Rattle Those Pots

September 19, 2004

Buongiorno tutti,

Risoluzioni Per Salsiccia e Vigoroso Appetiti!
(Sausage Solutions and Hearty Appetites!)
In our Italian Regional Cuisine class, we practice dishes from each region (bear in mind that Italy has 20 regions, all formerly independent states, and the cuisine varies widely). Last week we focused on Emilia Romagna, home of Sangiovese, Parmigiano Reggiano, over 52 certified cured meats — and also to Verdi and Fellini, incidentally.

One common theme we keep coming across in lectures, reading materials and chats with locals is how much a part of everyday life the Church basically harassing folks has been. Well, on this front, in one of our stacks of reading for our Italian Regional Cuisine class, I came across an entertaining story that detailed how sausage-making (using encasing rinds, as we buy sausage today) came about:

It’s 1511, and the people in the city of Mirandola in Emilia Romagna are going about their daily business, running around eating Parmigiano Reggiano, hobnobbing with neighboring farmers, maybe chatting about their grapes, minding their own business. When all of a sudden…BAM!! The entire city is besieged by the army of Pope Julius II. (The Popes, we’re reminded almost daily now, seemed to always have armies marauding around Italian regions doing God’s Work.)

Well, with the Pope’s fellows running about town pillaging and plundering and making all sorts of mischief, the folks in Mirandola had to find a way to preserve their pork (vital to their food supply), so they turned to their discarded rinds, the only material readily available. This led to what is today a well-regarded staple of the region, Cotechino di Modena. (It also likely led to a decline in local Church membership, but that’s another story.)

Emilia Romagna, as a reminder, is the same anti-papal region I mentioned in my last update, the region that created the “Strangle the Priest” pasta, just north of Tuscany. So the next time you buy sausage, just think of papal invasions and the panicked ancestors of northern Italians scrambling for rinds to house their pork supply.

Then, in my Tradition of Italian Food class, we came across the menu for the wedding reception of the 14-year-old bride Maria de’ Medici (a nutcase, apparently) to Henry IV, King of France. Henry, I was beyond entertained to read, was not present at his wedding to Maria (???), but did show up for part of the reception festivities.

When guests at the wedding weren’t futilely searching the cathedral for the absent groom, they must have been anticipating the reception spread. The menu, you see, consisted of a first set of 24 courses “di credenze” (cold), accompanied by a set of 9 courses “di cucina” (hot), 2 sets of additional courses “di cucina” (18 courses for the first, 10 the second), and “the cheese and fruit”. Yes, that’s 61 courses served (minus the cheese and fruit).

It’s entertaining to see how widely the menu ranged. There were dishes that sounded pretty tasty, actually:
• Chicken Stewed with Pears
• Salame Castles
• Truffles Mini-Casseroles
• Stewed Veal Breast

Some, though, are utterly unrecognizable:
• Pastries Decorated with the Arms of the King and Queen (that one’s really a chuckler, if you stop to picture it at your own wedding)
• English Pudding Shaped in Fish
• Peacocks in Crust
• Wrappings of Puff Pastry with Animals

On the upside, several servings must have been sweet and pretty:
• Domes of Sponge Cake
• Colorful Pie
• Crème-Caramel (lattemiele)
• Cookies in the Shape of Roses
• Pear Jelly with Sugar Frosting

The above selections were more than countered, however, by several that sound pretty damn scary, including:
• Testicles with Sugar Statues
• Dough Architectures with Live Birds
• Decorated Cow Tongues
• Gelatine Molds [sic] with Live Fish Inside
• Brain and Guts Pie (I vote this one the prize-winning dish.)

Hungry? Alex, what is “no?”

Viaggio Divertirmento a Chianti (Fun Travel to Chianti)
Saturday, we took a one-hour bus ride down to Chianti for the annual Vino al Vino wine festival in Panzano. We seem to have bonded with the other “older” students in the program, so we went as a group, and had a great time. I tried my first Super Tuscans, and after reading for a while now about how over-the-moon people are about them, I wasn’t disappointed; I actually thought I would be, and that it was just a lot of marketing hype.

Trying so many reserve wines was a treat, and the atmosphere and scenery were just wonderful. (Dad, try “Sammarco,” 2000, Castello dei Rampolla vineyard, and for a treat “Fontissimo,” also 2000, Le Fonti vineyard. Both reds. Can’t go wrong; absolutely wonderful.)

The night before Chianti, we met with the same group of students at a great little enoteca (wine bar) around the corner, and swapped stories about the “youngsters” in the program. It’s funny how many of them keep getting into scrapes, and they generally seem to be the same ones who keep talking about “The Older People.” (Thom and I, we were informed by a 19-year-old student three days ago, are referred to as “The Marrieds” a subset of “The Older People.”)

Apparently, in class the other day, one young pseudo-hotshot guy was just yammering and yammering away in the middle of chopping onions, and didn’t even realize he’d cut a good chunk of his nail off, until he looked down mid-sentence and saw all of the blood. He got all bug-eyed, just threw back his head, and hollered at the top of his lungs: “DuuuUUUUUUUDE!!!” to the co-clown sharing his station. Email isn’t doing this justice, but I cannot describe to you how screamingly funny this story was when it was shared last night. People in the class at the time thought this kid was going to shatter the kitchen’s glass doors.

A few days before this happened, the Older People went to a nearby locals’ pub, and we were tailed by a gaggle of students who looked like they’d just busted out of homeroom. We were trying to play a game with them that Thom and I used to play all the time with folks at Murphy’s (the sleep with/marry/throw off the cliff options game; we’ve played it with a bunch of you guys).

Anyway, it was almost impossible to play, because they didn’t know who any of the people were that we used. One girl, actually from Florida, didn’t know who Janet Reno was. Another guy asked if Dan Quayle was “some older actor guy,” and his buddy said I had to come up with people they’d heard of when I used DAVID BOWIE.

Then, when it was their turn to think of people for me, they kept using all these Backstreet Boys dufuses and Real World characters, and I had absolutely no idea who they were talking about. So they put their heads together to “brainstorm some people from the right generation, people Jen would really be into.”

Know who they came up with? Alice Cooper, Gene Simmons, and Richard Nixon.

Thom said not to worry, and that we’d just ask them next time where they were when Reagan was shot. “Um, like, in the womb.”

Piu Divertenti Storie (More Funny Stories)
Pingu!
Well-meaning people keep advising us, “Vedete molto televisione” (Watch a lot of television) if we really want to speed up our Italian. In particular, shopkeepers recommend Italian news and dubbed American movies we’re already familiar with.

Well, while attempting to make a concerted effort in this direction, I was instead snared by Pingu. “But who is Pingu?” you ask. Pingu is a claymation little penguin on the children’s channel who has all sorts of adventures (which I now watch on the sly while I’m getting ready in the morning and Thom’s in the shower). His voice is sort of muffled and high, but since it was fun to watch I kept tuning in. I told myself this was okay, that children’s programming was actually a good way to help learn the language, since the grammar is basic and wording is brief.

Well, as it turns out, after over three weeks of tuning in to the adventures of Pingu the Penguin to advance my Italian, I learned that “Pingu” is produced in Stockholm.

Pingu speaks Swedish.

Angry Italian Man
Before arriving, we had worried that many Florentines wouldn’t be too welcoming once they knew we were American, given tremendous public opposition to the war in Iraq. We actually didn’t have any incidents until three nights ago. The power had gone out from a thunderstorm while we were at Il Maggazino (our neighboring tripperia), and everyone inside was just having a grand old time with candles and freely passed dinner wines and grappa samples.

A fellow in his early 60s or so was standing at one end of the bar, and when he heard us speaking to Luca, one of the waiters, he just went on and on in broken English about “how wonderful English women are!” “You must take care of her! English women are like no other women in the world!” I just smiled and said “Sono una Americana,” and since he kept smiling and fawning over us, I assumed he had understood.

Wrong. Half an hour later we were standing out front in the piazza with Dan from school (an Older Person from the UK), when Italiano Matto (Crazy Italian Man) charged out of the restaurant, wagged a beefy finger at us, and hollered “You are not English?! You are Americani?!?” “Si,” we said, thinking he’d had one too many. The seemingly demented fellow gave us a death look and a big, disdain-filled “Bah!!”, and proceeded to stomp away, muttering to himself and giving us a major hex the entire time. Would’ve been sort of funny if he’d stumbled straight into one of the big bushes that line the piazza. He’s harmless; I just figure he may be A) looking for a few loose screws, or B) deaf.

Wrapping up. Devo dormire ora (I need to sleep now). Miss everybody.

Arrivederci,

Jen

Postscript: Smaller batch of photos from Chianti coming soon.