Beyond the Pasta by Mark Leslie

Author:Mark Leslie
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Travel & Adventure
Publisher: Gemelli Press LLC
Published: 2011-09-29T16:00:00+00:00

There was a lot of debate about what we should get and how we should divide it among us. At times I felt as if we were at a Chinese restaurant trying to figure out the perfect combination of dishes to share in order to satisfy everyone’s particular tastes.

“Marco, che cosa mangi?” —“Mark, what do you want to eat?”— Alessandra asked.

“Tutti! Tutti! Tutti!” —“Everything!”

I knew that wasn’t possible, of course, but it all sounded so good. Tartufo—truffles—seemed to be a popular ingredient and it is one of my favorite things.

“Alessandra, mi piace tartufi. Allora, vorrei mangiare qualcosa con tartufi.”

“Certamente, Marco.”

When I told Lillo that I had decided on the fettuccine al tartufo, he insisted that I also had to have the rollè al tartufo—a thin piece of beef rolled around black truffles, sautéed and braised in red wine—and the fagioli con cotiche—beans cooked with pork rind (an Italian version of pork & beans). Lillo and Giulio took everyone’s order as we walked through the porta and purchased the appropriate food tickets at the table just inside. Giulio also bought three one-liter bottles of red wine—you can’t enjoy Italian food without a little vino.

Once inside the city wall, we continued walking through the food line exchanging our tickets for the various items from the individual food stations. One of the stations was all about grilled bread; there was a guy whose only task was to grill bread. On the huge rectangular grill of glowing red coals, he had dozens of slices of bread toasting to a dark brown, almost blackened color, with beautiful dark grill marks running diagonally across both sides of each slice. He was a young guy, and although you might think the job of grilling bread to be unglamorous, here in Italy, a perfectly grilled slice of bread is as important to a meal as the entrée itself. Smiling wide, he took great pride in each and every piece he handed out. In Italy, each dish is a simple combination of perfect ingredients, and without perfectly grilled bread, a bruschetta would never be perfect, and that would be criminal, especially in a small town where everyone takes tremendous honor in providing gracious hospitality to their visitors. If he failed with the bread, his family and the family name would be shamed forever, not to mention his poor nonna having to try to hold her head up in church, all the time knowing her grandson had failed her—just try to grill bread with that kind of pressure.

When we arrived at the fettuccine station, I handed my ticket over the table and the guy went to get my pasta from the curtain behind him; he left it partially opened as he disappeared. There was no wizard behind this curtain pulling levers to create the pasta; instead there were a dozen townswomen making the fettuccine by hand. I turned to Lillo and said, “Guardi, Lillo. Guardi.” He explained to me that this was the third day of the festival and that

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