A Purposeful Return to the Past

Come the liberation from this nightmare, the dogs of Italy will be skin and bones, as they are perpetually escorted on walks by stir crazy family members….

while their lockdown families, being Italians, are gaining weight as (most logically) making meals the focus of their days. I have never seen such a systematic and enthusiastic exchange of recipes, encouraged by television cooking programs that are tailor-made for the housebound, resourcefully prioritizing standard larder supplies that all Italians have at home (pancetta or guanciale, legumes, dried pasta, tomatoes, tuna, Parmigiano, wine). There are ongoing WhatsApp discussions regarding which neighborhood store (for those who have a choice in their neighbourhoods, because you are not to venture further than necessary) has fresher pizza bianca, or has just received a delivery of buffalo mozzarella, or maybe has a mineral water that is better for your liver.

In our neighbourhood (as all around Italy) handmade signs have been taped to fences and trees and offer (free) shopping services for those who are too aged or immunocompromised to go out. This evening my neighbours watched the service in action, as a teenager jogged up our street pulling a wagon loaded with bag after bag of shopping which she dropped off at four palazzi on our street, ringing the recipient’s bell and waving cheerfully before continuing on her rounds.

Tomorrow’s At Home : Letters from Italy is about Giocondo, a dear friend whom many clients know, a special man from Furore, on the Amalfi coast. He lives high in the hills, on terraces that were cultivated for centuries by his resourceful relatives, producing celebrated potatoes as well as deeply flavorful vegetables. But in recent years, as descendants have lost interest in the kind of intensive, year-round work required to nourish the soil and tend to the fruits of the earth, he and one neighbor are the last remaining farmers in his village. The local art of keeping a garden has been nearly lost.

When lockdown began on Wednesday, Giocondo made a plan to use these solitary weeks to regenerate and extend his garden. He also decided that besides making his meals the centrepiece of his day, he would eat the foods that were the staples of his own childhood. Tomorrow he will tell us more about this, so I will share only his Sunday dinner menu, which he enjoyed in the pleasure of his own company.

From a note he sent he before retiring this evening :

“My menu : puntarelle that I foraged during my morning walk dressed with my garlic and my olive tree’s olive oil; toasted home made brown bread from my neighbour Cristina who left it my door; local anchovies fished and cured by my neighbour Uberto who left them at my door; my own wine. Village spring water flavoured with chinotto liquor made by me. This was a classic dinner during the last war, when on average families had eight children.

I ate like a prince and will sleep like a baby. Buona Notte from Furore !”

Today the 6 PM Ministry of Health bulletin was grim, with more dead than on any previous day, 368, a 25% increase over yesterday. There are 3590 more diagnosed cases today than yesterday (a jump of 17%). The only note of cheer is that fewer Italians than in days past are in Intensive Care in Lombardia, the region most intensely affected. One victim we lost today was Evole Berardi, 65, from Medicina (province of Bologna) whom his son called “a man of enormous heart, cheerful, honest, and a celebrated teller of riddles. He loved to garden, and anything involving nature”.

May things be better tomorrow.