Rice salad- insalata di riso

Everybody knows about pasta salad, but fewer Americans know about another popular Italian summer dish- insalata di riso, or rice salad.

I just made it this morning. It's lighter and more refreshing than pasta salad, but the main reason I made it is that I had a lot of disparate stuff waiting to be used. Here's what I did:

Made rice for four in microwave because getting near stove in July is uncalled for. Use regular rice, not risotto rice. It should be al dente. If you don't know how to microwave rice, here's how. I do it all the time. When done, put in fridge to cool its heels.

Then I got a large bowl. Finely minced my fresh flat-leaf parsley and basil (more parsley though). Got out half-can of solid chunk leftover albacore, carefully rinsed to avoid fishy taste. Added flaked tuna. Got pimento-stuffed olives, quartered. Added those. Got crinkly cherry tomatoes, quartered and added. Finely diced some crinkly red pepper, zapped briefly, added that too. Got out coolish rice, mixed everything carefully. Seasoned with salt and freshly-ground pepper (take into account saltiness of ingredients before seasoning). Doused with extra-virgin olive oil (Bertolli). Mixed carefully. Covered and placed in fridge. It needs to rest one-two hours.

This can be varied greatly. Here are some ideas:

Pieces of uncooked hot dog. Yes, this is authentic. In fact it's common.

Finely diced cheese (fresh mozzarella is very good).

Diced ham.

Diced artichoke hearts.

Hard-boiled eggs.

Finely diced zucchini.

Button mushrooms.

Capers.

Kernels of corn.

Diced pickle.

Diced cucumber.

Cocktail shrimp (preferably fresh or thawed frozen).

Halved or quartered pearl onions.

Nuts, especially pine nuts.

Other herbs (fresh only)

Not all at the same time.

Bud Spencer has died

Italian actor Bud Spencer has died, age 86.

How did the Neapolitan Carlo Pedersoli get the name "Bud Spencer?" It's a long and entertaining story. He started out after the war as a precocious university student, who then turned his attentions to swimming competitively and did very well indeed. He was national champion and was the first Italian to swim 100 meters in under a minute. He also was in the Olympics. Here he is in all his youthful glory.

Time passed, he got married and had some bambini. He tried his hand as a songwriter. Then stumbled upon an acting career and as part of the spaghetti western trend took the name of "Bud Spencer," a combination of Budweiser and Spencer Tracy.  He lost his swimmer's physique but not his badassness, as can be seen here (with his sidekick Terence Hill aka Mario Girotti.)

Not content with his meager accomplishments, he went on to become a businessman, pilot, politician and author. His last book, Mangio ergo sum, came out two years ago and was inspired by the anguished nightmares caused by a diet. Various philosophers come to talk to the hungry giant, who tells them his own views on life, and finishes up with a recipe. Pasta e fagioli seems to occupy an important position in his worldview, as it should.

Get to know more about this great guy at his official website here (English version at bottom of home page.)

Rome has its first female mayor

Romans have elected the lovely 37-year-old lawyer Virginia Raggi as their first mayor. She is also the youngest in Rome's history and a sign that Italy wants to get away from its traditional gerontocrazia (rule by old men). She is a member of the newish M5S (Movimento 5 Stelle, Five-Star Movement), a populist anti-establishment party headed by former comedian Beppe Grillo and until his recent death, marketing specialist Gianroberto Casaleggio.

Although she makes a very favorable impression on me (she even speaks English well), I find the entire M5S disquieting. When she ran for mayor, she was asked to sign a contract of sorts which stated that if she damaged the image of the party she would resign and pay 150,000 euros to them in damages. I wonder about the legality of such a contract, and think that as a lawyer she should be wondering, too.

The M5S movement did well in other cities, notably in Turin, where an even younger (31) woman, Chiara Appendino, was elected mayor. All of this is bad news of course for the reigning PD (Democratic Party) and Prime Minister Matteo Renzi.

Religiously affiliated hospitality in Italy

It took me a while to come up with the title of this post. It will be about a new portal covering the vast number of accommodations for travelers in Italy that are related to the Catholic Church. But a few considerations are in order.

First of all, you need not be Catholic or even Christian. The purpose of your stay need not be religious or spiritual. Most importantly, the places included on the website are not necessarily what we consider Catholic structures e.g., monasteries and convents. Some are family-run farms, others look just like hotels. All have been approved and have some connection to the CEI (Conferenza Episcopale Italiana), the organization of Italian bishops. 

Now. There are a total of nearly 316,000 beds available in these facilities, which are wildly different and cover the entire country, from the Alps to Sicily. The greatest number are in Lazio, the area of which Rome is the capital, and Veneto, the area of which Venice is the capital. There are places with wifi, pools, air conditioning, and restaurants. The prices are usually quite competitive.

Here is just one example. Above you see one of the many offerings, a family-run house in Caprese Michelangelo, near Arezzo in Tuscany. It has a pool and a restaurant. Prices for singles are 30-35 euros, depending on the season. 

The portal is called Ospitalita' religiosa and can be found here. On the right side of the home page you will find access to the various translated versions, including English of course. Each entry gives detailed information on the specific facility. An excellent search function allows you to refine your search not only by location but by other fields such as amenities. You will not be able to make reservations from the site, but each entry has a form you may send to the place you are interested in.

Highly recommended.

Italian-English dictionaries online

Here is a list of free Italian-English bilingual dictionaries online, in no particular order. None requires registration, at least not at the more basic level. I've consulted all of them at one time or the other and have my own ideas about them. In time I will take a look at each of them on the blog, providing an assessment and some sort of rating (they are not by any means equivalent.)

Hoepli dictionary at La Repubblica's website

Sansoni dictionary at Corriere della Sera's website

Collins dictionary

Larousse dictionary

Garzanti dictionary

WordReference dictionary

Reverso dictionary

Oratorio di San Protaso, Milan

This is the little church that could. You know the enormous cathedral of Milan, the Duomo, right in the center of town?

Well this Little Church That Could is the anti-Duomo. It is the smallest church in Milan, it is obscure, it is poor, it is plain, it has a terrible location and it is usually locked. It is also adorable.

Its story is irresistibly appealing. The Oratorio has been around for about a thousand years and was originally in the countryside around Milan. The city grew and grew, and in the twentieth century the Lorenteggio-Giambellino area went from being rural to being a part of Milan, with its own subway stop. My mother's youngest sister used to live there back in the Sixties, in a high-rise.

So why is it The Little Church That Could? It survived intact through the centuries. While other churches, farmhouses, and gardens were destroyed, The Little Church heroically avoided demolition, and now occupies the median strip of Via Lorenteggio. A group of local citizens strenuously opposed its razing. Yes, its tiny millennial self sits right there in the middle of Milan traffic. Personally, I think it speaks of spirituality more than the Duomo.

It wouldn't be The Little Church That Could without its very own website (in Italian.) Check it out here- it includes pictures of the fine artworks in the interior. The Little Church (did I mention that it was adorable?) is usually not open to the public, but is used from time to time for special events. Also see this excellent Flickr album, lovingly created by one of the many admirers of the Oratorio.

   

Italian proverbs- Campa cavallo che l'erba cresce

Here is another obscure Italian saying that has no equivalent in English.

Campa cavallo che l'erba cresce literally means "live, horse, because the grass is growing." This is taken from a story in which a man has a horse that is exhausted and about to (how shall I put this?) croak. To encourage the horse to go on and not give up he tells the poor animal that the grass around them is growing even as he speaks- implying that the horse will eventually have something to eat.

The saying (often abbreviated to just "campa cavallo") is used to comment upon empty promises, or situations where a favorable outcome is difficult or not forthcoming at best.

Some examples in context:

Mi presti mille euro? Ti ripago quando trovo lavoro.
Eh, campa cavallo!

Can you lend me a thousand euros? I'll pay you back when I get a job.
Yeah, right.

Col nuovo governo andremo in pensione prima.
Campa cavallo che l'erba cresce.

We can retire earlier when the new government takes charge.
Sure we can!

The Italians and breakfast

Just reading an unexpected article in the New York Times that debunks the idea that breakfast is the most important meal of the day. The article is written by a prominent medical specialist, Aaron Carroll. It caught my eye because I have long believed that breakfast is relatively unimportant.

My opinion regarding the breakfast question comes from a long-standing observation of the fact that Italians have little or no breakfast. At any rate, their having breakfast is irregular, and often consists of a coffee beverage and a pastry or cookies (the latter mostly for children.) Some just have coffee. The French have similar habits. Both the Italians and the French have relatively little obesity and live long lives. The Americans and Brits, known for their more abundant breakfasts, have greater health problems.

It's hard to tease out the various factors that go into better health and zero in on just one variable, such as breakfast consumption. But my own experience in Italy bears out Dr. Carroll's advice.

Tennessee Williams and Rome

Author Tennessee Williams resided for a long time in Rome. Who knew? Evidently the writer for the New York Times knew, and that's why she produced this piece in today's paper. The rather unhappy Mississippi native lived in the city for years, mostly at an address near the Villa Borghese (below.)

Having rejected Paris, he took to Rome immediately. Evidently he felt an affinity for Italy and its people- one of his closest friends was the great actress Anna Magnani, and his life partner was the Sicilian-American Frank Merlo. He set his novella The Roman spring of Mrs. Stone in the city. Interesting article with tips for visitors. Unfortunately it furthers the myth that fettuccine Alfredo is part of the Italian culinary tradition, and erroneously states that this unfortunate creation has "attained global renown."

Check it out.

Renzi's ... English

Wish you knew Italian? If you do, wish your Italian were better? Feel that Italians might be appalled at your attempts to speak their language?

You may derive some comfort from the following video. In it, Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi delivers an incomprehensible speech in English, with much aplomb. Completely misplaced aplomb. As it is incomprehensible, subtitles have been provided. Some in Korean. Notice the reactions of the good-looking dude on the right.

 

Didn't think that was funny enough? Try this.

A cool (free) tool for language learning

Not so long ago I discovered this tool from a site called Reverso. The site has a number of features for language learners, but the one that caught my eye was a relatively new one called Context. You input a word as you would for a dictionary, and select your language pair, e.g., Italian to English. What Context will give is a series of real-world sentences showing the selected word in its context.

This may be very useful to you for difficult words, words that are considered "untranslatable," or just to expand your knowledge of certain words when you are unsure or when the dictionary is not giving you a clear picture of the meaning. I've tried it myself, just out of curiosity, with notoriously slippery Italian words such as furbo or velleitario. This is how velleitario was translated in different sentences: unrealistic, wishful thinking, indecisive, pious hopes, vain (hope), bohemian better than everyone else, pie in the sky, somewhat vague, empty, and over-ambitious. And that's just a partial list.

You might be asking yourself, are these mistakes, or at least, are some of them mistakes? A few of them may be (or may be less than ideal), but most of them reflect the diversity of meanings of some words, and above all, how they can change according to context. Check it out, if only to give you new insight into the workings of language and its complexity. By the way, there is another, similar site with the same feature called linguee.com. I am less familiar with this one.

New York Times article on Venice's Jewish ghetto

Did you know that the word "ghetto" is Venetian and derives from the Jewish ghetto in the Cannaregio area?  Closed Jewish ghettoes were found in all Italian cities where Jews lived, with the exception of relatively enlightened Livorno, where they were assigned certain streets.

This year will mark 500 years from the establishment of the Venice ghetto. The city is preparing a commemoration with an exhibition at the Doge's Palace, from June 19th to November 13th. There will also be The Merchant of Venice in the ghetto itself during the last week of July (for more information see The Merchant in Venice site here.)

Find out more about the ghetto in this article in today's New York Times.

Apericena

Apericena is a portmanteau word made up of aperitivo and cena, and this relatively new custom in fact is a combination of a drink (usually alcoholic) and a buffet dinner, with an affordable all inclusive price tag.

The aperitivo has been around a long time, and the word refers both to the drink before the meal and the custom itself, which involves having a drink with perhaps a very light snack before a major meal.  The difference between aperitivo and apericena is that the latter does not precede the meal, but replaces the meal. And the meal is not the usual sit down affair with two or more courses, but a buffet. So that the apericena is a way to save both money and time and have some fun, too. In practice, there is often overlap in the usage of the two words.

It will be fairly obvious that this is similar to our happy hour. Music and (alas) karaoke are often featured. But, being in Italy, you can be sure that the drinks and food will be better. I'd definitely give it a try.

Nepetella, che confusione!

I'm a great lover of herbs, so when I was reading La Repubblica this morning and a certain Chef Rubio named nepetella as one of his favorite ingredients, I immediately sought to clarify its identity. I ended up doing major research- confusion reigns supreme, even among Italians. In these cases, I always think that the botanical name is your friend. But there is still no consensus on this weighty matter.

Many Italians seem to think that nepetella is a synonym of the more common word mentuccia (and some think mentuccia is a generic name for mint.) But mentuccia should be Mentha pulegium (English pennyroyal),whereas nepetella is not in the genus Mentha L., but in the genus Calamintha (but both are in the Lamiaceae family.)  In fact the botanical name for nepetella is Calamintha nepeta, possibly from the Etruscan city Nepete. This would translate to lesser calamint in English, although this term is not used for culinary purposes. Nepetella now seems to be standard in English for culinary uses. The authoritative Treccani dictionary states that mentuccia is used for both M. pulegium (pulegio) and Calamintha nepeta, but especially the latter. Some people have even gone so far as to mix nepetella up with catnip (Nepete cataria.)

As if this weren't bad enough, there are all sorts of regional names for these herbs. The confusion continues with the terms menta romana or mentuccia romana. Nepetella is in fact associated with Roman cooking, as in the recipe for Roman-style artichokes (not to be confused with artichokes alla giudia, also from Rome- its Jewish tradition). It is also good with mushrooms, especially porcini.

However you call it, nepetella is not easy to find in the States, although seeds can be obtained. The herb is said to be a cross between oregano and mint, and English-language recipes will often substitute other herbs for it. Even many Italian recipes do this.

Eager to try nepetella in a recipe? Here is Williams-Sonoma's take on Roman-style artichokes. And below you will find a photo of what is (probably) nepetella. I'm sure it's not catnip.

Coffeemaker king Bialetti has died

Renato Bialetti recently died at the age of 93. He had been at the head of the glorious Bialetti firm, known for the famous and beautiful Moka espresso coffeemaker. The company was set up by his father Alfonso and taken over by son Renato after the war. During the Italian economic boom of the 50's and 60's, Renato Bialetti used the new medium of television advertising skillfully. When I was a child in Italy I remember the commercials they made with l'omino coi baffi (the little man with the moustache, based on Renato himself.)




Note that the little man's mouth changes shape constantly to form the letters of the words he's saying. When I was a kid I was entranced by this. Hell, I'm still entranced by this. I would try to to keep up with the letters forming the words. Impossible then and now.

Renato Bialetti retained his playful spirit to the end. His ashes were placed in a giant Moka coffemaker and blessed by the priest while those gathered sang solemn hymns.

Jhumpa Lahiri is writing in Italian- perche'?

Jhumpa Lahiri is a prominent author who was born in London of Indian parents, and brought up from the age of two in Rhode Island, in the United States. She has achieved widespread acclaim, and won the Pulitzer Prize for fiction at age 32. Writing in English.

Like so many foreigners before her, Lahiri became infatuated with Italy and the Italian language. She explained the long process of learning the language in a recent article in The New Yorker. But what was most surprising, even shocking, is that after having moved with husband and children to Rome (she has since moved back to the States), she decided to start writing in Italian. I must admit that I find this decision to be strange and incomprehensible, even bizarre. She has now written her first book in Italian, the memoir In altre parole. To reach a more international audience, she proceeded to have it translated by the ubiquitous Ann Goldstein. Lahiri explains that she neither felt comfortable with the Bengali of her parents nor with the English of her acquired country. Due to her overwhelming attraction to Italian, she decided to reinvent herself as an Italian, or at least an Italian author.

She stated that she feels liberated and stronger as a writer in her new language. From what I have seen of her Italian (and I don't mean to be brutal) this is a subjective feeling. At least so far. Yes, it's been done before, and it's been done well- that is, writing in a foreign language. Notably by Joseph Conrad and Vladimir Nabokov. But I don't see that happening here. Also, almost invariably, authors who switch languages do so by switching to a more widely spoken language, which often means a larger readership (and market). Not only is Italian not widely spoken, Italians are not big readers.

If nothing else, this is a brave move. It will be interesting to see what comes of it and if the lovely lady ever decides to change her mind.

Hemingway on learning Italian

Ernest Hemingway wrote a short story (one of his best) called In Another country, based on his experiences in World War I in Northern Italy. A Farewell to arms recounts the same experiences, but as a (long) novel. The story is set in a hospital in Milan while he was recovering from injuries sustained as an American volunteer. At a certain point, the young protagonist is talking to an Italian major about his progress in learning the language.


"The major, who had been a great fencer, did not believe in bravery, and spent much time while we sat in the machines correcting my grammar. He had complimented me on how I spoke Italian, and we talked together very easily. One day I had said that Italian seemed such an easy language to me that I could not take a great interest in it; everything was so easy to say. "Ah, yes," the major said. "Why, then, do you not take up the use of grammar?" So we took up the use of grammar, and soon Italian was such a difficult language that I was afraid to talk to him until I had the grammar straight in my mind."

Translation and its discontents (and malcontents)

The talented and prolific author and translator Tim Parks has written an important article on The New York Review of Books about translating from Italian to English. Unfortunately, the prolific part of Parks sometimes outruns the talented part.

The piece aims to show the difficulties of translating, using the translations of Primo Levi's The Truce by Stuart Woolf and Ann Goldstein, and comparing them to what Parks would have written and why. There are many good points here; specifically, getting register right. The use of "ankylosed" in the translation is a mistake: (almost) everyone in Italy understands anchilosato, whereas almost no one understands "ankylosed" in English. The same goes for "quintal"- Italians will often say "pesa un quintale" for something or someone really hefty, but no one will say it in English. It's been said before, but apparently it bears repeating: translate the meaning, not the words. Again, the excessive use of Latinate words in English translations from Romance languages is something that should be avoided.

But as if to unintentionally demonstrate the difficult nature of translation, Parks himself makes mistakes or questionable statements. Levi did not invent the word pococurante (which is also found in English)- it presumably derives from Voltaire's Candide, after a world-weary Venetian senator. Di fronte can mean "in front of" in a certain (common sense): il bar di fronte a casa mia, il palazzo di fronte al municipio (although these are likely to be translated as "across from" or "opposite.") The word "hurricane" inappropriate for an English-speaking audience? Apart from the fact that there are plenty of English speakers familiar with hurricanes, even the English use it, from Shakespeare to the Beatles. Lear: "Blow, winds, and crack your cheeks! Rage! Blow!/You cataracts and hurricanoes, spout... Rock and roll music: I must admit they had a rockin' band/Man they were playin' like a hurricane.

A few years ago I was curious to assess Parks as a translator, so I scanned The Prince. I went to the famous passage where Machiavelli tells us that it is better to be feared than loved. For the phrase per essere li [sic] uomini tristi he gave "sad" for tristi, confusing triste (sad) for tristo (bad), because both have the same plural. This is an enormous mistake, in a world-famous text, already translated numerous times. It completely subverts the meaning and makes no damn sense.

Sometimes traduttori are traditori. Of each other.

But the final call he makes for more translation editing is absolutely right (as he has shown). But not likely to happen anytime soon due to the low profitability of translations.

The mysterious pionono

Here's an interesting puzzle in food history and etymology for you.

How does one go from this:

 

To this?

Let me backtrack. I was talking to a man from Puerto Rico recently when the conversation turned to food, as it will. I had him give me a complete rundown on his native cuisine, and the word pionono popped up. I asked him to repeat it, then spell it. It was indeed pionono. I informed him that this was a famous Italian pope, Pius IX, in Italian Pio Nono. We both pondered the link between a Pope and a scrumptious roll of ripe plantain and seasoned ground beef.

I did some sleuthing, of course. Some version of the pionono is found in a number of Spanish-speaking countries and even the Philippines. What they all have in common is that they are all roll-like, with a stuffing that can be sweet or savory. But the grandpa of them all is the Santa Fe (Spain) pionono, shown in the illustration above. How did this happen?

The pionono was invented in 1897 by pastry chef Ceferino Isla in Santa Fe (Granada), who as a devout Catholic decided to name it after the pope of his time. The resemblance is apparently in the top that looks like a mitre, and some impertinently say in the pudgy consistency of the body. Others maintain that the Pope himself partook of the pastry. Ironically, it is believed that the confection has Arab origins.

From its original home in Spain it morphed into various versions in Latin America, some sweet, some savory. A search of the term (as one word) in Google Images will show you the variety of dishes derived from Ceferino's creation.

Umbrella pines

"What a beautiful thing the stone pine is!" said Ford Madox Ford in The Good Soldier. I read that novel many years ago, in Castagneto Carducci (near Livorno), on the Tyrrhenian sea (west coast of Italy), where these trees (also known as umbrella pines) are common. When I first went to live in Italy at the age of seven, it was in fact in Livorno. I suspect my love for them derives from these early impressions. I have retained my attachment to the Maremma area ever since then.

Umbrella pines (Pinus pinea) are called pini marittimi in Italian, although this term is also used in Italy for Pinus pinaster. The latter are more cold-resistant, less lovely and do not produce the delicious (and expensive) edible pine nuts that Pinus pinea do. Edible pine nuts can also come from other species, such as the Chinese nuts, generally considered inferior to the Italian ones.

The beautiful tree is associated with rural and seaside areas, but it is of course also found in urban areas, notably Rome (Naples, too). The composer Ottorino Respighi, from Bologna, was also besotted by the wonderful plants, composing his famed I pini di Roma in 1924.