Mediterranean Summer Read Online Free PDF Page B

derivative of mortadella,” she continued. “And a true Florentine steak is a very thick porterhouse that doesn’t need to be served with spinach.”
    When she realized just how little I knew, she figured out how to help me.
    “I believe it would suit you best,” she said, “to move around for a while, in rural parts, and experience the variety this country offers from its core.” Over the next few days, she tirelessly worked the phone, creating an itinerary of internships that would expose me to what she considered the heart and soul of true Italian food. This would take me to areas of the country where the best examples of regional cooking could be found, and where restaurant owners and chefs were dedicated to preserving the cookery of their respective localities.
    Only room and board was offered, except in the rare case where a generous owner might provide a small stipend for pocket money. I would start in Piedmont, and then move on to Friuli, Tuscany, Lombardy, Campania, and Lazio, not in big-city restaurants but in restaurants and wineries in small towns and back-road rural areas where the menus featured time-honored local fare.
    The first stop would be in Piedmont. It was truffle season. I was going to a restaurant among the vineyards of Barbaresco, in the valley of the Langhe—fertile soil for the pricey
Tuber magnatum,
the white truffle of Alba. I had no idea what to expect, what working in a foreign kitchen with strangers beside me was going to be like. Especially since I didn’t speak a word of Italian.
    Once off the train I showed the address to the uniformed stationmaster. He led me outside to get a clear view and pointed to a winding road that seemed to end at an old town on top of a nearby hill. As I gathered my bags, trying to distribute the weight evenly shoulder to shoulder, he raised his eyebrows, and then shrugged a smile at me. I thanked him and set out.
    I finally dragged my three bags up the last incline to the small piazza where the restaurant was located. I found the back door and went into the kitchen, soaked in sweat even on that cold and foggy November day. The staff was in the final hectic stages of getting ready for a lunch banquet, and the chef had no interest in my heroic feat of getting me and my luggage up that road. The first words belted out of her mouth in French were “
Bienvenue, es-tu ici pour regarder ou pour travailler?
”—Welcome! Are you here to watch or work? She handed me an apron. Like most folks so close to the border, she was bilingual. We could communicate, at least enough to be understood in French.
    She wasted no time. “Go help in the pasta station!”
    Virtually no one spoke English. Italians speak Italian, and among themselves they communicate in their own rapid-fire local dialects. I heard a language full of emotion, but my lack of vocabulary deprived me of the nuance each emotion was driving home. I heard the stream of words as little more than white noise. It was easy to tune out what I was having so much trouble understanding.
    During the internship, I sensed snide comments were being made behind my back, and sometimes to my face. I kept hearing
“il Americano
,” and since I was the only American on the staff, it didn’t take long to connect the dots. I stayed silent, trying to be polite by responding with what I thought were appropriately timed
sì
’s. I probably said yes to being an arrogant, selfish, rich, greedy, spoiled American cowboy more times than I would ever care to know about. “Cowboy” seemed to be a favorite label for Americans, curious because the Italians had a love-hate relationship with America’s legendary wide-open West, knocking the brawny cowboy mind-set but making their own Westerns, called spaghetti Westerns, based on the creations of Hollywood.
    I watched the other cooks and tried to rely on common sense to get through the day. Although one time when a chef asked for eggs, I came back with grapes, wondering why he needed