Food | Venice: I am not making this up

The Redentore returns

July 20, 2010 2 Comments

This past weekend we reached the summer’s festive culmination, the Feast of the Redeemer. But this year the routine was slightly different: No boat, no fireworks. Sounds like heresy, I know. It is heresy. I might as well just call it a club cookout and forget all the historical/traditional frippery.

Things have changed because now we’re in a different rowing club, and in a different place altogether in our minds and spirits. And while we could certainly take a boat and load it up with the usual bovoleti, watermelon, sarde in saor, pasta e fagioli, and all the other traditional noshes to get you from sundown to the fireworks, we just don’t feel like it.

One main reason we — and several other old Venetians I asked at random — don’t feel like going in a boat anymore is because of all the other boats. It’s one thing to be crushed amid swarming hordes of people ashore, it’s quite another to find yourself in the dark with thousands of large motorboats operated by people who are drunk and who don’t know how to drive. Obviously, this was not a problem when Lino and his cohort were growing up. It’s pretty hard to hurt anybody with a wooden rowing boat, at least not to the degree a big boat powered by 90 or 140 or more horses.

In fact — not to cast a pall over what I intend to be a jaunty little post — two young women who were aboard a motorboat zooming back to Chioggia after the fireworks have not yet made it home. Because the boat ran into a piling at high speed — just about every motorboat leaving Venice was going from fast to pretty fast to crazy fast — and one woman hit her head against the other woman’s head. The first woman lingered about a day, and is now in heaven. The other woman, who had snagged a ride home with them just on an impulse, is in the hospital recovering from various fractures. As for the driver/owner/ friends who were aboard, I don’t know what state they’re in, but two of the boys/men/whatever have fled. I tell you this only to indicate that I am not inventing notions about how dangerous it is out there. What surprises me is that disaster struck so few. Not much comfort to the families of all involved.

My first look at the morning's harvest made me wonder if there were any mussels actually to be found in the middle of this wreckage.

So Friday morning (Saturday night being the high point), Lino and I went to the club to help clean the mussels. A vast feast — probably more Rabelaisian than Lucullan — was planned, and our contribution was to do some of the prep work. Little did I know what ten tons of extremely wild mussels will do to your hands.

The set-up is simple. Take mussel or clump from the big tub; remove the material covering it; throw mussel into medium-size bucket, and the nameless material into the small bucket. — The set-up is simple. Take a mussel or clump of same from the big tub; remove the material covering it; throw the mussel into medium-size bucket, and the nameless material into the small bucket.

Forget how they look, in their just-scraped-off-the-pilings dishabille. They’re ghastly, I agree. Even I gave some serious thought to striking mussels off my must-eat list for, like, forever. But the ones we took home, all clean and shiny, were absolutely delectable. So you know, don’t judge a mussel by its encrustations.

But as you see, real mussels emerge from the rugby scrum in the big tum. These look almost edible. Rinsed and stirred around with a big wooden stick, they come out looking just like something you can't wait to eat. — But as you see, real mussels emerge from the rugby scrum in the big tub. These look almost edible. Rinsed and stirred around with a big wooden stick, they come out looking just like something you can't wait to eat.

After spending hours pulling and scraping off plant and all sorts of other matter, not to mention rending them from each other one by one, my hands felt as if I’d been pulling nettles. Three days later, a few fingers were still a little red and swollen. Now I understand why one of the men put on rubber gloves. I live, I learn.

A certain number of men got to cooking. There were great things to eat but there was also fifty times more than anyone could ever consume. Fried shrimp and deep-fried fresh zucchini and sarde in saor, the aforementioned mussels, grilled pork ribs and sausage and lamb chops and fresh tomatoes out of the garden in the back, and — I begin to lose the thread here — there was also something I’d never even heard of, much less tasted: deep-fried sage leaves. You can have your fried zucchini blossoms, I’m going to take the sage any chance I get.

The blackboard at the club says, and I translate: (L) "Menu: What there is." (R) On the occasion of the Redentore, Saturday we close at 12:00."

The table is set, the vases of basil are in place, ready (they say) to repel mosquitoes, and the view over the canal of San Marco toward the Lido cannot be surpassed.

After that the sheer quantity began to press down on my brain — I know I ate many more things, but I can’t remember what. At a certain point one of the wives pulled out a homemade frozen dessert called zuccotto. The recipe I looked up here makes it sound elegant, but what we ate were pieces that seemed to have been hacked off the Ur-zuccotto with a dull cleaver. And of course there was watermelon, which is utterly non-negotiable. You can skip a whole batch of things, but yes, there will be watermelon.

Crossing the votive bridge from the Zattere to the Giudecca, to the very feet of the church of the Most Holy Redeemer, always touches me.

We watched the fireworks from afar, enjoying the highest ones and intuiting the lower ones by the shimmering glow through the treetops. It was more comfortable than sitting in a boat right under them, but much less exciting. I don’t see the point in fireworks if the’re not going to be exciting. You might as well watch them on TV, or through the wrong end of a telescope, and wear earmuffs.

After the fireworks – or as they put it, “pyrotechnic display” — the countless motorboats began to stream homeward. The paper estimated that some 110,000 people came to party, but didn’t hazard a guess as to how many boats. There were so many they were tying up to public lighting stanchions, not at all a good idea.

We all sat there, sticky with watermelon juice, watching the migration. It was like the wildebeest at high speed, with big roaring mechanical voices, each with a little red light gleaming from its left flank.

Next day: The races. Now they were exciting. Lots of wind, lots of tension, lots of — unfortunately — waves. Something is going to have to be done, the racers can hardly row anymore. But that’s a subject for another day.

For those who are interested in a few more statistics, the spectacle (fireworks, etc.) cost about 100,000 euros. Doesn’t sound like much, I know — actually, I had the impression that the show was shorter than some other years.

The poppieri, or stern rowers, gather with the judge to draw lots for their positions on the starting line. They may look relaxed, but there are men whose hands are visibly shaking when they reach into the bag for their number.

Three of the nine gondolas begin to warm up, and head for the starting line.

The men and the boat can take it, but the wind and waves were something to contend with.

It was hard going for the pupparinos too.

The "cavata," or blast out of the starting gate (so to speak) can make a huge difference. Here, the "Vignottini" on the white gondola have shot to the front. In the last minute of the race, pink pulled past them.

The phenomenal Franco Dei Rossi, known as "Strigheta," finished fourth in the 34th year he's rowed this race. You cannot tell me that that is the arm of a 56-year-old man. And yet, it is. — The phenomenal Franco Dei Rossi, known as "Strigheta," finished fourth (he takes home a blue pennant) in the 34th year he's rowed this race. You cannot tell me that that is the arm of a 56-year-old man. And yet, it is.

Food, Nature, Water

Something fishy

July 17, 2010 No Comments

Last night we had an especially delectable dinner, focusing (as often happens) on fish.

Sometimes we buy them, sometimes we catch them, and sometimes they thrust themselves upon us.

Two gilthead sea bream (orate) on the left and center, and the very strong, daring, not very clever gray mullet on the right. It was an impressive jump, but our plate was not his original destination.

As in this case: “Orate” (gilthead sea bream) are highly prized around Venetian restaurants, and are vigorously cultivated in the various lagoon fish-farms. We bought these two specimens from our neighborhood fisherman a few hours after he snagged them.

The other little guy, the slender one at the right edge of the plate, is a cefalo (“siegolo” — SYEH-go-yo — in Venetian), or gray mullet. Very delicious, but very snobbed these days by restaurants who prefer to offer the very trendy orata, at preposterous prices.

Your basic gray mullet, or cefalo. They come in various sizes and variaties, and we catch them with a simple gillnet when they're not practicing for the high-jump event in the fish olympics.

A few hours before the picture above was taken, our little siegolo had been swimming blithely along, zipping through the water thinking whatever busy ichtheous thoughts oppress teenagers of the Mugilidae family.

Suddenly, he felt like leaping. This happens to mullet of all sizes, I don’t know why, but it strikes usually in the morning, sometimes in the dead of night. You can be rowing along and they’ll just bounce out of the water as if there were a trampoline down there somewhere. And it is not at all unusual for them to land, not with a splash, but a thud, as they hit the bottom of our boat.

The first time this ever happened to me, we were rowing in a four-oar sandolo at midnight back from Sant’ Erasmo all the way to the Lido. Summer nights are luminous in the lagoon and back then there weren’t quite so many motorboats tearing around all night, or at least not enough to drown out the pensive voice of a nightingale that came out of the dark woods as we rowed along the canal between the two islands called the Vignole, or the lovely, solitary note — just one — of the owl they call a soeta. It was magical.

Suddenly there was a thump in the bottom of the boat, and it kept thumping. In the dark I thought it was a bottle or something similar that had fallen over in the midst of our various voyaging detritus. But no — it was a fish. A big, strong mullet, who evidently had rejoiced as a strong man to run a race to see just how high out of the water he could hurl himself. He found out how high, but he hadn’t calculated on the landing. Fish don’t get to go home again any more than people do, at least not those who launch themselves anywhere near us. His future was pretty simple at this point: The skillet and a slather of extravirgin olive oil.

Anyway, sorry as I am to see a mullet’s morning, or evening, ruined by being taken prisoner and then executed, I know we appreciate him more than a lot of people do. Maybe more than his friends and family do. (Do fish have friends?)

Food, History, Nature, Venetian-ness

Saint Peter’s mom, bless her heart

July 1, 2010 1 Comment

The period around St. Peter’s feast day (June 29) is notable for two things beside the annual bacchanale at the church, as described in my last post.

The littlest ones are St. Peter's pears. They'll only be around for a brief time and that's why I like them, even if they have almost no flavor at all. — The littlest ones are St. Peter's pears. They'll only be around for a short time and that's why I like them, even if they have almost no flavor at all.

The two notable things are: “St. Peter’s pears,” which I haven’t been able to identify in any other way (maybe they’re here so briefly that Linneaus was never quick enough to nab them with a name), and thunderstorms. Everyone expects thunderstorms in this period (we’re still waiting, oddly enough, though this year the weather has been very strange; last week it snowed in the mountains. Maybe St. Peter is trying something new with water).

St. Peter's fish (John Dory) by TK MacGillivray — St. Peter's fish (John Dory) by William MacGillivray.

For the record, there is also a fish, not necessarily associated with the feast day, which is commonly called “St. Peter’s fish” (Zeus faber), known in English as “John Dory,” who wasn’t a saint as far as I can discover. This fish has a particularly gobsmacked expression which doesn’t resemble any saint I could ever respect, but maybe everybody in the Dory family has that look, not to mention the underbite.

June weather coming in: Roll out the barrel.

Back to the storms. Around here, the ones that crash down around us in this period have long since been associated with the Big Fisherman; well-meaning adults reassure their little people that the scary thunder is nothing more than the sound of St. Peter cleaning the wine barrels.

But there is one folk-tale, recounted by Espedita Grandesso in her exceptional book on Venetian expressions (Prima de parlar, tasi, Edizioni Helvetia) that puts the blame squarely on his mother. As told in Venetian it has an irresistible back-porch-stringing-beans atmosphere, as if the speaker were talking about a fractious family known to everybody in the neighborhood. I’ll do what I can to render it here.

ST. PETER’S MOTHER

Well, St. Peter’s mother was so nasty and so nasty that when she died, even though her son was such a honking big deal as a saint, he had to send her to hell.

When she got to hell, she got up to so many shenanigans, busting everybody’s fishing lines [polite euphemism for “balls”] and complaining and whining and calling her son at all hours of the day and night, that the saint went to Jesus Christ to tell him He had to let his mom into heaven.

“Can’t,” said Jesus, “she’s just too bad.”

Saint Peter wasn’t very happy because, when you get down to it, she was his mother, and the Lord was so sorry to see this that he told him, “Well, you know, Pete, if, maybe, she were to have done at least one good deed…”

Peter was quiet for a while, because his mother, as far as good deeds were concerned, had never done one in her entire life. Then he remembered that, one time, his mother gave an onion to a little old man who was begging.

“Okay,” said the Lord, to make a long story short, “take this onion that’s got a few little roots still on it, and, if you can manage it, pull her up here with this onion.”

T-shirt design for the festa of San Piero in 2008. No onion, no roots, no mom. He looks so happy.

Peter went to the mouth of hell and said to her, “Mom, grab onto the roots of this onion and I’ll pull you up here.”

“Onion roots? You nitwit! How do you think they’re going to support me?”

“Don’t worry about that, just grab on.”

The old lady, grumbling, grabbed onto the roots of the onion and she started to rise off the ground, but she didn’t make it as far as the mouth of hell because a batch of other souls, who wanted to get out of hell too, grabbed onto her skirt and her ankles.

St. Peter’s mother started to go crazy, screaming “Get out of here, you disgusting damned souls, the onion’s for me, it’s mine, and my son is St. Peter!!!” [This is undoubtedly one of the best moments for the person who is telling this story to imitate the meanest, crankiest woman in the neighborhood.]

Onion roots do not inspire as much confidence as, say, a steel cable.

Seeing that the souls were still hanging on, she started to kick them to try to get rid of them.

At that point, the onion roots tore off, and St. Peter was left holding the onion while the old lady fell back down into the very center of the flames.

“What the heck have you done, mom?” St. Peter said. “All you had to do was have a tiny bit of charity and you’d have made it out and so would all those other souls. Now you’ve got to stay in hell forever.” [Pause for cheers from the kids who must all be imagining whichever of their relatives–obnoxious big sister? busybody aunt?–would most deserve this doom.]

BUT [the kids suddenly stop cheering], being that not even the Devil himself could stand to have this hellion among the damned souls, and also, well, it wasn’t exactly decent that the mother of St. Peter, he who carries the Keys to the Kingdom, would have to stay in hell, the old shrew got pulled out and stuck in a corner and given the task of washing the barrels of heaven before the season of new wine.

Wine barrels at the Robert Mondavi winery, Napa Valley, presumably not washed by St. Peter's mother. (Photograph: Sanjay Acharya).

Events, Food, Venetian-ness

Saint Peter runs amok

June 29, 2010 1 Comment

As you probably know, today is St. Peter’s feast day. And in this neighborhood, it really means something.

St. Peter by Carlo Crivelli (1473). Not looking particularly saintly here; those spectacular keys may be slightly more of a burden than a blessing.

I’ll bypass the cadenzas about the saint himself, though he has always been my favorite mainly because for most of his life there was nothing so saintly about him, except the part about his asking Jesus to cure his sick mother-in-law. That was cool. But then again, she must have been a saint as well. Imagine having Peter as your son-in-law. (Story about St. Peter’s mother in the next post).

The great thing about him is that before he became the Rock upon which the church was to be founded, he was just a working fisherman, which meant he probably smelled like fish — do they have algae in the Sea of Galilee? He probably smelled like that too — and I’m sure he had chilblains and smashed fingernails and feet that were more like hooves. If you want proof, I mention that he’s the go-to saint for people with foot problems.

Peter's feet, a detail from a limewood relief carving by Christoph Daniel Schenk. — Peter's feet, a detail from a limewood relief carving by Christoph Daniel Schenck (1685).

Peter's hands, a detail from a painting by Georges de la Tour (1615-1620).

More to the point, he had one superb quality and that was, as they say in Venice, that “What he had in his heart, he had in his mouth.” Impulsive, a little clueless sometimes, but spectacularly sincere and frankly never afraid to just put himself out there. (Pause for sound of many, many chips falling where they may.)

The posters are a bit redundant, since everyone already knows all about it.

Why I like him so much now isn’t merely all the above, but because he is the patron saint of the former cathedral of Venice, the church of San Pietro di Castello, which is just over the canal from our little hovel. And each year they put on one heck of a festa in his honor.

Like most festas, there is music, and food, and dogs and old folks and little babies and a big mass, and etc. But this one also has three regatas, the mass is celebrated byno less than the auxiliary bishop (the patriarch can’t ever be bothered to come to these things), and the party goes on for five solid days, by which I mean nights, too.

The juggler is working the audience into a frenzy. "Festa" is just another word for frenzy.

Attempting to kill your friend with your balloon sword is always entertaining.

Balloons that are not swords are also fun.

I have no idea what happened. One minute he was fine, the next minute he was hysterical. Festas seem to have that effect on little people.

What does this mean for us? Well, it means not only five days of the fabulous aroma of charcoal-scorched ribs wafting around the area, and not only five nights of inconceivably loud music audible from way over here, but five nights of all the festa-goers coming and going till 2:00 or even 3:00 in the morning. The main street to the church is right outside our bedroom window and of course our windows are open. Happy people going home always shout, I don’t know why.

So while Peter may be the patron saint of locksmiths (hint: he carries the keys to the kingdom) and butchers and cobblers (feet again) and other trades, including fishermen and netmakers and, naturally, the Papacy, for my money he is also the patron saint, at least in our neighborhood, of the deaf, the insomniac, the overtired and overstimulated (technically he’s the go-to saint for cases of frenzy, but people here like frenzy), and also the occasional Russian drunk.

The latter is a newcomer to the list, but at 4:00 AM last night whoever he was was wandering the streets, which had finally achieved slumber, calling out forlornly for Marco. Surprising how far your voice can carry at that hour.

I have no idea if he ever found him, but I’m really sorry that his friend wasn’t named Peter. That would have been so perfect I might actually have gotten up to help him look.

Maybe next year.

We rowed the auxiliary bishop and the parish priest to church for the big mass on Sunday morning.

We were preceded by the band from Sant' Erasmo. I have only ever heard them play two pieces, maybe three. They're never completely in tune, but they're very loud, which is all that matters.

Two of the nine mascaretas rowed by women battling it out in the regata of the Marie (Marys). As always, the ladies were shrieking the most un-saintly remarks at each other. Of course, the men do too, but the women are much worse.

One of these ladies is trying to imitate the other.

These guys must have to burn their clothes, after five days in the smokehouse.