|
 |
||||||||||
 |
|||||||||||
 |
|||||||||||
|
||||||||
And if you're new in town, it might even appear that Silent Luigi is just some old curmudgeon that shows up each morning to sell the three or four products that he grew or gathered himself, awaiting his customers in a Zen-like silence. But take your time, take step a closer: you might even come to see the man as the market's studied and accomplished conductor, laying out its seasonal tempo in elegant, syncopated rhythms and tenderly- held fermatas. A quick glance at the back of his leathery and weather-cracked neck will tell you that Silent Luigi has been bent over in his fields, all his life. He also talks like just about every farmer you'll ever meet, in that he doesn't. In the last year, I've heard him say only a dozen words or so, and I buy something from him everyday of the week except Sunday. Today I think to ask him how long he's been selling his produce here, and my question catches him off guard. He just stares at me for a good thirty seconds. His hand comes out to his side, stopping waist- high, indicatating a child's height. He fixes his unflinching eyes on me in perfect silence, not unlike Clint Eastwood. It's awkward, the silence, and I suddenly become very aware of the sound of meat cleavers coming to soft, thudded stops in the wooden blocks behind me. Customers' voices. A bubbling and rumbling ape outside. Half a painful minute just passed. 'I was ten', he says, and a childish grin slowly spreads across his face. It's the kind of grin that reveals that he's not just thinking about that part of his life, but actually revisiting it: the energy of a big public market as seen through the wide eyes of a ten- year old boy. We stand here together for a few minutes, neither of us saying a word but both of us thinking about our beloved Lecce, seventy years ago. When he meets my gaze again, his eyes are milky and heavy. 'I used to chase chickens here', he says, the grin widening into a smile. When I first starting working on a series devoted to the vendors that supply my school here in Lecce (for a map of the South of Italy, click through to the site), I intended to write first about Silent Luigi's produce, as they represent the Salento like those from no other vendor I know. The only problem, was that each time I took the pictures, wrote the text and figured out how to work the software, those products were gone for the year, replaced by new ones. As winter's tightly-wound, white-green cabbages ebbed into the myriad of forms of bitter chicory, as fecund mounds of cime di rape silently gave way to red, red radishes and black-green, cat's-tongue- leaves of arugula, as the fading flowers of the departing artichokes made space for the sweet pea pods of spring, there was Luigi, marking time and reminding the modern Leccesi exactly what they should be eating. And when.
It's also curiously, both a very ancient way of staying nourished, and a very modern one, closing the gap between the very poor and the very rich. Close your eyes and think about your local grocery store in England, America, Australia or New Zealand, and chances are the most expensive greens on offer are not that different from Silent Luigi's. But
for as much as I love Silent Luigi's produce, it still used
to present very real problems for us. The thing is though, is that over time, no one, not my mother, my grandmother or any pedigreed cooking teacher has ever had more influence on my cooking. Not long ago, an excited student asked me to tell Silent Luigi about a new, upscale restaurant that had just opened a few hours from her hometown. It had made the national papers, I translated. Everyone was there. It was a big deal, she had me say. 'The thing of it is, is this place only, only offers foods that are local and in season! If it's not from near there or not in season...They won't make it!', she said. I let her words sink in as I searched his face, thinking of the best way to translate the last sentence, already knowing that somethings just can't be translated. I would have had the same luck sharing her excitment that, back home, their boats now traveled in real water, or that they had just voted and decided to keep the sky blue. Today, he completely fills my large bag with his fresh peas, still in the pods, just like he did yesterday. And like yesterday, I plan to spend a good part of the morning, shucking them in the sunny garden while listening to Chet Baker, lost in rowdy and rambling conversation with my assistant, la Lilli. Making an event of shucking Luigi's peas has become something approaching a yearly ritual, as real as the gorgous explosion of my bougainvilleas out the school's stable door, or the pleasent but sudden appearance of Latin-lengthed mini-skirts and teasingly-open- toed shoes. It's the thing that reminds me, that here in the city of Lecce, we're in that gentle space, the loving cusp, the time when the world seems to be waiting for the hand-signal, to ease from late spring to early summer, from eager May to giddy June. A
family passes me on my way out and the 12-year old daugher
yells, Piselli as she bellys up to his humble mound of In Italy you can always tell how your greengrocer feels about you by how much of the 'waste' he or she trims away (always with a serrated butter knife) BEFORE rather than AFTER he or she puts your produce on the scale. When you visit Lecce, be sure to notice Silent Luigi's technique. Recipe:Just about any bitter, bitter green will do, but anything that tastes and looks like dandelion leaves is ideal. Separate the stems, the white from the red and toss the red. Cut into finger-sized pieces. Wash in cold running water. Wash in cold running water. Wash in cold running water (the smaller the greens, the closer to the ground they grow, the closer to the ground they grow, the more likely that they'll contain sand and dirt). Boil the greens much longer than Nouvelle would have you to do. The cooking time varies with species and age of the plant, somewhere between five and fifteen minutes. Remove and shock in ice water. Drain well. Sauté whole garlic cloves in best quality extra virgin olive oil, add a whole, crushed chilli pepper. As the garlic begins to take on colour, add the greens and sauté until warm. Serve hot or at room temperature. Serve them with a purée of fava beans, a clay pitcher of Salice Salentino and challenge your agnosticism. Last
Minute Travel options for the following dates: To keep our
school small, intimate, genuine and hands-on, we limit our
courses to only six participants a week. June 19th- 25th,
two places remaining. July 3rd-9th, two places remaining.
September 11th -17th, two places remaining. And places remaining
for guest instructor, award- winning cookbook author and
authority on the cooking of the Mediterranean, Clifford Wright,
September 25th-October 1st, AND October 2nd- October 8th. Do
you have friends that are interested in good food and where
it comes from? What about those that would like to take a
holiday this year but have yet to book? www.awaitingtable.com Located
in an 18th century aristocratic palace in the historic center
of the South of Italy's prettiest city, The Awaiting Table
offers Day, Weekend and Week-long courses, based on small
classes of hands-on cooking and individual attention. If
you'd like to see a different part of Italy, and see it in
a different way, now you have an alternative. |
||||||||
The Awaiting Table Italian Cooking School offers
cookery courses in Lecce,
Italy. In our Italian
cooking classes, learn
regional pasta, wine, and savory and succulent
dishes. Come be a local:
holidays include visits to vineyards and wineries, markets and olive groves
in season. The perfect vacation for people who want to be immersed in Italian
culture and food.
Learn about
our cooking school programs, our
founder,
the locals you’ll meet and our
accommodations.© 2012
The Awaiting Table - All Rights Reserved
|
||||||||
June
2005
Because
if Puglia had a culinary backbone it'd certainly be boiled
bitter greens. To the uninitiated, they're remarkably unsexy
and uninviting in their natural state, like someone sickled
an abandoned field and was now offering up the bitter clippings,
rather than bagging them up for the trash heap. Luigi's will
always have a few small snails still stuck to them, the morning
dew beading on the leaves. They'll need to be trimmed and
then washed and washed and washed and then boiled. The results,
though, are Italy's Soul Food, something so profoundly satisfying
that it's been repeated ever since the invention of pottery.
And like 'poor' food everywhere, it's edible alchemy, producing
the exquisite and cherished where other cultures would see
only sad and barren fields. 
vegetables.
Silent Luigi slowly stands and begins to fill yet another
bag, and just as I spin to walk out, I'm pretty sure I see
the conductor smile.