Pesce d’Aprile !

  Pesce d’Aprile !

April Fool’s !

One of my cherished Italian childhood memories was the annual April Fool’s chocolate fish from the pastry store, a gift from my mother.  These were mostly the size of a sardine, brightly wrapped in thin foil, so thin that little hands could feel beneath the foil the raised outlines of fish’s scales and fins and head.  The chocolate would melt of course, as I postponed the pleasure of tearing off the foil and biting into the toothsome sweet.  Because it was hollow, the fish was finished in a series of joyful bites.

Some years my generous mother provided a little net full of fish, so the pleasure of fish eating could go on all day.

On April 1, 2020, I wrote this blog at the beginning of the first wave of COVID, when Italy was in the eye of the cyclone.

In those raw days, when we were were all just beginning to come to terms with the worldwide implications and enormity of the virus, the country shone a bright light into the darkness.  Italy demonstrated remarkable spirit, solidarity and courage, and the immensity of their collective efforts took everyones’ breath away.

A year later, most of Italy is again in lockdown, with a full national lockdown to begin on Saturday and last through the long Easter weekend.

Italians are being vaccinated, not at the speed that they want, but faster than in many European countries.

Everyone in Italy admires the efficiency and alacrity of America’s vaccination campaign, and most know someone in America who has been vaccinated.  A Florence friend today commented on the irony that New York’s Metropolitan Museum is preparing for a major show on the Medici, but in Tuscany, all of the Medicis’ historic villas and residences are in lock-down closure, as are the museums where the Medici portraits and possessions are on display.

Across Italy, many of our friends are preparing to make their Easter pastiera, an ambitious task that requires sprouted precooked wheat kernels, orange flower water, plus a steady hand with the pastry.

There is arguing ongoing about what kind of ricotta — cow or sheep ? — and how the latticing must be (seven strips of pastry is the traditional.)  Friends are buying artichokes, and lamb, and early spring peas.

Friends are missing friends, and family; Italians are reconciling themselves with the moment.  “Un ultimo sacrificio” (“one last sacrifice”) to get the country through this wave, says Prime Minister Draghi.  It is not easy.

Il Cortile in Rome is making casatiello, a traditional Easter celebratory bread of central and southern Italy made with eggs and butter and studded throughout with cheese and salumi.

It will be on their elaborate take-out menu for Easter day.

I am preparing my vignarola.

This April 1, the countryside of Italy is simply beyond beautiful.  Can you feel it in your soul ?

As we all move into spring and set our thoughts on summer and autumn and next winter, will you begin with us on your Italy travel planning ?   Where will you go first ?