I don’t mean to pound this topic into the mud like a piling or anything, but I just thought I’d mention two more flavors that make Venice real to the old gustatory organs. By which I mean things I eat here that I haven’t really found (or taken seriously) elsewhere:
When the bovoleti are ready to eat, they look almost good. Gentlemen, start your toothpicks.
Snails, or bovoleti (boh-voh-EH-ti). Think escargots, with absolutely no pretensions — the polar opposite of pretensions. And absolutely no taste, either, which is why they are boiled, then thrown in a bowl with an overload of sliced fresh garlic and olive oil. Snails are merely an excuse to eat oil and garlic, in my view. It couldn’t possibly be for their nutritional value. Or their texture, either. (The garlic helps you get past that, too. Those old-time hungry people thought of everything.)
Bovoleti show up in late spring and are sold by fishmongers; odd, considering that your snail is a land creature, happier clinging to some plant stem in a field somewhere. They’re on sale until after the feast of the Redentore (third Sunday in July).
The thing to remember about snails is that they tend to wander off. Here at the Rialto fish market, their way is illuminated by reflections from the red awning outside.Therefore your shrewd snail-seller will block their exit with a ring of salt. One does wonder how the little critters stay alive under water, since they don't have gills. Maybe they're all holding their breath and hoping for better days, like the rest of us.The palazzo Contarini has a distinctive staircase which has long since been nicknamed "del bovolo" -- of the snail.
In fact, that festival is their moment of glory, if snails can be said to have one, because there they demonstrate their other sterling quality, as entertainment. Eating them gives you something to do while you’re waiting for the fireworks. Slippery little shell in one hand, toothpick in the other, the point is to snag and pull out the bit of whatever you’d call that material that used to be alive, and eat it. The waters of the Giudecca Canal can be speckled with these shells, tossed overboard by oily-fingered people who are beginning to run out of conversation.
The other special item would be fondi, or artichoke bottoms. Perhaps you didn’t realize that an artichoke has a bottom, but usually there is somebody near a fruit and vegetable stand who has been assigned a mountain of big tough artichokes and told to cut off all those leathery outer leaves and other useless bits (which is most of the artichoke) with a knife as sharp as a billhook, then carve a neat disk from what remains.
The artichoke puts up a struggle, but with the right knife and the will to prevail, you'll have something really good to eat. If you get bored with them like this, chop up a few and mix them with some pasta.
Simmer slowly in — you know what’s coming — oil and garlic, throw some minced parsley over them, and there you have your daily thistle.
Bit of useless information: You may discover that in Venice there are two words for artichoke used interchangeably: carciofo and articioco. Carciofo (kar-CHAWF-oh) is the standard word, but across northern Italy, from Friuli to Liguria, you’ll find variations on articioco (ar-tee-CHOKE-oh). Such as: articjoc, articioc, articioch, and articiocc. Both carciofo and articioco ultimately derive from Arabic; carciofo from kharshuf, and articioco probably from the Old Spanish alcachofa, which in turn came from Arabic.
Sometimes words are almost more delectable to me than the thing they represent. But I’ll stop here. Must. Go. Eat.
At this stage, the poppies and artichokes on Sant' Erasmo are more or less struggling for dominance. I suppose you could eat the poppies, but I'll stick with the spiky little purple flower I know.
A rare sighting of the trio of great spring vegetables together: asparagus, peas lurking behind them, and artichokes lurking to the lower right. The jury is instructed to disregard the figs, which are obviously from some hothouse somewhere, as the local ones don't appear till August, as God intended.
The gustatory sense is next on my list of attributes of the sensual Venice because this time of year is swamped, decks awash, in great things to eat. If one is inclined (“one” meaning “me”) to focus on seasonal comestibles, then this is a period that verges on the orgiastic. Naturally I try to conceal this. Sort of.
From October to April we eat in a sensible-shoes sort of way –plenty of local food, warm, sustaining, totally good for you but not very exciting, if you don’t count the castradina in November or the roast eel on Christmas Eve, and several forms of pastry. But this somewhat restrained diet means that by spring I’m watching for the first asparagus with an intensity most people give to watching the Powerball drawing.
At the annual patron saint's festa on Sant' Erasmo in early June, the farmers sell their produce essentially in job lots. It all looks so good I think they must call in makeup artists.
When I finally see that first green stalk, it’s like the starter’s gun on a new season of — how can I put this delicately? I can’t — glorious glut.
First comes the asparagus, which is steamed or boiled and often eaten with hard-boiled eggs cut in half. Sprinkle this assortment with salt, pepper, and extravirgin olive oil, and you’ve had dinner.
These are definitely my favorite flower to eat.
Shortly thereafter the artichokes arrive. Not just any artichoke, but the carciofo violetto from Sant’ Erasmo. This is a purple variety that thrives around the lagoon — we’ve had them from the Vignole, and from Malamocco, though apartment buildings now cover the artichoke fields that Lino remembers. The encyclopedia says they are also to be had from Chioggia, but I’ve never knowingly eaten anything from Chioggia except a type of radicchio. In any case, the saline environment evidently does something important to the old Cynara scolymus, if my taste buds are not lying to me.
This spring we rowed over to Sant’ Erasmo many times, which meant that we’ve eaten more artichokes in the past five weeks than ever before, I think. We’d come home with bags of these little creatures, often cut off the plant just for us, paying about two-thirds less than the price at the Rialto. We’d pull off the outer leaves and eat the inner morsel raw. We’d simmer them in olive oil and garlic. We’d cut them in half and throw them on the griddle. We even experimented with boiling them and then storing them in a jar full of olive oil. No verdict yet on how those turned out, but it’s hard to imagine they could be bad.
I approve of a food that comes in its own wrapper, even if I do have to pay for the extra weight.
Peas: Fresh peas are next up, the crucial element to risi e bisi (REE-zee eh Bee-zee), or pea risotto, a Venetian classic. Preparing artichokes is a very grown-up sort of thing to do, but shelling peas takes me very, very far back. I could be anywhere (say, Venice) and it would still make me feel like I was sitting on somebody’s back porch. The only thing I object to about fresh peas is the same thing I object to about fresh pinto beans: you pay by weight, which means you’re paying for a whole pod in order to get a batch of little pellets. That’s another thing I’m going to have to change when I get to be in charge of the world.
This is an early spring bonus: carletti, which Lino finds on foraging expeditions along the lagoon edge of the Lido.
After a few weeks of glory this trinity of sublime plant life has begun to fade from the scene and I will not be eating them again till next spring, even if I could get them from hothouses in Sicily or Israel or who knows where. But other things will be along — lettuce and string beans and tomatoes and eggplant. The faithful old zucchine. Fresh tomatoes right off the vine — we make our own sauce. Around here, “Eat your vegetables” sounds like an invitation to a party.
Clamming is hard work if you don't really love it. Lino's got the focus of a lion stalking its prey.
And the clamming season is now officially open — to the entire world, if your average Sunday afternoon in the lagoon is any indication. Of course it’s open all year to the professionals, but families spend recreational summer hours digging around in the shallows, and it is probably Lino’s favorite thing to do, way ahead of sleeping or eating. Maybe even drinking. It must be like meditation or yoga. He can do it for hours.
So we’ve already been out a few clam-hunting expeditions. The trick is to find some patch of terrain that hasn’t already been ravaged by legions of trippers. Lino is very patient and he actually looks for the clams, one by one, whereas most of the other mighty nimrods just claw up fistfuls of mud hoping to find something good. These are not fishermen, these are locusts.
After we’ve let the clams soak in a bucket of lagoon water for several hours, we take them home, and get ready for the Great Cooking Thereof. This may not happen immediately; we may have to leave them in the fridge in their plastic bag for a little while. They kind of hang out in there till we’re ready to cook them. When we put the bag in the sink, I can hear them making moist little shifting and tchk-tchk noises. Yes, they’re still alive, and these little sounds sort of do something to me. Maybe they’re talking about how much they enjoyed spending the afternoon in the dark and the cool. I hope so. I’m glad they don’t know what’s coming next.
Lino brought home the ideal assortment -- cape tonde ("malgarote"), caparozzoli, sansonei, lungoni, and the occasional bevarassa. Now we're introducing them to oil and garlic.
So we throw them into a large saute pan with garlic and oil. Steam goes everywhere. About a minute later they’ve given their last dying gasp, opened their shells and succumbed. We put them in a bowl where they slosh around in a celestial broth of their own saltwater, garlic, lemon juice and chopped parsley and we eat them like crazed little swine, right out of the shell — ignoring scalded fingertips, drops of oily water falling at random.
I’ve been talking about clams in a generic sort of way, but there are all sorts of bivalves to be had out there. Bevarasse (Venus gallina), sansonei, cape lunghe (Solen vagina), cape tonde (Cardium edule), caragoi (Vulgocerithium vulgatum), canestrei (Pecten opercularis), to name a few. There are also oysters — Lino went out on Christmas Eve a few years ago and brought back a load of fresh lagoon oysters, which were delicately sweet. Wish he’d do it again.
Just a few short hours ago, these mussels were clinging to their piling wondering what to do today. Unfortunately for them, we got to decide.
And now it’s mussels. A friend of ours went out in his boat yesterday with a fiendish contraption and scraped a huge amount of them off the pilings — wait, I’m not finished! — the pilings in the lagoon near the island of the Certosa, near the inlet of San Nicolo’, where the tide is so strong that the water is always really clean. Last night we permitted ourselves a modest gorge, annihilating a large bowl in a very short time. They were divine.
Somebody gave us a batch of canestrei, or "lid scallops." It took no time at all to open, bread, and fry them. You don't like fried food? Try these.
Whatever remains of the clams or the mussels is either thrown into tomato sauce for pasta later, or set aside (clams especially) for a risotto. Then we go out and get more.
I haven’t even gotten to the subject of fruit or ice cream, which are whole galaxies of delectable on their own, but I’m worn out. So let’s all put our heads down on our desks and be quiet for a few minutes.
But as we do, let me just repeat something I say far too often: It’s not easy to eat really well (not impossible, but not easy, to eat really well) in a restaurant in Venice, but here at home we eat better than the entire dynasty of Gediminids.
Carnival was definitely over early for the family who owns this tobacco shop; the sign on the door says they're closed for mourning. The blind left askew on the door emphasizes the point. And all that cheerful confetti has been swept up by the trash squad and left right here. Still feel like partying?
It’s not as if the city goes into mourning when Carnival is over (the merchants are too busy with their calculators to feel sad), but if you had gone out with me for a walk this morning, you wouldn’t just feel that something was missing (like, say 100,000 people). You would have the distinct sensation that you were at the bedside of a patient whose fever had finally broken and was sleeping peacfully.
A tranquillity comes over the city that is nothing less than miraculous. All that’s left to do is to clean the room and change the sweat-drenched sheets. So to speak. (I do hear some desultory sweeping going on outside.) And now we can see the simple, austere, monochromatic 40 days of Lent stretching before us.
Here’s what I won’t miss: The mighty force of the touristic masses being sucked into the city’s gullet as if through some colossal straw. The wall of humanity blocking entire streets, a good number of which had to be organized as strictly one-way. The incessant rumble of the launches hauling and re-hauling loads of countless people from the mainland to San Marco, not to mention the choking poison of their engines’ exhaust as they idle by the Fondamenta degli Schiavoni waiting for the next batch.
Here’s what I will miss: The neighborhood in full frivolity, the kids of all sizes in all sorts of costumes, their entourages of relatives, doting or beleaguered as they may be. And — you know what I’m going to say — the fritole and galani.
Lent personified during Carnival; detail from "The Battle between Carnival and Lent (Pieter Brueghel the Elder, 1559).
Food seems to be the standard by which every human experience is measured here, and now we’re supposed to get serious. The list of (technically) forbidden goodies for the next month and ten days is well known and can be fairly detailed. But I narrow the “forbidden” list to two items: Fat and sugar, which means no more fritole or galani (sob). And you are expected (technically) to pretty much give up on meat, at least on Ash Wednesday and Fridays.
In this officially Catholic country where hardly anybody (it is said) goes to church anymore, today the butcher shops are closed. You’re supposed to eat fish. Or nothing, I suppose — maybe you get extra points for fasting, which wouldn’t hurt anybody after the gorge-fest we’ve been through.
We stopped by Marcello the butcher yesterday, looking for a cheap steak to eat before the culinary window slams shut on our fingers. He was busy doing brain surgery on a batch of chicken breasts so we watched his deft slittings and peelings and trimming while waiting our turn. Now that I think of it, it’s not so much brain surgery as couture tailoring.
Lino said, “I’ve always loved watching butchers work on meat. It’s a real art.”
“All the work that artisans used to do were arts,” Marcello replied. “I used to love watching the baker making bread. He could twist and tie and arrange it in all sorts of shapes. You don’t see that anymore — now it’s all stamped out by some kind of form. I’d stand there for hours to watch him.”
“You going to be closed tomorrow?” Lino asked, not having noticed the handwritten sign in the window saying “Closed Tomorrow.”
“Yes,” said Marcello. “It used to be that on Ash Wednesday all the butchers would be closed. The butchers, and the salumieri [butchers who work only with pork], and the pastry-makers. Those were the only ones to close, and we still respect that.”
No need to have mentioned the pastry-makers: it’s obvious. They are the CENTCOM of fat and sugar. They also must be worn out by now.
Even if nowadays anybody can go to the supermarket on Ash Wednesday and buy chops and ground beef and veal brains and so on, it wouldn’t really be in the spirit of the day. We’re hanging tough with vegetables, mostly. So healthy, so spiritually fortifying.
While we’re thinking of food, have you ever noticed that fasting, instead of clearing the mental decks for you to contemplate matters of the soul, usually has the opposite effect? That’s something to meditate on when you run out of repentance.
Meanwhile, we ate seppie in their ink tonight with polenta made the old-fashioned way (40 minutes of constant stirring). The seppie were so fresh that they practically smiled at us from their plastic bag — Nardo the fisherman had struck again, and we scored his last two. Technically the menu was well within the Ash Wednesday rules, but we totally violated their spirit — it was outrageously good.
I’m not sure whether I’m supposed to repent of that too.
The entire Piazza San Marco was spangled with confetti. It was like laughter all over the ground.
I’m writing this on Martedi Grasso (Fat Tuesday) but I feel the hot breath of Lent on my neck. People with suitcases heading toward the train station and airport have been filling the vaporettos since this morning, even as the tourist launches continue to haul their loads of fun-seekers from Punta Sabbioni (where their big buses don’t have to pay any fees) back and forth across the Bacino of San Marco to the Piazza San Marco.
We went to the Piazza this afternoon to watch the official presentation of the Maria who won first prize, blue ribbon, grand cru, or whatever they give her. It was boring. What was more amusing were some of the costumes, as well as the massive lion of San Marco, complete with requisite book under upraised paw, made entirely of plant material — fruit, vegetables, leaves and fronds and huge lashings of imagination.
This fantastic lion of San Marco is composed of red apples, purple cabbages, laurel leaves, and carrots. He's also wearing a red-apple mask, which is kind of cool.
An example of the standard, often rented, luxury costume. Nice, but not very imaginative.I don't have any idea if she made this or bought it, but it's one of the best masks I've ever seen.
Infinitely more fun: Somebody's version of Papageno (center), Papagena (left) and I can't remember exactly who, carrying the magic flute.
I'm dazzled not only by their imagination, but their patience. I'd never take the time to stick all those feathers onto my clothes, much less in my hair.
Then we were back in via Garibaldi for the free fritole and galani that local restaurateur and personality Lucio Bisutto arranged for some local club to give out. That old saying, “Build it and they will come”? Here, it’s “Put free food on a table and they will come.” The little old ladies are always the first; they’re like circling buzzards who can sense dying prey.
