A Thousand Days in Tuscany Read Online Free PDF Page A

zucca, squash, sprout flowers in the first phases of growth, but it’s the flower of the zucchine which is hardiest. One must harvest the flowers when the squash is still small and slender, not more than eight to ten inches in length, plucking the flower along with the the squash so a new flower and a new squash can bud in its place on the vine. Blossoms grow from both the feminine and masculine zucchini, but the feminine flowers grow more broadly and bell-shaped. I’d noticed that nearly all the blossoms Barlozzo brought this morning were decidedly feminine. “Come mai quasi tutti i fiori in questa zona sono femminili? How is it that almost all the flowers in this area are feminine?”
    The question brings on a bawdy laugh all around and it’s the blue suspenders who answers it. “Because we’re fortunate.”
    Foolishly, I begin to banter with them, as though I were really a part of the discussion, saying that we must shop for the fundamentals to stock our pantry, that we have few provisions at hand and so something simple will do very nicely today, but they are off on a roll, reciting formulas, whispering gastronomic lore like vespers. Our squash blossom opportunities have stimulated an hour’s worth of appetizing talk, and it is evident that it matters not at all if we are there or gone away in the meantime. We say unheard good-byes and leave with Barlozzo close behind us. “They all know the truth, that there are only three subjects worth talking about. At least here in these parts,” he says. “The weather, which, as they’re farmers, affects everything else. Dying and birthing, of both people and animals. And what we eat—this last item comprising what we ate the day before and what we’re planning to eat tomorrow. And all three of these major subjects encompass, in one way or another, philosophy, psychology, sociology, anthropology, the physical sciences, history, art, literature, and religion. We get around to sparring about all that counts in a life but we usually do it while we’re talking about food, it being a subject inseparable from every other subject. It’s the table and the bed that count in life. And everything else we do, we do so we can get back to the table, back to the bed.”
    We thank Barlozzo for the flowers, ask him to come by and join us for our premier lunch, but he refuses, proposing instead to comeby at four to see if we need help with the rest of the unpacking, with getting settled. He says this as though it is his job. He can tell us whatever we want to know about the house. This he says in a very quiet voice.
    On the high curve of the piazza sits Sergio’s fruit and vegetable shop, so we look about for things to enhance our blossom-lunch menu. Sergio suggests a fritto misto, a mixed fry, of vegetables and herbs. He pulls out a handful of sage leaves, each one long and soft as a rabbit’s ear, whacks the leaves and small stems from a head of celery, picks through a basket of skinny green beans and adds some to our pile. He asks if we like potatoes but doesn’t wait for us to answer before digging into a cardboard carton of yellow-skinned ones, still covered in dirt, each no bigger than a cherry.
    Four steps away up toward the church and the city hall is a gastronomia where we buy flour and sea salt, a bottle of beer for the batter and peanut oil for frying. I ask for eggs and the man cocks his head, looks pityingly at me, and says all I need do is stop at the hen house just down the hill from our place. “Può prendere da sola, signora, direttamente là,” he says in a snuffy tone as though egg gathering in a henhouse was a daily Tuscan sacrament.
    Across from the gastronomia sits an enoteca, a wine shop, where we choose a Vernaccia and a bottle of tourist oil, as Barlozzo later calls it—a pretty, one-liter bottle filled with third-rate oil that costsmore than do five liters of the best stuff, straight from the mill. There is much to learn. The butcher, a jeweler, an