Italy Diary

Slow it down

In a globalised world where the food we eat and the coffee we drink have a sameness about them, it’s a relief to see the almost complete absence of Burger Kings and coffee chains in Italy. In Rome, at least, there is not a single Starbucks and the locals prefer to get their espresso shots standing on the streets, immune to the centuries-old beauty of their monuments (but not the good-looking women, or men, for that matter, who stroll by). There is a cover charge of three euros and more for a table in restaurants, and most prefer taking their coffee, espresso, and cappuccino outside during these summer months.

The Italians, more than anywhere else in the world, consume homegrown produce and, not surprisingly, restaurants from Rome to Florence take pride in offering mostly Italian wine, cheese and food. The Slow Food Movement that aims to promote local food, gastronomic pleasure and a slow pace of life, after all, was started in a northern Italian town, Bra (in 1986) by the Italian food activist Carlo Petrini. The movement has now grown huge and has expanded to thinking about ethical ways of production and consumption of food and even survival of the planet. More well known is the Terra Madre event, held every two years in Turin by Slow Food, where fruit-growers and cheese-makers and fisherfolk come together to talk of their common problems and of the biodiversity of foods that need to be maintained. Naturally, it was not surprising to spot one of Vandana Shiva’s books in an Italian translation in the store window of a bookstore in Rome.

For Good Days

Talking of Slow Food, we have to say this is a country that is in no hurry. Having achieved the kind of greatness 90 per cent of countries still bleed for, Rome even now moves like a slow-motion film of the 1950s. Eating, especially, is an extended celebration. If you are in a restaurant you can kiss an impending visit to the Sistine Chapel goodbye because the waitress appears after a good 15 minutes to take your order, and it takes another half hour for the food to come. A typical Italian meal has several courses, along with wine that by no means can be gulped quickly. If this was the pace in the capital city, we were not surprised that in small, quaint towns in Tuscany and Sienna (whose populations incidentally can be as small as 90 people) shops and restaurants are closed for siesta between 12-4 pm. This, incidentally, in summer when tourism is at its peak.

Italy has other concerns of course. Mostly unemployment among the young, which is as high as 40 per cent. Our host, who owned a 14th century home in Tuscany, confided that his son was training to be an architect and was hoping to go abroad where opportunities would be better. Almost 40,000 graduates have left the country in the past decade; but there is now a campaign afoot, lo vogliore stare (I want to stay), launched by young professionals who refuse to accept that the only way forward is to go abroad for jobs. With a young government led by the 40-year-old Matteo Renzi, post-Berlusconi there is hope now that achhe din will return to Italy!

Gimme red

One of the best Italian wines, now highly prized in the international markets with Americans paying a few thousand dollars for good vintage years, is from the medieval town of Montalcino in Tuscany. This is the devilishly red wine called Brunello di Montalcino, and wine-growers of the region talk of ‘Brunello of 2010’ with the same affectionate pride as we would a child who has done well at the board exams. Madellina, who runs a family-owned vineyard, says, blowing kisses all around her, “The gods were kind to us in 2010. The weather, the grape, the air, everything was blessed. My 97-year-old grandfather may have seen a year like that but I never did in all my life.” This wine, that has to be aged for five years before it’s released, is made from the best sangiovesegrosso grapes. Today, there are nearly 200 wine producers producing 3,30,000 cases of Brunello di Montalcino annually.

The Italian genius for design is well-known. Who can match the Olivetti typewriter or a pair of Ferragamo shoes for their elegance? But it’s not fashion, architecture or furniture where their design genius shines as much as in their national dish: pasta. When you think of this flour-and-egg mix and the number of shapes of it the Italians have come up with—cones, spirals, leaves, shells, flowers, bows, stars to strings, you can only marvel at the Italian mind. Where in other parts of the world we cannot think of carbs beyond mashing and pulping them, the Italians have turned it into an art form. The penne, the farfalle, the lingu­ine, the tortilliani: need we say more of their inventiveness?

Last Week...

I saw the true genius of Leonardo da Vinci. Not only is Rome airport named after him, there are umpteen streets and hotels called Vinci, and brands of coffee and chips too.

Hyderabad-based Ratna Rao Shekar is the editor of the city magazine, Wow! Hyderabad; E-mail your diarist: ratna.shekar [AT] gmail [DOT] com