Tomato Rhapsody

by Adam Schell

  Like a good bit of village folklore, what had begun as a lark had grown into a tradition, and as Mari’s donkey-drawn wagon rolled into the piazza this morning, just as they had for the last ten years, the vendors lifted their voices to sing. It began in the same fashion, with the Cheese Maker, who was still the first vendor in the line of stalls and who had matured and fattened into a full-throated tenor. The heroic implications of singing to a heartbroken little girl were no longer pertinent, but the vendors and villagers had come to relish the tradition. It was a constant, something they did every Monday morning, and since the arrival of the Good Padre, consistency was something the villagers desperately clung to. For change was at hand, more change than most of the villagers could handle. Word from last evening’s mass had spread quickly amongst the assembled villagers that their most unusual padre had invited the Ebrei to market. So the villagers sang with more than normal vigor, sang to bind them with their past and distract the mind from the disturbing notion that Il Serpente and his Pomo di Amore might soon enter their lives.

  “Oiiiii, Mari!”

  Mari looked up and smiled at the Cheese Maker as she always did. She hadn’t been to church last night and therefore chalked up the day’s voluminous singing to the fine weather. Mari was no longer so set against the Church as she had been for many of her teenage years, though she dared not share that sentiment with anyone. The awful manner in which the old padre had died restored some of her faith in God, and the Good Padre, well, he was just so baffling and sweet a man that Mari could not help but adore him. So much so that she’d even begun to take weekly confession, fabricating sins and exaggerating peccadilloes just for the pleasure of being in his company. He was also an ardent consumer of Mari’s olives and olive oil and was usually among her first customers at the Monday morning market. Thus, she’d had every intention of being at church last night; indeed, she made a point of escorting her mother to Sunday evening services. It was just that last night, as she was prone to do, Mari let her olives get the best of her. There was prepping for the market to be done and the all-important mixing and marinating and spice-blending for the nine varieties of olives her stand sold—a task she entrusted to no one but herself. When she finally stepped out from the mill, it was well past dark, the service was over and she was certain her stepfather would be griping for his supper.

  Hence, with no knowledge of the Good Padre’s shocking announcement, Mari simply did this morning what she always did: conduct her donkey-drawn wagon along the row of stalls and gently take up the song herself. She knew full well that she was merely part of a ritual, not the point of it, but on the inside, the song still struck Mari as profoundly as when she was a little girl. As a child, Mari’s father would often personally sing “Oi Mari” to her. After the spring solstice, when the evenings grew longer and lighter and the olive trees began to bud their new fruit, Mari and her mother would arrive at the orchard to fetch her father for supper. Then Mari would take her father’s hand and follow him about the orchard and mill while he finished his tasks. Her father’s hands were as large and powerful as his work was toilsome, but his constant proximity to olive oil lent them a suppleness that little Mari found delicious. He would hug her tightly as he sang the song of her namesake and, as the lyrics emerged from his sturdy chest, the vibrations would pass directly into her body, stirring her heart and tingling her belly.

  It had been nearly ten years since her father’s death and though with each passing day the remembrance of his hands’ buttery touch and tickle of his beard grew fainter, the vibrations never left her. And as she entered into market on Monday mornings like this one, her namesake song bouncing off cobblestones and buildings, Mari would flush with memories of her father, and for a moment it was as if he’d never left her.

  In Which We Learn

  the Meaning of

  Cucinare con Collera

  Painstakingly, Luigi Campoverde, chef for the Meducci, worked the fine, soft bristles of his mushroom brush over every pore and crevice of the enormous truffle he’d acquired earlier in the day. While brushing a truffle clean was not an especially difficult task, Luigi had already been working for hours, and the pressure of knowing that one grain of grit or dirt in the lady duke’s meal and he could very well be out of a job certainly exacerbated his mood. The lady duke very much loved to hate that which gave her husband any joy, and, after this morning’s embarrassment, Luigi was preparing himself for the worst.

  She’d already changed his menu once, “requesting” that he switch the truffle preparation from risotto to ancini di pepe—ancini being an excruciatingly difficult-to-make handmade pasta, whereby tiny pinches of fresh dough are rolled between the thumb and forefinger to the exact size and roundness of a small pearl. And to think, each of the three bowls he would have to fill for supper this evening required at least one hundred and fifty of the tiny, hand-rolled ancini di pepe. Worse still, the lady duke would have hardly a spoonful: though she squawked like a gull over preparations, she ate like a hummingbird. True, cooking for the duke and young Gian was not without pleasure and reward, but the lady duke evoked in Luigi a very old and cultivated rancor. And before he knew it, the cramping in his fingers and ache of his legs brought the indignation that he constantly struggled to keep at a mere simmer to a furious boil.

  The irony was, it didn’t have to be this way. Luigi could very well have become an honorable man had certain events not irreparably altered his path. He was a quiet and sensitive country boy who’d been orphaned at age six when an ungodly plague swept through his village and the outlying farms. Somehow, young Luigi’s constitution had withstood the scourge, but his parents and two older sisters were not so fortunate. Following a lonely and frightening seven-week period in which Luigi subsisted on the remnants of food to be found on his family’s small farm, he was discovered by a pair of traveling monks on their way to Florence. After unsuccessfully inquiring if the boy had any close-by relatives, the monks took young Luigi to a Franciscan monastery in Florence. There, for the next twelve years, he was trained in the kitchen arts by an angry and aging Sicilian brother, who along with being extraordinarily tightfisted and somewhat unscrupulous, instilled in his young apprentice a tenet that was unspoken, but most prevalent amongst chefs throughout the world, namely Cucinare con Collera: to cook with anger.

  The idea of Cucinare con Collera is as simple to understand as two piles of fava beans. First, imagine you need to shell, blanch and peel just twenty or so pods of the broad beans for a group of ten people you care about and love to feed. Then, while you set about the slightly tedious task of shelling, blanching and peeling the beans, you busy the mind with the pleasant thought of how you’re going to mash the fava beans with cream, butter, salt, white pepper and roasted garlic. You imagine how the finished puree will appear like light green angels of deliciousness upon the plate, how the Romano-style hint of roasted garlic will thrill the taste buds of the ones you love and complement the meat you have decided to serve along with it. As you finish peeling the last broad bean you imagine humbly receiving your loved ones’ accolades as they say things like, “Only you, Luigi, could make the lowly fava bean taste as if it sprang from the Cornucopia of Bacchus.”

  Now imagine the number of beans you need to peel is no longer twenty to feed the ten people you love, but two thousand to feed five hundred monastic persons you have never met. The muscles running from your neck through your shoulders to your arms and into your hands will begin to burn with the fire of five hours of repetitive motion. Your fingers, stained a sickly green, will feel as if they’re likely to fall off. You’ll attempt to do the shelling with a small knife to relieve the ache, only to have the head chef chastise you, denouncing your work as slow and sloppy and performed with the dexterity of a hoofed animal. Your feet, knees and legs will throb and cramp from standing in the same position for hours. You will recall the swollen ankles, gnarled knees and varicose veins of an old cook you once worked with and wonder if one day your legs will also look a
s ravaged. Out of boredom you will begin to snack on any food item that crosses your path until you are disgustingly bloated, and food and flavor have been rendered tasteless and meaningless. You will begin to resent the monks you are preparing to feed, as you know between their vows of silence and severe ideas of humility they will offer you no praise. You will begrudge your low wages and lack of respect, and deem the people for whom you labor as slothful, sanctimonious, overindulged and unworthy of their lofty positions. Your mind will meander through every subject imaginable, but always return to the torturous thought that the pile of fava beans seems to be multiplying. You will begin to hate each and every bean. You will begin to cook with anger.

  This concept of Cucinare con Collera could very well have evolved naturally over the course of young Luigi’s difficult apprenticeship, but in his case, it was most definitely a lesson he tacitly gleaned from his kitchen mentor at the monastery. Luigi’s mentor of ten years had been a rather salty and disagreeable Sicilian chef, forever embittered by the traveling monks who’d tempted him off his small island three decades earlier with tales of Florence’s beautiful seaside location, assurances of good pay and promises that he’d rarely have to cook for more than a handful of monks. Not surprisingly, by the time young Luigi was introduced to his mentor, the man boiled with indignation over having to feed one hundred thirteen monks three times a day, with neither a squid nor shrimp to be found in less than a day’s journey. Nonetheless, Luigi’s mentor was a skilled chef and knew better than to seek revenge upon the food he prepared and risk unemployment. So what the old Sicilian did to offset the rage and iniquity that ate through his daily routine was to steal.

  It was a sophisticated and therapeutic form of thievery that the old chef practiced, closer to bartering, and it had no effect upon the quality of the meals that the kitchen turned out. The only catch was the old chef bartered items that were never his to begin with. As chef for the monastery, he was allocated a budget in gold and silver coins to keep the kitchen supplied, and as long as the meals were good and tasty no one paid any mind as to how the money was spent. In fact, the monks had such regard for the Sicilian brother and his rich and spicy southern cooking that they never even suspected it might be their chef who was behind the random disappearances of artifacts, ancient books and other property that seemed to plague the monastery. But indeed it was, for rather than use the majority of gold and silver coins he was budgeted, the Sicilian brother often chose to pay his suppliers in small, highly valuable gold-laid crucifixes, ancient religious texts, artifacts, even the occasional painting.

  It was this lesson, though never directly taught, that Luigi learned from his mentor as well as any recipe and had taken to practicing in his own professional life. And while it has only a peripheral effect upon our story, it certainly explains how a relatively petty landowner such as Giuseppe could have come into possession of a lovely three-segmented telescope that originally belonged to Cosimo di Pucci de’ Meducci the Third, Grand Duke of Tuscany, in exchange for two absolutely splendid early-season truffles.

  The cool morning air stung Giuseppe’s lungs as he drew a breath and stepped onto the balcony of his stepdaughter’s room. The bedroom’s balcony was situated at such an angle that he could see both the town’s entrance archway and a significant portion of the piazza. The only problem with the balcony was that his stepdaughter’s room was attached to it and he had to wait until the obstinate bitch left the house before he could use it. He would have married her off years ago and taken the room from her entirely but for two reasons: one, the idea of putting his money toward her dowry sickened him; and two, she knew the workings of the farm and mill better than any paid employee and that saved him a great deal of money.

  Though Giuseppe never let Mari know it, she was a near-genius when it came to grapes and olives. She did the work of three men, invented new blends of grapes and techniques for fermenting the wine and new cures and marinades for olives, prepped for the local market, kept the books, managed the orchards, vineyards and mill and didn’t cost Giuseppe a cent, as he didn’t pay her a penny. Not to mention, she wasn’t a bad cook, either. But unlike her mute and maimed mother, she was a truculent little vacca. She had a temper, a quick wit, a sharp tongue, and Giuseppe knew that taking her meager room from her would have been an incredible pain in the ass. But now—now that he owned a telescope—maybe he would take over her room, for its balcony was an excellent vantage point from which to spy.

  Reluctantly, Giuseppe could not help but feel that Benito was on to something when he pulled the enormous truffles from the earth and declared them fit for the Duke of Tuscany. Giuseppe was concerned that traveling halfway to Florence to the Meducci summer villa on the slim hopes of selling the truffles to the royal kitchen would prove to be a great waste of time. Obviously, judging by the exquisite telescope he now held in his hands, he was wrong. Who could have imagined that so much of the royal underbelly would be revealed so quickly? The young Prince of Tuscany, an obnoxious little twit and queer as a three-legged donkey; his father, the duke, a masturbating buffoon; the royal chef, as unscrupulous as a gypsy whore—and a weak negotiator, to boot.

  So excited was Giuseppe with his new toy that on the return journey from the Meducci estate he immediately put the telescope to its first furtive use. Halfway between the Meducci villa and Giuseppe’s village, there was a fork in the road. To the left, a smoother, more direct route to the village; to the right, a longer, meandering, bumpier road, which, before leading back to the village, passed the Ebrei farm. Giuseppe instructed Benito to take a right at the fork. After a half hour’s travel, the Ebrei land was in sight, however, not very clearly. The wagon’s incessant bouncing and the jostling about of Benito’s three truffle-hunting sows in the wagon-bed made it nearly impossible for Giuseppe to get a good, steady look at anything. This frustrated Giuseppe greatly, but as Benito directed the wagon down the ridge line, situated along the northeast high ground above the former Meducci vineyard, the road smoothed for an instant, the sows settled and Giuseppe, to his surprise, caught a glimpse of the Good Padre several hundred paces down the road, riding upon his odd mule, just as he turned onto the Ebrei property.

  Giuseppe shushed Benito and had him stop the wagon behind a tall poplar tree so to better spy on the Good Padre as he made his way up the Ebrei carriageway. Through his enhanced vision, Giuseppe could not help but notice, enviously so, how much the land and barn had been rehabilitated in the year since the Ebrei moved in. What used to be nothing more than a blight-ridden bramble of weeds had been transformed into an exquisite piece of farmland.

  After a few moments a pair of Ebrei emerged from the barn to greet the Good Padre, one young, the other old. It was the perfect moment, thought Giuseppe, with the Ebrei occupied by their visitor, to get a closer look at the strange red fruit they grew.

  “Benito,” Giuseppe said whilst keeping his eye to the telescope. “Eh?”

  “Are you hungry?”

  “Benito is always hungry, but not so hungry as to eat one of those wretched Love Apples.”

  “Have we known each other so long and well that you claim to know my mind?” said Giuseppe.

  “I would sooner claim to know the mind of this here horse than to know of your mind’s course. I only know to follow patterns. When my sows lift their noses and scratch their feet upon the ground, I brace, as a truffle scent’s been found. Too much rain in summer makes the wine watery and weak, and when Giuseppe inquires of Benito, a task he does seek.”

  “And what task would that be?”

  “Here? Now?” said Benito. “Could be only one.”

  “And is Benito daunted by such a task?”

  “Need you even ask? That fruit will set flesh to blister and belly to boil.”

  “Is that what you’ve heard?” asked Giuseppe. “Indeed,” grumbled Benito.

  “Well,” said Giuseppe, making a special point to quash any bumptious ideas Benito may have gotten from the uppity young prince, “I have heard t
hat fouling sheep will break your shins and rot your pecker to a pus-hewn canker, yet you still walk and frolic with whores.” Giuseppe took his eye from the telescope and removed a pair of leather gloves from his rear pocket. “Here,” said Giuseppe as he tossed them before Benito, “now go.”

  At last, the rising sun breached the buildings surrounding the piazza and the vision before Giuseppe’s telescope grew crisp at precisely the instant the singing began. Oh, no, thought Giuseppe, not that stupid ballad. On Monday mornings he made it a point to arise early and flee to the countryside or at least to hide his head beneath several pillows to avoid the turgid tune. For him the song was a facile, pompous, bloated Neapolitan trifle, sung by a chorus of swollen-tongued, tone-deaf mongrels. Worst of all, it was an ugly reminder of a day he’d sooner forget.

  But not even the annoying echo of “Oi Mari” could undo all that pleased Giuseppe this morning. Benito was on time, appearing more or less sober, and he had remembered the all-important satchel. Satisfied, Giuseppe continued to move his vision about the readying piazza. He made a mental note about whom of the thirty or so merchants could be easily riled should the day go accordingly. According to what, Giuseppe was not yet entirely certain. However, should the Ebrei actually be so foolish as to arrive at market with their forbidden fruits, Giuseppe had decided to improvise a little introduction. To this end, he had made certain after last evening’s mass to stop by the tavern and enlist the servile brawn of Benito and the feral, provocative wit of Bobo the Fool. It was a motley duo to rely upon—one churlish, vulgar, slovenly, drunkenly and resoundingly stupid, yet entirely controllable and loyal; the other, churlish, vulgar, slovenly, drunkenly and supremely intelligent, yet entirely uncontrollable and beyond any semblance of loyalty to anything but the promise of a few coins and goblets of wine, and even then one could never be certain with Bobo. But such were the pawns with which Giuseppe had to play.