Laura Fraser - The Risotto Guru: Adventures in Eating Italian

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Copyright 2013 by Laura Fraser

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission.

Cover design by Laura Morris

Cover photograph from Shutterstock

Italy in 17 Courses originally appeared in A Moveable Feast, edited by Don George (Lonely Planet).

An Affair to Remember originally appeared in a different version in Gourmet.

The Risotto Guru originally appeared as The Rice Man Cometh in Real Eats.

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Aperitivi

Stuzzichini, olive

It is August in Sardinia, where Italian vacationers sleep late, down an espresso, and then take to the beaches, packing themselves together like slippery fish in a tin. Historically, Sardiniansinvaded frequently and from all sidescozied into the interior; beach property was considered so worthless that only the women inherited the spectacular cliffs and wide expanses of sand. Today, like everyone else, Im splashing around and getting abbronzata at the beach.

In the evening, the beachgoers gather at bars, laughing and teasing each other as only Sards can, with increasing drunkenness and daring, until nearly dawn. Im visiting my friend Beppe, who brings me along to meet his friends, which means almost everyone between the ages of 18 and 50 from Sassari and Sorso. He introduces me to Giovanna and Giuliano and tells me they are getting married on Saturday. They kiss me on the cheeks and ask where Im from. I say San Francisco, where Beppe is currently living, where friends called me in a panic several years ago because they needed someone to come speak Italian to this guy who had arrived to stay on their couch and cook seafood pasta. Beppe explains we became friends even though I am the most napoletano American hes ever met, by which he means conniving and ball-busting, but which I explain is because I make such good pizza.

Giovanna and Giuliano invite me to their wedding.

Im startled: at home in the United States, people agonize over the guest list, counting every head at $120, cutting cousins and former colleagues, wondering who will be insulted and who will send a present anyway. They meet weeks in advance with caterers who will dole out four ounces of salmon for every guest next to three baby rosemary potatoes, a dollop of spinach, and one white roll. There is no inviting of strangers to a wedding at the last minute. Brides, paying parents, wedding planners, place card letterers: everyone would freak out.

It would be a pleasure, says Giovanna, with a smile that says she means it and would even be sad if I were still in the country and not attending on Saturday.

Un gran piacere, I say, not only because they are such a charming couple but because (being a little napoletana) I know a wedding meal in Sardiniaperhaps my favorite destination among hundreds of beloved food destinations in Italywill be the ultimate culinary pleasure.

The day of the wedding, I shop, because the only nice dress I brought is purple, and Beppes mother informs me that purple brings bad luck to a wedding, and under no circumstances may I wear that dress. I wander around the streets of Alghero, a little piece of Spain in Sardinia, until I find a shop with a suitable nonpurple dress. When I return, Beppes mother explains that we will be having only a light lunch, and then we all need to turn in for a nap. There is a definite order to things on a wedding day in Sardinia.

In the late afternoon, everyone drives from the beach up to the town of Sennori, high above the sea and overlooking the northwest part of the island. The gathering line of cars winds up the streets, honking. The procession stops first at the brides house, where relatives serve finger sandwiches, and the small crowd waits for the bride to appear in her huge frothy dress to snap photos and accompany her to the church.

Then Beppe asks me to accompany him to collect the groom. At the door, someone hands me a plate and Beppe tells me to smash it hard, or itll bring bad fortune to the newlyweds. I break it into smithereens, everyone claps, the parents offer us drinks and more snacks, and we eventually take the groom to the church, careening up narrow cobbled roads to the top of the hill.

The wedding is a traditional mass, where all the men stand outside on the piazza smoking, taking turns scouting inside so they can rush to the pews when its time to hear the vows. The couple departs in a hail of confetti, and the guests make their way back down to a restaurant near the sea, honking the whole way, to drink aperitifs while watching a Campari-colored sunset. Waiters pass around olives and stuzzichiniSardinian antipasti (to pick)with seafood, fat olives, mozzarella and tomatoes, bruschetta, everything irresistible that almost everyone seems to be resisting.

Antipasti

Prosciutto crudo

Antipasti di terra alla Sarda (salsiccia, olive, formaggio dolce)

Antipasti di mare (insalata di mare, polpetti in agrodolce, cozze gratinate, capesante gratinate)

We sit down to long rows of wooden tables, maybe 300 guests, with the sea breeze wafting in from the terraces. Theres a sense of giddy anticipation at the table, and Im excited to be at my first Italian wedding feast.

The firstness of this meal reminds me of my first proper meal ever in Italy, almost 25 years ago, when I was traveling the Mediterranean at age 22 and landed in Florence to visit my cousin Tim. I would have been happy with any meal; I had just arrived from the Sinai desert, where Id picked bugs out of pita bread before topping it with tinned sardines. Before that, Id spent four years eating college food after emerging from the suburbs of Colorado, where no one was a good cook and food was suspect anyway because it might make you fat. My mother doled out strips of flank steak with casserole made from canned green beans and cream of mushroom soup and warned us against the bread. I took over the cooking in high school, turning out such delicacies as a Weight Watchers recipe called Fish Delish, which involved catfish, canned red cabbage, and mandarin oranges in artificially sweetened syrup. Italian food where I come from means SpaghettiOs or big plates of soft pasta with bland tomato sauce and dusty Parmesan cheese shaken from a green can.

My cousin Tim, on an academic semester in Italy, was staying with a modest family outside of Florence. I spoke no Italian, but the parents and two teenage kids smiled when I said things in my high school Spanish and replied in musical chatter, which Tim tried to translate. We sat down at a simple table with short drinking glasses of wine. The mother brought out an appetizer: fried baby artichokes. I didnt touch them because Id once tried vinegary artichokes from a can: no thank you. My cousin shot me a warning glance. I put an artichoke on my plate and tried a tiny bite. The crispy coating was as delicate and transparent as dragonfly wings. The artichokes tasted like green, like spring, completely tender. I took another bite, and another, finishing everything on my plate. The mama beamed when I said Delicioso, which sounded like Italian for delicious, but in fact is generally used to describe nice people, but they got the point. Then the mother did something that neither Tims parents, WASPy sticklers for table manners, nor my parents, WASPy guilty eaters, would ever have done: she took more artichokes off her plate with her fingers and insisted I eat them, too. I did, to her relish, and mine.