole turkey or only slices, but humor me as I recommence from that point.
Readers, I was obliged to eat sliced turkey on Thanksgiving Day—and not for any fault of the local butcher. So convinced was I that whole turkeys were not to be had before Christmas that I waited until two days before Thanksgiving to order sliced turkey. (Just to show you how entrenched the notion is that whole turkeys are eaten only at Christmas: yesterday I went to a cinema club showing of Uomini contro femmine—Guys Against Girls—an Italian comedy. In one of the film’s many couples, the man is exasperated because his wife’s family celebrations always coincide with soccer championships. After a day at work, he comes home to find his wife making dinner for yet another gathering. She asks him if he bought the turkey, and he snaps, Ma che, è Natale (with a sarcastic overtone that ma che gives sentences: is it Christmas)?) I then discovered that an Italian family, also celebrating Thanksgiving but with American friends, had ordered an entire turkey two weeks in advance. Oh, well. I duly ordered twelve fette di tacchino, to be collected Thursday afternoon.
That same day I had scoured the largest supermarket in town, l’Ipercoop for the requisites of Thanksgiving Dinner. Maple Syrup, not to be had. Cranberries, otherwise known as “red blueberries,” nowhere in sight. Pecans for a pecan pie, no. Gravy, niente. And perhaps most devastating of all, in my opinion, no pumpkin purée with which to make pumpkin pie. Sure, you can have pumpkin pie if you are willing to buy an entire pumpkin and pulverize its insides, but with eleven people to feed during my first time ever cooking Thanksgiving Dinner, I was not about to try. In the end, I resolved on the following menu: candied almonds, turkey, mashed potatoes, cornbread, green beans, and stuffing.
Thanksgiving Day I came home from school around two o’clock and ate a feverish lunch while my housemates ate their usual three-course meal, unaware that 3,000 miles away millions of Americans were starving themselves in anticipation of the gourmandizing to come. What with the three courses and then washing-up I was not able to claim the kitchen until after four o’clock. And I did not stop cooking until nine o’clock. My housemates chipped in, chopping onions, mashing the potatoes, and dicing the celery. Their help was not the only Italian influence on the meal: For the stuffing I used Materan bread, the pride of the city. To roast the turkey and simmer the ingredients for stuffing I used olive oil. Later that evening, we would drink prosecco and eat a cake brought by one of my guests.
Halfway through the preparations, my family called, and we skyped for an hour, as all the while I crumbled the bread for the stuffing. My dad tormented me with descriptions of the chocolate walnut pie that my sister had made. And if I remember correctly, there was also the traditional pumpkin cheesecake in the offing. Readers, you don’t know what I suffer at the thought of that pumpkin cheesecake.
By 9:30 all of the my guests had arrived. Eleven girls crammed around a table meant for seven. Because our plates were so small, I had to make another concession to Italian culture by serving Thanksgiving Dinner in courses, rather than serving each guest a plate loaded with turkey, stuffing, the works. Course one was turkey and stuffing. Course two was cornbread, mashed potatoes, and green beans. Afterwards we poured the bubbly, accompanied by the brindisi. At Italian celebrations, it is customary to deliver a toast of a rhyming couplet. As hostess, it was my lot the brindisi, though I gave it in English, the better to find rhyming words. I made the brindisi twice, once at the beginning of the meal, with the prosecco, and once with the spumante. I only remember the second toast: “Lauren-Claire does declare, this Thanksgiving was good to share.” Insomma.
We ate and chatted until after one o’clock. I don’t remember what happened to the dishes. (You all know how that most pressing question of the day, that political tension that begins to surface as the last piece of pumpkin pie is cut, the last napkin crumpled by the plate: who will do the washing up?) Perhaps my housemates and I washed the dishes the next afternoon, as the next morning I was due to teach la prima ora (at 8:15). At last, to a chorus of Auguri! Buon Ringraziamento! Buona notte! I accompanied my guests to the door, and I was left with the thought that Turkey Day was over and Turkey Week was not to follow. No Thanksgiving Dinner, round two. No turkey sandwiches. No turkey soup. Oh, well. Maybe Christmas would yield the entire turkey.
At this juncture my conscience emits a discreet cough. And have you really let four months go by without updating your blog?
I left you all in the suspense of not knowing if I would succeed in procuring a turkey for Thanksgiving Dinner. Doubtless you have since moved on to other things, and ceased to wonder if I celebrated Turkey Day with a whole turkey or only slices, but humor me as I recommence from that point.
Readers, I was obliged to eat sliced turkey on Thanksgiving Day—and not for any fault of the local butcher. So convinced was I that whole turkeys were not to be had before Christmas that I waited until two days before Thanksgiving to order sliced turkey. (Just to show you how entrenched the notion is that whole turkeys are eaten only at Christmas: yesterday I went to a cinema club showing of Uomini contro femmine—Guys Against Girls—an Italian comedy. In one of the film’s many couples, the man is exasperated because his wife’s family celebrations always coincide with soccer championships. After a day at work, he comes home to find his wife making dinner for yet another gathering. She asks him if he bought the turkey, and he snaps, Ma che, è Natale (with a sarcastic overtone that ma che gives sentences: is it Christmas)?) I then discovered that an Italian family, also celebrating Thanksgiving but with American friends, had ordered an entire turkey two weeks in advance. Oh, well. I duly ordered twelve fette di tacchino, to be collected Thursday afternoon.
That same day I had scoured the largest supermarket in town, l’Ipercoop for the requisites of Thanksgiving Dinner. Maple Syrup, not to be had. Cranberries, otherwise known as “red blueberries,” nowhere in sight. Pecans for a pecan pie, no. Gravy, niente. And perhaps most devastating of all, in my opinion, no pumpkin purée with which to make pumpkin pie. Sure, you can have pumpkin pie if you are willing to buy an entire pumpkin and pulverize its insides, but with eleven people to feed during my first time ever cooking Thanksgiving Dinner, I was not about to try. In the end, I resolved on the following menu: candied almonds, turkey, mashed potatoes, cornbread, green beans, and stuffing.
Thanksgiving Day I came home from school around two o’clock and ate a feverish lunch while my housemates ate their usual three-course meal, unaware that 3,000 miles away millions of Americans were starving themselves in anticipation of the gourmandizing to come. What with the three courses and then washing-up I was not able to claim the kitchen until after four o’clock. And I did not stop cooking until nine o’clock. My housemates chipped in, chopping onions, mashing the potatoes, and dicing the celery. Their help was not the only Italian influence on the meal: For the stuffing I used Materan bread, the pride of the city. To roast the turkey and simmer the ingredients for stuffing I used olive oil. Later that evening, we would drink prosecco and eat a cake brought by one of my guests.
Halfway through the preparations, my family called, and we skyped for an hour, as all the while I crumbled the bread for the stuffing. My dad tormented me with descriptions of the chocolate walnut pie that my sister had made. And if I remember correctly, there was also the traditional pumpkin cheesecake in the offing. Readers, you don’t know what I suffer at the thought of that pumpkin cheesecake.
By 9:30 all of the my guests had arrived. Eleven girls crammed around a table meant for seven. Because our plates were so small, I had to make another concession to Italian culture by serving Thanksgiving Dinner in courses, rather than serving each guest a plate loaded with turkey, stuffing, the works. Course one was turkey and stuffing. Course two was cornbread, mashed potatoes, and green beans. Afterwards we poured the bubbly, accompanied by the brindisi. At Italian celebrations, it is customary to deliver a toast of a rhyming couplet. As hostess, it was my lot the brindisi, though I gave it in English, the better to find rhyming words. I made the brindisi twice, once at the beginning of the meal, with the prosecco, and once with the spumante. I only remember the second toast: “Lauren-Claire does declare, this Thanksgiving was good to share.” Insomma.
We ate and chatted until after one o’clock. I don’t remember what happened to the dishes. (You all know how that most pressing question of the day, that political tension that begins to surface as the last piece of pumpkin pie is cut, the last napkin crumpled by the plate: who will do the washing up?) Perhaps my housemates and I washed the dishes the next afternoon, as the next morning I was due to teach la prima ora (at 8:15). At last, to a chorus of Auguri! Buon Ringraziamento! Buona notte! I accompanied my guests to the door, and I was left with the thought that Turkey Day was over and Turkey Week was not to follow. No Thanksgiving Dinner, round two. No turkey sandwiches. No turkey soup. Oh, well. Maybe Christmas would yield the entire turkey.
Saturday, December 18, 2010
The Jane Austen Book Club
The following article was written for the Naples Consulate.
It is a truth universally acknowledged that the work of Jane Austen unites readers of all nations. Nothing affirms this truth better than the fact that on January 16 the Google page featured a Regency man and woman strolling, arm in arm, in a park. The image was a tribute to the 235th anniversary of Austen’s birthday.
High school students of Matera, Italy, paid their own tribute to the writer they had studied and loved with Fulbright grantee Lauren-Claire Kelley. Kelley is a participant in the English Teaching Assistantship program, organized by the Fulbright Commission to foster appreciation of American language and culture. American Jane Austen is not, but she has a special significance for Kelley and the students of the licei E. Duni and Dante Alighieri. After studying Pride and Prejudice, the students were inspired to start a book club, in which they read the work not only of Austen, but of American and Italian writers. Thanks to Jane Austen, the students frequently practice their English-speaking skills outside of the classroom.
On the evening of the 16th, the book club convened for tea. The table for 20 barely provided enough space: students clustered around tea, butter sandwiches, muffins, fruit platters, ladyfingers (known in Italy as savoiardi, that staple of tiramisù), and at least four varieties of scones. The spread was inspired by Lizzy Bennet’s visit to Pemberley, one of the most important scenes in Pride and Prejudice.
As for books, there were as many versions of Pride and Prejudice as there were of scones, the students having brought both English and Italian copies of the classic. Throughout the evening, the students read aloud favorite passages, challenging their classmates to identify the chapters. Two students, one from the liceo E. Duni and the other from the liceo Alighieri, performed the famous scene in which Mr. Darcy appears. Often the performance was interrupted by some objection to the word or phrase chosen by the translator, the students by now being experts of the original text. Kelley and two of her students performed the book club’s rite: after intoning the celebrated first line (“It is a truth universally acknowledged that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife.”) they compared Austen’s words with the various translations.
Lucrezia, our hostess, read aloud the passage that had inspired the evening’s menu. Recounting Lizzy’s visit to Pemberley, Austen writes: “The next variation which their visit afforded was produced by the entrance of servants with cold meat, cake, and a variety of all the finest fruit of the season...There was now employment for the whole party; for though they could not talk, they could all eat; and the beautiful pyramids of grapes, nectarines, and peaches soon collected them round the table” (Ch. 45, p. 218 Guinti Classics, 2001).
With two languages from which to choose, there was little danger that our party would resort to the food for conversation. The students spoke English as they nibbled savoiardi, Italian as they sipped tea. The discussion of translations yielded many new words, and even more idiomatic phrases, which were quickly adopted and inserted into the evening’s conversation. 235 years after Austen’s birth, her language is no longer that of nineteenth-century England; it is a universal language that fosters the exchange of other languages and cultures.
It is a truth universally acknowledged that the work of Jane Austen unites readers of all nations. Nothing affirms this truth better than the fact that on January 16 the Google page featured a Regency man and woman strolling, arm in arm, in a park. The image was a tribute to the 235th anniversary of Austen’s birthday.
High school students of Matera, Italy, paid their own tribute to the writer they had studied and loved with Fulbright grantee Lauren-Claire Kelley. Kelley is a participant in the English Teaching Assistantship program, organized by the Fulbright Commission to foster appreciation of American language and culture. American Jane Austen is not, but she has a special significance for Kelley and the students of the licei E. Duni and Dante Alighieri. After studying Pride and Prejudice, the students were inspired to start a book club, in which they read the work not only of Austen, but of American and Italian writers. Thanks to Jane Austen, the students frequently practice their English-speaking skills outside of the classroom.
On the evening of the 16th, the book club convened for tea. The table for 20 barely provided enough space: students clustered around tea, butter sandwiches, muffins, fruit platters, ladyfingers (known in Italy as savoiardi, that staple of tiramisù), and at least four varieties of scones. The spread was inspired by Lizzy Bennet’s visit to Pemberley, one of the most important scenes in Pride and Prejudice.
As for books, there were as many versions of Pride and Prejudice as there were of scones, the students having brought both English and Italian copies of the classic. Throughout the evening, the students read aloud favorite passages, challenging their classmates to identify the chapters. Two students, one from the liceo E. Duni and the other from the liceo Alighieri, performed the famous scene in which Mr. Darcy appears. Often the performance was interrupted by some objection to the word or phrase chosen by the translator, the students by now being experts of the original text. Kelley and two of her students performed the book club’s rite: after intoning the celebrated first line (“It is a truth universally acknowledged that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife.”) they compared Austen’s words with the various translations.
Lucrezia, our hostess, read aloud the passage that had inspired the evening’s menu. Recounting Lizzy’s visit to Pemberley, Austen writes: “The next variation which their visit afforded was produced by the entrance of servants with cold meat, cake, and a variety of all the finest fruit of the season...There was now employment for the whole party; for though they could not talk, they could all eat; and the beautiful pyramids of grapes, nectarines, and peaches soon collected them round the table” (Ch. 45, p. 218 Guinti Classics, 2001).
With two languages from which to choose, there was little danger that our party would resort to the food for conversation. The students spoke English as they nibbled savoiardi, Italian as they sipped tea. The discussion of translations yielded many new words, and even more idiomatic phrases, which were quickly adopted and inserted into the evening’s conversation. 235 years after Austen’s birth, her language is no longer that of nineteenth-century England; it is a universal language that fosters the exchange of other languages and cultures.
Tuesday, November 16, 2010
Daily Life in Matera
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!
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!
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