LIFE: Now That I Think About It

CHIAVARI, Italy – Before I moved back to the Italian Riviera last January, I lived in a small town about 20 minutes from Milan, called Saronno. I lived there for about 12 years. In the beginning I worked as editor of an English language magazine and then, since Milan is all about fashion, I moved on to Women’s Wear Daily, a somewhat influential newspaper dedicated to the fashion industry. 

 Sforza Castle, Milan, Italy

After 12 years in Saronno I figured I knew the town pretty well, but it wasn’t until someone asked me where they could buy postcards of Saronno did I realize that there are no postcards of Saronno. There aren’t any stickers that say I heart Saronno, or Go Saronno soccer banners either. And as far as I know absolutely nothing ever happened there that anyone would want to know about. I also realized that was what I liked the most about the place.

Saronno is an old, unpretentious market town that has been around since the days of the Romans. If the name rings a bell, it’s probably because of Amaretto di Saronno liqueur and Lazzaroni cookies, which both come from there, or rather came from there. Seems to me the production plants have moved south, but I may be wrong about that.

What I’m not wrong about though is that absolutely nothing of any importance ever happened in Saronno, no one famous was ever born there or even visited there, not even Cecilia Gallerani and she was the Countess of Saronno.

 Cecilia Gallerani

“Who?” said my neighbor. “There was a Countess of Saronno?”

“You would know who she is if you saw a picture of The Lady with Ermine," said her husband who claims to know about these things. "That is what Leonardo daVinci named the portrait he painted of her in 1490,” he says. “The portrait, and the town of Saronno was a gift to Cecilia from her lover, the Duke of Milan, Ludovico Sforza. He is the one who lived in the big brick castle in the center of Milan and the one who started building the Duomo di Milano, Milan’s massive cathedral. Technically the Duke gave Saronno to Caesar, the son he had with Cecilia in 1491,” he continues, “but of course Cecilia had control of it as Caesar was a newborn baby. That all happened the same year the Duke married Beatrice d’Este.”

“The Duke and Cecilia had a baby and then he married another woman a few months later?” I ask.

“Yep,” says my neighbor. “He had arranged it with Beatrice’s father when she was born and by the time they got married the Duke was 39 and I think Beatrice had just turned 16.”

 And what about Cecilia?” I ask, “She couldn’t have been too happy about that, having just given birth to his baby. What happened to her?”

“Nothing,” says my neighbor. “The Duke eventually married her off to his best friend and moved them into a palazzo just outside of Milan. The Duke and Cecilia continued to see each other even after they were both married to other people, but then he got involved with another woman, Lucrezia Crivelli, and that was that.”

“His poor wife,” I say. “Poor Cecilia too. So what year was that?”

Ludovico Sfoza, Duke of Milan

“Around 1492,” he says. “A few years later the Duke was defeated by the French and for the next couple of years Saronno and Milan, and the rest of his Dukedom was under French control. But then the Duke formed an alliance with the Pope, and with the help of the Pope’s army and Swiss, German and Spanish mercenaries he was able to recapture his Dukedom. Then the bubonic plague hit.”

“Didn’t anything nice ever happen here?” I ask.

“Not that I know of,” he says.

“Well, how about important people. Are there any important people here?“

“Actually, most of the old people you see in Saronno now weren’t born here, they came from Milan during World War II, like me. It was the summer of 1942, the year I was supposed to start school that the British began bombing Italy. By the autumn of that year, they had dropped more than 1,600 tons of explosives on northern Italy. Our neighborhood in Milan was in shambles. I remember my mother clutching her food coupons and standing in long lines, stepping over piles of rubble from the buildings that had been bombed. That’s how we lived, barely lived to tell you the truth. My brothers and I went to bed hungry more often than not. And it was scary. Sometimes during the night the air raid sirens would go off and my mother would pull us out of bed and rush down us into the basement of our building.  Everyone would be down there and we would huddle around a short-wave radio listening to Radio London and the Voice of America, praying for the news that the Americans had landed. When that finally happened, we moved out here to Saronno because my mother knew they would be fighting in the streets of Milan, and she was right.”

After that conversation I began looking at my neighbors a little differently. I even started to feel more kindly toward Father Franco and his cackling chickens and feeling a little guilty about reporting him to the Mayor’s office for harboring a public nuisance. I had nothing against Father Franco but those damn chickens, and especially the rooster who woke me up every morning at 4 AM, had to go. Then I realized that I hadn’t heard them for a couple of days.  

I asked my neighbor if he thought my letter had provoked the eviction of the entire chicken population over at Father Franco’s, even though all I had asked for was that they get rid of the rooster.

“Don’t worry about it,” he said. “It wasn’t you. There’s a town ordinance that doesn’t allow farm animals to be kept in residential areas. It just takes a while for things to happen here.”

Maybe it’s just as well. It sounds to me like enough has happened there already.

AUNTIE PASTA: The White Truffles of Alba

CHIAVARI, Italy – Having truffles on their eggs in the morning is not a big deal for most of the families who live in the hills of Piedmont, in northern Italy. They have grown up, gotten married and raised their children all the while enjoying that lumpy tuber not just on eggs, but on pasta and steak and whole bunch of other foods as well. And why not. They live in truffle country and on any given day they can take a walk in the woods and dig up a truffle or two.

 An Early Morning Walk in Search of Truffles

But it isn’t the Italians who are caught up in the current truffle frenzy, it’s the rest of the world.   Even if an Italian doesn’t have the possibility of digging up his own truffles you’d never catch him doing what Vladimir Potanin, a business magnate from Russia did at the recent truffle auction in Alba. For two kilos (four pounds give or take a few ounces) of truffles, Mr. Potanin paid $95,000.

And that wasn’t even the most expensive sale of the day. Later that same afternoon an unnamed buyer from Hong Kong, purportedly a famous Chinese writer bidding via satellite telephone, forked over $120,000 for two truffles that weighed about 470 grams, about1lb each, three times the price of gold.

 Here's One

And those are only the sales we know about. There are others, secret sales that take place along the foggy country roads along the edge of the forest.  Most certainly those meetings take place far from the sellers hunting grounds, for a truffle hunter, called a ‘trifolau’, protects his territory with more fervor than a drug dealer.  Sometimes truffles are bought and sold out of the back of a van, or in the back room of some nondescript building in the middle of nowhere. You may not hear about those deals, but they are happening. The prized truffles of Alba have gone global and foodies have gone bezerk.

Truffles have been on the table in Italy since the days of the Romans, and they actually learned about them from the Etruscans. Of course they had no idea of what truffles were or how they were formed, but they knew they were good. They believed it was Jupiter, the King of the Gods, throwing thunderbolts near oak trees that caused the mud on the roots of the tree to create a truffle. And because everyone knew Jupiter was a rootin’ tootin’ sex machine, truffles had to be an aphrodisiac. It just made sense.

 The Pair Inspect Their Find

And then came the Middle Ages and all the fun things that paganism promoted were slowly being done away with, including  eating truffles. With their sexy smell and exotic taste, truffles were now considered to be the work of the devil and had to be avoided at all costs. It turns out both the Romans, who ate truffles because they thought they were an aphrodisiac and the Church who banned them because they believed it was the devil working his devilish ways with us, were both right.

The culprit was never the truffle, but androstenol, a sex pheromone that gives truffles its musky smell and taste and draws us to them.  And we are not alone. The same sex pheromone is found in boar saliva and it drives female pigs to distraction. That’s why pigs, and not dogs, were first used to hunt truffles. The only problem was pigs would often eat the truffles they found before the truffle hunter had a chance to snatch them away. Dogs are much more agreeable.

Here's a Good One

Training a truffle dog is a slow process and starts with the trainer putting truffle oil on the teats of nursing dogs to help imprint the scent on the pups. When the pups gets a little older trainers soak balls in truffle oil and use them for the puppies to fetch. That teaches the pups to associate that smell with the chase. As the dogs gets older, they start hiding the truffle scented balls under leaves and then burying them in the ground to improve the dog's detection skills. All in all it takes about four years to train a truffle dog.

And while both male and female dogs can be truffle hunters, most trainers agree that female dogs are better.  A female dog will find the truffle and show you where it is; a male dog will find it, dig it up and   then he’ll run away. The ‘trifolau’ has to step in right at the point when the leaves and dirt first go flying.  He then carefully scrapes away at the dirt until he comes to the hidden treasure, that strange, lumpy tuber that has become the world’s most expensive food. 

 And Now, For the Final Test

The money raised at the 14th edition of the White Truffle of Alba auction will be given to the Piedmont Foundation for Cancer Research for the purchase of a CAT scanner for the "San Lazzaro" hospital in Alba. The money raised by the Hong Kong sale will go to the Mother's Choice Institute in Hong Kong, which cares for orphans and mothers in difficulty, the organizers said. The next white truffle fair and auction will be held in Alba, Italy from October 11^th to November 2014, every Saturday and Sunday.

For more information about the Alba Truffle Fair:

Info@fieradeltartufo.org

www.fieradelltartufo.org

+39 0173  361 051

Photos by Stefano Rellandini

LIFE: The Twelfth Day of Christmas

CHIAVARI, Italy - The Feast of the Epiphany, which we will celebrate on Tuesday, January 6th, is a national holiday here in Italy. Technically it is an ancient religious festival celebrating the Magi’s visit to the Christ Child. It is sometimes called “Three Kings Day” or “Twelfth Day” because it is celebrated twelve days after Christmas. 

 La Befana Vien di Notte, Con Le Scarpe Tutte Rotte

Part of the celebration is the arrival of La Befana, the good witch.  She comes down the chimney in the middle of the night and fills the stockings that the kids have hung on their bedposts or fireplaces. There are toys and sweets for those who have been good and a lump of coal for those who have not. Sound familiar? So what happens if you don’t have a chimney? Well, sometimes she files in on a broom or she might come riding up on a donkey or if none of those work she may just slip in through a keyhole. She is a witch, after all.

According to Italian legend, the night before the Wise Men arrived at the manger with gifts for the Baby Jesus, they stopped at the hovel of an old woman to ask directions. Seeing her alone, they invited her to come along with them but she replied that she was too busy. Then a shepherd, who was also on his way to visit the Baby Jesus, asked her to join him too, but again she refused.

 They Sure Look Wise to Me

Later that night, when a great light appeared in the sky, the old woman changed her mind and decided to join the Wise Men and the shepherd and bring the Baby Jesus gifts that had belonged to her now dead child. She gathered the gifts and some food and like the Magi followed the star toward Bethlehem.

Unfortunately she was not able to find the Magi, the shepherds or the new-born baby Jesus. Disheartened by this lost opportunity she stopped every child she saw along the way and with the hope that one of them was the Christ child, she gave each of them a gift. To this day La Befana continues to look for the Christ Child and on this night she goes from house to house in search of Him. 

One of the biggest Befana celebrations in Italy takes place in the town of Urbania, in Le Marche region. And just like Santa Claus has his house up at the North Pole, La Befana has her house in Urbania, and each year between 30,000-50,000 people come to visit her there.

In Rome’s Piazza Navona they celebrate the "feast of the Befana" and the piazza is ringed with stalls selling candy, including lumps of black, sugar charcoal and toys, and pre-stuffed stockings for the little ones. If the kids can stay awake until midnight, they can take part in an ancient Roman tradition of waiting for La Befana to appear in the window of one of the buildings in the piazza, or sometimes she “flys in” at the stroke of midnight on January 6th with a sack of goodies to give away. 

Rome's Epiphany Procession

Rome also celebrates the Epiphany with a procession in medieval costumes. There are symbolic gifts for the Pope and a parade up the wide avenue that leads to the Vatican. Then the Pope says morning mass in St Peter's Basilica to commemorate the visit of the Wise Men bearing gifts for Jesus. This tradition is (very) loosely based on the ancient pagan holiday of Saturnalia. Now that was a party.

Saturnalia was a week-long blow out celebrated between December 17 -25 in ancient Rome. During this week long period the Roman courts were closed and no one could be punished for damaging property or hurting other people. In other words, it was a lawless free-for-all. The party would start when the Roman authorities chose “an enemy of the Roman people”. During the entire week of Saturnalia, the “enemy” was forced to eat and drink and indulge in sexual pleasures, but at the end of the week the Romans sacrificed the “enemy” to the Gods. To celebrate the ceremony of the human sacrifice, cookies in the form of humans were made and eaten. Are we talking about the great, great, great granddaddies of gingerbread men here? Why I do believe we are. 

 We Love Saturnalia

In addition to the human sacrifice, naked people would go from house to house and sing to the occupants (Christmas caroling?), there was widespread drunkenness and everyone closed their eyes to rape and other sexual assaults.

At the end of all this partying, Romans would go to the Temple of Juno on Capitoline Hill to have their fortunes (augers) told by a wise, old crone who lived in a cave the rest of the year. Everyone wanted to know what was in store for them in the New Year. But then, when Christianity became the main religion, they put a stop to all that partying. But the people were not happy with the changes, so the Christians created La Befana and had her bring gifts to placate the partygoers as a substitute for the old woman who read the augers.

The Italian word auguri originated from this practice as it was common to wish someone good augers, or as we say now, tanti aguri (best wishes).  And that is what I wish for all of you – Tanti, tanti auguri per un felice e prospero 2014. 

AUNTIE PASTA: Real Deal Barbera

CHIAVARI, Italy – My father, like most Italians, was a wine expert. His expertise included a very simple, but accurate belief which many Italians hold which is: “it’s not the price of the wine that determines whether it’s good or not, but the grapes and the producer.”  I’ve always lived by that principle and it has never let me down. 

 San Martino Alfieri, Italy

Recently, I discovered a small independent wine producer from Piedmont, Aldo Massano, owner of the Azienda Vitivinicola Massano. Signor Massano and his wife live in a borgo called San Martino Alfieri in the heart of the Barbera wine district high in the hills of Piedmont, between Asti and Alba. It is, without a doubt, one of the best wine producing locations in Italy.

The Massanos produce red wine, full bodied Barbera d’Asti, which is a DOCG wine, and if you go to their vitivinicola and bring your own bottles, you can buy a DOCG Barbera for as little as 1.25 euros or $2. Bottled, the $2 wine costs 3 euros ($4).  Don’t let the price scare you. It is a DOCG or Denominazione di Origine Controllata, the highest quality assurance label given to Italian wines. It means the grapes used to make that wine are guaranteed to be grapes grown in Barbera d’Asti.  

 The Alfieri Castle

The Marchese Alfieri wine estate, with their historic cellars, is just down the road from Signor Massano. As you may have guessed there was a time when the Lords of Alfieri owned the entire territory. Today it’s only the estate and the vineyards that are owned by Alfieri relatives, Emanuela, Antonella, and Giovanna San Martino di San Germano, three sisters related to the first Marchese Alfieri.

There is a lot more razzmatazz around the Alfieri estate wines than around the wines Signor Massano produces. The estate is a much bigger and richer operation than Signor Massano’s vitivinicola, and has a full time enologist and estate director named Mario Olivero who oversees the 60+ acres of vineyards. I don’t know how much wine Signor Massano’s vitivinicola produces but the Alfieri fields yield about 100,000 bottles of wine each year.  

 The Vineyards of Piedmont

Grape cultivation has been the backbone of the local economy in Barbera district for centuries and a document in the Alfireri family archives dated 1337 that talks of the lands of San Martino Alfieri being ‘vineati a philari” with rows of grapevines, bears this out. There is no doubt the Alfieri Estate produces some wonderful wines, especially the wine from those 60 year old vines that grow on the hills with the best southern exposure. 

Like the fields of the Alfieri estate, the fields of Signor Massano are planted with different varieties of grapes. Toward the end of August, the harvest begins with the early maturing pinot nero. From the middle of September through the middle of October the harvest continues for the barbera, grignolino and cabernet sauvignon grapes. It is labor intensive work as the grapes are picked and sorted by hand.  

 Beautiful Barbera Grapes

Because Barbera a registered DOCG wine, the Alfieri estate and Signor Massano are both subject to the same rules and regulations, one of them being that wine carrying a Barbera DOCG label must contain a minimum of 85% Barbera grapes. In addition, the balance of the mix must come from either Freisa, Grignolino or Dolcetto grapes, which also grow in the Barbera district. Another DOCG regulation is that all wine production must be completed before March 1^st and the wine must reach a minimum alcohol content of 11.5 °.  

In 2000 it became legal to produce a Barbera d'Asti Superiore, but in order to be classified as superiore it would have to have certain verifiable characteristics. First of all the wine must have an alcoholic strength of at least 12.5% by volume, and must be aged for at least one year. For six months of that year, the wine must be stored in oak or chestnut barriques (barrels), which further refines the taste of the wine. Superiore wine age well and can be aged for as many as ten to twenty years, and of course the longer it is ages the more expensive it becomes, and not necessarily better.

Signor Massano’s wines sell for 3 to 7 euros a bottle, ($5 to $10) the 7 euro bottle ($10) is his Barbera d’Asti Superiore DOCG. The Barbera d’Asti Superiore DOCG from the Alfieri estate retails for 52 euros a bottle or $70. Since I’m not a wine connoisseur and I am perfectly happy with Signor Massano’s wines, I’ll give you three guesses which wine I’m going to keep buying.  

http://www.marchesialfieri.it/site/it/azienda.htm

The Azienda Vitivinicola of Aldo Massano doesn’t have a web site.