Katherine Wilson - Only in Naples: Lessons in Food and Famiglia from My Italian Mother-in-Law

W hen Salvatore sputtered up in his tiny red Fiat for our first meeting, he was over twenty minutes late. The car looked like a tin can and sounded like it was on its last legs. It spat a steady stream of exhaust, and I started to cough. Salvatore responded with two short honks of his horn and a big smile.

It was the first time I was meeting this guy, and he was twenty minutes late. What was that?

I was fresh out of college, and had arrived in Naples a few days earlier to start a three-month internship at the U.S. Consulate there. I was standing outside the entrance of the boarding school where I rented a room, wearing a boxy blue jacket with black trousers.

My internship wasnt as much a career move as it was a rite of passagemembers of my family did an experience abroad during or after college. Big leather photo albums in my parents attic in Washington show my father Waspy and smiling in Bordeaux in 1961; my mother all sueded out in Bologna in 1966. They had learned foreign languages, and theyd had the time of their lives. Now that it was my turn, where was I going to go?

Naples was not a logical destination. When Id visited Italy on vacations as a kid, we avoided the city or passed through it as quickly as we could to get to Pompeii or Vesuvius. Naples was dirty and dangerous, we heard. My grandfather, whose parents were from Calabria, said that Neapolitans could steal your socks without taking your shoes off.

You really should go to Tuscany, family friends had told me. Have you seen Siena? Florence?

The serene splendor of Tuscany would have been appropriate for an upper-class girl like me. It felt like what I was supposed to do, and Id always been very good at doing what I was supposed to do. I spent my childhood overachieving at private schools, and in college I could have majored in Surpassing Expectations or Making Mommy and Daddy Proud. It was time for a change.

The American consul of Naples was a fellow alum of my parents graduate school of international relations. Id been seated next to him the previous spring at a fundraising dinner in Washington, and he asked me if Id considered Naples for my experience abroad. He could arrange an unpaid internship in the political office of the Consulate if I was interested.

Naples?

I thought, Stolen socks and wallets, the Mafia, and corruption. I also thought, Pizza. I was intrigued.

I bounced the idea off people who asked what I was going to do after graduation. I was thinking of going to Naples, I told them. That was when I got the Look. The Look was a wide-eyed, beware facial expression, accompanied by warnings of Its filthy! Its dangerous! and even The good guys and the bad guys all look alike! Theres no way to tell the difference!

Aha, I thought. Sounds fascinating.

I now know that Naples is like New York City: you either love it or you hate it. And if you love it, theres no use proselytizing. Those who hate it will not be converted. There is a chaotic, vibrant energy about Naples that forces you to let go and give in. If you fight it, judge it, or even hide from it, you might as well get out before you get your wallet snatched.