Southern Italian pasta sauce
I was in the Aeolian islands, the rugged volcanic archipelago north of Sicily, when I met a couple of friendly Southern Italian guys on the aliscafo, the boat that goes from island to island. Fabio is a blond jazz musician in a Panama hat, and Pasquale is a chubby, olive-complexioned, true gesturing-with-his hands Italian. They introduced themselves, piacere, a pleasure, shook hands, and Pasquale insisted right away that since my name, Laura, is an Italian name, and I'm hardly Italian, he would call me Molly instead.
When we disembarked at Stromboli--an island famous for its ever-erupting volcano--it was lunch time, and since there is nothing to in Italy at lunch time but eat lunch, I decided to eat with these guys.
Pasquale said he'd already figured out which is the best restaurant in town; the pizzeria Da Luciano just up the street from the port. Pasquale and Fabio greeted the crusty owner effusively, and asked him where he's from. Luciano said Napoli, and Pasquale practically embraced him. "We're Southern Italians, from Puglia," said Fabio. "We'll feel right at home." They made their way to a table on the terrace as if they owned the place. I was glad to be sitting with them, and not with the long table of Germans next to us. I figured I'd have a better meal.
Pasquale opened his menu with relish. He ordered the works: salad, pasta, swordfish. He asked if anyone was having wine, and I said maybe, but just a drop, since I had to climb the volcano. Fabio frowns. "Today? Why do you have to climb the volcano today?" I explained that I had to leave the next day, and absolutely had to climb the volcano.
"Molly," said Pasquale. "Don't act so German. You need to relax for a day or two before you can even think about climbing a volcano." I spread my arms in a helpless gesture, and ordered a salad, and then a plate of the pasta Stromboliana, home-made tagliatelle with roasted eggplant, capers, and fresh ricotta.
When the waitress arrives with steaming plates of creamy, fragrant pasta, I inhaled the earthy smell of the eggplant, ricotta, and capers. "This looks delicious," I said, and poured everyone another glass of wine.
"Of course," said Pasquale, already into his third or fourth bite. "Especially compared with what you eat in America."
I told him that it's true, you can't just walk into any old restaurant in the United States and get a good meal the way you can in Italy, but you can still eat pretty well if you know where to look. It's more of an art in the United States. Believe me, I told them, San Francisco has the best food in the United States. In New York, they've turned food into architecture, trying to make it as tall as possible, dribbling colorful sauces all over the plates, but they think nothing of the taste. In San Francisco, though, we have good produce, the best ingredients, and we have Italians, Vietnamese, Cambodians, Salvadorans, nouvelle cuisine -- it never ends. If you come visit sometime, I told them, you'll see.
"No," said Pasquale, lifting his head up from his plate. "The food in America is terrible." He sliced a flat line in the air with his hand, discouraging any argument. "This I know for a fact."
I said there are probably almost as many Italians in the United States as there are in Italy, so how bad could it really be?
Fabio stared into my eyes with his sleepy blues ones. He said one word, slowly. "Mc-Don-ald's."
Pasquale considered that, and waved his fork at Fabio. "The French fries," he said, making a generous, accommodating gesture towards me, "aren't so bad." He mopped up his remaining pasta sauce with a corner of crusty bread. "The one thing I'd really like to eat in America," he said, getting a dreamy look on his face, "is a hot dog from New York City, with everything on it." He was clearly willing to spend 16 hours on a plane, one of these days, just for that hot dog. His gaze came back into focus. "But pasta?" he said. "Beh! You don't have any pasta."
Most Americans I know eat pasta, I told him, about four times a week. Everyone eats pasta all the time. Pasta is the only thing your average American male knows how to prepare on his own. It used to be pancakes and scrambled eggs and maybe grilled burgers, but these days guys mainly make pasta. I didn't go into the details of what they put on the pasta, though.
Pasquale was not fooled. Maybe Americans eat pasta, he said, but they don't eat it with real sauce. "You eat pasta with ketchup on it." He leaned back, gleeful at having coming up with the perfect characterization of what Americans eat. He nudged Fabio. "Right?" Fabio nodded slowly. "Could be."
Pasquale launched into a long tale about going to eat someplace in Northern Italy after skiing one day, when they were to-die-for hungry, and when the English hostess finally brought a big dish of pasta to the table, it had absolutely no sauce on it at all. "Completely naked!" said Fabio, who likes telling a good story. When he asked the English signora where the sauce was, she got up and brought back a bottle of ketchup. "Ketchup!" Pasquale was now nearly roaring. "Can you imagine?" He calmed down a little. "How hard can it be," he gestured around the table, "just to bring in a little butter, maybe parmigiano, some salt and pepper? How hard can that be?"
"It's good that way, with just a little parmigiano and butter," Fabio agreed.
Pasquale shakes his head vigorously. "In punto," he said.
The woman he had dinner with, I told him, was English, not American. For the sake of argument, I will go along with the fact that the English have atrocious eating habits. In America, I conceded, okay, sometimes people will take pasta sauce from a can, but they will never use just ketchup. "Probably never," I said. "Maybe some people. It is a big country. But truly, truly, that is exaggerated."
"Laura," said Fabio. "How do you make a tomato sauce?"
Pasquale was delighted: A test!
I paused to consider. All of a sudden I had absolutely no idea how to make tomato sauce. There are so many possibilities, but only one was right. I bought time. "For pasta, or for a pizza?" I asked.
Pasquale raised his thick eyebrows. "You don't make pizza at home," he said.
Sometimes I do, I said. It's hard to get the crust as thin and crispy as I like it in most restaurants. There's really only one restaurant in San Francisco, a tiny Florentine place called Pazzia, that makes pizza absolutely right. Maybe two, and a couple of other places with wood-burning ovens, but it really isn't good everywhere, too thick and cheesy, and they put way too much stuff on top. They'll even put broccoli on there, if you can imagine that. So I make pizza at home once in awhile, putting a big flat stone in my oven that absorbs moisture from the pizza dough to make it crustier. I like simple pizzas, maybe mozzarella with fresh oregano, maybe a tomato sauce with some anchovies and capers, or just tomato and basil, really that's perfect.
Fabio was impressed. Pasquale was unmoved.
"The sauce, Tia Molly," he said, returning to the interrogation.
Okay, I said, basic tomato sauce. "You start with some fresh tomatoesÉ"
"Fresh tomatoes?" said Fabio.
I nodded and continued: If you aren't making a raw, pomodori crudi sauce, which is best when the tomatoes are good, especially if it's a warm day; if you aren't, then you drop the tomatoes in boiling water for a couple of minutes. After you spoon them out of the water, you can either run them under cold water, peel them, squeeze the seeds out with your fingers, and chop them--I went through the motions with my hands--or you can push them through a . . .
I was grasping for the right word in Italian. "You put them in that metal thing that goes in a circle that makes the skin and seeds come off." Fabio nodded and told me the word for food mill, which I forgot. I paused for a sip of wine and then continued. "Meanwhile, you make a soffritto--chopped onion sauted in olive oil--and maybe add a few red pepper flakes to give it a little bite. You can add a splash of red wine, too, but it's not necessary. It depends. Maybe if you were adding meat, you'd add some wine. Then you add the tomato mixture to the soffritto, stir it around, cook it until it reduces a bit, add salt and pepper, and chop up some fresh basil to throw in at the end."
"Bravo!" said Fabio, with a little clap.
Pasquale looked up from his swordfish, chewed vigorously, and swallowed. He took a drink of wine and wiped his mouth with his sleeve. "You forgot the sugar," he said, punctuating the air with his finger, proving he was right all along about the ketchup. "You need a pinch of sugar for the tomatoes!" He leaned back and adopted an avuncular, confidential air. "Tomatoes, Molly," he said, "are slightly acidic."
"Zampa," said Fabio, putting his fork down. Zampa is Fabio's nickname for Pasquale, a shortened version of his last name, which means "paw"--the part an Italian dog gestures with to show he is loyal and trustworthy. "Zampa," he said, completely calm, "you can add the sugar or not, depending on the tomatoes. Some tomatoes don't need sugar."
Pasquale dropped a meaty hand on the table. "No, you have to have the sugar. A little bit, but it is absolutely essential." He gestured to the owner across the room to come over and join us. Luciano sat down heavily at the table, taking a break. Pasquale praised the food and the view and the island in general and finally got around to asking him if his wife adds a pinch of sugar to the tomato sauce. The owner gave him the what-the-hell-are-you-talking about gesture, fingers pinched together in front of his chest, then considered it. "Sometimes," he said, "depending on the tomatoes."
Fabio was elated. He ordered espresso and I thought, well, maybe I'll wait until tomorrow to climb that volcano after all.
