Tuscany Archives - Page 3 of 3

Tuscany Archives - Page 3 of 3 - Itch.world

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September 29, 2019 In Best Of, Live By Nancy

Dinner theater and the Genoa disaster

Few Italians will forget where they were the moment they heard about the collapse of the Ponte Morandi bridge in Genoa, which killed 43 and left over 600 people homeless. It hit a nerve beyond the sheer horror of the disaster. Italians are master engineers and pride (I’d venture to say even define) themselves on the beauty and engineering elegance of their creations, especially in the heyday of the Italian economic boom of the 1950s and 60s. This 1963 bridge, designed by Riccardo Morandi, was internationally famous for its beauty, but also for its bold use of structural concrete, and the collapse was a blow to national dignity.

(image from the Financial Times)

But beyond that the collapse speaks to the Italian belief that corruption is endemic and that the common people pay the price. The bridge was maintained by the Autostrade per l’Italia company (largely owned by Benetton) which is a hugely-profitable monopoly running the network of expensive to use, but fast, roads in Italy. Turns out the inspection company has ties to, and shares offices with, the company they are chartered to inspect and regulate.

Which brings us to Anghiari’s annual play, the Tovaglia a Quadri, dinner theater created, produced, and performed by a small team over a course of ten nights in August. Tovaglia a Quadri is written weeks before the performances so the topics are fresh, and it serves as an annual hard look in the mirror about the issues challenging Italy and village life. (Here’s Itch on last year’s play about how Amazon is changing local life.)

(all photos from Tovaglia a Quadri, including at top, courtesy of Giovanni Santi.)

This year, with the Genoa disaster looming in the background, they wrote about our local brush with dangerous bridges. The E45, which is the longest north-south freeway in Europe (starting in Alta, Norway and ending 5,190 kilometers away in Gela, Sicily) runs right through our valley. The section that goes to the Adriatic coast passes over some really high, long viaducts. Soon after the Genoa disaster a truffle hunter in a forest under one of these massive bridges happened to look up and notice the horrible condition of the bottom of the roadway and took some pictures. The result was this major artery of Europe being completely closed for months while the situation was assessed. (It’s now been “solved” by opening only one lane, slowing the speed limit to a crawl, and limiting heavy trucks. Every time I have to drive it I hold my breath.)

The irony for the writing team of Andrea Merendelli and Paolo Pennacchini is that where the truffle hunter took the photos was on a 2,000 year old Etruscan road, still viable, and used even today for the migration of animals from the mountains near us to Maremma on the Tuscan coast, called the transumanza. The bridge that is failing was built only 25 years ago. And there’s the added dimension that our valley shut a flow of traffic, goods, and ideas from across Europe. (Politics, anyone?) The title of this year’s play is ViaDotta, which is translated as viaduct, but also via, or way, of dotta, which is between wisdom and knowledge.

The plot follows from there, including a scheme from a local entrepreneur to showcase the transumanza to local tourists, against the will of the locals who love their pets but are not in favor of other domesticated animals being in such close proximity. In a very funny scene the entrepreneur insists that the shepherd he hires change from his usual attire of a t-shirt and sweats into one that the tourists would associate with the calling—scratchy white wool.

I was particularly interested in sharing this with you when I saw that a New York Times article about this year’s topic—the transumanza—was on the most popular articles list last week. I also saw a video about it at a London Tube station this week.

Just for the record, Anghiari got there first. I knew I’d be on the cutting edge when I moved to a tiny Tuscan village.

September 9, 2019 In Best Of, Chow By Nancy

Aglione: my garlic is bigger than yours

It’s the time of year when I start to see giant garlic in the stores and pici all’aglione (which means pici and “big garlic”) on the local menus. As you can see in the picture above it towers over lesser garlic. Aglione is a special type of garlic that is only grown between Siena, Arezzo, and Perugia in the Val di Chiana. It’s a relative of the garlic everyone is familiar with, without some of the drawbacks, and has a much milder flavor. The plant was nearly extinct but has been brought back in recent years by around twenty devoted farmers who have been growing it.

According to the Aglione Association it comes in the following sizes:

Super-Giant (bigger than 90 mm.)
Giant (80 – 90 mm.)
Extra (70 – 80 mm.)
Big (60 – 70 mm.)
Small (smaller than 60 mm.)

They also state on their beautiful website that it can cure abscesses, is used to help diseases of the circulatory system, malaria, infestations of worms and parasites, pulmonary disorders, as a disinfectant or purgative, for animal bites and for convulsions, for exhaustion, migraine, insomnia. It protects against toxins and infections, has a diuretic effect, reduces blood pressure … and more.

So eat up.

Over the past few years I’ve tried it several times and was a bit underwhelmed, but this year I have seen the light and can’t get enough. It is incredibly easy to make if you can get your hands on the goods. If not I thing you could give it a go with elephant garlic.

INGREDIENTS

400 grams pici (best if made by hand with only flour and water, or purchased fresh)

4-6 cloves aglione (You won’t believe how much garlic it feels like you are cutting up, but just trust. It should feel a bit like you have cut up an apple in size and texture.)

1 kg small, sweet fresh tomatoes or I’ve also used a jar or two of chopped tomatoes

Olive oil for cooking

Vegetable broth

Pinch of sugar

Chili pepper to taste

Parmesan cheese, for serving

METHOD

Peel the cloves and chop roughly. It doesn’t have to be nearly as small as one would chop up regular garlic. If using fresh tomatoes down the middle lengthwise. Remove the seeds and chop into cubes.

In a skillet, heat the olive oil, a bit of the broth, the cloves of garlic, and the fresh, chopped, seeded tomatoes, or the chopped tomatoes from the jar. Let the mixture simmer for 30–45 minutes, adding more broth if necessary for consistency.

At the end of cooking, you can mash the garlic and tomatoes together with a fork for a smooth sauce, or leave it a rougher texture if you prefer. Add a pinch of sugar and season with chili pepper to taste.

Cook the pici in boiling, salted water. Drain well. Pour the pici into the sauce — this dish is much less sauced than what one might be used to — the pasta should just be barely covered. Heat through over the fire before serving with Parmesan on the side.

August 30, 2019 In Best Of, Live By Nancy

Seven ways to beach like an Italian

After taking a brief break from Itch to spend time doing August-y things with visiting family and friends — which I decided is truly Italian — it’s time to get back to writing. While doing vacation activities, like hanging at the beach on Elba Island and our neighborhood pool, I’ve noticed a few ways in which Italians relax differently.

1. The more crowded the better. Why would it be any fun to go to the beach or pool when it is not packed? The reason to be there is to see and be seen, hear the latest gossip (le chiacchiera), and know you are in the right place because everyone else is too. Any civilized beach will offer chairs and umbrellas to rent in rows as closely packed together as possible — beach to beach these range widely in price and luxury level. Having a chair is really important as it provides a base of operations and a place where you can leave your things when you go to a long lunch.

As I’ve already told you in my Venice post, when we first moved to Italy and were living in Venice for six weeks we went to the Lido to go to the beach late one afternoon. After picking our way through a field of bodies to get to the water we went out swimming, facing the horizon. After less than an hour we turned back to shore very surprised to discover the beach was totally empty. It was, after all, time to leave and get ready for dinner. That was one of our first hints that Italians love to travel in packs.

A friend just told me that there is no exact translation for “privacy” in Italian because it is considered a sad, lonely, irrelevant, and undesirable thing.

2. Don’t forget lunch. We are not talking about a sandwich and soda. The Italian love of lunch — in smaller towns everything still shuts down between 1 and 3:30 — extends to the beach. Make sure to reserve first thing in the morning in one of the many seaside restaurants and plan to take at least an hour and a half. You will want to make sure to have several courses, a bottle or so of wine, dessert, and coffee afterwards. The star ingredients will be all sorts of fresh seafood, especially shellfish. My mouth is watering right now thinking about the black squid ink risotto with mussels I got a bite of. And don’t forget that you will also be having a large and leisurely dinner. (This may have something to do with #6.)

3. The flock migrates. Every year Italians often have their summer vacation with the same friends and family at the same beach, staying in the same hotel or house, and even renting the same cabana or beach chairs. On the Lido there’s a long waiting list for these little huts and chairs as they are rented year after year by the same family, and they are expensive, several thousand euros for a season. One family will rent and then split the cost between numerous relatives and friends who come to share their small plot of beach.

4. Bring toys. It’s vital to have the two paddles and ball that are batted back and forth in the small open territory between the chairs and the water’s edge making walking along the shore impossible. Rafts and floaties are also important. Unicorn rafts seemed to be especially popular this year.

5. A tan proves you were on vacation. Apparently the darker the better is still the thing.

6. Strut in a tiny bikini (no matter your body type or sex.) I love this part so much. I’ve been swimming at the local pool this summer and consistently notice that all shapes and sizes of bodies are showing it off with equal confidence and enthusiasm, often in suits that are so tiny that they are virtually naked. I’ve been so used to the vibe in the States where those who have great bodies strut, and those of us who don’t wish for an invisibility shield, but settle by trying to shrink into the background in swimsuits that cover as much as possible. This equal-opportunity freedom to strut totally changes my relationship to the pool and beach.

7. Do not confuse swimming with exercise. I am always the only person doing laps at the pool and am looked at with concern and alarm as if an intervention might be needed. This was equally true in the sea in Elba. It all came to a head that time I decided that I had to get some exercise at the local pool only to discover that it was Pool Toy Day. I am still American enough that I did my laps anyway. And counted laps on an Apple watch. Oh well.

July 21, 2019 In Best Of, Roam By Nancy

Pinocchio at the Relais & Châteaux resort

Several years ago I guessed that Il Borro, the restored hamlet owned by the Ferragamo family and part of the Relais & Chateaux group of luxury hotels, might be a really nice place during my then 93-year old mother’s heart valve replacement. I returned to California for her procedure and in the preliminary meeting, when the team of surgeons and cardiologists learned that I lived in Tuscany, everything stopped while they told me in great detail about their various family vacations in this far-away paradise called Il Borro. Excuse me, but don’t you have work to do, like on my mother?

Now that I live about 45-minutes away I’ve visited a couple of times to eat and wander around but somehow had missed the whole point of the place. It’s not the ancient hamlet, perched on a rock outcropping, which has been restored to within an inch of its life, or the infinity pool, or the spa treatments, or winery, or olive groves, but the most interesting thing is a tucked-away collection of animatronic Pinocchios created by the parish priest who lived there years before it was purchased by the Ferragamos. Father Pasquale Mencattini first built a mechanized nativity scene in the 1950s, followed by small tableaus of traditional Tuscany—this one is in a tavern.

But I think his masterpieces are the Pinocchio scenes.

Built within TV sets they are stashed in a small cellar. The general public can see them, you just have to ask reception.

While writing this I also discovered that The Adventures of Pinocchio, written by the Italian Carlo Collodi, was first published as a serialized story in a newspaper of children’s stories in 1881 and became instantly popular. The collected stories were put into book form in 1883 and it’s reputed to be the most translated book in the world, after the Bible, and is one of the best-selling books of all time.

But back to Il Borro. Would I suggest staying there? I am a complete sucker for any Relais & Chateaux experience, but I’d have to say no. Not if you want to actually visit Italy. The resort is all about the curated and imagined Italian experience as opposed to the real one—the hamlet even comes complete with a collection of artisans at work—but give me a coffee at a not-too-clean bar filled with cinghiale hunters any day.