Rosemary and Bitter Oranges: Growing Up in a Tuscan Kitchen

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Copyright © 2003 by Patrizia Chen

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Chen, Patrizia.

Rosemary and bitter oranges : growing up in a Tuscan kitchen / Patrizia Chen.

p.  cm.

1. Cookery, Italian—Tuscan style. I. Title.

TX723.2.T86 C46 2003

641.5945′5—dc21  2002036460

ISBN 0-7432-2223-7

eISBN 978-1-451-60356-9

TO LYDIA,

WHO SAID,

YOU CAN DO IT.

CONTENTS

Emilia

Emilia’s Tomato Sauce

Chocolate and Pear Pudding

Panfried Mullet

Sweet Peas with Ham

La Mia Famiglia Toscana

Mamma’s Gnocchi

Pasta and Meat Pie

In Emilia’s Kitchen

Mayonnaise

Coffee Zabaione

Bitter Orange Marmalade

Baked Fennel and Leeks

Waste Not

Minestrone

Canary Sorbet

Il Convento del Sacro Cuore

Chickpea Pancake

Chestnut Pancake

Garden Lessons

Emilia’s Quick Chicken Stew

Hen’s Milk

Tu Vo’ Fa’ l’Americano

Emilia’s Lemon Tea Cake

Housekeeping

Quince Paste

Steamed Cod

Cose Orrende

La Mia Famiglia Siciliana

Herbed Lemon and Olive Oil Sauce

My Eggplant and Celery Caponata

Coffee Granita

Livorno Today

Livorno Fish Soup

Acknowledgments

My Tiramisù

Rosemary

and

Bitter Oranges

EMILIA

Emilia in front of the kitchen door

I grew up in Livorno, a boisterous town in Tuscany. In Livorno, the flavors of food, the colors of nature, and the scent of the pittosporum bushes along the passeggiata a mare, the beautiful promenade along the sea, are bolder and less domesticated than anywhere else in elegant Tuscany.

The nonaristocratic beginnings of my natal town have chiseled a certain expression on its people’s faces and marked their vernacular with a wit that lashes out and leaves a mark. The word that describes our most characteristic traits is beceri (boorish), and the Livornesi have almost managed to convert this admittedly insulting adjective, used strictly in Tuscany, into a term of affection. Yes, loud and boorish we definitely are, and we take pride in the countless tales of pirates and brigands indissolubly linked to our history.

I lived for a great part of my childhood with my parents and grandparents in a big three-story house. My parents always ate downstairs at the table in the dining room with my grandparents, Nonno GianPaolo and Nonna Valentina. My brother, my sisters, and I were supposed to take our meals upstairs. The exclusion from the adults’ table itself was enough to make me wish to be part of their evening ritual, even if it meant only being allowed to say two phrases during the entire meal: "Grazie, No grazie." The few times we were allowed to dine downstairs, flawless dishes would be brought in by Emilia, our beloved cook, who bustled unperturbed between her stove and the dining room. The food was invariably white—uniformly white—and bland. Always very good, always impeccably executed, but so bland. Many soufflés, lots of sformati (timbales), paste al gratin, and beautiful fish—maybe a merluzzo (a small Mediterranean cod), steamed to perfection, with a whisper of extra-virgin olive oil. Food was judged by the same standard as fashion: spiciness was as vulgar as a skintight dress.

One day as I passed through the kitchen after playing in the garden, my senses were suddenly awakened, stirred by a vivid aroma that I had never experienced at the table with my family. Emilia was eating the meal she had prepared for herself. It was an explosion of colors: vermilion tomatoes, green basilico and parsley, and contrasting black pepper dots. And the smell! Pungent, strong, and exotic enough to stop me, and my seven-year-old nose, in my tracks.

Emilia must have recognized a soul mate in my startled, hungry look. "Vuoi provare? She scooped up some of that wonderful redness with a big morsel of bread and offered it to me. Oh, Emilia! I gushed. This is so tasty." I had finally discovered real food, and I was hooked forever. Now I knew that life—real life—happened behind the kitchen doors and not in the subdued, elegant atmosphere of my grandparents’ dining room.

Having shared her food with me, Emilia went a step further and offered to give me cooking lessons. I eagerly accepted.

Emilia was a fierce, thickset woman, one of many siblings born in a small fishing village a few kilometers south of Livorno. Sent to work at a very early age—as was the custom at the time—she had come to the big city in search of a good job and somehow landed in our home, becoming a constant presence in our life. Emilia had been there for us children since our births.

At the start of our afternoons together, Emilia enveloped me tightly in the blue-and-white-striped apron that would protect my clothes. She carefully rolled up the sleeves of my dresses and sweaters to avoid likely disasters and showed me how to wash my hands thoroughly, scrubbing fingertips and nails with ruthless vigor. Only after she was satisfied that the garden grime had been scoured from my arms, hands, and fingertips did she allow me to dip a spoon into a dish of flour or to help her knead dough.

Emilia asserted that a good cook had to be able to handle the range of more disgusting chores, and I obeyed wholeheartedly. "Attenta, Bimba! Be careful not to leave any trace of bile, or the chicken will be unbearably bitter. Look inside the stomach and scrub it meticulously; the bile is dark and easy to spot," Emilia cautioned. The tiny brown livers had to be put aside for future gourmet usage. I gingerly played with their spongy consistency, examining the white filaments that enshrouded them like a fishnet. Within hours they would end up in delicate ragù sauces or—mixed with veal and prosciutto—become a delicious filling for the little vols-au-vent often served as appetizers.

Inserting my fingers into the gills and guts of fish and poultry were all part of my formal kitchen education. I learned to scale fish, standing on a stool in front of the gray marble counter, and instantly took to this particular task. The messiness of sending millions of translucent, silvery scales flying all over the sink and onto the kitchen floor fitted beautifully with my innate love for visual anarchy. I quickly learned the secrets of sending to the tavola dei Signori the perfectly elegant sformati while savoring the conspiratorial joy of producing strong, lush sauces to complement spaghetti, polenta, meats, and fish for just Emilia and me. We prepared thick ragùs with veal, sausages, and prosciutto. We sautéed the dark leaves of cavolo nero (Tuscan black cabbage) in olive oil, red pepper, and lots of garlic. I no longer yearned to sit at the adults’ table; my meals with Emilia were far better!

Herbs were an essential part of Emilia’s cooking, though not all of them were destined for my grandparents’ table. Oregano, which has to be used in small quantities to avoid prevailing over other savors, was an important and acceptable addition. She sent me to the garden to pick what she needed for both my grandparents and herself: basil and parsley from the pots immediately outside the kitchen door, the other herbs from the patch near the chicken pen, where a few bushes of rosemary and sage grew tall and lopsided under the old medlar tree. I learned the characteristics and value of particular spices when she taught me her favorite dishes, the food from her family tradition. I learned to love the spiciness of peperoncino rosso, the strong red pepper from Campania, in the south of Italy, and the pungent bite of the black peppercorns she crushed into meat and fish.

Salsa di Pomodoro d’Emilia

EMILIA’S TOMATO SAUCE

Emilia would add a sprig of basil or rosemary or a glass of red wine along with the tomatoes, according to her mood. The sauce always turned out a bit differently yet it was always delicious.

1 medium yellow onion

1 medium carrot

1 clove garlic

½ stalk celery

2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil

1 pound ripe tomatoes or one 14-ounce can crushed tomatoes

Pinch of red pepper flakes (optional)

Salt and freshly ground pepper a piacere (to taste)

Peel and finely chop the onion, carrot, and garlic. Finely chop the celery. Sauté the vegetables in the olive oil in a medium saucepan over low heat, stirring, until they begin to soften, about 5 minutes.

Meanwhile, if using fresh tomatoes, peel and seed them, then roughly chop.

Stir the fresh or canned tomatoes into the vegetables. For extra zing, add some red pepper flakes. Simmer gently for 2 hours, stirring occasionally, until the sauce is thick and flavorful. Season with salt and pepper.

Makes about 2 cups

The kitchen in my grandparents’ house was larger than the dining room and opened directly onto the garden. Tall French doors with imposing green shutters led to a small semienclosed patio full of plants and Emilia’s household implements. An upside-down shabby millet broom, a scrubbing brush, and a pail—on top of which a dingy scouring cloth was laid to dry—rested in a corner. A proletarian gray stone terrace on the kitchen side marked the boundary of Emilia’s kingdom, and a high wall separated it from the elegant side. There, in front of the living room, big square tiles of white Carrara marble extended for several meters into the garden, forming a graceful strip skirted by lusciously blooming flowerbeds. On la terrazza, weather-worn wicker chairs formed an inviting circle, and behind them a wrought-iron flower étagère stood against the wall. Myriad geraniums spilled from their pots: pink, red, orange, white.

A huge plumbago bush almost entirely covered the kitchen wall, its pale blue flowers looking as if drawn by a child’s hand: five simple petals emerging from long, spidery stems. At the foot of the wall, more pots of multicolored geraniums and intensely perfumed herbs were set on simple wooden shelves, supported by unadorned bricks. I spent many hours strolling in and out of the kitchen where I had found my culinary calling and where my aptitude had unquestionably elevated me to a higher position in Emilia’s eyes.

Unfortunately, I was not a perfect disciple, stubbornness being one of the most distinctive features of my personality. One day I spent several hours standing with my face turned to the plumbago blossoms, punishment for having treated Emilia rudely during one of our cooking sessions. "Lo pulisci tu! Clean it yourself!" I had answered petulantly to Emilia’s order to clean up the puddle of milk I’d spilled on the kitchen floor. My mother, who had just happened to wander into the kitchen and witnessed my insolence, made me stand on the kitchen patio facing the wall without moving until I was ready to apologize.

"Come ti permetti? How could you answer back in such an unpleasant way? Remember that you owe Emilia the same respect you owe your family, Mamma admonished sternly. You will stand here until you say you are sorry." My seven-year-old pride forbade me from apologizing too quickly, so I waited until a reasonable amount of time had expired and my status slowly turned into quasi martyrdom. I felt queasy, my legs throbbed from standing, and my eyes were tired from wandering over the plumbago bush. For a couple of hours, I counted each blossom and closely studied each petal and leaf. Holding my hands tightly crossed behind my back, I carefully scrutinized every string and thread of Emilia’s scrubbing brushes and mop. I focused my attention on a tiny column of black ants courageously crossing the cats’ dish to steal forgotten crumbs.

In the end, I dragged my unwilling feet in front of an embarrassed Emilia. "Scusa," I mumbled, hiding consonants and vowels under my uncooperative tongue. I scowled, my eyes fixed on the gray tiles, my face barely visible under the wisps of hair escaping from my tightly pulled braids.

My mother did not like what she witnessed and, taking me firmly by one arm, said in her calmly threatening way, Either you feel what you are saying, or else.

I ran sobbing into Emilia’s arms and all was forgiven.

In the kitchen we had a late-nineteenth-century stove made of white enamel and iron. It came with big concentric rings that could be removed or added to accommodate different-sized pots and pans. The fewer rings, the more heat: the flames flared up, flickering under the larger pots, licking their sides and leaving behind long dark stains. A rectangular copper cauldron filled with water boiled steadily for the continuous needs of the house. A solitary ladle emerged from the bubbling water, its handle bobbing in unison with the rhythm of the heat waves, ready to fill a pot of tea or add liquid to a risotto.

This stove required constant stoking with coal. Emilia trotted up and down the steep stairway that led to the coal room, situated directly under the kitchen in the basement. The most forbidding room in the house and the quintessence of darkness, the coal room featured a small window that allowed only traces of spooky light to filter in. Intrepid Emilia carried up the coal to stoke the fire, managing to keep the heat at a controlled temperature, ready to raise it when needed.

Big white cupboards, decorated with carved fruits and leaves, stood along the south wall of the kitchen, holding simple everyday utensils and humble plates and vases. The big pots, mementos of the better times before World War II, when the family had entertained lavishly, lay abandoned in a cluster on the bottom shelves except for the three occasions a year—Christmas, New Year’s, and Easter—when they finally came alive.

A rectangular wooden table with a white marble top stood in the center of the room, in front of the stove. A substantial number of wooden spoons resided in its drawer, carefully categorized according to which foods they were supposed to stir, whip, or fold. "Non confondere i mestoli! Make sure you never mix up the spoons!" A strict de facto segregation reigned in the formal meritocracy of Emilia’s spoons, and I had to learn its rules, dictated by the food being cooked. The long-handled spoons destined solely for pasta and needed to reach the secluded recesses of the huge pots occupied the left side of the drawer.

"Wood absorbs the flavors, sta attenta!" Emilia cautioned. Flavors could not be muddled; this would alter the taste.

My favorite spoon was the small crooked one that for decades had been used for chocolate, to stir the rich mousse au chocolat, or the budino di cioccolato e pere, the chocolate and pear pudding I loved so much. Its sides were bent and worn by the many years of immersion in melting chocolate. There was a missing piece, a notch that gave the spoon the look of a five-year-old whose smile is missing a tooth. I could recognize it among all its companions with my eyes shut, simply by feeling its uneven edge with my fingers.

Budino di Cioccolato e Pere

CHOCOLATE AND PEAR PUDDING

This is one of the dishes my brother and sisters asked Emilia to make most frequently. Good news: it is easy, and it can be prepared the day before. When the pudding is cool, refrigerate it, but bring it to room temperature before serving. For my first attempts, Emilia had me use a soufflé dish. She could serve it from the mold and I didn’t risk ruining it or losing face! Keep in mind that the baking time will be slightly different depending on the mold you use (heavy or light, metal or ceramic).

For the pears

2 ripe but firm Bosc pears

3 tablespoons sugar

Juice of 2 lemons

½ teaspoon ground cinnamon

Peel, halve, and core the pears. Put them in a saucepan with the sugar, lemon juice, and cinnamon, add water to cover, and bring to a boil. Lower the heat and simmer for about 20 minutes, or until the pears are tender when pierced with a knife. Use a slotted spoon to transfer the pears to a plate to cool, then cut into bite-sized pieces.

For