The Food of Love (27 page)

smell something coming from the direction of the smoke he’d

seen from the road. He recognised the aromatic smell of burning

beech wood immediately, but it was the scent of roasting pork that made his mouth water and his pace quicken. Someone was barbecuing a pig, and Bruno suddenly realised that he had not eaten for

days.

He rounded the corner of the piazza - which was hardly a

piazza at all, but an open space around which the houses and a

church were grouped. Its surface was unpaved and it contained

little apart from a few lime trees and a vast Fascist-era war memorial representing Victory as a naked woman being held aloft by half

a dozen soldiers. It did, however, contain the source of that wonderful smell. Outside a tiny bar, someone had set up a makeshift

spit over a fire. A few people were milling around it, tending to the golden-brown piglet that was slowly rotating above the hot

embers. Chairs and tables had been dragged out into the evening

sun, someone was fingering an accordion, and one or two elderly

people were dancing. Half a dozen pairs of eyes turned to watch

Bruno as he approached, although no one spoke to him.

Bruno hardly noticed.
can smell it, he thought. Really, properly smell it.p>

Once, as a child, he’d been swimming and had got some water

stuck in his ear. For days every sound had been muffled, and no

amount of banging and poking would shift it. Then, quite suddenly, a warm trickle in his eardrum had announced the return of

his hearing - and, having almost got used to being without it, he’d found each sound new-minted and fresh. So it was now with his

palate. Somehow, the smell of that porchetta had done what all of Emilia-Romagna’s finest produce had failed to do. His extrasensory perceptions of taste and smell, which had all but disappeared,

Were flickering back into life. Porchetta … The piglet was a deep honey colour, its back blistered and split open where salt had been rubbed into it for crackling, and the ears, nose and tail were covered with individual caps of tinfoil to prevent these delicacies from burning in the intense heat. Even now several people were fussing over it: one turning it, another basting it with a lump of lard on a skewer, while a slim figure in an apron and a headscarf was opening the meat up with a sharp knife to see if the middle was done.

Stuffed whole suckling pig is a feast-day speciality everywhere in Italy, although each region cooks it slightly differently. In Rome the piglet would be stuffed with its own fried organs; in Sardinia, with a mixture of lemons and minced meat. Here, evidently, the

stuffing was made with breadcrumbs and herbs. He could make out each individual component of the mixture: finocchio selvatico wild fennel - garlic, rosemary and olives, mingling with the smell

of burning pork fat from the fire, which spat green flame briefly wherever the juices from the little pig, running down its trotters, dropped into it.

‘Hello,’ Bruno said politely to the person nearest to him. ‘My

van has broken down and I’m looking for somewhere to stay the

night.’

The man scratched his ancient brown suit while he considered

this. He pretended to wave a couple of flies away from his forehead with the back of his hand, although there were in fact no flies

around. ‘ Ueh, Gusta,’ he called at last.

One of the people near the fire turned around. It was a woman,

her face weatherbeaten and leathery from the sun. Bruno surmised that this was the owner of the bar and repeated his request.

The woman stared. ‘We don’t rent rooms, usually. You can use

the telephone, if you like, to get someone out to your van. Where are you trying to get to?’

Where was he trying to get to? It was a good question, and one

that Bruno had no answer for, having given up using a map several weeks before. He shrugged.

Another voice spoke from the group around the fire. It was the

person who was squatting down, the one in the apron. Although

the speaker didn’t turn around, Bruno heard a female voice, murmuring something.

Gusta shrugged. ‘My daughter says it’s too late to get anyone

out from Acqualagna, and Hanni, who usually deals with the

breakdowns, has gone to Belsaro to help his brother build a roof.

We can make up a room, if you really have to stay, though as you can see, we’re cooking porchetta, so don’t expect any choice for dinner.’

Bruno assured her that he would be delighted to eat porchetta, and that he would try to be no trouble as he could see that they were busy. He sat down at one of the tables with his backpack at his feet and tried to make himself as inconspicuous as possible.

The villagers, for their part, pretended to ignore him. The only one who looked directly at him was Gusta’s daughter. She stood

up and stepped back from the fire, wiping her hot forehead with

her sleeve, and glanced at him for a moment with dark, unreadable eyes. Bruno smiled politely at her, but evidently he had been too familiar, because she scowled and looked away.

Someone put a glass of wine in front of him, and a plate containing a few squares of crispy pork skin. He ate them gratefully,

by now very hungry indeed. Eventually, after much discussion, the porchetta was ready, and was lifted away from the heat to rest. But first, of course, there was pasta - great bowls of fresh green tagliatelle, made with spinach and just a hint of nutmeg, served with fagiole - fresh beans - and a little goose broth. No, not spinach after all, Bruno decided after a second taste: the green in the tagliatelle was actually from young stinging nettles. Rather to his surprise, it was excellent.

He was by now squashed between two large women, their

accents so thick he could barely understand what they were saying.

He asked what they were celebrating and they launched into a

long explanation, the gist of which seemed to be that someone

had borrowed a tractor from someone else, but the brakes didn’t

Work properly, and then it had hit this poor three-legged piglet and killed it, so of course it had to be eaten straight away. Had Bruno not noticed that the porchetta had only three legs? Bruno

confessed he hadn’t, a comment that prompted much hilarity

from those around him. He was asked where he came from.

Rome, he answered. His companions nodded thoughtfully, as if

that explained everything. You couldn’t expect a Roman to see

what was under his nose. Trying to make a joke of it, Bruno

remarked that in Rome all pigs had three legs, only for his comment to be passed up and down the table as seriously as if he had

said that he was personally acquainted with the Pope. .After that he tried to keep his mouth shut, except when he was eating.

This wasn’t difficult, since the porchetta was delicious. It was handed round not on plates, but wrapped in myrtle leaves, so

that the bitter flavour permeated the meat. Everyone else had

fallen silent too, and the only sounds were the satisfied sighs of the diners and the crunch of bones being chewed. The only light

came from a couple of tiny candles and the deep red embers of the fire. Finally the bones were removed, or thrown to the small army of waiting dogs, and bowls of fresh peaches were brought out,

served sliced and covered in sweet wine. Then the accordion

struck up again. The large lady on Bruno’s left, who must have

consumed at least a dozen glasses of wine during the meal, immediately asked him to dance, much to the amusement of their

neighbours; and feeling that part of his payment for their hospitality was to provide them with entertainment, Bruno agreed. He

happily made a fool of himself for a few minutes before excusing himself and sitting down again.

Someone sat down in the large lady’s place, and he turned to

find that it was Gusta’s daughter. She had changed out of her

cooking clothes immediately before dinner was served and was

now wearing a long, dark dress; a patchwork of silks and other

shimmering materials. There was something almost Romany

about it, and now that he thought of it he could see that there was a similar look to the clothes of some of the other women, too. He remembered reading that some of these remote villages were

descended from gypsies who had settled and turned to farming,

hundreds of years ago. Her hair was dark; as dark as the night

behind it.

‘I’ve made up your room,’ she told him. ‘When you get tired,

just tell mother or me and we’ll show you where it is. Though I’m afraid you may not sleep very well. Once this lot get started, they’ll be drinking and dancing all night.’ There was an affection in her voice, he noticed, which belied the curtness of her words.

‘Thank you. But I’m enjoying myself, really. And that was a

remarkable meal.’

She shrugged. ‘Just a pig. It doesn’t take much to cook a pig.’

‘That pasta, too,’ he said gently. ‘The nettles and the nutmeg fantastic.

Who made that?’

‘My mother,’ she said. She looked up. A huge young man with

sandy blond hair and the broadest shoulders Bruno had ever seen

was standing on the other side of the table.

‘Time to dance, bella di casa,’ he said. Though he spoke to the

girl, his eyes were on Bruno. He leaned across the table and placed a large, muscular hand in Bruno’s. ‘I’m Javier,’ he said. ‘Pleased to meet you …’

‘Bruno,’ Bruno said. He felt his hand being crushed for a

moment, then released. ‘My van broke down.’

‘Yes, I know.’ Javier turned back to the girl. ‘Come on then.’

She got up, her dress shimmering. She said to Bruno, ‘But I

added the nettles. And the nutmeg. It makes people … happy.’

He watched her dancing, his eyes straining in the dark for the

shimmer of her dress as she spun. Then he realised what he was

doing. Yes, Laura was right. I’m aguardone, he thought wearily. A pervert; always watching, never doing. He got to his feet and

Went to find Gusta and directions to his room.

When Bruno got up the next morning, the little piazza was

deserted. He assumed they were all sleeping off their hangovers the music had gone on late into the night, just as Gusta’s daughter

had predicted. Then the doors of the church opened and a

stream of villagers poured straight down the steps and across to the bar, where Gusta, still in her church clothes, immediately got to work dispensing distillati from unmarked bottles while her

daughter took round a tray of pastries. Bruno accepted both. The drink was a fiery peach alcohol, not unlike schnapps, while the pastries were soft and sweet, dusted with almond flour.

He was introduced to Giorgio, a dishevelled-looking young

man who was happily having third helpings of the liqueur.

Giorgio, he was told, had brought his tractor to church and

would soon take Bruno to pick up his van. ‘Soon’ turned out to

be a relative concept. It was another hour, and several more

schnapps, before Giorgio finally took Bruno behind the piazza,

where the tiniest tractor Bruno had ever seen was parked.

Giorgio shooed a mongrel off the seat and settled himself at the controls. There was barely room on the machine for his body: if

he lowered his feet from the pedals they would drag along the

ground, like an adult riding a child’s pony. He pressed a button and the engine belched black smoke. An elderly man, walking in

the opposite direction, laughed and shouted something over the

noise of the engine. It sounded like ‘Nice pig, Giorgio’. Giorgio scowled and didn’t reply. It occurred to Bruno that this must be the tractor responsible for running down last night’s meal. It

seemed unlikely: surely even a three-legged piglet could outrun

this relic.

Bruno and the dog walked behind as the tractor putted slowly

down the road. Rather to Bruno’s surprise, however, the dwarf

tractor turned out to be easily capable of towing the defunct van up to the village, and his vehicle was eventually uncoupled and

pushed into a small barn which contained a reassuring number of

wrecked, half-cannibalised cars, all awaiting the return of Hanni the mechanic from his brother’s roof.

‘Hanni has a piece of everything here,’ Giorgio commented,

rolling himself a cigarette now that work was over. ‘He’ll sort you out. Mind you,’ he added thoughtfully, ‘it’s been three months

since he said he’d find me some brake discs, and I’m still waiting.

That’ll be fifteen euros, please.’

There was nothing to do now but wait. Bruno went back to

the piazza, where the smells of lunch were already wafting out of Gusta’s kitchen. Plates of: antipasti wrere placed on the tables in the square, which magically filled with people - whole families, still in their church suits, and the priest himself with a paper towel tucked into his cassock. Bruno took a piece of chicory

and dipped it into a saucer containing oil and vinegar - a tiny

black yolk of accto balsamico floating in the middle of the golden oil. He was amazed to find that both the olive oil and vinegar

Were among the very best he had ever tasted. The village might

look poor to the casual eye but the villagers certainly knew how to eat. Italians called it il culto de benessere: keeping the very best Produce for themselves, being self-sufficient but living well,

combining the strong stomach of a peasant with the refined

palate of a cardinal.

The pasta was taglierini, thinner and longer than tagliatelle, sparsely flavoured with garlic and porcini mushrooms. Again, Bruno was surprised: the season for funghi was many months off.

But these were undoubtedly fresh. He commented on this to the

family whose table he was sharing, and they nodded.

‘It’s all a matter of knowing wrhere to look,’ the man told him.