Well, I have been home from my gastronomic excusion for about 3 weeks. I have been meaning to write and close this blog off but I have been absorbing and assimilating the surroundings of my original culture and trying to see how my recent time in Italy has affected my perception. I wont necessarily go into all that, but I will say I was quite happy to return home to amazing sushi and experimental American cuisine, such as Saffron Mussel Flan with fried shallots dancing on top. Thats right, Flan.
But no frets, my gastronomic excursions and studies continue to zip around, as I work in a gourmet restaurant that uses local organic ingredients as well as chefs who put their heart from the early hours to make everything from scratch, even their ginger huckleberry ale. And in addition to being a policy intern at the Washington Health Foundation.
At the end of the day, I feel very American. I am by no means nationalistic nor patriotic, but I do appreciate the little things, like dress-up speakeasy warehouse parties in honor of David Bowie. And the fact we have things like experimental vegetarian cuisine. Pomegranate Curry Sorbet and Birthday Cake Ice Cream Sundaes upon request at cutting edge corners of Seattle such as Molly Moon's. And that I can speak a language with complete ease. But my heart strings will always be attached to Italy, for all its beauty and chaos, for all it has mastered to perfect (like gastronomy), for all the people who warmed my heart and showed me how humans should value each other, and, above all, in spite of all its dark skeletons. I can't imagine, and won't give up, wanting to be anywhere else. Ciao.
Friday, January 29, 2010
Sunday, January 3, 2010
The revised digestion of my WWOOF period in Puglia, 2 weeks later.
SO...! I WWOOF'ed in Puglia, Lecce, in a surrounding town (paese) of Galatina/Salento to be exact. It was a little farming town about 40 minutes from central Lecce, which is at the most southern tip of the eastern italian boot. Carina. So I was also exposed to whats known as southern italian culture. Strange, isn't it? I was gastronomically spoiled there. But also allowed to bear witness to certain food feminist political phenomena that exists in ag-culture. That is, women in farming and rural communities are treated differently than their male counteparts. In my food program, we studied the role of rural women in agriculture from books and articles and here i was learning about it 1st hand. Ahem, i should have gotten an A+ for this ethnographic extra credit. Ahem, moving on...
So this feminist belief is that women in farming communities, most notably in the Global South, are denied serious rights. Such as inheritance, property and salary rights.They are expected to rear the children, tend to the home and still work in the field and receive a fraction of the benefits a man would receive. Well, my situation wasn't like that nor nearly as dramatic, after all I was only there for a matter of weeks and the only babies I conceived were my delicious pugliese food babies. But I did notice how there were unsaid expectations to do "woman" things like work in the field as well as clean the kitchen and do sewing repairs, probably because I have danty little women hands. My boss was quite the character but I ended up loving him and was a huge teacher for me. How could I not? He did Tai Chi for like 8 hours a day by the fire or by the beach and then yelled at me when he realized he was late for his actual Tai Chi class. I was also expected to be a mind-reader, another "woman" task. But man, did I eat well. Pugliese cuisine is pretty interesting. Its based a lot on simple prep. Its not very exaggerated and full of spice. There was this type of pasta we had (which was made from my farms farro grains) that were in the shape of calamari rings called Calamarata, with a simple light tomato dressing (meaning tomato paste and water). Cayenne peppers and peppers in general are more typical to southern cuisines. So there was also a slight hint of cayenne pepper, which was also locally grown. And as a pasta always needs a friend, there were these shrimp like crustaceans that tasted and textured like lobster. Then there was baked fish, that was a interesting breed of trout and salmon. No sauce, little salt and the adriatic sea dancing in your mouth. This meal took place at my boss's parents house who had quite the library that would have made my classical italian lit. professors in Seattle drool. Im talkin' collector items books of Homer, Boccaccio, Machiavelli and Virgil the size of a coffee table with original interpretive artwork slipped inbetween chapters written on hand made artisan paper with the latin or greek version and the italian translation. It was a joy. I studied some classics at the UW so it was a huge honor to have seen and be explained all this literature gold by this sweet little old pugliese doctor who was obviously really loaded and really educated. Its funny how those 2 usually go hand in hand. Anyways, so then for dessert we ate this fish shaped dessert that was made out of almond paste, almond flour and stuffed with fig marmalade and dark chocolate. As my bosses family was spoiling me gastronomically rotten, they made the funniest observation: Ah, ma tu sei golosa? the doctor asks me, which means ah, you have a sweet tooth don't you? I nodded yes in my stuffmyfacewithchocolatefigalmond craze, and then he so humbly remarks "ah, si vede che sei golosa". Oh Italians, they stuff you wild with insanely fabulous food and then suggest you go on a diet. So after this "comment", there was ANOTHER dessert of dried figs stuffed with almonds and spices such as cinnamon, fennel, nutmeg and covered in chocolate. According to some source on page such and such at line bla bla bla, the south was also dominated by the Arabs who brought nuts, figs and spices AND chocolate. But so did the spaniards and everyone else who colonized italy. So basically what page such and such is trying to say is that it was the foreign invasions and colonizations abroad that actually gives Italian Cuisine its stuff. Tomatoes? New World Crop. Wheat? Arabs brought it. Pizza? wheat and tomatoes essentially. and of course cheese. Maybe the french brought cheese? boh! For a day I went to a neighboring farm to make CHEESE! So from fresh milked cows, I was able to witness and enjoy fresh mozzarella and fresh sheeps milk ricotta with local honey drizzled on top. I should dedicate a whole blog to my cheese making field trip. It was SPLENDID and I cried. I cried like a happy fat baby.
I would like to share a story, an American story about the good old apple pie. That one night, I made a bet with one of my bosses friends that I could make a pretty convincing american apple pie and he said he would come willingly with apples to meet my challenge. WELL instead of letting an american make an american apple pie, he kept micromanaging everything i did from the amount of flour to the amount of butter and the time in the fridge in order to attempt to corrupt me with an old time recipie of his Zia (aunt). WHICH seemed to be an apple tart which is like a thicker crumbly crust rather than a buttery flakey firmy crust we americans kinda like. And then this joker tried protesting to me adding cinnamon and nutmeg.AND then my boss, bless his carbon footprint reducing heart, insisted on "baking" it on this sort of dome pan that went on a burner, ON THE STOVE essentially. I swear, why the hell did he ask me to make an American pie?? 2 reasons: 1st he was the exact replica of John Belushi and the 2nd is that he was a proud southern italian that cant imagine that AMERICA does in fact have a gastronomic culture. I cant express how much I LOVE hearing that all Americans are fat and we dont know how to cook and we basically have failed the world with the exception of Obama.
Anyways, I ended my WWOOF experience with a bitter sweet taste in my mouth. On the one hand, I learned a lot about organic productions, tasted some amazing food, wine, and artisan beer which is just gaining steam in Italy, but also intrigued by social roles and its relation to women in the south. In Italy. And also interested in doing more research on dialects in Southern Italy.
So this feminist belief is that women in farming communities, most notably in the Global South, are denied serious rights. Such as inheritance, property and salary rights.They are expected to rear the children, tend to the home and still work in the field and receive a fraction of the benefits a man would receive. Well, my situation wasn't like that nor nearly as dramatic, after all I was only there for a matter of weeks and the only babies I conceived were my delicious pugliese food babies. But I did notice how there were unsaid expectations to do "woman" things like work in the field as well as clean the kitchen and do sewing repairs, probably because I have danty little women hands. My boss was quite the character but I ended up loving him and was a huge teacher for me. How could I not? He did Tai Chi for like 8 hours a day by the fire or by the beach and then yelled at me when he realized he was late for his actual Tai Chi class. I was also expected to be a mind-reader, another "woman" task. But man, did I eat well. Pugliese cuisine is pretty interesting. Its based a lot on simple prep. Its not very exaggerated and full of spice. There was this type of pasta we had (which was made from my farms farro grains) that were in the shape of calamari rings called Calamarata, with a simple light tomato dressing (meaning tomato paste and water). Cayenne peppers and peppers in general are more typical to southern cuisines. So there was also a slight hint of cayenne pepper, which was also locally grown. And as a pasta always needs a friend, there were these shrimp like crustaceans that tasted and textured like lobster. Then there was baked fish, that was a interesting breed of trout and salmon. No sauce, little salt and the adriatic sea dancing in your mouth. This meal took place at my boss's parents house who had quite the library that would have made my classical italian lit. professors in Seattle drool. Im talkin' collector items books of Homer, Boccaccio, Machiavelli and Virgil the size of a coffee table with original interpretive artwork slipped inbetween chapters written on hand made artisan paper with the latin or greek version and the italian translation. It was a joy. I studied some classics at the UW so it was a huge honor to have seen and be explained all this literature gold by this sweet little old pugliese doctor who was obviously really loaded and really educated. Its funny how those 2 usually go hand in hand. Anyways, so then for dessert we ate this fish shaped dessert that was made out of almond paste, almond flour and stuffed with fig marmalade and dark chocolate. As my bosses family was spoiling me gastronomically rotten, they made the funniest observation: Ah, ma tu sei golosa? the doctor asks me, which means ah, you have a sweet tooth don't you? I nodded yes in my stuffmyfacewithchocolatefigalmond craze, and then he so humbly remarks "ah, si vede che sei golosa". Oh Italians, they stuff you wild with insanely fabulous food and then suggest you go on a diet. So after this "comment", there was ANOTHER dessert of dried figs stuffed with almonds and spices such as cinnamon, fennel, nutmeg and covered in chocolate. According to some source on page such and such at line bla bla bla, the south was also dominated by the Arabs who brought nuts, figs and spices AND chocolate. But so did the spaniards and everyone else who colonized italy. So basically what page such and such is trying to say is that it was the foreign invasions and colonizations abroad that actually gives Italian Cuisine its stuff. Tomatoes? New World Crop. Wheat? Arabs brought it. Pizza? wheat and tomatoes essentially. and of course cheese. Maybe the french brought cheese? boh! For a day I went to a neighboring farm to make CHEESE! So from fresh milked cows, I was able to witness and enjoy fresh mozzarella and fresh sheeps milk ricotta with local honey drizzled on top. I should dedicate a whole blog to my cheese making field trip. It was SPLENDID and I cried. I cried like a happy fat baby.
I would like to share a story, an American story about the good old apple pie. That one night, I made a bet with one of my bosses friends that I could make a pretty convincing american apple pie and he said he would come willingly with apples to meet my challenge. WELL instead of letting an american make an american apple pie, he kept micromanaging everything i did from the amount of flour to the amount of butter and the time in the fridge in order to attempt to corrupt me with an old time recipie of his Zia (aunt). WHICH seemed to be an apple tart which is like a thicker crumbly crust rather than a buttery flakey firmy crust we americans kinda like. And then this joker tried protesting to me adding cinnamon and nutmeg.AND then my boss, bless his carbon footprint reducing heart, insisted on "baking" it on this sort of dome pan that went on a burner, ON THE STOVE essentially. I swear, why the hell did he ask me to make an American pie?? 2 reasons: 1st he was the exact replica of John Belushi and the 2nd is that he was a proud southern italian that cant imagine that AMERICA does in fact have a gastronomic culture. I cant express how much I LOVE hearing that all Americans are fat and we dont know how to cook and we basically have failed the world with the exception of Obama.
Anyways, I ended my WWOOF experience with a bitter sweet taste in my mouth. On the one hand, I learned a lot about organic productions, tasted some amazing food, wine, and artisan beer which is just gaining steam in Italy, but also intrigued by social roles and its relation to women in the south. In Italy. And also interested in doing more research on dialects in Southern Italy.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)