Tuscan Villas

I love Italian villas. They are so charming and full of romance. I am sure you know what I am talking about. The clean and fresh Liberty style of the Twenties, the earlier Neoclassic with its sweeping heights protruding to the sky, the Renaissance with its pastel colors and Italian gardens, the Medieval period, with its brick and stone walls all have a great charm.

But there is a kind of villas that I love the most. Perhaps it does not belong to any specific architectural style, or perhaps to the rural one, if such style exists. At any rate, I am talking about Tuscan villas, those rising in the middle of the luxuriant countryside on top of panoramic hills. Surrounded by well kept fields, woodlands, and water bodies, these villas have a very humble past, one deepening its roots in the land they were built on.

I am indeed charmed away by peasant farmhouses, those with stone walls, comfortably sitting on a green estate with their wide presence and low rising roofs. Large families of laborers lived on the first floor, while on the ground floor the stables hosted cows and horses, the tractors of the past. The floor dividing the stables from the living quarters used to be made of a layer of cotto tiles held by wood pillars and lines of studs. The relative thinness of such layer was achieved on purpose to allow the heat of the stables to flow to the upper floor. A thick ceiling would have isolated the heat in the stable.

These villas had not many comforts, and the Sunday morning bathing, religiously carried out prior to going to church, took place in the stables inside a vat, as this was the warmer room of the house. The fireplace on the first floor was the heart of the house. The large dining room and kitchen was built around the fireplace. It is here that most of the daily life took place. The fireplace was used to cook, it heated the dining room, and often accommodated six or more people inside during colder nights. Here the large family, and often neighbors, gathered to chat and carry on petty hand works and crafts impossible to do during the daylight time, which required to be in the fields. Wood and straw works served to the production of chairs, hats, kitchen utensils and to repair work tools. Stories and local news were told while manual work was carried out, and perhaps this is also how couples could meet each other and create new families.

Bedrooms did not have fireplaces, and the freezing cold beds where warmed up using bed warmers filled with ambers. The mattress was filled with dry corn leaves, and you can imagine that beds catching fire was not a rare happening!

Each time I enter into Tuscan villas I can feel the past. Although nowadays many were renovated and include all comforts, the original soul of the place is still present. At times I like to visit the ruins of an old farmhouse. At first I think it is a pity it was not restored as many other were, but then I can see the signs of abandonment and rediscover many original traits of a rural life that completely disappeared in Tuscany and Italy.

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The Day After....Berlusconi

Traveling through a country does not only involve the often superficial activity of moving from place to place watching the world around you as if you were in a zoo. The real traveler, though short his visit may be, always tries to get to the ore of things, and however a hard job this is, it rewards her much in the end.

Traveling through Italy, or any other country for that matter, also involves talking about its political happenings. Even more so if you are armchair traveling while reading my subjective and instinctively written articles. It is the right way of traveling as it adds a third dimension to your point of view, giving you the instruments to get a rounder picture even on more ephemeral subjects I will be addressing in later posts.

The big news of these days is that, after Papandreu's leave of office in Greece, Berlusconi, Italy's (former) prime minister, resigned from his post to give way to a technical government headed by Mr. Monti.

What is a technical government? Non-Italians like me might have a hard time grasping this concept at first. It is a concept that speaks of Italian culture. This type of government, literally, is one set in place to "get the job done". Yes, it sounds absurd. What are non-technical governments there for, then?

First of all, governments elected through regular elections, such as the one that just fell in Italy, are supposedly formed by politically prepared people that have good leadership. They are managers, but need (economy, medicine, education, transportation) expert consultants to run the show. During the so-called technical government, one that was not elected by the Italian people but appointed by the leaving government and the President of the Republic, you just have these expert consultants running the show. It's like a company downsize, when marketing and PR are trimmed to fuel the R&D department.

Berlusconi's government was really (REALLY!) big in marketing and PR, however lacked much expertise, and the ability to pull it together into a synergistic strategy. The mix was composed of very young ministers, of whom many coming from the show business, others without a properly developed cultural background, but most importantly of frail alliances that always threatened the stability of the government and brought to a stalling legislative motor.

The Lega Nord party especially leveraged on its small number of seats that nevertheless allowed Berlusconi to remain the Prime Minister of Italy, while pushing towards its pet interests at the expense of the whole country.

This brings about the new electoral law that 1.2 million Italians dearly desire to the point of subscribing a referendum request on this matter. You see, in Italy at this stage any party is a big box that gets voted, then filled with all sorts of people. You elect a brand, not the people representing you. This was supposed to create stability in a country that up to the end of the 20th century had had more than fifty governments in less than fifty years with hundreds of parties represented. However, stability (and democracy) was compromised by allowing medium parties to partner up with smaller ones, so to reach the minimum required number of seats to gain the majority and govern. Problem is, these parties often come from very different ideological backgrounds. As a result, and to much dislike of electors, if one wants to vote for the left wing alliance, she will end up giving her vote also to center-right parties participating into the alliance. And if that alliance wins, then you will probably see "your" government act in favor of ideologies totally foreign to its original intents. And this is done just to foster stability (or keep their well-paid seat, as they say in Italy). Otherwise their political allies might abandon the crew and let the boat sink (as Lega Nord continuously threatened to do).

On the part of Italians, Berlusconi's demise was reason to carousel along the streets of many cities, as if Italy had won the World Cup. The vast majority of Italians could not stand his empty promises served on a plate decorated with sexism, racism, egocentrism, bad manners and bad taste anymore. On my part, I will remove the poll on this blog with the question "Do Italians Deserve Berlusconi?" and give it a resounding "no" as an answer.

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All Saints Typical Italian Sweets

All Saints Day is celebrated on November 1 around the world the. It is a big celebration for Christianity, followed by November 2, the All Souls Day, a Christian event that traces its roots in ancient times.
Talking about seasonal cooking, every Italian region has tied these two celebrations to the table. For the most part these are recipes based on seasonal produce such as pumpkin, chestnuts, cabbage, pork, vegetables - especially beans and peas and and dried fruit. In Liguria, the custom is to eat chicken for All Saints to live up to the proverb "All Saints without beak, Christmas will be poor", probably tied to the fact that if you didn't have chicken to eat on All Saints day, by the end of December you would have had little food on your table.
The desserts, however, are certainly the most famous ritual food: in fact, each region has its typical sweet with a name recalling the celebrations.

Bustrengolo from Umbria
Ingredients: 350 g of corn flour, 100 grams of sugar, 50 grams of pine nuts, 100 g of raisins, 4 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil, 1 pinch of salt, 2 apples

Preparation:
Boil a large pot with 1 quart of salted water and add the flour as to make a polenta. Add the oil and mix together. Cook for about twenty minutes, then add the sliced apples, raisins, pine nuts and the sugar. Remove from heat and pour the mixture, which should be rather soft, on a buttered cake mold in a layer about 3 cm thick. Bake in a heated oven at 180 degrees and cook for about half an hour.
It should be eaten cold.

Colva from Puglia
In Puglia, particularly in the areas of Foggia and Barletta, it is typical of the Day of the Dead. The preparation of this cake is made of wheat and pomegranate.

Ingredients:
The kernels of a pomegranate, 1 can cooked corn, 150 grams of chopped walnuts, 150 grams of chopped almonds, white grapes, 100 g dark chocolate, sufficient mulled wine

Preparation:
Drain well the cooked wheat and place it in a bowl. Mix it with the pomegranate seeds, walnuts, almonds, the seeded and peeled grapes, chopped dark chocolate and add just enough mulled wine to mix all the ingredients into a smooth mixture. Serve in bowls.

Castagnaccio from Tuscany (for 6 people)
400 g of chestnut flour, Enough water, enough olive oil, 30 grams of raisins (soaked in warm water), 30 g of pine nuts, 3 tablespoons of sugar, 1 pinch of salt, 1 tablespoon rosemary

Preparation:
In a bowl mix the water with chestnut flour and sugar stirring with a whisk to prevent lumps. Your batter consistency should be quite liquid. Oil a cake mold of 25 cm in diameter with extra virgin olive oil and pour the mixture, pour on top a thin line of olive oil sufficing for two table spoons and finally sprinkle with pine nuts, raisins and rosemary. Bake in a heated oven at 180 degrees for about 40 minutes until the surface becomes dry and opposes resistance when pressed with a finger.

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