La Cucina by Lily Prior

Author:Lily Prior [Prior, Lily]
Language: spa
Format: epub
Tags: General Fiction
ISBN: 9780060953690
Publisher: Lumen Espana
Published: 2000-01-01T05:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER FIVE

Our lessons continued throughout that glorious summer, though at the villa rather than at my apartment; Nonna Frolla’s interference and the gossip of the neighbors gave me no peace, and I was afraid that l’Inglese’s violent temper might provoke him to do something awful if he ever came there again.

The weather was perfect, hot white days and warm sultry nights: weather for cooks and lovers. The produce in the market was now at its finest: everything ripened by the intensity of the sun, the flavors richer, the odors more pungent, and the colors brighter than at any other time.

It was, I decided, the right time to make the ’strattu, a traditional tomato paste, made outdoors and found only in Sicily. Nowadays the trouble of making it deters all but the most dedicated of cooks. I had not made ’strattu since I was a girl back at la fattoria, and I thought it would be a good learning exercise for l’Inglese, who, it seemed to me, was far too impatient to be a true Sicilian cook.

He complained loudly as I had him carry a whole sack of ripe tomatoes back from the Vucciria market. They were an almost fluorescent red in color from the heat of the sun, bursting with juices and their wonderful perfume: warmth, sunlight, fertile earth, summer, rain. L’Inglese was a similar color as he struggled with them up the hill to the villa, cursing loudly.

He made more fuss when I made him chop them all and pass them through the fine mesh of a sieve to remove the peel and the seeds. For hours he sat in the sun, wearing a floppy hat, straining his tomatoes over a wooden barrel. Not a single seed was permitted in the mixture, and I inspected it frequently for quality.

“Signorina, how about a little tea break?” he asked after a while, his eyes glinting with mischief. “What about a little recreation?”

“Not until you have quite finished, my lazy apprentice,” I answered.

Later, when all the tomatoes were sieved and there was no trace of skin or pips, we added some handfuls of salt and leaves of fragrant basil and poured the entire mixture onto the center of a large table we had set out in the sun behind the house.

Slowly, over a period of two days during which you must remember to stir frequently, the sun heats the mixture and evaporates the water, leaving a sumptuous, rich, dark tomato paste, which gives our pasta sauces their unique taste.

All day long, for two long days, I made l’Inglese stir the ’strattu with a large wooden spoon. And as he stirred we talked.

I told him about my family: I described Mama, Papa, and my brothers. He was particularly interested in Guerra and Pace. Dear boys. How I missed them.

I told him about the fattoria where I grew up, and described to him in detail la cucina, which he never tired of hearing about. He even had me draw a diagram so he could understand the layout more clearly.

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