The Language of Food

By Robert Wallack

Clara Durante didn’t speak a word of English. But we talked at length nonetheless through the language of food during a recent trip to Umbria, Italy’s agricultural heartland known for its truffle-filled woodlands, its olive oil groves and its vineyards.

Umbria is the geographic center of Italy, dotted with medieval hill towns, many of them walled, with steep, narrow, cobblestone streets and brick and stone buildings that proudly and painstakingly wear the patina of time. The countryside is hilly, wide and rolling, cut into geometric patterns by the tines of the tractor’s tiller. Much of the land is under cultivation and during a fall visit, the palette is of browns and greens and golds; the fields have been turned over and the olives hang heavy on the trees. Late-harvest grapes still cling to the vines as the sugars concentrate, the end result likely a small-batch, silky-sweet dessert wine. Fall truffles are abundant in the forests and the fig trees bear soft, green-skinned fruit.

This was the backdrop to a week-long stay as guests of dear friends who rented a country villa outside the little, hill town of Todi. The grounds of the villa, itself a handsome stone and terra cotta structure with ageless architectural detail, were planted in olives, fruit and nut trees. Wide embankments bordering walkways were awash in rosemary and sage, the casual landscaping giving center stage to the indigenous plants and trees. An organic vegetable garden, bounded by a rudimentary woven wood fence to keep out the wild boars, was bursting with ripe tomatoes, fat bulbs of fennel and fragrant patches of basil.

And the kitchen was stocked and ours for the cooking.

Days were spent visiting the hill towns while gathering up the best of the local meats, poultry, cheeses and wines, and evenings were spent cooking and eating long into the night, sharing the joys of the table with old friends. For me, it was the perfect way to experience the food and the culture of a place I had long hoped to visit.

Then there was Clara, caretaker of villa Alla Collina, which is owned by a New York family and rented much of the year. She greets guests at the start of their visit and makes sure the pantry is stocked with staples needed for cooking. She also offers lessons in cooking traditional Umbrian fare and our group had the pleasure of spending an evening with her in the kitchen.

Clara is a woman with the way of a pixie as she maneuvers around the kitchen, all the while talking rapidly in Italian, hoping we can grasp a word or a phrase. Her raven-black hair is casually pulled back leaving wispy bangs and her deep, dark eyes sparkle with the joy of life – and cooking – as she speaks. Our friends try their best at interpreting with phrase book in hand, while I concentrate on the food, watching every move as she unfurls a bundle wrapped in waxy, brown butcher paper to reveal a freshly-killed chicken. She immediately sets to work plucking the remaining pin feathers on the bird and I join her in the task. She smiles, I smile and the conversation has begun.

Learning by doing

With the bird now plucked clean I manage to ask, mostly with hand motions, if she’d like me to cut it up and she smiles, “Si.” We are making Hunter’s Chicken and so I butcher the bird into eight pieces appropriately sized for a braise – or so I think. Signaling I am done, she looks at the cutting board, gives a smile and reaches for the poultry shears in the drawer. Sixteen pieces is what she wants and so the lesson is underway.

Next, Clara says, “Pomodoro, rosemarino, basilico e salvio.” Grabbing a straw basket and pair of scissors, she motions us through the kitchen door, which leads out to the loggia and the garden beyond. From the garden she picks a few tomatoes, cuts a fistful of basil and then marches us off to the edge of the wide, sloping lawn to gather tall rosemary sprigs and velvety, green sage leaves as big as a man’s thumb that scent the air in the warm, late-afternoon sun.

Back in the kitchen, we give the herbs a quick rinse and pat them dry. Knife in hand, I motion to Clara if she’d like them chopped and she nods, always smiling, and puts some garlic and an onion in front of me, too, as she sets an enameled cast iron Dutch oven on the stove, explaining, all in Italian and most of which we don’t grasp, how she’s going to render some fat from the chicken. Adding a little olive oil to the pot – oil that has been pressed from the olives grown at the villa – she tosses the chicken in and it begins to sizzle. She cranks up the heat, gives it a stir, puts one hand on her hip and assumes the pose of impatience, tapping her foot as she stirs and chattering all the time in Italian.

After a few minutes, the bird has given up enough fat and Clara hefts the pot from the stove to the sink where she dumps the contents into a waiting colander. As the chicken drains, Clara returns the pot to the stove and tells me to put some“olio” in it. I give the pot a few healthy glugs from the green bottle of oil and she motions for more. Another glug, and she motions for more still. We end up with a cup of oil in the pot and I begin to understand that the chicken is going to actually poach in the olive oil. In go the herbs to sweat a little, along with the garlic and onion. Capers are pulled from the cupboard and go into the pot along with some chopped tomato, white wine and white wine vinegar. Then comes the chicken; Clara raises the heat and brings the pot to a fast simmer. It bubbles and sputters and fills the kitchen with the savory aromas of rosemary and garlic and sage.

It’s time to make the pasta.

Clara measures out 750 grams (about 1 pound and a quarter) of farina – fine, Italian flour – and dumps it onto the countertop. She tells me, with her hands, to make a mound of it, and to then make a well in the center into which we crack a half-dozen eggs. She picks up a fork, stirs the air and hands it to me. “Ah, si.” With yolks and whites stirred to a frothy, bright orange, Clara reaches over and knocks a little flour into the well. I continue to stir and she continues to add a little more flour. Then she takes the fork from my hand, makes a motion in the air of stirring with her fingers, lets out a rapid-fire string of words no one gets, and I follow her instructions implicitly, stirring the batter with my fingers and bringing in a little more flour with every few revolutions until a stiff dough starts to form.

Clara makes a kneading motion, her two arms out in front of her, palms outward and close together, pushing forward in the air. We take turns kneading the pasta dough until it is elastic enough to start cranking it through the hand-rolling machine. Clara cuts it into eight pieces, flattens them out to rounded rectangles, dusts them with flour and hands me a piece. With the machine on the widest setting, we set to cranking and stretching the dough through the rollers. With each pass we narrow the rollers until the end result is a long ribbon of pasta through which we can see light. We all take a turn at the machine and flour begins to color our hair, our faces and our shoes. Clara is unfazed and still smiling. And she continues to smile and to gaily chatter in Italian through the cutting of the pasta into fettucine, while we make a simple pomodoro sauce and as we ladle the chicken, redolent with herbs and oil, from the pot and into the hand-painted Italian serving bowl.

It’s time to eat and we ask in our broken Italian for Clara to join us. With a smile she makes a little bow and slowly moves backward shaking her head no. We cajole but she explains she must now go home and cook for her own family. They are very lucky people and so are we to have met her and to have shared in this lesson.

Hunter’s Chicken Clara

Ingredients
1 4-pound chicken cut into 16 pieces
1 cup extra-virgin olive oil
½ cup chopped tomatoes
1 cup white wine
2 tablespoons white wine vinegar
1 small chopped onion
2 tablespoons chopped rosemary
2 tablespoons chopped sage
2 tablespoons chopped parsley
4 large cloves garlic finely chopped
1 scant tablespoon capers
2 small dried Mexican red peppers (optional)
Salt and pepper to taste

Wash chicken and pat dry on paper towels.

In a large heavy pot or Dutch oven, preferably enameled cast iron, heat 2 tablespoons of oil until fragrant and add chicken. Cook chicken for 5-8 minutes over medium high heat to render fat, stirring frequently to make sure chicken does not stick or burn.

Remove pot from heat and drain chicken in a colander.

Return the pot to the stove, add remaining olive oil, heat until fragrant and then add onion and garlic. Cook for 2-3 minutes over medium heat and then add the herbs. Cook for another 2 minutes until fragrant, but do not brown or burn. Add remaining ingredients, return chicken to the pot, bring to a fast simmer and cook 30-40 minutes or until chicken is tender.

Serve in bowls accompanied with crusty bread for dipping. Serve pasta on the side.

Serves 4-6.

Robert Wallack is a food writer and professional chef who offers private and group cooking lessons at Three Apple Farm in Mount Vernon. He can be reached by email at rwallack@roadrunner.com