Crazy in the Kitchen by Louise DeSalvo

Author:Louise DeSalvo
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing Plc
Published: 2009-10-07T04:00:00+00:00

PUGLIA DIARY

For my sixtieth birthday, Ernie takes me to the South of Italy, where my grandparents left early in the twentieth century, during the time of the great migration. We'll visit Rodi Garganico, my stepgrand-mother's village (I don't know my mother's birth mother's village); Positano, my paternal grandmother's; Scafati, my paternal grandfather's. On this trip, we're not visiting Vieste, my maternal grandfather's.

I've never been to this part of Italy before, though I've been to many other places in Italy. Why wait this long to come? Lack of interest, yes, for many years. Though I was proud of my Italian American heritage, I felt little connection to my Southern Italian past. I buried my grandparents' stories deep in the crevices of memory. Shards of what I'd heard from them, I'd stumble upon now and again. But I went about my daily life, my American life, without thinking much about my ancestors.

When my father became ill, and I feared he would soon die, I wanted to learn whatever I could about what he remembered so that I could make a record. So my family's story would not vanish. I'd spent years writing about other people's lives, famous writers' lives. Why not about those of my family?

On our flight to Bari, I see the sweep of the Gargano peninsula. It is shaped like the bunion on my grandmother's toe. This is the second time I fly over land where my grandfather, my mother's father, labored— the first, when I fly over the train tracks he laid in Maine. Both times, tears. The same rush of feelings. The irony of my life: that I can afford to fly over the places where he labored.

Now I can see the fields where my grandfather worked the land. See him as a child, bent over, harvesting wheat.

We are staying in a converted masseria. It is exquisite. White stone. Moorish architecture. Wild poppies and wild daisies everywhere. An orange grove. A lemon grove. We lounge on a porch with arched windows and doors. Listen to birdsong. Watch a mother cat groom her kittens. Sip wine made from grapes grown nearby. Eat prosciutto and cheese panini. There are olive trees that are over a thousand years old here. They look like pieces of sculpture. It would take five, maybe six people holding hands to encompass one.

In my grandfather's time, a masseria like this one was inhabited by landowners, overseers— those who persecuted my people. Yet I am staying here as a guest.

At dinner, we sit in a vaulted stone room. Crisp white tablecloths, napkins. Waiters in black uniforms. Tables bedecked with flowers. Along the back wall, a collection of pottery from a nearby village.

Our menu:

First, an amuse-bouche of an asparagus frittata. The asparagus are thinner than pencils. The frittata is cut into circles; they are served with a little bit of parsley, and with a glass of white wine from the masseria.

A pasta in the shape of a large teardrop, dressed with a sauce of cauliflower, bread crumbs, a touch of onion, a touch of anchovy.

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