Manuela - Maria la cuoca - Nonna Zita
Lucca Stories of times gone by not too long ago.
In the beginning of the 1950`s in the small village of San Leonardo in Treponzio, near Lucca in Tuscany where I grew up. You can imagine how many family secrets could be kept? One of the reasons for this was that everyone was practically related in one way or another. Weddings, births and funerals were big events and everyone participated in the joys and sorrows of everybody. You did not need an invitation, you just participated and most of the times you were welcomed.
It’s the weddings I want to talk about in this story. To begin with, the couple needed the consent of both families before they even started to consider looking at each other, any other possibility was not to be considered unless you wanted to experiment trouble and heartbreak. Once you got the consent you became engaged, there was no dating periods, so you better knew what you wanted, there was no turning back.
Being engaged meant the couple was free to see each other while walking to church on Sunday, visits by the boy to the girls home where permitted on Sunday afternoon and evenings, Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday evenings. All under the supervision of a chaperon. The story is about one couple that I; the eleven year old cousin got to chaperon (the hardest job of my entire life). My cousin Armando became engaged to Luisa, this for the town was a big surprise. Luisa was the daughter of the richest families. Armando was the son of my uncle Giovanni, who lived from his small piece of land, growing on it all the things his family needed and raising a few farm animals such as a cow, a couple of pigs and lots of chickens, rabbits and ducks. Uncle Giovanni`s family did not have a penny but always had lots of food on the table, so you could say that he was not a poor man. But Luisas` family, that was another story. Her father had the only grocery and tobacco store in town. On Saturdays and Sundays also made coffee from the old espresso machine. But Armando, unlike his father had learned a trade, had become a very good carpenter and in the Italy of that period (the war had ended just a few years before) many families needed a good carpenter to rebuild all that the war had destroyed. So the rich girl would marry the poor boy who had a future. The wedding day was set and everyone knew that it would be a great event, because Luisas `father had the money to make it so.
Now that the date was set the most important decision to make was the choice of the woman who would cook and coordinate the kitchen. You see in those days the wedding banquet was held in the brides home, no one from the country even if they had the money would consider going to a restaurant for the banquet. It was believed that in a restaurant you could never get the quality and warmth that was given at home. The woman who was chosen was a 55, year old matron, the best in all the surrounding villages. She was paid well but you had the guarantee that your guest would go home happy and full . She was called for weddings, Holy Communions, Christenings and any other event worth celebrating. One of the special events came at the end of every Summer, when the wheat was cut and the farmers needed the help from their neighbors to store the wheat. A huge machine came to prepare the wheat for the mill. But that is another story. Well, Maria (the cook) always decided what to cook, how to cook and most important to the other ladies in town who would help her in the kitchen. My grandmother Zita was always chosen as her as Marias´ first helper. First of all because nonna was a very good cook herself, she never wasted anything and always kept her mouth shut. This last was for Maria the most important of all.
For the good outcome of her banquets. Days before ducks, chickens, rabbits or anything else that was fat enough to be slaughtered was killed and made ready to be cooked. At Armandos´ and Luisas´ Wedding Maria would also make the wedding cake and all the other goodies for the sweet table. She would also supervise the seating arrangements – just in case some families had some problems sitting next to somebody they did not like. Maria was like the priest in town she knew exactly what was going on. She said is was her job to know, this is why her banquets always went smoothly as olive oil she would say.
So this whole story to make you understand, how my grandmother Zita had become such a great cook, and why I treasure all of nonna Zitas` recipes. From her I learned first of all to be parsimonious, to choose ingredients you had on hand to make delicious dishes without always running to the supermarket, to use the freshest possible ingredients, to invent new recipes with the ingredients you have on hand. To cook by the season as she would always say. In the Summertime she had all the vegetables from her garden, so all the family became almost vegetarian in the summer and spring. In autumn you always had the things from the garden that she had dried in the sun such as tomatoes, eggplants, peas, black or white beans, potatoes that where stored under the sand. In the winter you always use the fresh meat from the pig and later on the same meats stored under salt or under the lard. Of course you also had corn flower to make Polenta or delicious corn flower sweets. In November you went hunting for mushrooms that where dried and could be used all year. Chestnuts where picked to make a sweet flower that was used to make sweet polenta or pancakes and served with ricotta cheese. She also dried almost any kind if fruits from apricots, that where my favourites, to apples and grapes. She made all sorts of preserves with the vegetables and with the fruits we had on the farm. I know that today we do not have the necessity or the time to do such things but I can assure that the best relaxing periods of my life is when I stay in my kitchen and try to do the things I learned from her. I think that I use that time as therapy….
