Most years I spend a few weeks of August in Italy which confers a number of benefits. Last year, apart from a darkening of my skin colour, I gained somewhat in gravitas - specifically about four kilos. There may be some who might think that this is a product of unfettered gluttony, but I'll defend myself by saying that it is rather a product of gastronomic investigation and research, and is consequently a result of the noblest motives.
To give a little credence to this assertion let me tell you about the Contest of Gastronomy which was held last year in my little village of Gallinaro as part of the ten-day festival held in honour of our patron, Saint Gerard. My old friend Lucio Piselli, who is the councillor in charge of the festival events, asked me if I'd be a part of the five-man jury. I took a little time thinking about this, because five years ago I was on the jury empanelled to decide the best wine produced in the village. After assiduously tasting over sixty wines, all of which came in plain, unmarked bottles, we selected a winner which turned out to be the wine made by another friend of mine who had organised the event that year. Needless to say the decision didn't go down very well with the populace at large, who not unreasonably considered it a fix. Bearing all this in mind I was slow to agree, but eventually said 'yes'.
Gallinaro has a small, triangular piazza which slopes downhill toward the wide end. It was here that a long table had been set up for judges who faced the piazza, which was filled with tables and chairs since the entire village had turned out to take part. Apart from the interest in food generally in Italy, the huge turn out was because once the judges had tasted the food, it was to be distributed to whoever wanted to taste it, or put another way there was free food to be had.
We were handed our score cards at nine-thirty and the contest began. There were twenty-four entries, all of which were starters, mostly different pastas, some crepes, a paella and some traditional rice dishes. We were to give each dish five marks: for presentation, taste, originality or faithfulness to tradition, for flavouring and for choice of ingredients - each marked out of ten. Two and a half hours later, feeling somewhat replete, we put our scores together and handed them to the scrutineer. I'd given the paella top marks, and high marks to a home-made pasta in broth, a spicy spaghetti dish, ravioli with porcini mushrooms and lastly to a local speciality, home-made pasta cooked with borlotti beans, asparagus tips and cubes of belly of pork. When the results had all been calculated top prize went to the pasta with a lentil sauce, which was ninth on my score-sheet. And who had made it? Yup, you guessed - it was made by Lucio. A low groan came from the crowd as this was announced, followed by rather perfunctory applause. And once again I'm branded as a corrupt judge who clearly accepts payola from everyone.
About a week later, still smarting from these accusations, I was asked to be on another jury, this time the regional heats of the Miss World competition. Despite having told myself I'd never go on a jury again this one seemed too good to miss. Perhaps I should have realised something was amiss when it became clear that the judges' table was nowhere near the best vantage point for assessing the contestants. We had been placed at the top of a long flight of steps that lead from the war memorial down to a piazza. The contestants filed quickly past this table and then paraded at length in the piazza in front of the crowd, out of sight of we judges. And the contestants weren't the only thing that we couldn't see. We missed the magician, the comedian and a noisy band as well. It could be argued that we didn't miss too much in these things, but there was nothing else on that night. We were unanimous in choosing the winner: number two, long-legged, blonde and rather gorgeous. The organisers gathered our score sheets and shortly after announced that the winner was number one. There followed a long and complicated explanation as to why the jury's decision had been over-ruled, but now I really need no other prompting to refrain from Italian juries completely in the future.
The day after this fiasco was the fifteenth of August, which is called Fer'Agosto in Italian. It was instituted as a feast day by Caesar Augustus, from which it gets its name, and it's celebrated by the entire nation going to the top of the nearest mountain and cooking a fifteen-course meal. Gallinaro is no exception to this rule and about thirty of us set off for a mountain stream where waterfalls cascade though lush greenery under the hottest summer sun that I can remember here. Each group of friends brings ridiculous quantities of food and wine, some already prepared and some things, like the pork chops, the lamb cutlets, the steaks, the chicken, the rabbit and the fish are cooked on barbecues in situ. The fruit, beer, wine and mineral water goes into the chilly water of the mountain stream which becomes our natural refrigerator. Seven tables in total lined the riverbank, each laden with enough food for a legion. Making my way slowly though them all I tasted in no particular order, sweetbreads, suppli - which are deep-fried riceballs stuffed with mozzarella - three different kinds of omelette, roasted peppers and aubergines, home-made salamis and sausages, ox-tongue cooked in red wine, spaghetti with truffles, a pizza rustica - which is a bit like an open savoury tart - cannelini beans cooked with sausages and chilli, a sea-food risotto and lastly my own truffled eggs. Three different barbecues now came to life and were fired with the drift-wood deposited by the winter spates. For the next couple of hours we ate the various meats in a communal sort of way and finally stopped eating sometime around six o'clock, which is as well, since the sun was about to go behind a mountain peak.
I'll defend myself by saying that once again this is a product of gastronomic investigation rather than plain gluttony. Since we come here only once a year our friends are at pains to ensure that we eat at least one Gargantuan meal with each of them. Last year I was foolish enough to arrange seven of these meals on consecutive nights, which left me abed for a day suffering from the effects of these liver-crippling meals.
All these meals are the product of a lot of work, but the one that sticks in my mind was the one at Tommaso's house overlooking the lake at Posta Fibreno. Tommaso and his family make everything: their own wine, olive oil, grow all their vegetables, raise pigs, chickens and rabbits and until recently had a cow for milk and butter. Dinner with Tommaso means that everything you eat is untainted with any chemicals or hormones and is as fresh as any food can be. I try to take special note of this when I'm eating because I'm pessimistic enough to believe that food like this will soon be confined to history books. We started with slices of prosciutto which they'd made from one of their own pigs and it came with slices of melon from the garden. We followed this with home-made sagne e faggioli, which are small strips of egg pasta cooked with beans and the bone and fat from the prosciutto. Then came rabbit and chicken which were pot-roasted, then lastly came cubes of ox-tongue par-boiled then fried, which they served with a risotto made with truffles. A variety of desserts made sure that no one was hungry and it was all washed down with Tommaso's own sparkling white Trebbiano.
The highlight of our festa is undoubtedly the wine festa. Now in its eleventh year it's held on the 13th of August. This is a carefully chosen day; the 11th is the saint's feast day with a big party in the piazza, the 12th is for recovery, the 13th is for the wine festa, the 14th for recovery and then the 15th it's back to mountains for another picnic. The village opens up all its cantinas, including mine, to the anyone who chooses to come. Free wine in every cantina, and free food served from various places around the alleyways of the village. As word has spread into the neighbouring towns and beyond, the wine festa is now drawing nigh on ten thousand people who crowd into our tiny streets with only one end in mind; to get as much free wine as possible. We even hit national TV last year when RAI 3 sent a crew to cover this event of Saturnalian madness.
There's no doubt that it has raised the awarenes of our local DOC wine 'Atina' as well as causing a few fights and next day headaches. Despite the reservations of the local police it's going ahead as ever this year and I'll be expected to open my cantina again for the invading hoards. Mind you, there is a benefit: in the unlikely event that there's any wine left in my cantina at the end of the night, I'll get to keep it. This annual pilgrimage to Gallinaro and Saint Gerard is a part of my life now. And if I become more portly still this year, then it's all in the noblest of causes, the search for the best in food and wine.