Il dono di meta` agosto

Per carita`, in stagione si trova anche in Germania, tondo come una mela, fatto quasi con lo stampino, un po' acquoso ma duro, e difficilmente a meno di 3 euro al chilo; ma un po' piu` a sud verso meta` agosto piovono letteralmente dal cielo, fuoriesono dai tombini, riempono di rosso la gia` rigogliosa vegetazione dei cortili, e dalle cucine quando cuoce si riversa per le strade il suo odore trascinante. Stiamo parlando ovviamente del pomodoro, questo frutto quasi magico proveniente dal "mondo nuovo" che ha finito per essere icona della cucina del Mediterraneo.
Che sia il piccolo tondo aspro Pachino, o un gigantesco Cuore di bue re delle insalate, o l'oblungo San Marzano da conserva, dalle mie parti chiamato butalina... Per inciso lontano dalle mie parti tale nome puo` tirarsi dietro un'imprecazione contro Garibaldi i Savoia e la dannata unificazione italiana...

Well, in the right season  you find it also in Germany, rounded like an apple, made almost with a mould, a little watery but hard, and hardly for less than 3 euros pro kilo; but a little souther around middle august they literally rain from the heavens, they pour out from the drains, they fill with their redness the already flourishing vegetation of the courtyards, and from the kitchens when it is cooked its drawing smell spills out in the streets. We are of course talking about the tomato, this almost magical fruit coming from the "new world" which ended up being the icon of the mediterranean kitchen.
It can be the small spherical harsh "Pachino" (a town in Sicily), or a huge "Cuore di bue" (heart of ox) king of the salads, or an oblung "San Marzano" (a town in Campania) for conserves, that where I come from is called "Butalina"... By the way far from where I come from such a name can invoke an imprecation against Garibaldi the Savoia royal family and the damned unification of Italy...

pomodoro tipo San Marzano
tomato of the kind San Marzano

Le conserve appunto; ricordo la vicina di casa calabrese, il suo pentolone gigantesco da strega, quell'aroma generosamente sprigionato dalla bollitura, e poi barattoli barattoli e barattoli, e questa specie di rituale mistico a cadenza annuale da famiglia allargata. E perche` noi no, o non piu`? Ho voluto recuparare questa tradizione, dettata piu` che altro prima dall'esigenza e poi dal buon senso, piuttosto che da qualunque desiderio di virtuosismo. Perche` devo comprare lattine ogni settimana al supermercato? E ingurgitare prodotti nella migliore delle ipotesi mediocri? Perche` e` piu` sicuro? Vaffanculo il botulino e tutta l'ansia che ti mettono i giornali quando succede qualcosa a causa di queste obsolete e pericolose pratiche casalinghe, indegne di una civilta` evuluta e frutto solo della miseria. Si lava bene il materiale il luogo e se stessi, si sterilizza e si chiude sotto vuoto i barattoli, come si deve, come si e` sempre fatto, e via.

Conserves indeed; I remember the neighbour from Calabria, her huge witchy cauldron, that flavour generously emanated by the boling, and then jars jars and jars, and this kind of yearly large family mystical ritual. And why we do not, or not anymore? I wanted to recover such a tradition, dictated before mostly by esigence and then later by common sense, much more than by any desire of virtuosism. Why should I buy every week tins in the supermarket? And swallow products which are mediocre in the best of the hypothesis? Because it is safer? Fuck off botulinus and all the anxiety the newspapers put on you when something happens  due to these obsolete and dangerous hausehold habits, which are unworthy for advanced civilization and reult only of misery. You wash properly the material the place and yourself, you sterilize and close under vacuum the jars, like one must, like one has always done, and let's go.

un tipico rovescio di pomodori
a typical tomato downpour

Bancone al lato di uno stradone di periferia, dall'altra parte i fabbricati giganteschi di una nota industria meccanica, dietro quel miscuglio di cascine case nuove case vecchie campi incolti campi coltivati fabbrichette che non e` ne` campagna ne` citta` ma quell'enorme luogo surreale che vi giace un mezzo. Quanto e` una cassa? 25 chili, a 0.65 centesimi al chilo. Me ne da una. Si vergogni lei, la signora prima ne ha presi 3 quintali e ci ha riempito la station wagon. Quasi gli dicevo, ma sa e` praticamente la prima volta. 

In realta` la nonna si ricordava bene di quando li faceva ancora; diceva da qualche parte ho ancora il pentolone ma chissa` dove. E` stata una gioia tagliare i pomodori assieme, guardare i pentoloni non tanto -oni ribollire, e poi a meta` cottura passarli con il passaverdura.

Poche decine di barattoli non credo che mi basteranno per tutto l'anno futuro.

Stand aside a wide road in the suburbs, on the other side the huge buildings of a well-known mechanical industry, behind that mixture of farms new houses old houses fallow fields small manufactures that is neither countryside nor city but that enormous surreal place that lies in between. How much is a case? 25 kilos, 0.65 cents pro kilo.I get a case. You should be ashamed, the woman before you took 300kg and filled the station wagon. I was about to say, you know, practically it is the first time.

Actually the grandmother remembered very well when she was still making it; she said somewhere I still have the big pot but who knows where. It was a joy to cut the tomatoes together, look at the not so big pots boiling, and pass them throught the rotary food mill half the way.

A few dozens of jars I don't think they will be enough for all next year.

The maccheronis with ragout

The changes during the existence of a person are often gradual, spread over time, they can be catched only at distance. But sometimes there exist topical moments, that mark the passage between a before and an after, at a more or less symbolic or substantial level. Sometimes like the ball that rolls down a slide from a side instead of another, a little push would have been enough and you would have been attracted to a different aggregative relational universe. Sometimes more like the exasperation and frustration drop that allows a critical threshold to be reached and the glass to overflow, sometimes an image where just the exceeding water comes out is not enough, rather it is that acid drop more that transforms a solid magnificent mountain into flooding mush.
Lately, ten years after, one of these moments is obsessively emerging from the fogs of my memory; maybe just because I have only now the cultural tools to deal with it. It has been the apex of a context that now I would define repressive, not to say aborting, that marked me a long time notwithstanding a stubborn removal operation: for years I would limit myself in saying that in a few months I abandoned the first level secondary school the soccer team the oratory and nearly all the related connections, that continuity elements in my life mum dad and 2 friends, or I would mention a platonic love. Clearly those were environments that I did not perceive stimulating, and that were not going along to my inclinations; instead they partly managed to instill in me the shame of my sensibility (and I would say intelligence if it did not sound arrogant), the ambition to mediocrity, maybe also the fear of the culture, that I spent the teen years in removing. I am going to describe this event for a sort of removal of the removal, like to compensate all the times that looking back to it I would have liked to disappear, like a sort of reversed exorcism, like in its being a particular affair it had something universal, avoiding to be influenced by the remote possibility that someone who was present could actually read this.
The ambientation is a big room at the first floor of the oratory kindergarten, huge glass walls window into the courtyard, where on strictly estabilished timetables one could play with the ball, unless the priest felt offended for some noise out of order, a lot of uncomfortable chairs and a penetrating smell of pear pulp rising up from the stairs, around thirthy guys around 13-14 years old, some entertainer and some nun; it is a preparatory meeting for the confirmation, with which a few days after we would have confirmed our belonging to the catholic christian faith. The question is: if the confirmation was a dish? and if it was a color? The game was tested, I knew what it was expected, and the answer should not differ too much, and pleasing the nuns was easy, sometimes if I wanted to make some effort I tried to come out with something not completely trivial. That day I was not disposed to compromises, and after hearing a set of disciplined and orthodox answers, I said something like: the color is transparent because it must be a choice made with transparency, awareness, in front of everyone, and the dish is maccheroni with ragout because life is made out of paths, represented by the maccheronis, and you pass from path to path like you were inside the plate and you passed inside the maccheronis and then from one to another, and they are full of obstacles which are represented by the ragout. Now I would not try to defend such allegory as smart. But I was very serious. Non only externally. I mean, the ethical and cosmological construction that they were trying to teach me was already seeming shaky to me, but at the time I did not yet extradolate explicitely the idea that one could live without (that) religion, simply I was not believing to all they were saying to me; hence in the framework of the reasoning we were making it must have seemed to me a sensible metaphor, compatible with the imposed schemes of reasoning. All the guys exploded into laughts, maybe I did it also after a while, infected by the collective euphoria. The nuns not really, in particular one, the "bad one". (maybe I also touched some open question that made her felt singled out?) Of what she babbled I just remember that I was an idiot, that I spoke like an handicapped [and most of all that "transparent" was not a colour], probably she said other stuff aligned with her injured authoritarian pride but not with her supposed educative function. I came out crying (but that was not so strange since I uses to cry for the demerits at school), humiliated in front of my companions; at the confession imposed to the confirmers a few days after I was not of the mood to say I don't go to mass and I don't obey mum, I went to the priest coming from outside just for the purpose, I told him my father has been in the hospital all the summer long, we suffered a flood, my cat is dead, and I have problems in the relations with other people, let's see what he says, nothing memorable; and after the confirmation, yes because saving the appearance never costs too much, they did not see me anymore.
It often happens to me to think that I cold have been a church guy, after all there were good persons, better than any other aggregate I have met within 2 km from home, and I have dear friends authentically christian, and interesting I have met much more; but what I narrated was not just a little push that sent me away, my intellectual and spiritual wit could not be confined within a reign of prepackaged compatibility; I live side by side with doubts, that feed a continuous research; the collapse of the mountain was unavoidable.

Los macarrones al ragout

Los cambios a lo largo de la existencia de una persona son a menudo graduales, extendidos en arcos temporales, aferrables sólo a distancia. Pero algunas veces existen momentos tópicos que marcan la transición entre un antes y un después, en un nivel más o menos simbólico o sustancial. A veces como la bolita que rueda hacia abajo por una pendiente, y elige una vertiente en lugar de la otra. Bastaba un empujoncito y uno habría sido atraído hacia un universo agregativo relacional distinto. A veces más como la gota de exasperación y de frustración que hace alcanzar un umbral crítico y colmar el vaso. No siempre basta una imagen en la que sale sólo el agua de más y el barreño permanece intacto, sino más bien es aquella gota de ácido en exceso que transforma una sólida montaña imponente en fango desenfrenado.
Últimamente, diez años después, uno de estos momentos está emergiendo obsesivamente de las nieblas de mi memoria; quizá porque sólo ahora tengo consciencia suficiente de los instrumentos culturales para afrontarlo. Exactamente como ha sidoel ápice de un contexto que ahora definiría represivo por no decir abortivo, que me ha marcado durante un largo período a pesar de una terca oparación de eliminación: durante años me habría limitado a decir que en pocos meses abandoné la enseñanza media, el fútbol y el oratorio y la casi totalidad de las fecuentaciones anejas. Y que los elementos de continuidad en mi vida eran mi madre, mi padre y dos amigos, o habría mencionado un amor platónico. Evidentemente no eran ambientes que percibía estimulantes, que secundaran mis inclinaciones, sino que consiguieron en parte inculcarme la vergüenza de mi sensibilidad (o diría de mi inteligencia si no pareciese presuntuoso), la ambición a la mediocridad, e incluso también miedo de la cultura, que he intentado eliminar durante toda la adolescencia.
Me dispongo a describir este evento por una especie de eliminación de la eliminación, como para compensar todas las veces que pensando en ello he querido hacerlo desaparecer, como una especie de exorcismo a la inversa, como si en el ser una empresa particular tuviera algo de universal, no dejándome influenciar por la remota posibilidad que alguno que era presente en aquel momento lo pueda leer.
La ambientación es un salón en el primer piso de la guardería del oratorio, grandes ventanales que daban a parar al patio donde, en horarios rígidamente establecidos, se podía jugar al fútbol, siempre que el párroco no estuviera resentido por algún ruido fuera de lugar; tantas sillas incómodas y un olor penetrante de pulpa de pera que proviene de las escaleras, una treintena de chicos de 13-14 años, algún monitor y alguna monja. Es un encuentro de preparación a la confirmación con la que habríamos confirmado algunos días después nuestra pertenencia a la fe cristiana católica. Las preguntas eran: ¿si la confirmación fuera un plato?¿y si fuera un color? El juego era ya conocido, sabía que se esperaba de mí, la respuesta no debía desviarse demasiado, y agradar a las monjas era fácil. A veces si quería esforzarme y no sentirme mortificado, intentaba también salir con algo no completamente banal. Aquél día no estaba dispuesto a compromisos, y tras haberescuchado una serie de respuestas disciplinadas y ortodoxas dije algo del tipo: "El color es tranparente porque tiene que ser una elección efectuada con transparencia, conciencia, delante de todos, y el piato es macarrones con ragout, porque la vida está hecha de caminos, representados por los macarrones, y se pasa de camino a camino como si se estuviera dentro del piato, y se pasara dentro de los macarrones, y después de macarrón en macarrón. Están llenos de obstáculos,  que vienen representados por el ragout". No es que ahora reivindicaría esta alegoría comoparticularmente ingeniosa. Pero lo dije seriamente. No solo exteriormente. En el sentido de que la construcción ética y cosmológica que habían intentado enseñarme, me parecía ya inestable, pero todavía no había extrapolado la idea que se pudiera vivir sin (aquella) religión. Simplemente no me creía todo lo que me decían, por lo que en el ámbito del razonamiento que estábamos haciendo me parecía una metáfora sensata compatible con los esquemas de razonamiento impuestos. Todos los demás chicos rompieron a reír, quizá después también un poco yo, contagiado de la euforia colectiva. Las monjas no, en particular una, la "mala" (¿quizá toqué también alguna cuestión abierta que hizo que se diera por aludida?) De lo que balbució recuerdo sólo que yo era un idiota, que hablaba como un disminuido [y sobre todo que transparente no era un color]. Probablemente dijo otras cosas en línea con su orgullo autoritario herido pero no con su supuesta función educativa. Yo salí hecho un mar de lágrimas (pero eso no era extraño visto que lloraba por las notas de la escuela), humillado delante de mis compañeros. En la confesión impuesta a los confirmandos no me salía decir: "no vengo a misa, y no obedezco a mi madre". Fui al párroco que había  venido a posta desde fuera, y le dije: "mi padre ha pasado todo el verano en el hospital, nuestra casa se ha inundado, el gato se ha muerto y encuentro dificultades a la hora de relacionarme con los demás. (Veamos qué me dice)". Nada memorable. Y tras la confirmación, como salvar las formas no cuesta nunca demasiado, no me volvieron a ver.
A veces pienso que habría podido ser un chico de parroquia, en el fondo había buenas personas, mejor que cualquier otro coacervado que haya encontrado en un radio de 2 kms alrededor de mi casa, y tengo buenos amigos auténticamente cristianos e amigos interesantes he encontrado todavía más; pero todo lo que he contado no ha sido solo un detalle que me ha alejado. Mi ingenio intelectual y espiritual no podía estar confinado en el interior de un reino de compatibilidad preconfeccionado. Convivo con las dudas que alimentan una búsqueda continua, con éxitos estructuralmente inestables. El colapso de la montaña era inevitable.