Rant
I am well aware that I haven't posted anything in a long time, and I actually have a list going of things that I should write about when I get a chance, but unfortunately we're skipping your normal programming for a rant which will hopefully get this out of my system enough to be polite at dinner.
I am working, unofficially, at an agriturismo. I'm using the Italian word because I don't like the English equivalents. They're awkward. The idea is that you take an agricultural enterprise of some kind, and add hospitality of some kind. Horses, dairy, goat cheese, tomato plants, forestry. Food service, rooms, apartments. The hospitality is definitely supposed to be subordinate to the agriculture, to the extent that there are laws about how many nights you're allowed to have people and how many meals you're allowed to serve, based on an admittedly rather bizarre calculation of the amount of agricultural work going on. You're also supposed, if you serve food, to serve food which is at least 51% deriving from your agricultural activity. That part's a little vague: 51% by weight? volume? price? 'Deriving' can include trading, say, lumber for cheese, or tomato products for jam. But the idea is there, and it's pretty clear.
Now, when Alberto and I are up here on our own (he is working here officially), we try as hard as we can. There's a small garden that we keep (tomatos, though not yet, zucchini, tons of salad, radishes, many many greens, basil, parsley). We even make tons of dishes out of wild spinach and nettles which we pick from the field in front of the house and a field higher up the mountain. We make omlettes, risotto, pasta with wild spinach and pecorino, and just about anything else we can think of). I bake cakes. We make marmelade from the fruit from the trees near the house, and serve it with breakfast. For the things we need to buy, we try to buy from at least local small shops, and we buy in season.
When the owner is here, it's a bit different. We cook a lot more meat, hardly any vegetables from the garden, omelettes but nothing else with wild greens, fruit and vegetables bought in and out of season from huge warehouses near his house three hours north of here. And we use stock. Lots of it.
Tonight, four people are coming for dinner and to stay the night. Amazingly, some of our own zucchini has been grilled for part of the second course, but for the first, Alberto and I have suggested: risotto with nettles (we've made it and it was really good), risotto with zucchini from the garden, pasta with homemade pesto (we'd go out and make it right now). What are we having? The owner's specialty risotto: risotto with stock and frozen vegetables. The kind you buy in a big bag to make soup with. Well, rather, the kind some people buy in a big bag to make soup with. Alberto and I tend to make soup with... well... greens and zucchini from the garden, barley, parmesan cheese rinds (try it sometime- it's like stock but not), pancetta (kind of like bacon), potatoes (bought, but what can you do).
He parks his car next to the house instead of in the car park area on the other side. He puts stock in everything, including homemade chicken soup, because otherwise 'it doesn't taste like shit'. He doesn't want to keep animals, and the horses that are here aren't ridable, and are kept in a field far from the house, because otherwise, he's convinced that the house would get full of flies. There is no agricultural activity to speak of. He has told guests straight out that he 'does this for a hobby' and, in response to the question of whether the place is open in the winter and whether it snows, has said, again to guests, that he 'prefers it in winter when there aren't people here'. Occasionally, when the three of us are sitting around in the late afternoon, and we hear a car, he has said to us that he hopes it's not someone coming up to eat or stay. Given that Alberto is earning half of income from food and hospitality, and NOTHING ELSE, that's insulting, offensive and so thoughtless that I am struck speechless.
I'm trying really hard to breathe properly. Tonight's guests are arriving from Rome, in a few minutes probably. To eat risotto made from stock and frozen vegetables, with a guy who insults both them and us with his attitude towards both the food and the guests.
Oh, forgot to mention. This is the region where they make Parmiggiano-Reggiano, right? Parma. Famous cheese (aka parmesan, but the Real stuff). In the US, I've seen is at $20/lb easily. Here in Parma, in the valley near Alberto's house, it's €9/kg. We keep several chunks of 1kg each in the fridge, and grate it fresh for meals, and offer it with other cheeses to eat as an appetizer or after the meal. It's really fucking good. The owner's sister, last time she came, with him, to 'help' with a lunch where 10 people were coming, she brought several packages of pre-grated 'Grana' (Grana is the northern parmiggiano equivalent, but isn't as good because of the rules about what the milk cows are allowed to eat; the stuff you buy already grated in bags isn't even that: it's a variety of grated hard cheeses all mixed together). It's still in the fridge because Alberto and I both seem to be allergic to it.
I'm spitting mad.
I am working, unofficially, at an agriturismo. I'm using the Italian word because I don't like the English equivalents. They're awkward. The idea is that you take an agricultural enterprise of some kind, and add hospitality of some kind. Horses, dairy, goat cheese, tomato plants, forestry. Food service, rooms, apartments. The hospitality is definitely supposed to be subordinate to the agriculture, to the extent that there are laws about how many nights you're allowed to have people and how many meals you're allowed to serve, based on an admittedly rather bizarre calculation of the amount of agricultural work going on. You're also supposed, if you serve food, to serve food which is at least 51% deriving from your agricultural activity. That part's a little vague: 51% by weight? volume? price? 'Deriving' can include trading, say, lumber for cheese, or tomato products for jam. But the idea is there, and it's pretty clear.
Now, when Alberto and I are up here on our own (he is working here officially), we try as hard as we can. There's a small garden that we keep (tomatos, though not yet, zucchini, tons of salad, radishes, many many greens, basil, parsley). We even make tons of dishes out of wild spinach and nettles which we pick from the field in front of the house and a field higher up the mountain. We make omlettes, risotto, pasta with wild spinach and pecorino, and just about anything else we can think of). I bake cakes. We make marmelade from the fruit from the trees near the house, and serve it with breakfast. For the things we need to buy, we try to buy from at least local small shops, and we buy in season.
When the owner is here, it's a bit different. We cook a lot more meat, hardly any vegetables from the garden, omelettes but nothing else with wild greens, fruit and vegetables bought in and out of season from huge warehouses near his house three hours north of here. And we use stock. Lots of it.
Tonight, four people are coming for dinner and to stay the night. Amazingly, some of our own zucchini has been grilled for part of the second course, but for the first, Alberto and I have suggested: risotto with nettles (we've made it and it was really good), risotto with zucchini from the garden, pasta with homemade pesto (we'd go out and make it right now). What are we having? The owner's specialty risotto: risotto with stock and frozen vegetables. The kind you buy in a big bag to make soup with. Well, rather, the kind some people buy in a big bag to make soup with. Alberto and I tend to make soup with... well... greens and zucchini from the garden, barley, parmesan cheese rinds (try it sometime- it's like stock but not), pancetta (kind of like bacon), potatoes (bought, but what can you do).
He parks his car next to the house instead of in the car park area on the other side. He puts stock in everything, including homemade chicken soup, because otherwise 'it doesn't taste like shit'. He doesn't want to keep animals, and the horses that are here aren't ridable, and are kept in a field far from the house, because otherwise, he's convinced that the house would get full of flies. There is no agricultural activity to speak of. He has told guests straight out that he 'does this for a hobby' and, in response to the question of whether the place is open in the winter and whether it snows, has said, again to guests, that he 'prefers it in winter when there aren't people here'. Occasionally, when the three of us are sitting around in the late afternoon, and we hear a car, he has said to us that he hopes it's not someone coming up to eat or stay. Given that Alberto is earning half of income from food and hospitality, and NOTHING ELSE, that's insulting, offensive and so thoughtless that I am struck speechless.
I'm trying really hard to breathe properly. Tonight's guests are arriving from Rome, in a few minutes probably. To eat risotto made from stock and frozen vegetables, with a guy who insults both them and us with his attitude towards both the food and the guests.
Oh, forgot to mention. This is the region where they make Parmiggiano-Reggiano, right? Parma. Famous cheese (aka parmesan, but the Real stuff). In the US, I've seen is at $20/lb easily. Here in Parma, in the valley near Alberto's house, it's €9/kg. We keep several chunks of 1kg each in the fridge, and grate it fresh for meals, and offer it with other cheeses to eat as an appetizer or after the meal. It's really fucking good. The owner's sister, last time she came, with him, to 'help' with a lunch where 10 people were coming, she brought several packages of pre-grated 'Grana' (Grana is the northern parmiggiano equivalent, but isn't as good because of the rules about what the milk cows are allowed to eat; the stuff you buy already grated in bags isn't even that: it's a variety of grated hard cheeses all mixed together). It's still in the fridge because Alberto and I both seem to be allergic to it.
I'm spitting mad.