Touching my lips to a glass of Valpolicella, in a kiss to Marco Polo is my way of thanking him for the greatest gift from his journey to the Orient – not silks, not spices, not the call of mysterious birds in their cages, but the magic of durum wheat, the secret of the seduction of pasta. That secret has been guarded like chastity by its makers. Not so the ways of cooking and serving, known to every son’s mother in Italy; but nowhere as in Bologna. The brittle, blonde sticks in my hand, I feel the steam rise from the saucepan, condensing on my bracelet, my ring, my fingernails and – little by oh so little – the hardness yields, bends before the simmering, slightly-salted water, refracts, then shmoozes lazily into snake-coils beneath the rising bubbles. There it lies, to be stirred once in a while, in speculation, a sleeping dragon of a dish, swaying like kelp in a rock-pool.
I tear my eyes from the miracle, to the hiss of the skillet where the most tender, reddest, most finely-minced beef is sizzling to a light grey-brown. Brave hearts add a little olive oil to the pan, or a pinch of garlic salt. For me – and this is about me – I favour the juices that come naturally from something as being the best under the discipline of heat. Impatience makes me reach for another pan, banging it down in haste upon the hob; I wrench the top from a jar, throwing my hopes of a gastronome’s golden sash to the wind, and opting for the rush of herbs and spices on the air. Overturned into the pan, it rushes like the impatient sea, but deep crimson with pomodori, their flesh still full and rich in the purée, laughing and chuckling as it settles. With equal impatience I rattle the browned mince from the skillet into the pan, wielding my wooden spoon like a mistress, chastening each laggard morsel that would stick where it’s not wanted. Waste not! Waste not! And how the heat makes the whole bubble like the lava of Stromboli!
Some folk throw their pasta at the wall to see if it is cooked. What assault! What battery! I can tell, by the resistance to my wooden fork, that the spaghetti has finally succumbed to the cooking. Drained, it will slip onto the warmed plate with eager acquiescence, and lie with docility, until I spoon the hot sauce and mince onto it; then it will sigh, settle beneath the piquant onslaught, absorb, and be absorbed.
To carry the plate to the table… the urge to hurry is almost overwhelming. I am on the cusp of dropping the plate and shattering it, my meal, and my dreams, so exciting is the rush of spice on the air, in the steam. It joins the scent of fruit drifting up from my wineglass, and the warm, dark wood-smell of the table. I am trembling as I sit down, slipping my silk shirt off my shoulders and tucking a rough, linen napkin into the neckline of my t-shirt. A pinch of parmesan, a grind of almost-too-much black pepper, a rushed grace – grazie babbo, grazie Dio mio – and I may at last attack with spoon and fork, twirling the blond strands of spaghetti into an unruly eddy, and bringing it to my wine-sullied mouth. Oh too hot, but oh yes… oh yes… oh God I should have been born in Bologna… yes!
Gold trophy winner
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So good!
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