“Phase Two” and Favetta

“Fase 2” has been announced, and all of Italy was listening.  

Last night at 8 PM, coinciding with most Italians’ dinner hour, Italy’s prime minister Giuseppe Conte addressed the housebound nation, outlining plans to gradually relieve a countrywide lockdown that began on March 10.  

From May 4, all production industries may resume their operations. Parks will reopen for the exercising of people and dogs but not for social recreation.  From May 4, we may visit direct blood line family, fiancées and those with whom we have relationships of “stable affection” (immediately, civil liberty and LGBT associations insisted on no discrimination in determining whom the partners are in a state of “stable affection”). Visits are to occur under the conditions that you have on your person the now sickeningly familiar auto-certification form, practice social distancing, and wear a face mask. “No hugging, no kissing”, reminded Conte last night.  

Athletes may resume training for individual sports from May 4 but team-sport training will not recommence before May 18. Shops (with social distancing and hygiene restrictions) can reopen on May 18, as can (always with social distancing restrictions) museums, archeological sites (hooray !!!!!) and libraries assuming that the trial days of increased social mobility beginning May 4 go well.   

From May 4 restaurants, bars, pastry stores and gelaterie may provide not just delivery (as now) but also takeaway services. Bars, restaurants, beauty salons and barbers may open on June 1-3. 

Schools will not reopen before September. Funerals are now allowed, but small ones (no more than 15 mourners) and out of doors preferably.  Face masks prices are now capped at 50 Eurocents ($0.54) and VAT will not be assessed on these.  

Public works and export-oriented businesses were allowed crank up again today.  

And those with fevers of 37.5 C. (99.5 Fahrenheit) or more are obliged by law to stay home.

Watching Conte last night I thought of New York’s governor Andrew Cuomo.  In their public addresses, Conte and Cuomo both use the same words : “This has been a time of cooperation, it is us against the virus.”  While Cuomo is more overtly garrulous and offers more personal antidotes, Conte, a naturally more reserved person, has in common with his fellow Italian a soothing empathy.  Though many Italians I  know have lost patience with him as his messages are hard to bear, and some feel are far too open to interpretation, no one doubts Conte’s compassion.  

Cuomo during press conferences has publicly worried over his daughters and his 88-year-old mother. Conte has repeatedly acknowledged the sacrifices that Italians have been obliged to make, and spoken movingly of the deep sorrow of losing a family member, or the tragedy of a family member being denied a funeral. 

Last night Conte told Italians that in this new phase, personal responsibility would be even more important than before.  “If you love Italy, keep your distance. Social distancing is what will keep more deaths at bay —  and also reduces the risk of further irreversible national economic damage”.

A few minutes after the prime minister had concluded his address, a friend in Rome texted me : “it is the same as before, but now with your mother in law.”

A friend with a small coastal family summer house inherited from his mother wrote me this : “My entire garden just over the border of Lazio in Tuscany will be dead.  I can stand on the border between the two regions and practically spit into it but I cannot get to it.  And the house itself ?  How is the house ?  Oh My God.”

Italian bishops are complaining that the right to practice one’s religion is being impaired, but the government subsequently said it was studying a protocol for masses.  Rabbi Riccardo Di Segni, who leads the Roman Jewish community, insists that “Fase 2” must acknowledge the citizen’s spiritual necessity to worship with community. The Italian Muslim community states that the practicing of any religion is challenged by continued restrictions on gatherings of faith. 

Opposition Northern League leader Matteo Salvini is having a field day, urging authorities to “let us out.  We have been patient, we have listened, suggested, collaborated. Enough now, after 47 days of captivity we say: that’s enough, let us out, let us earn, let us work. If we need to come out of our homes to reclaim our freedom we will do so.”

Meanwhile, a friend in Florence notes that the weeds are now much higher than the benches in her shuttered neighborhood park. A community of boars has taken over the park’s gatehouse, where her children liked to play. “When I look through the gate I can hear them snorting in the evenings, and scavenging around.  Will the public works remove this boar family ? And how many weeks until they beat back the vegetation so we can take a simple walk in the park ?” 

Giocondo in Furore, Amalfi, is examining the seascape that is directly below his windows. He is displeased.  Day after day, he has noted how crystalline the water has been, with the sea floor fully visible, a circumstance he’s not seen for decades. But today “the water is not transparent, winds from the east, the River Sele which empties into the sea near Paestum is again belching out pollution. The levante wind is sending this in our direction, compromising what our local waters had reacquired. I am not happy.”

A few hours later he writes: “Today I am cooking, preparing a dish in honor of my mother. “Favetta con aggiunta di piselli, seguira’ ricetta e foto.”  (“Favetta with the addition of peas, recipe and photos to follow.”)  And sure enough they do.

“Stage One : shell fava beans and peas.  

Do this unhurriedly.

Stage Two :  brown guanciale (pork jowl) and fresh onion in extra virgin olive oil.  Then add the fava beans and peas, mashing the fava a bit with a spoon to encourage it to take on the flavors in the pan.

Stage Three : ladle in boiling water, by the spoonful, as needed, to keep the legumes somewhat liquid as they cook and not stick.  Cook for perhaps five minutes. Season with salt.

Stage Four : add three ladles or so per person of water to the legumes, which will continue cooking. The fava will naturally begin to puree, but the peas should remain largely intact.  Cook for five minutes or so, then add a short pasta, or spaghetti broken in two or any mixture of pasta. Cook till the pasta is al dente, then season again as needed with salt.  Eat warm or room temperature.

I guarantee that you will like this plate.”

Tomorrow will be the 50th day of national lockdown in Italy.  Be well.