Archive for 2008
tuesday morning market in calabria: part II
Last Tuesday we visited the weekly market in my village, and now it’s time for a little bargaining lesson.
First you should know that market prices are already lower than in the local stores–but that doesn’t mean you can’t get even better deals.
My first few Tuesdays here, I sat at the corner of the piazza and just watched the old women at work. I figured it was the best way to learn–from the pros.
I’ve often read that touching produce in Italy is a no-no, but apparently no one has told these women.
Or, more likely, the vendors are just too afraid to scold despite their tough exteriors.
Concetta (below) is one of the young old women. She’s in her early 80s, but gets around as well as anyone including me. She always smiles wide and says “Ciao Bella” while stroking the side of my face.
The first time I met her she invited me into her house and showed me photos of her entire family, including children and grandchildren spread throughout Italy, Europe, and South America as well as her husband who has passed on.
Concetta doesn’t live alone though; she lives (in sin!) with her male companion, a widower. By not getting married, she explained to me, she can still collect her deceased husband’s pensions (one from Italy and one from Switzerland). Furba, eh?
Come Tuesday morning, though, Concetta is all business. Her laughlines are well-hidden behind a poker face that truly draws fear in Pasquale, the meat truck guy.
I’ve seen her slap the hand of Totò, the man selling fruit and vegetables from the back of his Ape (AH-peh) when he tried to retrieve a carciofo from her hand.
I’ve also seen her throw up her hands in disgust and stomp away as Turi, the man with the best broccoli (I’m told) yelled after her shouting many numbers.
[The secret is to walk away; if they follow, they really want to sell.]
Concetta knows what she wants and she knows how to get it. She never leaves the market empty-handed, and always with a smile on her face.
Another successful morning for her, and another lesson in village life for me.
So, have you bargained at the market?
Quattro Canti in Palermo, Sicily
It’s Palermonday again!
Two weeks ago, we visited Italy’s largest opera house, Teatro Massimo, and last week we were at La Fontana della Vergogna, or the Fountain of Shame.
Well, just around the corner from gorgeous Piazza Pretoria is Quattro Canti, or the Four Corners, marking the intersection of Corso Vittorio Emanuele and Via Maqueda–the old heart of Palermo:
The four buildings of Quattro Canti each have three levels of Giulio Lasso-designed Baroque sculptures.
The themes are the Four Seasons, Spanish kings, and patron saints of Palermo’s original four quarters.
There are also gorgeous Baroque fountains at ground level.
It is said that the sculptures used to be pearly white, but city smog and pollution have given them a grey, um, patina. Still gorgeous though, aren’t they?
Make sure you come back next week for the next installment of Palermondays because believe me, everywhere you look in Palermo, there seems to be yet another amazing, sculpted masterpiece.
They just don’t make buildings like this anymore, do they?
One (Wo)man’s Poison Is Another’s Delicacy
Do you know the television show Bizarre Foods with Andrew Zimmern? We love it, and I may or may not have a secret crush on the host.
Ahem.
In Italy, the show is called Orrori da gustare, literally Horrors to try/taste.
Sure they could’ve used the word bizzarro to describe the food, but the translators went one step further to demonstrate just how, um, eeeeeeew some of the things that Andrew eats really are–bites of lamb’s eyeballs, beating frog hearts, all kinds of rotting meat and fish and more. YUM!
So you would think that P and I wouldn’t have too much of a culture clash regarding this show because we *all* agree these foods are bizarre, if not true horrors? Right? Right? Hmm….
Through my recipes, I think I’ve demonstrated here that I like an awful lot of Calabrian food–I can get with wild boar (cinghiale) and rabbit (coniglio)–but I make no secret of my dislike of many traditional Calabrian foods, i.e., those you probably won’t be seeing on What’s Cooking Wednesday, such as:
- u suzzu: random pig parts (tongue, lungs, heart, stomach, etc.) in gelatin with peperoncino and vinegar. I like my gelatin in Jell-O thankyouverymuch.
- e frittule: boiled pig parts, especially the skin, that give off a smell I won’t even begin to describe to you because it’s turning my stomach just thinking of it.
- u sanguinazzu: a dessert made with cinnamon, orange zest, vino cotto . . . and boiled pig’s blood.
- ghiro: dormouse, usually in a tomato sauce (illegal to capture, actually).
- porcellino d’india: guinea pig. Yes, cute little guinea pigs like this:
I should be perfectly clear that I have tried three of the five on the list (care to guess?) and will probably eventually try them all if/when they are presented. I’m proud to say I’m quite Andrew Zimmern in that respect.
I *hate* when people say they don’t like something without trying it, so I practice what I preach.
And then I spit into my napkin if necessary.
Just kidding.
Sort of.
All of this is a lead-in to a conversation that P and I had the other night:
We were starving and only starting to prepare dinner as I flipped the channel to Orrori da gustare.
I quickly changed the channel.
“Oh we shouldn’t watch this now,” I said, meaning that we would be so disgusted that we’d lose our appetites.
“Yes,” P agreed.
“It’ll make me too hungry.”
Thus proving Andrew’s mantra, “One (wo)man’s poison is another’s delicacy” once again.
[P.S. Andrew, we got some poison “delicacies” for you in Calabria!]
This is all the more ironic because P is so against most “American” foods that he won’t even try them, or will only do so after I beg and plead.
Peanut butter took six months of cajoling. SIX MONTHS!
Mah.
So tell me, do you and your Other Half agree on food?
What foods gross you out?
What’s the most bizarre food you’ve ever tried?
P.S. Be sure to check out some decidedly delicious food–
Mary’s Crab Cakes at The Flavors of Abruzzo
for La Buona Cucina Americana!
Buon weekend!
love thursday: my own personal seat warmer
Many people mistakenly believe that the weather in southern Italy is tropical or nearly so. It really isn’t. We do have seasons, although winter brings more rain than snow and spring can seem awfully short before we are thrust into the heat of summer.
Another southern Italian factoid is that most of the houses here are built with stone and/or tile, i.e., with “natural insulation”; central air and heat are only coming into fashion now, but it’s still quite expensive to run because of electricity costs.
And so most of us are “green” without even really trying.
All of this means that if your house isn’t directly in the sun, it can get pretty darned cold inside and stay that way–even now, in the spring when I often have to take *off* layers of clothes to go out with the dogs.
[This cooling effect works a bit in our favor during the summer, although not as much as it seems to work against us in the colder temps.]
Anyway, I am so very pleased to announce that it has been nearly a week since I’ve had to turn on the space heater near my work area, which means spring truly has arrived!
It also means I’ve had to switch to another method of keeping my seat warm:
All natural, and works for us!
Happy Love Thursday everyone!
P.S. Yes this photo sums up my life rather well–
work, pooches, and laundry in the big blue vasca.
Michelle Kaminsky is an American attorney-turned-freelance writer who lived in her family's ancestral village in Calabria, Italy for 15 years. This blog is now archived.
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