Category Archives: Culture

Unpasteurized Milk Bliss

07 Thursday Jun 2012

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Some simple things that other countries do seem so obviously intelligent, you have to wonder why your own country can’t manage it. The distribution of milk – delicious, same-day, unpasteurized, farm-fresh milk – in many parts of Italy is one such example. The very fact that citizens are allowed (gasp!) to drink unpasteurized milk is itself a triumph of intelligence. In Canada, despite the fact that today’s bovine hygienic standards take the risk out of the stuff, pure milk is still seen as kryptonite to our species.

So imagine my delight on seeing two machines that give me what I want, at any hour of the day or night. Milk bliss.

A little rain-proof kiosk with bottles to the right and the Marvelous Machine. The pink warning says you’re not supposed to drink it until after you’ve boiled it – a health precaution that also (according to comments on this blog) keeps the milk for longer.

Marvelous Machine in action. We saw this on a Sapore e Sapere tour.

The first, in Tuscany, allows you to bring your own bottle, or purchase one at the vending station, and purchase however much fresh milk you want from a spigot. Good Lord. Not only is it pure, but if you only want enough for your coffee that morning, that’s OK. The farmers fill it up each morning and evening. If it runs out, there’s a number to call – it’s the farmer, who will drive down and refill it if he has any left.

In Varese, you can buy the unpasteurized local milk at the grocery store. I don’t drink any other kind when I’m there and I’m still not suffering from kryptonite poisoning, imagine that! On my last visit I discovered the milk vending machine, in front of the organic meat butcher in Varese Ligure. It’s not quite as exciting as the Tuscan spigot because you have to buy a whole 1/2 litre bottle, but it’s still pretty cool. Store closed? No problem. Pop in your coins and out pops a bottle of fresh, pure milk, just like a can of Coke, except so much more worth drinking.

Varese Ligure’s midnight milk vendor. You can buy the pasteurized version here too (as well as the ‘crudo’), but why would you? We were like little kids with a bubble gum machine using this thing. Ridiculously delighted.

Heavens, how did this pic get into the milk post? Another form of bliss: the locally brewed grappa, nicely packaged for export. That’s another thing we’d never be able to do in Canada.

Crazy Cantamaggio

14 Monday May 2012

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I’m happy to report that some things turn out to be every bit as good as we hope. I’ve waited years to be in Scurtabo for the first of May to celebrate Cantamaggio, a tradition that dates back, according to my sources, ‘since forever’.

Finding it was a challenge. The conversation went something like this:

I’d like to go to the Cantamaggio celebrations. Do you know if they’ll be on today?

Yes, certainly they will be.

Do you know when?

They started this morning.

How long will they sing?

All day. But not right now. (it was close to noon)

Later, then?

Yes.

Do you know where?

(gesture) All around.

Will they be at Scurtabo this afternoon?

Yes.

So if I go up there now and wait, they’ll show up?

Yes. But why would you go up now? They won’t be there.

One of the singers.

It was about then the penny dropped and I realized the event was like Mummering – you can’t possibly predict when or where, you can only put yourself in their general path and keep asking and waiting. The whole valley celebrates, with several bands of roving troubadours moving from house to house – and bar to bar – throughout the day to sing traditional songs, play the accordion and spoons, dance with whoever is willing, and generally have a rollicking time of it.

A super fancy tour bus for the band – yes, they pile in the back.

They did indeed arrive at the bar in Scurtabo, much later in the afternoon. It was pouring rain so everyone was packed inside. A large, covered truck drove up and out piled a dozen men in varying states of wobbliness. They’d already been going since 9:00 in the morning, drinking and singing, so they were in fine form.Spumanti was passed around, the accordionist started up, and the classic first of May song was belted out by the whole crowd. There’s a part about a donkey where everyone is supposed to jump up and down; my friend Marcia and I were instructed in this crucial bit and hauled into the throng to hop along. That was just the beginning.

One of the ‘band’ members played the spoons – really well. He solemnly swore to me that his instruments had been given to him by the Conservatory in Piacenza…

It’s not Italian without an accordion.

Willing, if not quite able, to try a whirl on the dance floor.

Somehow space was made for dancing, we were crazy enough to say yes to various wild-eyed singers looking for a partner, and they were uncaring enough not to be fazed by our total ignorance of the dance steps. We proved beyond a doubt that while Canadians may be good sports, they’re no match for Italians –even tipsy ones – on the dance floor.

So much fun. I’ve left out the more embarrassing photos, and the ones I have are poor due to the light, but I think you can get the idea!

Italian Festive Bread

08 Sunday Apr 2012

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Colomba, shaped like a dove for Easter (hence the name)

It’s Easter so I’m dreaming of colomba, one of many delicious cake-like breads the Italians make for particular occasions. The colomba is actually one of my favourites, followed closely by veneziana. But then again, panettone is also pretty fabulous when you dunk it in a mixture of marscapone and zabaione. And my daughter Rachel is a devotee of pandoro, because it doesn’t have any little bits of dried fruit marring its perfect, golden breadness.

Technically speaking, panettone is only for Christmas, otherwise non si fa.

You see? There are just so many of them, it would be hard to choose. But the clever Italians have figured out how to make it so you don’t have to. I first learned of their fiendish (but intelligent) bread-addiction management scheme the first year we lived in Milan. Just before Christmas the local bakery started selling individual-sized pandori that were filled with either chocolate of vanilla crema. You heated them in the oven to bring out their full flavour. They are one of the most divine desserts on the planet. And just as we’d concluded we couldn’t go more than a week without one… poof – they were gone. When I asked the bakery when they’d be making more, imagine my horror (coming from the land where everything is available 365 days a year) when I was told ‘next Christmas’.

Pandoro, free of any adulterating dried fruits

Veneziana, my personal favourite, with orange rind and almonds.

And so we lurched from festival to festival throughout the year, falling in love with one kind of cake-bread and then, just when we were completely hooked, having the bakeries stop selling them because the season was over. Thank God there’s always another festival – and with it another bread – to look forward to. And I have to say, it does make you appreciate it more when you can only have it once a year.

Spaghetti Westerns

05 Sunday Feb 2012

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Ready to try and outsmart the steers

Ready to outsmart the steers at Sesta Godano

One of the craziest summer entertainments in our area is the rodeo that’s held in Sesta Godano. Rodeos are surprisingly popular in Italy; there’s also one just south of Milan which is a theatrical, year-round fabrication of the American Wild West. A little like Disney creating reproductions of European castles in Florida, only not quite as expertly done. The ‘Indian’ who rides around a crazed gallop while scooping scalps off the ground, for example, is easily identified as an Italian with a wig who has fallen into a bottle of self-tanner. But that doesn’t stop the audience from screaming with delight at his performance.

The mural makes it all so much more convincing

The Sesta Godano show is more impressive. American-style cowboys come from all over Italy to compete. While it can’t hold a candle to the level of expertise shown at, say, the Calgary Stampede, it at least boasts competitive roping teams, barrel racers and other serious practitioners of Western riding.

What I always marvel at is how this particular group of Italians are so enamoured of our North American heritage, when we’re so enamoured of theirs. Italians have their own cowboys, the butteri of Maremma in Tuscany, and they are no slouches when it comes to handling horses or cattle. But just as the spaghetti western filmakers found something highly compelling about the Wild West, the romance for that culture across the pond endures.

A Maremma buttero. Photo by Giulio Cerocchi; for more of these go to http://www.giuliocerocchi.net/new/category/butteri-di-maremma-in-movimento/