Provence

Two weeks ago, I was absent from London for a few days to visit beautiful wild Luberon and Beaujolais areas in South/East France.

Three intense days visiting goat cheese producers and natural winemakers, breathing air filled with scents of rosemary and wild garlic, savoring mediterranean favors, intense, sweet, herbal –ripe purple figs, wild plums, olive oil and ripe tomatoes. There was creamy, tangy fresh goat cheese on crusty bread. There was fruity rosé and jamey red wines. There were people, whose life is of such inspiration that I often think why I am not doing the same, right now.

Tomorrow, I will be off again for a week traveling around Aquitaine, and the Basque Countries, exploring the food culture and the beauties of those regions. We will stay in Bordeaux for a few nights, driving around vineyards and graphic-looking Atlantic beaches, and then we will head South, to San Sebastian in Spain, enjoying the last bits of summer. We will pack light, bring a bathing suit, and hopefully, bring back some wine and an uplifted spirit.

 

 

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Due settimane son passate dalla mia assenza da Londra, due settimane da quella visita al sud-est della Francia, al Luberon e al Beaujolais.

Sono stati tre giorni intensi e pieni, tre giorni di visite a produttori di formaggio e di vino naturale, tre giorni pieni d’aria al profumo di rosmarino ed aglio selvatico, tre giorni di forti sapori del sud: fichi, prugne, olio e pomodori. C’erano formaggi freschi di capra e baguette croccante. C’erano rosé fruttati e rossi leggeri. C’erano persone la cui vita è insegnamento e ispirazione, il cui esempio mi spinge a chiedermi perché, anche io, non stia vivendo come loro.

Domani sarò di nuovo sulla strada, in viaggio verso l’Aquitania e i Paesi Baschi, ad esplorare il cibo e la cultura di quei luoghi. Passeremo qualche giorno a Bordeaux, girando tra i vigneti e su e giù per le spiaggie di dune con una Twingo a noleggio e mappe alla mano. Poi, viaggeremo verso sud in direzione San Sebastian, a goderci gli ultimi strascichi d’estate. I bagagli saranno leggeri: costume, pantaloncini, e tanto spazio per portare indietro un pezzetto di quei sapori, ed insieme, uno spirito un po’ più leggero.

Italian Table Talk #4: On Harvest and a Grape Must Pudding | Vendemmia e Sùgoli

Often, I reflect on the concept of seasonality, on its meaning and value. I think I came to the realization that it is simply a variable parameter, a tool that help us understand the reality around us rather than a rule we have to follow. Seasonality, like time, is relative and personal.




Back in Italy, I thought I knew very clearly what eating seasonally meant, and I behaved accordingly. If we pay the smallest attention, we will see how traditional Italian recipes reflects this pure and simple concepts. But now that I live in London, seasonal food is different from what I was used to, or it simply comes at a different time. For instance, in Italy I was used to eat figs at the end of August, while here they are still tough and green, staring at me from the branches with stone-like attitude.

September, in my mind, is the month of grape harvest. In Italian, we have a specific name for the harvest of grapes, which is different from other kinds of harvests: vendemmiare. This is why we chose it for this month's theme of Italian Table Talk: it is a key moment in the Italian cycle of seasonal food, and it carries a good deal of history and local traditions, but also interesting recipes with grapes and must. This time of the year, everywhere in Italy you can find festivals that celebrate the harvest and the end of the Summer season: from North to South, the end of the vendemmia is a feast worth remembering with good food and, of course, wine.

Alas, the UK is not big at viticulture. What I thought was an easy task –getting some wine grapes such as Concord/Fox grape, or Merlot Grape, or Muscat Grape for my recipe– revealed being pretty challenging. All I could find was seedless table grapes from Chile. I finally spotted a little store who had only a few clusters of Muscat Grapes imported from France, and I jumped on them, despite their hard-to-justify price. This is when I started to reflect on the relativity of seasonality: never take anything for granted. What is cibo dei poveri (food of the poor) here, is a luxury good there.

And to think that in Italy, especially in the past, wine grapes were the only ones, for the rich and the poor. Seasonal workers would have been enrolled in the harvest and surely, some grapes would have been taken home, perhaps the damaged ones, to eat and cook. In Veneto, women made a sweet pudding with grape must, a thick and energetic sweet treat, perfect to give some calories to keep going in the vineyards. Sugoi, or sùgoli, was indeed a sweet of the poor, as it was made with the simplest, available ingredients and didn't require much sugar –the sweetness from the grapes was enough. Some women would make giant pots of sùgoli and sell them in town, where people were waiting with a bowl in hands, ready to welcome a generous scoop of that purple red delight. In my family, sùgoli have been made through generations, passing from grandma to mum to daughter. My mum made them for us sometimes, but my memory of it is far and vague –all I remember is that I didn't particularly like them as a child.




I haven't eaten them since then. But this month's theme was the perfect occasion to rediscover this family recipe, this local tradition linked to this specific time of the year. I bought my grapes, a masher, and got started.

The name sùgoli is somehow related to the word "sugo", juice. It is, indeed, nothing more than a grape juice pudding. You can make it starting from the must, but if you only have the grapes like me, you have to extract the juice before getting into the thickening part. The recipe, of course, is as easy as it sounds. Just grapes, flour and, perhaps, some sugar. Additional toppings include cinnamon or dark cocoa powder, but none of them have ever been used in my family.