A NIGHT OUT IN NAPLES
Why do we bother eating in restaurants? To make a change
from consuming the same old wearisome diet night after night, I suppose. At
home, it’s the usual fare, ham, mozzarella, spaghetti, a meat cutlet, that sort
of thing. As for preparing marvellous Neapolitan dishes, which need imagination
and patience, we rarely make the effort. Reflections of this kind by Professor
Broell, who had waited six years for an assignment with the Ministry of Public
Education as chief examiner for high schools in Belluno, made him wish to
celebrate the event by inviting Igalo and me to join him for a meal.
Each one of us a bachelor, we don’t much bother about
food. We just haven’t the patience to prepare really first-class meals.
Instead, we live in the dream world of childhood and adolescence where our
beautiful mothers served up delicious food day in and day out. Something had to
be done to improve the situation, Prof. Broell made plain when he telephoned.
“It’s not going to be the usual pizza, pastasciuta and
panzarotti. I mean, let’s try for once to eat in a civilised manner. We’re not
talking about boiled meat here, like the kind they do in Ferrara, with a bit of
salad on the side, if you’re lucky. It’s still winter so we need a good
marinated soup with lentils and peppers, some really well stuffed ravioli,
pasta with creamed cauliflower, or with peas.”
“Some hopes,” Igalo said. “This is Napoli, remember. In
Roma or Milano, you can choose from varied menus, including specialist
Neapolitan dishes you’d never hope to find in this city.”
Eventually, we decided to go and see if we could discover
a decent restaurant, not forgetting to take the cats, Fritz and Look, with us.
We hit upon a very pleasant inn, a show of walnut trees outside. The waiters,
all charming fellows, greeted us with warm smiles, escorting us to a
well-situated corner of the room. What were our wishes, one of them asked.
“Young man,” Igalo said,
“what have you got to offer that’s a bit special!” He laughed, before
adding, “We feel rather fussy and don’t want the usual spaghetti or even some
rare fish taken from the rivers of Zimbadwe.”
The waiter rolled his eyes, suddenly conscious that he
was dealing with a bunch of oddballs. He raised his right shoulder at the same
time as he lifted his left leg, a sort of involuntary tic that Herr Hitler made
when irritated. “Whatever you want,” he replied, “we’ve got it, spaghetti with
clams or mussels, or scampi or a fillet of beef. We don’t have polenta because
we’re not in Turin, after all. This is Napoli, remember, famous for its
spaghetti.”
“We know that,” Igalo said, “but in Turin you choose
polenta or maccherone, fondue or ragout. By the way, could you prepare
a ragout of fettuccine with a chop spiced with garlic, chillies and parsley, some
stuffed genovese pasta and a strozzapreti soup? I can assure you that all this
is very typical Neapolitan food. Or perhaps you can do us a little pasta with
creamed cauliflower or with peas, or beans, or lentils, or even a baked dish of
maize, or just some maccherone with chip potatoes?”
The waiter could only stare at Igalo, partly terrified,
bewildered, utterly dismayed and completely incredulous. His eyes dilating, his
ears almost flapping, he responded by saying,
“This a restaurant, you know, not some caf. We serve food of the highest
quality. Fish, we’ve got carp, swordfish or bass drenched in white wine and
cooked in the oven. What more do you want?”
“Okay, we’ve made a mistake. Let’s go, boys,” Igalo said.
Outside and walking along very slowly, we came to another
restaurant that looked more like a shop than a trattoria. Inside, the
atmosphere struck us as plain and simple, very much at our human level. The
headwaiter, who turned out to be the owner, met us most cordially.
“Make yourselves comfortable, gentlemen. What can I do for you?”
“We’re pleased to be here,” Professor Broell said.
“What’s on offer? We want to eat well, alla napoletana, and get away from the
usual menu.”
“You’ve come to the right place,” the padrone said, a
portly man with a large, droopy moustache. “Eat just what you like, spaghetti
with clams or mussels or a fillet of beef, or fish cooked any way you wish.
We’ve carp, swordfish, mullet, lobster, sea urchins and calamari. Or you can
have pasta cooked with slices of ham and served with sauté potatoes. We prepare
it, you eat it. Okay?”
“Excellent!” replied Igalo. “That’s really good, but
could you possibly serve us a fry-up like our mothers used to do, a bit of
fried cod in a pie, a maccherone fondue or a ragout of fettucine, or a fried
onion sauce to go with stuffed peppers, I mean something truly napolitano?”
“Ma chesta ch’avete detto èrroba ‘e’n’avota, ‘e tanto
tiempo fa. Signò, rrobba ‘e cantina. Juje ci stammo civilizzanne.”[1]
“I understand. I understand,” said Igalo. “Very well,
give us a plate of vermicelli with a spot of olive oil and a rub of garlic.”
After dismissing the waiter, he turned to the two of us and said, “My dear old friends, you see what we’ve
arrived at, everything has to be homogeneous. Even here in Napoli, siamo al
fastfood.”
From “Pensieri della notte”
(Reflections throughout the Night) by Domenico Rea – Rusconi, Milano, 1987.
Translated by Jack Dale.
[1] “The food you’re talking about used to be eaten years ago. I
mean, the sort of grub you’d get in the works’ canteen. These days we’re more
civilised.”
