Mark Rotella - Stolen Figs: And Other Adventures in Calabria
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- Book:Stolen Figs: And Other Adventures in Calabria
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- Publisher:North Point Press
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- Year:2004
- Rating:5 / 5
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Stolen Figs: And Other Adventures in Calabria: summary, description and annotation
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An effortlessly artful blend of travel book, memoir, and affectionate portrait of a people Calabria is the toe of the boot that is Italya rugged peninsula where grapevines and fig and olive trees cling to the mountainsides during the scorching summers while the sea crashes against the cliffs on both coasts. Calabria is also a seedbed of Italian American culture; in North America, more people of Italian heritage trace their roots to Calabria than to almost any other region in Italy. Mark Rotellas Stolen Figs is a marvelous evocation of Calabria and Calabrians, whose way of life is largely untouched by the commerce that has made Tuscany and Umbria into international tourist redoubts. A grandson of Calabrian immigrants, Rotella persuades his father to visit the region for the first time in thirty years; once there, he meets Giuseppe, a postcard photographer who becomes his guide to all things Calabrian. As they travel around the region, Giuseppe initiates Rotellaand the readerinto its secrets: how to make soppressata and nduja, where to find hidden chapels and grottoes, and, of course, how to steal a fig without actually committing a crime. Stolen Figs is a model travelogueat once charming and wise, and full of the earthy and unpretentious sense of life that, now as ever, characterizes Calabria and its people.
Mark Rotella: author's other books
Who wrote Stolen Figs: And Other Adventures in Calabria? Find out the surname, the name of the author of the book and a list of all author's works by series.
Mark Rotella
Mark Rotella
Mark Rotella
Enrico Massetti
Grazia Ietto Gillies
Unknown
Unknown
Anderson
Andrews Robert
Ferdinando Calabria
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Table of Contents
GIMIGLIANO
T HE DOORS of the train opened at Naples. Shrill announcements twittered over the station PA system, babies cried, people argued, and beyond the tracks cars honked amid the din of Vespas and motorcycles. The passengers getting off the train squeezed their way past those trying to get on. Train workers, passengers, and merchants communicated with one another as if yelling across bleachers at a football game. The smell of fried zeppole and calzone filled the station. Vendors selling ice cream, water, and wine appeared and roamed the aisles, knocking on the doors of first-class air-conditioned compartments. When no one looked up, they opened the Plexiglas doors themselves. They were followed by Gypsy women begging for change, musicians playing guitars and accordions, and packs of childrenmany with piercing green eyes.My father and I, who had boarded in Rome, watched as the mob of people squeezed their way down the aisles, looking for seats. We were finally on our way to Gimigliano, in Calabria, the homeland of my grandparents.
I had been staying with my father in Perugia, where he wassculpting stone, during the month of July. I had heard so many stories about Calabria, where his parents had been poor farmers. I suggested that we visit their village, but he shrugged off the idea. That was decades ago, he said. Why go back to the past?
Why not? I asked. Anyway, whats so bad about the past?
Nothing, he said dismissively. Going back, I knew, would remind him of his mother, who had died the year before, and his father, who had died eight years earlier. My father pushed a hand through his full head of hair, a soft mixture of jet black and silver. I dont even know if we have family there anymore. Theyve probably all diedor moved to Torino or Milan.
Well, why not find out? Whats it gonna hurt? I had already decided to go even if he didnt, but I knew the trip would be betterwould feel more appropriateif we went together. I know youre at least a little curious. Anyway, look at it as the one time youll be able to take this trip with your son.
My father laughed. Jesus, youre such a romantic. He, too, is a romantic, but he wouldnt give in just then. He wouldnt admit that he might enjoy it. He fits the Calabrese stereotype of being stubborn, or having a testa dura a hard head. My parents had taken my sister and me to Italy several times before, but this would be the first trip we had made south of Rome.
He looked at his watch. I knew what he was thinking. Our stomachs were on the same schedule.
Cmon, lets get some dinner, he said. And with that, we walked to the trattoria up the street from the apartment we were renting.
At fifty-five, my father was fit and strong. Although hes a head shorter than I am, everything about him is grand: his nose, his eyes, his smile. And he eats with purpose and intensity.
By the time we finished dinner and a liter of wine, he had agreed to take a twoday trip south, returning to Perugia on Sunday. Two days seemed like no time. But it didnt really matter how long we stayed: I would finally see Calabria, and I would see it with my father.
The compartments filled. New passengers greeted the old ones and, like next-door neighbors, fell into conversations about the weatherhot even for Julyand the recent strike of railroad concession workers. I unbuttoned my shirt and leaned out the window, trying to find a breeze. A man in a light brown suit claimed a seat across from us and joined me at the open window. He turned and greeted me with an exhausted smile, his thick mustache glistening with sweat. The train coasted out of the station. The thunk of windows sliding open sounded throughout the car. Passengers flocked to the windows, letting their shirts fill with air.
As the train, an express, left old Naples, the yellow and pink seventeenthcentury buildings of the historic center gave way to shoddy, colorless Mussoliniera tenements, which then yielded to the cinderblock Sovietstyle structures of the 1970s, whose facades crumbled beneath their sagging balconies, then to suburbs, the Bay of Naples opening up on the west. Blue-and-white fishing skiffs lined the shore, their nets spread out to dry. To the east, Vesuviuss gaping crater broke through the smog.
This was Campania, and as the train continued south, I saw how the sirocco winds from Africa had dried the soil and left the bushes and trees scrubby and desiccated. Olive trees, fig trees, and grapevinesthe only vegetation that can thrive therelined the hills. The train passed villages and peasant farms, each smaller than the last. All the buildings were simple structures, painted pale yellow, olive green, or burnt red. All the shutters were closed, shading interiors that were most likely, in true Italian form, immaculately clean and organized.
This was the gateway to the south, the passage to Calabria.
Already I saw the difference. Campanias hills are not the rolling hills of Tuscany Absent are wide-eyed pink travelers with their sulking kids. Absent are streets congested with souvenir shops. Absent are packed tour buses. Absent are crowded museums with their endless lines. Absent are English ex-pats and their summer villas. Absent are bilingual waiters and shop ladies. Absent are tourist menus in fourteen languages.
Within the train compartments and along the hallways, conversationsgrew comfortably loud; gestures became grander, more ebullient. An older woman (from Cosenza, Calabria, I found out) offered up nuts and fruits. A dapper Neapolitan pensioner talked local politics in a harsh dialect. The mustachioed man in the brown suit stood up to demonstrate the size of the fig trees in his backyard, his hands forming around each imaginary branch. The woman smiled and held up a white fig that she had picked from her sisters garden.
My God, my father said as if to himself, Ive been all along here. I remember this. He eased back in his seat and stared out the window, mouth open. The right corner of his mouth turned up in a smile.
I went to the carrozza ristorante, the dining car, to get us some bottled water. Outside the open windows, the train hugged the ocean, the slate-blue water crashing against the rocks and boulders. Occasionally the jagged coast receded to an alcove of sandy shores. The sunbathers on these secluded beaches, reachable only by boat, didnt even register the train speeding above, but only stared out to sea, past their anchored motorboats rocking gently on the waves.
The water is so blue, so light that it appears gray, someone said to me in Sicilian.
I turned to a deeply tanned man who shot me a smile almost as wide as his panama hat. The Sicilian version of a well-off, relaxed Florida retiree, he had unbuttoned his brightly patterned yellow-and-red batik shirt, exposing a bare chest the color of a ripe tomato; two thick gold chains, one with a pendant of a saint, broke the wall of red.
So does the sky, I responded in Italian.
The sky is gray, he said, turning to me with an indignant glare. Its the factories. He waved with one hand; on each finger was a large gold ring, embedded with colored stones that sparkled in the light. His hand floated through the air, then sailed downward like an unfolded tissue.
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