La Cucina Read online

  DEDICATION

  FOR MY MOTHER, JANET

  ACKNOWLEDGMENT

  I would like to thank my husband, Christopher, who never fails to inspire and encourage me. Without him this book would never have been written. I would also like to thank my agent, Jean Naggar, for her faith in me and La Cucina, her invaluable support, her hard work, and her kindness. And I would like to thank my editor, Julia Serebrinsky, for her inspired thoughts on the manuscript. Finally, I would like to thank all of you who encouraged me and helped me along the way.

  CONTENTS

  Dedication

  Acknowledgment

  The Characters of My Story

  Prologue

  L’Inverno

  (The Winter)

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  La Primavera

  (The Spring)

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  L’Estate

  (The Summer)

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  L’Autunno

  (The Fall)

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  About the Author

  Praise

  Copyright

  About the Publisher

  THE CHARACTERS OF MY STORY

  (In the order of their appearance)

  Myself, Rosa Fiore

  L’Inglese (Randolph Hunt), my lover

  Nonna Calzino, my maternal grandmother

  Bartolomeo Sogno, my first love

  Donna Isabella (Madre) Fiore, née Calzino, remarried to become Madre Calabrese, my mother

  Don (Padre) Filippo Fiore, my father

  My Siamese twin brothers, Guerra and Pace

  Margarita Gengiva, the midwife

  Padre Francesco, the priest

  Fuscolo Bancale, the wine grower

  Sperato Maddaloni, the sheep farmer

  Mafalda Pruneto, the cheesemaker

  Sesto Fissaggi, the olive grower

  Donatello Mancini, the altar boy

  Antonino Calabrese, Madre Fiore’s second husband, my stepfather

  Nonno Fiore, my paternal grandfather

  Aventina Valente, the barmaid at Linguaglossa, who marries my brother Luigi Fiore

  Paolo Alboni, the panettiere (baker) in the town of Francavilla

  Miele, my pet pig

  Celeste, my parrot

  Nonna Fiore, my paternal grandmother

  Crocifisso, doorman at the Biblioteca Nationale

  Donna Maria (Nonna) Frolla, grocer and my landlady in Palermo

  Nero, Nonna Frolla’s pug dog

  Don Sergio (Nonno) Frolla, husband of Donna Frolla

  Costanza, library assistant

  Rosario, the half-witted farmhand

  Luciano, the shepherd

  Don Umberto Sogno, Bartolomeo’s father, a man of honor

  Donna Evangelina Sogno, Bartolomeo’s mother

  Gallo Carlo, the cockerel

  Donna Rubino Sogno (Nonna Sogno), Bartolomeo’s paternal grandmother

  Donna Sophia Bacci, Bartolomeo’s fiancée

  Don Fredo Bacci, friend of Don Umberto Sogno, a man of honor

  Donna Theresa Bacci, Sophia’s mother

  Ernesto Tombi, the undertaker in Castiglione

  Barese and Pirone, henchmen of Don Umberto Sogno

  Signor Raimondo Bandiera, director of the Biblioteca Nationale

  Signora Bandiera, his fragrant wife

  Quinto Cavallo, the goldsmith

  Signor Rivoli, the bank manager and a Peeping Tom

  Signora Rossi, wife of Crocifisso the doorman

  Restituto Raimondo, the one-eyed doorman who succeeds Crocifisso

  Balbina Burgondofara, dairymaid, and Antonino Calabrese’s mistress

  The widow Palumbo, friend of Don Sergio Frolla

  Biancamaria Ossobuco, the twins’ consort

  Banquo Cuniberto, the tailor in Castiglione

  Dr. Leobino, the Fiore family doctor

  PROLOGUE

  I lie luxuriantly on the table, the cool, silky oak sticking to my naked flesh. Rump, thighs, plump. This night is the culmination, the final lesson. By the light of the candles I stretch out and watch l’Inglese as he moves gently among the shadows on the far side of the kitchen, the clattering of his pans punctuated occasionally by the sounds of the summer night, the buzzing of a mosquito, the braying of a mule.

  L’Inverno

  THE WINTER

  CHAPTER ONE

  Tip the flour in a heap on the table. The old oak table, legacy of Nonna Calzino, smoothed to a brilliant luster by all the years of daily use. Not too much flour. Not too little. Just the right amount. Fine flour milled from durum wheat by Papa Grazzi at Mascali. Sprinkle in some sea salt, a good measure. Add some fresh eggs and some extra egg yolks, sufficient for the amount of flour, and also some good olive oil and a very little cold water.

  Using your fingers, mix the liquids into the flour, combining your ingredients until a smooth paste is formed. The eggs may feel slimy to the touch but this is natural. Knead well, using the heels of the hands in a forward, downward movement.

  Knead just until the arms begin to ache and the small bead of sweat starts to trace its way down the spine from somewhere between the shoulder blades to the cleft between the buttocks. This, of course, in winter; in summer the sweat pours down the face and neck, dampening the clothes and making droplets on the table and the flagstone floor.

  When the dough is smooth and elastic, brush it with a little oil, cover it with a damp cloth, and leave it to rest, for it too is fatigued. While you are waiting for your dough to relax you can leaf through the pages of a magazine, observing this season’s latest fashions, or gaze from the window at young Maria flirting with the postman on the street corner below. Look at Fredo riding by on his bicycle, or at the pack of stray dogs escaping from the dog catcher, and at life in general passing you by.

  Then you may begin the rolling. Dust the table lightly with flour and divide your dough into eight equal pieces. Taking one piece, begin rolling by moving the rolling pin in a motion away from you, pressing evenly to create a rectangular shape. Continue thus until your sheet of pasta is long and thin and about the thickness of the blade of a knife. The knife that slit Bartolomeo’s throat. Slicing through his beautiful young flesh like a coltello through lard.

  Cut the sheet in half horizontally and hang it over a pole to dry for five minutes. Repeat with the remaining pieces of dough to make sixteen sheets. Slice carefully the length of each sheet forming the thinnest strips you can. Again let these dry on the pole for another five minutes. Here you have your spaghetti, which, with a delicious sauce of ripe tomatoes, basil, sleek eggplant, and ricotta you will eat for lunch, when office workers, acrobats, and slaughtermen return home for the siesta and for a few brief hours the restless city sleeps.

  Following the
murder of Bartolomeo, I made pasta night and day. I retreated into the kitchen in the same way that some women retreat into convents, as Pasquala Tredici did after her sweetheart, Roberto, was gored to death by a bull.

  I had always loved my food: in those dark days it was all that could give me comfort. I did not emerge from my self-imposed exile in la cucina for a long time. I assuaged my grief by cooking, and cooking, and cooking some more.

  At that time I was still living with my family on the farm in the Alcantara valley beneath the citadel of Castiglione, on the far eastern side of the island of Sicily, near the slopes of the great volcano.

  The valley of the Alcantara is an area famous for its fruitfulness. Its olives are more succulent, its oranges juicier, its pigs porkier than any other region. The abundance of our land is reflected in our people, who, as a general rule, are wholesome, hearty, and strong.

  The virility of our men and the fecundity of our women have also been noted; families tend to be large here, and the urge to mate is strong among both humans and animals.

  By a strange phenomenon multiple births are as common among Alcantara women as they are among sows; we give birth to many twins, triplets, even quadruplets, and identical little faces fill the classrooms in the local school. We are so accustomed to seeing duplicates and triplicates of farmhands, housewives, and goatherds that they fail even to draw notice, except among strangers. But few strangers come here.

  In our lush valley, they say the fire in the loins of the inhabitants draws flame from the smoldering mountain that dominates our skyline. It casts its spell over the lives brewing in its shadow, where for millions of years it has ejaculated its own life force, clothing its slopes in rich black lava.

  CHAPTER TWO

  To begin at the beginning, my name is Rosa Fiore. I am of the Fiores, an ancient family that has lived here in Sicily, it is said, since the time of the Greeks.

  My family was made up of my parents, Madre and Padre Fiore, and, until my ninth year, my six older brothers: Luigi, Leonardo, Mario, Giuliano, Giuseppe, and Salvatore. When I was eight my younger brothers, Guerra and Pace, came along.

  My family was, I guess, a typical Sicilian family: large and loud.

  My mother, Isabella Fiore, was a small but formidable woman who ruled over the fattoria like the avenging angel that looks down from the frieze on the front of the Chiesa di San Pietro. Everyone was scared of her. Papa said her black eyes could spit venom like an asp, though I never saw her do this.

  My papa was large and bluff and terrified of Mama. Dear Papa. I never saw him without his mountain cap, even indoors; he even took baths in it, though I have to admit that he bathed infrequently. He even wore it in bed, in case of fire during the night or, more likely, an eruption of the volcano. Papa also wore a large mustard plaster on the back of his neck his entire adult life to cover a suppurating boil that would never heal.

  When I was twelve Papa disappeared. But wait, I am getting ahead of myself.

  Mama and Papa never once spoke a word to each other, not where I could hear them. They maintained an arch distance from one another while retaining an unquenchable desire for the pleasures of the other’s flesh. This desire was so strong that they were often found engaged in a frenzied coupling in the hayloft, the cowshed, or the fields. It wasn’t until I became an adult that I realized what they had been doing. As a girl I was innocent as a lark, like Mama intended me to be. So the numerous occasions when I came upon them fucking one another senseless didn’t register with me until much, much later.

  After the hungry dragon that lived inside her loins was satisfied, albeit briefly, Mama would adjust her skirts. She would treat Papa to a look of utter disdain which never failed to paralyze him, speeding the demise of his already dwindling member. Having done so, Mama would return to the unending duties of a farmer’s wife.

  From this happy union, when I was eight years old, came my twin brothers, Guerra and Pace, War and Peace.

  On the night of their birth, an inflamed moon hung low over the valley, and the local people gathered by its light outside the fattoria. They came because they heard rumors that an unnatural birth was taking place at the home of the Fiores. This was heralded that morning on the neighboring farm, where a pig with two tails was born, a sure sign that the balance of nature has been disturbed.

  It is true that in recent weeks, Mama’s belly had swelled so much that even the brood mare in the lower paddock eyed her with pity. She was certainly carrying more than one child; possibly even more than two, although, of course, this was not unusual for our valley.

  The crowd waited eagerly for news, passing round a flask of grappa to keep out the cold. They breathed on their frigid fingers to warm them up, creating puffs of vapor all around. In the distance the volcano rumbled its curse, and the word went round that Isabella Fiore was about to give birth to a monster.

  Some of the more pious clutched rosaries and whispered fervent prayers while others lit torches to ward off evil spirits.

  Inside the house, my brothers and I were kept shut in la cucina and told to play in front of the fire. We knew something strange was happening but we were not allowed to know what it was. It is curious how, as children, we sense taboos; we instinctively know what we are allowed to question and what we are not supposed to mention. The boys sat around playing poker and occasionally fighting while I baked a batch of honey cookies to calm my eight-year-old nerves.

  Suddenly, while I was stirring the walnuts into the boiling honey, a piercing scream reverberated through the night air. It was followed by another and another still. We all looked around in fear.

  Outside, some of the villagers were forced to cover their ears, so loud was the din and so pitiful the cries.

  The screaming went on and on. All the cookies had been baked and eaten and we had fallen asleep in the glow of the fire when a scream louder than the ones preceding it made everything silent. The scream roused me with a start, causing me to fall from my little chair onto the floor. I looked out through the crack in the door at the crowd gathered in the yard and saw the townsfolk crossing themselves in one movement.

  Nearest to me, I heard one woman say: “Isabella Fiore is dead for sure; no woman, however resolute, could survive such a labor and tortuous birth.”

  Her neighbor nodded her agreement and crossed herself again.

  What did it all mean? I asked myself. None of it made any sense. Instinctively I began to knead some dough. Nothing has ever comforted me so much as pounding away with my fists at a warm and elastic mixture.

  Then the silence was broken by the cries of one baby, and then another one joined in.

  At least it was a live birth, some of the women in the crowd mumbled. Heaven be praised; the cries were said to resemble those of a human creature.

  Before long the head of Margarita Gengiva, the toothless midwife who attended at births in the region, emerged from an upstairs window.

  “It’s a monster,” she screamed through her soft gums, spraying those beneath with a burst of saliva in her excitement.

  Over the din of the baying crowd she delivered her masterstroke:

  “It is a thing with two heads, one body, two arms, and three legs.”

  With that she waved her kerchief in a defiant gesture at those assembled and retreated inside. She closed the window behind her with a bang.

  By the grace of the archangel Gabriel, a thing with two heads and one body!

  Following a hurried meeting of the elders, the boldest in the crowd, who also happened to be the most inebriated, formed a deputation. They crossed the farmyard as one and proceeded to the house to insist that the monster’s throat be slit and its corpse burnt on a pyre to prevent the spread of evil spirits throughout the region.

  The priest, Padre Francesco, appeared on the steps at the front of the house to calm the crowd. He made the sign of the cross and uttered a benediction:

  “Benedicat et custodiat nos omnipotens et misericors Dominus, Pater, et Filius, et Spiritus
Sanctus. Amen.”

  “Amen,” responded the faithful and unfaithful alike.

  “These little babes are no more a monster than I am…” he said.

  Some of those who had enjoyed too much wine nudged one another and chortled.

  “Take them to your hearts, good people, for they are as much in need of God’s love as yourselves.”

  “Ay, Padre, but when my wine is all turned sour in its barrels,” said Fuscolo Bancale.

  “When my flocks stray and lose themselves on the mountain,” added Sperato Maddaloni.

  “When my cheese goes rancid in the dairy,” said Mafalda Pruneto.

  “When my olives mildew,” said Sesto Fissaggi.

  “…Then we’ll know it is a judgment upon us for allowing devils disguised as babes into our midst,” concluded Fuscolo, turning his one angry eye in the direction of the priest.

  “Ay, the good Lord preserve us from devils and evil spirits,” added Mafalda.

  “Holy Mother protect us from monsters and goblins,” said Sperato.

  The talk and imprecations continued as dawn broke and eventually the crowd dispersed away into the shadows.

  CHAPTER THREE

  In the village, an explanation was sought and speculation abounded. Nothing like this had ever been seen before. It wasn’t long before Mama and Papa’s morals were questioned by all.

  There was talk of Papa’s foul couplings with a sow. Some accused him of philanderings with fairies.