Category: Food

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It’s not luck, it is just by chance that I have ended up with an Italian “nonna” or grandma that likes to give us nice things when we visit.  By nice things I mean:
-Eggs from her chickens.
-The chickens (frozen, and oh so tasty when fried in the skillet)
-Tomato sauce from the summer harvest, with basil.
-Seasonal fruits and vegetables (this time, persimmons, pomegranates, beans and frozen peas from the summer)
-Ragu for pasta.

Lucky, yes.  It is the dream of many guys from the U.S. to be able to go to a real Italian grandma for good things.  The best part is the pleasure that you can see in her eyes giving them to us.  We don’t make much money at the moment but we are quite happy.  But nothing really makes us happier than coming back to our apartment with a trunk full of food.  It saves us money for sure, but apart from that, it makes us feel good, physically and mentally.  Part of the charm for me is that it reminds me of growing up in the mid-west of the U.S. and helping my mom can green beans in the summertime.  I hated picking the ends off of them because it was boring and laborious, but I always appreciated the fact that we had green beans in the winter.  I didn’t realize it at the time, but I was eating local and seasonal, and it wasn’t because it was hip or fashionable, but because that was what we had.  It’s the same with grandma here, it’s what she has, so it’s what she eats, naturally, but also what she can give.  She doesn’t fill our bellies with sweets, processed cakes, etc. but with real food, that comes from her hands, from the earth around her house and always has.

 

Bra Continued

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In thinking about my last post about farmer’s markets here in Bra, I have been constantly thinking about the whole idea of growing your own food and to the extent that you have enough of it to sale.  Some of the old guys at the Bra market on Friday are obviously retired and just have an excess that they can’t use or get rid of.  I’m lucky to also be able to benefit from excess fruit and vegetables from V’s grandparents in Veneto.  It’s nice that each time we go to visit we come back with bags of tomatoes, potatoes, plums, rosemary, basil, melons, etc.  And as the seasons change, so do the offerings.  Although there is no lack of canned tomatoes with basil or home made ragu from the shelves in the garage.  These sauces come from her hands, and the years that they have seen — put into saved jam jars, I can’t help but walk away from there each time overwhelmed at their generosity to me, the unknown American who has somehow invaded this small little village.  It is really, I think, the dream of many American males to have an Italian grandma who gives you good things from her kitchen.  Last time we got apple strudel.  During Carnival we got fritelli and as autumn and winter approach, I look forward to the new Christmas traditions that I’ll get to share with my new Italian family this year.  I’m really happy that in V’s region, fish is the norm.
One of the first times I visited I was greeted at lunch by her mum, who was keeping watch over a pot in the kitchen.  Asking me in mixed English and Italian if I had ever had squid ink risotto, I answered a truthful no.  But I was excited and curious to give it a try.  It is black a night and stains your teeth with the slightly iron tasting ink.  The rice is the perfect vestibule for this dish — and it is one that I will and do still think about.

For me, the past year of thinking and studying about seasonality and regionality is just starting to sink in.  It is one thing to live in Italy and study and have your afternoons free, but another to live and work here.  To feel like a member of the community, to see the same people day in and day out in the streets, at the cafe, in the market.  To make small inroads with these people is perhaps the hardest part for me.  I still get stares in the street, maybe from my height or my blue eyes — mostly from older folks who take a second glance.  I’m getting used to it.

 

Market Scale

Friday Thoughts in Bra

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I think after you live somewhere for awhile you become wholly unaware of your surroundings.  You can forget the beauty of a place, the value it has.  Bra has become this and at times, languishes in my mind as any other place.  To live here is to be wholly involved in Italy and Italian life.  For as long as I’ve lived here, a bit over a year now, I have forgot the essential parts of living that make this a place of amusement.
Today is Friday, and it is on Friday that you realize that a town perceived as sleepy or boring in fact comes alive with activity.  It is the beginning of September and my most favorite period of the year.  Cool mornings now.  Warm and sunny afternoons and evenings.  It’s during this time that the earth is it’s most generous giving forth all it has to offer for every person.  Reminded of this today at the local Friday market which was so busy you could barely pass.  To see each farmer with the result of their labor is the actual fulfillment of what a farmer’s market is.  Except here it isn’t a farmer’s market, it’s just normal.  The prices, fair and reasonable for the quality and beauty of these fruits and vegetables.  A complete picture of seasonality and locality in one place.  A trout from the fisherman, peaches, plums and the best are the late summer tomatoes which are still turning red in the heat of the afternoon.

Red/Green Tomatoes

His Fruit

Bra Market

Bra Market
 

Bra, yes, is a unique place.  One that surprises some Italians by it’s complete lack of chain restaurants, it’s hidden wealth, it’s Provencal-ness without the stuffiness.

Friday’s give me energy and encouragement here.  The bustling in the street makes me feel as if it were just a small neighborhood part of a larger city.  Filled with a host of faces from abroad.  As I sit here at the café with my pen and notebook, happy at the complete absence of computers and wi-fi, the atmospheric music coming from satellites, I’m reminded of the reason for café’s and that is conversation and a respite from the day.  Of all things that are present here to remind you of this, the most apparent is the name of the café; Converso.  It rings in an English speaker’s ears like conversation.  So, I am surrounded by conversation at Café Converso.  How appropriate.

These are the ideas of civility that we have lost in the U.S.  Simply concepts really, replaced by over stimulation and the need to always rush around town — the concept of a fair price (here, a cappuccino with table service is €1.30, no tip necessary), or for people to frequent the small stores that sustain a town such as this.

Of all the talk of a loss of our roots or heritage, these places till exist.  Places like Bra, all across Europe.  Unattractive perhaps for the general tourist, but ideal for the ones who live there.  No wonder people idealize these places – people who, like I, have abandoned their own country for a life a bit less hectic, a bit less crazy.  I find it realistic, and yet at the same time, completely un-real.  For now, it works.  It isn’t a permanent solution to our wanderlust, no place is, but giving this small town some of my time has been, for all intensive purposes, worth it.  It’s not perfect, but it at least tries.