LIFE: My Italian Life

CHIAVARI, Italy - In the early days of my Italian life, I lived in Genova and taught English at a small private language school. They paid me under the table as I was only sort of legal, that is, I was in Italy on a tourist visa not a work visa.  

 

PIAZZA DEI FERRARI, GENOVA, ITALY 

Sometimes when I would come into school one of the owners would give me a sign, raise her eyebrows or roll her eyes, and I would understand the Guardia di Finanza, the Italian IRS, were in the office inspecting the school’s books. Her look was a warning for me not to say anything. As long as the police didn’t hear my accent, they would never suspect I was a fake Italian working without legal documents.

The Guardians of the Finances knew the language schools hired illegal aliens, especially English mother-tongue illegals, but stereotypes being what they are, they were on the lookout for blonde, California types and wispy English Roses, not someone who looks like me. Since I really am Italian, and I look Italian, I could stand there and smile and no one was the wiser.  

One of the Gates to the Old City,

We illegal mother-tongue English speakers were a hot commodity, a two for one. We actually spoke English, a huge plus, and we didn’t complain if the schools kept us off the books. Given a choice, the schools preferred to not pay all those niggling, nasty taxes governments like to collect like Social Security and contributions to the health care system.

I knew I was not being paid what Italian teachers, or foreigners who were here legally were paid, but I was happy to have a job. I had been out of work for six months and my bank balance was shrinking fast.  

Genova Nervi

So with the little bit of money I was earned at the school I started putting together my Italian life. I was living in a furnished apartment in Nervi, a small borgo about half an hour out of Genoa. With no car, my only means of transport to and from the center of the city was the bus. I would get off on Via XX Settembre, Genoa’s main street, and walk the few blocks to the language school passing a rather posh china and gift shop along the way. They had the most beautiful things in that store and I remember how I would stand and stare in the shop window and wonder if I would ever be able to afford anything they sold.

January and July are the State designated sales periods here in Italy and so shortly after Christmas my favorite shop filled their window with all the bits and bobs they were willing to part with at a discounted price. That’s when I spotted them – the gold rimmed Richard Ginori plates with the small roses. It was love at first sight.

My Beautiful Plates

Every afternoon, on my way to work, I would stop and stand with my nose pressed against the glass and look at them, dreaming about how nice they would look on my dinner table. I had no real idea how much they cost as I was still a bit shaky dealing in lira. If a newspaper cost 1,000 lire, and a cup of coffee cost 1,500, how many thousands or millions of lire would the dishes cost? And how much was that in real money? Dealing with such high numbers was not only confusing, it was downright overwhelming.

Then one day, fearful the plates would be snapped up and gone forever, I gathered my courage and went in the shop. In my halting Italian I told the young clerk I wanted six of the Richard Ginori plates in the window. She knew immediately which ones I was talking about.

“There are only ten plates left,” she said. “Why don’t you take them all?” 

“I wish I could,” I said, “but I am a poor English teacher and I don’t have enough money to buy all of them.”

I knew that Richard Ginori is the Giorgio Armani of the porcelain world. The company was founded in 1735 by the Florentine Marquis Carlo Ginori, and their early pieces were made for the court of the Medici family, the godfathers of the Florentine Renaissance. So whatever those dishes cost, it was surely more than I could afford. As it was I was convinced I would have to eat bread and onions for a month just to pay for the six plates I asked for.

The Sea Walk in Genova Nervi  

The clerk nodded. She went to the window, got the plates and then disappeared into the back room. A few minutes later she reappeared with a package all done up in brown paper and tied with heavy string. She put it on the counter and rang up the sale. I don’t remember what I paid for those plates, now that we’ve converted to Euros it’s hard to remember what things cost back in the day when Italy’s currency was the lira, but I remember thinking it wasn’t as much as I thought it was going to be. 

I carried the package to school that afternoon and it wasn’t until the next morning that I opened it and checked the receipt. That’s when I realized she had given me all ten plates at a deeply discounted price.  

 Via XX Settembre, Genova's Main Shopping Street

When I was in Genova on Saturday I looked for the shop where I bought the dishes, but I couldn’t find it. It made me sad, but time goes on and things change, including cities and Genova has changed a lot since I lived here last.

I’ve been very lucky these past twenty plus years, I’ve met a lot of nice people in my Italian life who have helped me more than they will ever know. I may not know all of their names, but like that clerk, they are not forgotten. Every time I use those beautiful dishes I think about her, and how much her kindness meant to me, a foolish woman living on her own in a foreign country. I have tried, over the years, to pass that kindness on and I hope that in some small way, I have.  

AUNTIE PASTA: Back of the Box Recipes

CHIAVARI, Italy - Even before the idea for this blog was fully developed, I knew I wanted the Auntie Pasta page to be about food, but not necessarily about recipes. Since then I have included recipes on this blog, and in going through my collection of recipes the other day, I found there were others that I would like to share with you as well.

 Piansano, Italy - Where It All Began

What got me thinking about recipes was a review of new cookbooks in the New York Times, including one cookbook that claims to teach you what your grandmother didn’t. Grandmothers seem to play an important part in the cooking lives of a lot of people, including me.

My Grandmother was a goddess in the kitchen. I can still taste her tripe in tomato sauce with just a hint of nutmeg, her crisp roasted chicken with lemon and the roasted potatoes she served with it, the plump Roman artichokes stuffed garlic slivers and mintuccia from the Old Country, and the list goes on. Yet I never saw her open a cookbook. In fact I don’t think there were any cookbooks in her house. She just seemed to know what to do. Like most women of her generation, she learned to cook by watching and doing what she was told when she was a kid growing up in Italy.

 Obviously Not Me, But You Get the Idea

Preparing food was serious business in Italy at the turn of the 20th century, there wasn’t a lot of it and there was no messing around in the kitchen. She carried that philosophy with her to the New World as a young bride and mother, and when she told me to watch the pot of simmering snails on the stove and make sure none of them escaped, you’d better believe my five year old eyes were glued to that pot lid.

By the time I was given the responsibility of guarding the snails I had eaten, and helped prepare all types of greens, tripe and octopus, rabbit and venison, I had rolled meatballs, cut fresh pasta into strips of fettucine, chopped parsley and knew the difference between regular mint and the mintuccia that Aunt Mary sent from Italy. I was a cook in training and didn't know it.

 

 Not Really Child's Play

Sometimes it was difficult not to start playing with the gooey mess that water and flour make before it becomes pasta dough, or pressing ground meat around my ten little fingers and playing an imaginary hamburger piano. It wouldn’t take much to keep me in line though; a look would usually do it. That was the culinary discipline part of my training.

When I was a young bride I would often call my mother and ask her for recipes. She was not a patient person and her instructions were short and to the point. Sometimes I would get recipes from my aunts, scribbled on scraps of paper with vague proportions and approximate instructions. They were my mentors, and even though I was young and had a lot to learn, they treated me as an equal, cooks talking to another cook.

 A Future Top Chef

In those days before Gourmet Magazine and Food and Wine, before Julia Child made culinary history with her French Chef television series, and long, long before the advent of celebrity chefs, that is how we all learned to cook.

A certain amount of knowledge was always assumed and the key points of a dish were often all you needed, i.e. clean and boil artichokes before you season them and put them in the oven to bake - a small, but crucial detail that results in being able to eat them rather than throw them away, as I did on my first solo flight into the wonderful world of artichokes.

The Recipe is Short and Sweet

Now that I live in Italy I try some of the recipes I find on the back of boxes of pasta and packages of things I buy, but I’ve hesitated to include them in this blog because the instructions are often vague and the measurements not just approximate, but often in code. But I’m wrong. You are cooks and if we speak cook to cook, I think it will all work out. With that in mind, here is a Sicilian fish recipe that uses frozen codfish, but you can use any firm, white fish, fresh or frozen.

Fiori di Merluzzo di Capperi (Cod Filets with Capers)

 

Defrost the fish. Chop a bunch of parsley and two garlic cloves. In a frying pan heat 3-4 tablespoons of olive oil and when it is barely hot, add half of the chopped parsley, garlic and the fish. Season with salt and pepper. When the fish filets have cooked on one side, turn them over. Add ½ glass of dry white wine and when it has evaporated add a can of chopped tomatoes.

Let the fish and tomatoes cook for about 15 minutes and then add the remaining parsley and garlic, a pinch of dried oregano and two teaspoons of capers. Cook for an additional 5 minutes. The recipe suggests serving the fish with mashed or boiled potatoes but I prefer serving it over white rice.

 It Kinda Looks Like This

Two suggestions: (1) use capers that have been preserved in brine, not in salt, and rinse them well; and (2) I found that if you fry a sliced onion in the olive oil before you add the parsley, garlic and fish, it gives the dish another layer of flavor.

LIFE: His Tremendousness

CHIAVARI, Italy – High in the hills above the Italian Riviera of the Flowers sits the small sovereign state of Serborga. It is a self proclaimed principality and up until 2009 the 364 citizens of Serborga were ruled by Prince Giorgio, a bewhiskered grower of mimosa flowers. 

Welcome to Serborga 

How Giorgio Carbone, also known as His Tremendousness, came to see himself as royalty is a bit fuzzy, but the documents he produced from the Vatican archives did show that the village was once a sovereign state and not part of the Kingdom of Italy. And since there were no other documents to prove anything to the contrary, His Tremendousness staked his claim.

According to the documents Prince Giorgio found, the story of the Principality of Serborga dates back to the year 954 when the local counts gave the village to a group of Benedictine monks who promptly built a monastery there. Then, in 1079, Pope Gregory VII and the Holy Roman Emperor Henry IV elevated the village to the rank of an imperial principality of the Holy Roman Empire.

Prince Giorgio 

That was proof enough for His Tremendousness. After declaring Serborga a principality, Prince Giorgio established a palace, wrote a Constitution and set up a cabinet and a parliament. His grand plan involved eventually having a cabinet of 15 ministers, and a dozen members of parliament. 

He established a palace, chose a coat of arms, minted money, (the Luigino with his picture on it), issued stamps (with his picture on them) and license plates. He also chose a national anthem and mobilized a standing army of one, Lt. Antonello Lacala.

Prince Giorgio in Front of City Hall

Seborga also has its own flag, a white cross on a blue background, a patron saint, St. Bernard and a Latin motto: Sub Umbra Sede - Sit in the Shade. 

When Prince Giorgio discovered that the sovereign of Serborga had always been elected by the people, he decided to return to that tradition and hold an election. The villagers were so enchanted by Carbone’s quirkiness that he was elected Prince in 1963.

The Cobbled Streets of Serborga  

He gracefully accepted the informal title of His Tremendousness and took to the throne with style. While holding court at the Bianca Azzura bar in the center of town, he would wear a uniform decorated with many rosette medallions, a red, a green and white sash and carry a large sword. In 1995 he was elected Prince for Life with a vote of 304 to 4. 

His dedication to his subjects was so complete that he never married, telling People Magazine in a 1993 interview that he loved all of his female subjects equally and would never be able to choose one over another.

 Near the Mountains and Near the Sea

In his role as His Highness Giorgio I, Prince of Seborga, Carbone didn’t earn a salary. It was never clear if one was ever offered, but as Prince he could help himself to all the ham and cheese he wanted from the village store without paying, a privilege he took advantage of every day. 

Even though the Italian government never took him seriously, Carbone managed to convince about 20 states to recognize Serborga as an independent entity. The first to step up was Burkina Faso. He also established Consular representation in 10 other countries.

 Serborga is Charming

After a 46 year reign, His Tremendousness died in 2009 at the age of 73. He left no heirs and Seborga’s royal destiny is still uncertain. So far no one has come forward to claim the throne, but there is always hope that somewhere there is another Seborga prince out there and this story won't end with Prince Giorgio.