Another letter from Viareggio ..... mainly about food

First posted in the summer of 2011

Rosa has a wealth of recipes. Last night it was the simple prosciutto, followed by a selection of cheeses and watermelon. 

 She uses the slightly stale bread from the day before, adds some small chopped up tomatoes, onions and drizzled with olive oil.

Today she shows me a bowl of little shell fish. They come in bag of sea water and I guess a few hours earlier before she bought them from the man in the market they were lifted from the sea. Left in the sea water they in Rosa words “begin drinking and any sand will come out.” Later she will cook them in boiling water and a few diced carrots and serve with pasta and parsley they will be cooked in water and open of their own accord and be served with pasta.

But the shell fish are only part of what she brought back. There are some small blue fish which once they have been sliced open and the back bone pushed out she dip in flour, beaten egg and fry in very hot oil. So far so good, but the octopus and squid challenge my squeamish side.

But I am genuinely inquisitive and watch as she takes an octopus; pulls out [the blue bit] followed by other bits and then cuts off the heads.

The squid she treats differently, after pulling out the blue bit and emptying the body sack she washes the tube, take out the bone and then cuts the body into round sections, carefully taking out what look like muscles. The squids she will fry, but says she hasn’t made her mind up about the octopuses, which might be boiled and added to a salad or cooked with a tomato sauce and served with pasta.

Meanwhile the rain continues to fall. And there is that sense that we are imprisoned. But holidays have moved on. We have a TV and a mended internet. This allows Luca to connect to Facebook and he is as good as lost to the world.

The day passes and lethargy settles on us all. We settle for take away pizza from the local restaurant. Now I have eaten many pizzas over the years but these and the ones we had back in Varese before we left for the sea side are not my favourite. Tina assures me the ones in Naples are the best and we still plan a trip south. For a long time this was to give Saul the opportunity to taste the real thing as of all the boys he has always preferred them over all other meals.

At last the night comes to and already there are worrying signs that our new neighbours are three young lads and this only adds to Tina and Simone’s forebodings. Young lads on their own can only mean late night noise to compliment that which comes from the bar opposite.

It seems to me that if tomorrow proves to be poor we should plan another trip out. Rome beckons.

 We shall see.

Picture;shell fish gently cooking, from the collection of Andrew Simpson