One hundred years of one house in Chorlton ... part 130 ….. "Ccà nisciuno è fesso”

The continuing story of the house Joe and Mary Ann Scott lived in for over 50 years and the families that have lived here since.*

Baba and Zeppole, 2019

I doubt that Joe and Mary Ann would ever have thought that the house would one day regularly echo to a mix of Italian, Neapolitan, and English with a bit of Polish thrown in for good measure.

Or that much of the food which today is put on the table comes from the far south of Italy with the odd dish from Lombardy, and some from Poland.

Of course that will be how it is in homes across the country with only the origins of the food differing from a heap of other European countries, along with food from the sub-continent, China, south east Asia, and pretty much everywhere.

Beans, 2014

But this is our house and here it is Italian, or more strictly Neapolitan, with a Polish flavour from our Saul and Julia who live in Warsaw, and occasionally a half remembered German dish which I try to replicate from what Nana made for us.

And so this Christmas Rosa and Tina have made a variety of meals, from roast peppers,  parmigiana di melanzane, to my favourite  Sicilian salad, made with oranges, chili flakes and garlic.

That said Rosa will also serve up food from the north of Italy where she has lived for over half a century, and earlier in the week it was Pizzoccheri, which is a mix of pasta, potatoes, savoy cabbage and spinach and three types of cheese.

Pizzoccheri, 2021

Pizzoccheri is a type of short wide tagliatelle made from a mixture of buckwheat flour and wheat flour. The buckwheat gives the pasta a brown speckly look which I have to say was different.

She cooked the potatoes and cabbage together and then layered these with the cooked pasta and the diced cheese with more grated cheese on top and baked for about 15 minutes.

I have to confess that greens do not do much for me. I guess it dates back to overcooked green cabbage which was served up in my primary school. 

Even now I have vivid memories of the agony of forcing it down under the stern gaze of the dinner lady wanting to be anywhere than facing this plate of torture.

But such is Rosa’s cooking that this pasta and cabbage dish was just delightful.

It reminded me of Metternich’s observation that “Italy is only a geographical expression” and even now 150 years after most of the Italian states joined together to form a united country there is much below the surface that underlines the idea that the place is still a collection of regions.

The pasta, 2014

Leaving aside the very different food of the north and south there are the attitudes of many northern Italians to those of the south which is seen as a drain on the wealth and resources of the northern states. It is there too in the northern perception that the south can be a lawless and dangerous place.

And as if to underline this simple prejudice, Tina and I recently watched Benvenuti al sud

[Welcome to the south] in which a post office manager from Milan is sent south for two years to the town of Castellabate south of Naples. It is a comedy of misunderstandings and stereotypes and perfectly coveys how the two Italy’s perceive each other.

It is also true that the dialect of the south is almost incomprehensible to many northerners as are traditional southern names, which caused Tina much heartache during her school years in the north when fellow students and teachers made fun of her long first name.

Naples, 2017

The family continued to speak Neapolitan at home and now she and Rosa will regularly slip into the dialect of the south while watching TV here in the house in Chorlton.

And so it was that Rosa uttered the comment “Ccà nisciuno è fesso”, over coffee this morning.  

If I have got the spelling and translation correct it is “here nobody is a fool”**

There are others, but most would not pass the 9'clock threshhold.

Picture; Baba and Zeppole, from the collection of Balzano, Rosa's tomato and beans, her Pizzoccheri, the box cover of Pizzoccheri della Valtellina, Naples, 2017, from the collection of Saul Simpson

*The Story of a House, http://chorltonhistory.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/The%20story%20of%20a%20house

**Ccà nisciuno è fesso, here nobody is a fool