Saturday, May 17, 2008

Gypsies

Fran used to tell me about when she did something that was not looked on with approval by her mother, sometimes her mother would warn her to be careful, as the Gypsies might come through Dunkirk and steal her, because they apparently liked bad little girls. I even remember my mother telling me that Gypsies had a reputation for stealing children, but they only did that in Europe.

I also remember all wanderers being called gypsies, and often it would be the gypsies who were blamed when someone was sold a driveway coating that turned out to be little more than diluted black paint. Folks in rural New York sometimes had a hard time believing that you could not get something for nothing, so they tried.

In terms of remembrance, I also remember when I first started working in Fulton, and one of my fellow administrators bought a new car. He told me about how he had 'jewed down' the price. When I looked at him askance, as I was not used to hearing that particular antisemetic phrase, he apologized, saying that he had nothing against the Jews, only that he did not want to be gypped. I again looked at him askance, and asked him why he assumed I was not a gypsy.

All of these memories came back to me yesterday, as I read the news from Italy. I subscribe to e mail Italian news service in English. There were two articles about gypsies yesterday. The first reported that after extensive research and the culling of records of missing children over the last thirty five years, there have been no known instances of the gypsies stealing children in Italy. This despite the fact that since I have lived here, there have been three children who have gone missing, and the papers reported that they 'were probably taken by gypsies', and indeed, there were supposed sitings of the children in gypsy camps. One siting was made just a day before the little girl's body was found in a well, which she had fallen into when she was playing. The article noted that the newspapers often loudly proclaimed that gypsies were responsible, and then hid the stories about the gypsies not being responsible on the back pages.

I should note that gypsies continue to be wanderers in much of Europe. They seem to have left the old wooden wagons behind, and are now using 'Caravans', which are like our old Winnebago's. I have seen gypsy encampments in Rome, Paris, and Agrigento.

Anyway, and coincident with the exculpation of the gypsies for the disappearance of little children, the Minister of the Interior has appointed three 'extraordinary commissioners for gypsies' in Milan, Rome, and Naples. The brief article did not say what the aim of these extraordinary commissioners would be, but they were appointed with the consultation of the Romanian Ambassador. Could it be that these extraordinary commissioners were appointed to help clear the name of the much maligned gypsies.

I think not. The day after the appointments were made public, by the new Berlusconi right wing government (it is indeed hard for me to call it center right, when it includes a former fascist as the president of what is similar to our House of Representatives, and several other former fascists or people who express fascist views in several of the ministries), there was a huge raid on the gypsy camps in Rome, Milan and Naples. Over 500 gypsies (and 'wanderers') were arrested for drug dealing, prostitution, fraud, and robbery. They were not all Romanian, indeed a large number were from northern Africa, but the headlines all read that they were Romi, or gypsies, and you had to read into the second page of the article to get the ethnic break down.

And no, they did not find any missing children, however I think the work that they have done to research the myth of gypsy child stealing was very nicely undone by the raid and arrests. And of course, many of the people were legal immigrants to Italy, but could not find jobs, and were not allowed to search for jobs, and had to make a living somehow. It all sounds just too familiar.

Saturday, May 03, 2008

Primavera: Fruit


I do not want you to get the wrong idea. I do not always eat like I ate for May Day. Indeed, it is with the ending of April and the beginning of May, the entrance into the end of the spring season, that my diet really seems to improve.

The agrumi of Sicily takes me through the winter months quite well. I buy huge boxes of oranges in Ribera, and eat one or two, or three or four a day. If I do not get them all eaten by the time they begin to turn, I make orange juice, then buy another large box and start all over again. Sometimes I do not even drive the ten minutes to Ribera, but find a local grower whose oranges are as good, or almost as good, and certainly as fresh. And of course there are some bananas, some of them even from Sicily, and apples and pears from the controlled atmosphere storage areas associated with the orchards up north.

And of course there is a steady influx of fresh vegatables, again, grown locally. Signs of spring include the green fava beans, the fresh green beans, finocchio (fennel), zucchini squash, cucumbers, wild mushrooms, spinach, swiss chard, and other forms of salagi. Even some early egg plant grown under plastic covers in the fields. And the types of fresh tomatoes increases, with four or five different tomato varieties becoming available, where only two took us through the rainy winter.

But then spring time comes for the fruit. First come the strawberries. Oh my, are they good. Usually, the first to appear are not local, but are grown on the plains of Marsala, about forty minutes away. If you prefer, you can get Spanish stawberries at the big supermarket, all nicely encased in plastic, and at a slightly higher price. I prefer the ortafruttica, where I know I am getting fresh. Loredonna makes sure of that.

Just when I think I have had my fill of fresh strawberries, and stawberries on cerael, and with cream, and with milk, and with ricotta, the melons from Licata begin showing up, and the nespoli (medlar), and the citreon (chedra), and the apricots, grown here in Sciacca, and peaches from the mainland. It becomes almost too much. I must remind myself to eat something besides the fruit, but it is so fresh and so good, and gives me reason to stay here.

I must admit, sometimes I am not as bright as perhaps I should be, but the owners of the store where I get almost all of my veggies are always very good at telling me when something is not local, as they know that I want to eat as close to the source as possible. Usually, if he does not know the contadini who grew the produce, he does know someone who does. He goes to the big market everyday in his truck, and picks out the best for his shop. He also picks out the best for his brother's shop, and his sister in law's shop, and sometimes, when his brother in law has gotten something special in his stall at the big market, he will get first dibs, and I can count on Lilo and Loredonna to hold some of whatever it is for me, and they will even tell me how to prepare it, if it is not obvious.

Friday, May 02, 2008

MAY DAY MAY DAY

That is not just a call for help. It is also Labor Day for most of the world, including Sicily. I found out that May 1st celebrations are much like Pasqualoni (Little Easter, or the Day After Easter) and Carneveloni (The Day after the last day of Carnival, or Ash Wednesday) and Liberation Day (April 25, the day the Italians celebrate the liberation of Italy by the Bristish and American forces in World War II, indeed, liberating Italy from . . . Italy) celebrations. That is to say, everyone heads to the country to have a picnic.

This year, my new friend Vinny, or Vincenzo, invited me to join his family at his niece's house in Raganella. Raganella is a small town outside of Sciacca, right near Caltabubu and Scungipanni, which are two names I like even more. Actually, small town may be a bit of an exaggeration. There is not even a wide spot in the road where the two dirt lanes go off the so called main road that somehow make up this hamlet.

I got to know Vinny because he had lived in the US for many years, and was recieving Social Security benefits. Both he and his wife had gotten letters from the IRS about the economic stimulus package, and while heretofore they had not had to file income tax forms, they would get part of the stimulus package money if they filed this year. I explained this to them, and helped them send out the forms. I am sure that when they get the money it will really help the US economy, and the dollar will become stronger. I hope so.

Anyway, we went out to Raganella to where his niece Maria lives. I had already had my usual breakfast of three cups of coffee, juice, and toast, along with espresso and a cookie at Vinny's house. Maria insisted we should have some coffee, and we were able to hold her off for about half an hour, when she finally brough out some iced coffee (and yes, it was indeed warm enough for iced coffee, or iced espresso. It was good. She took us on a tour of her house, and the apartment her son Marco is fixing up to move into when he gets married in August. We hung out at a smaller house, which contained Maria's kitchen, a second bathroom, and her other son, Angelo's, bedroom.

As soon as the tour was over, Maria's mother Giovanna arrived with a crate of fava beans, a crate of artichoke, water, tomatos, and other goodies. Vinny had brought sausage, sardines, panchetta, and wine. I had brought wine. We were off to a good start.

We sat around the table talking as we all took the fava beans out of their shells. The ladies started working on a tomato sauce, dredging two kilos of swordfish fillets in a mollica and egg coating, and beginning to make the pasta sauce.

Maria, who is a widow, waited until her two sons, Angelo and Marco got home, before beginning to seriously cook. While both boys worked on the fire, Vinny, Giovanna and I walked into the orchard to pick fresh nespoli (medlars) and blood oranges (the first I had seen growing outside the Catania province) for the fruit course. When the fire was ready, Angelo took charge of grilling the four kilos of sausage that Vinny had brought.

While the sausage was cooking, Maria started the pasta, and had me try the sauce, made from tomatos, swordfish, anchovies, onions, and peas. She also started frying up the swordfish fillets in the kitchen. As soon as the sausage was all grilled, Marco started grilling the panchetta, which is basically a raw (uncured) bacon, very thickly cut. There were about three kilos of this. When it was done, it was time to grill the kilo of 'back up sausage', which was simply extra sausage someone brought if the original amount was not enough for the ten people who would be eating this pranzo. When the sausage was all grilled, it was time to put the fresh sardines on the grill. About two kilos.

Finally, it was time to sit down and eat. Of course we started with a huge bowl of pasta with Maria's fresh made sauce, followed fresh anchovies soaked in vinegar, and then on to the sausage and panchetta and swordfish. If you have been doing the mental math as you have been reading, then you know that in addition to the pasta and sauce, the tomato salad, and the anchovies, there was about a kilo of meat of fish for everyone. And it all was good. And there were leftovers. Oh my, we tried hard, but there were leftovers, so everyone will be able to eat well over the weekend.

Of course we could not stop there. We had to have fruit - the nespole and oranges we had picked. Then, the boys used some scrap lumber to put together a little dog house for their two dogs. That created a good bit of noise, and helped drown out the endless repetition of the Village People singing 'YMCA' at top volume in the neighbor's yard. Meanwhile, the ladies did their usual post pranzo thing, which was cleaning up the kitchen. They also started boiling the fava beans. Over dinner, we had talked about many things, including about the Priest in Brazil who tried to set a world record of balloon aided flight in a lawn chair. Having talked about his, Vinny decided to do his best to make sure that Maria would not lose any of her lawn chairs, by weighing one down in the shade, near where the boys were banging away on the soon to be dog house, and quickly entered that near trance state common to Sicilian men after a good and full meal. (I took my nap in Maria's main house, on a much more comfortable sofa!!)

When Vinny and I had woken up (and when the women had finished cleaning up the kitchen, and Angelo and Marco got tired of trying to build the dog house), we sat down at the table to devour fava beans. After all, we had had nothing to eat for almost an hour and a half.

As soon as we made a good sized dent in the fava beans, the ladies went back in the kitchen to start getting things ready for making pizza. Of course this included making the dough and letting it rise a bit, cutting up the anchovies into little pieces, peeling and cutting up the onions, cubing the mozzerella, and making sure that the ham, the hot sausage, and all the rest was ready to go on the top of the pizzas. Angelo's findanzatta arrived, with her family and some friends, and the pitched right in. The dog house was torn apart and reborn as a sort of child's gate to keep the dogs out of the kitchen and the outdoor eating area. Marco helped get the fire going in the outside pizza oven, but the cooking of the pizza was clearly to be Angelo' job, just as the grilling of the meat was Marco's.

At about 8:30, when the fire was going well, and the brick oven floor had heated up almost enough, Angelo's fidanzatta and her sister started making the first of the pizza's, or should I say started putting them together. Vinny was there to make sure that they did it right. About fifteen people were there for dinner. Poor Maria, after working so hard all day, took to her bed with a head ache and stomach ache. That did not stop the group from consuming about ten or twelve (or more?) family size pizzas.

Finally, it seemed, there was a lull in the eating. As the ladies argued about whether there should be sfingi or ricotta filled ravioli next, I snuck off into the night, to my house, to sleep on an incredibly full stomach. I can understand why these holidays come only once a year, but it is amazing to me how many of these picnic holidays they have, and how much is consumed in these little picnics. Oh my.

Did I leave out the wine, and the water, and the coffee, and the iced coffee, and the artichokes, and whatever else there was (and there was) that I can not remember. Sorry.

Vinny, thanks for the invitation, and Maria, thanks for your generous hospitality.