Meanwhile, olive oil prices have soared in Europe, production has declined due to weather and disease, and millions of trees in Italy have died due to the Xylella fastidiosa fungus. Compared to January of this year, scientists said the increase was up to 50% compared to January of this year. It is believed that the virus may have been introduced from a coffee factory in Costa Rica in 2008. And, perhaps most directly to the public, the price of pasta soared in Italy last year, prompting the government to convene an emergency consultation and consumer advocates lobbying for improvements. price ceiling. It later emerged that the companies were trying to recoup the costs of purchasing marked-up wheat in Ukraine, a major producer, earlier in the war. Prices remained stable. Life has returned to normal. Perhaps pasta is safe, at least for now.
Around 39 AD, the Roman historian Suetonius (born later that century) tells us that a bridge was built across the Bay of Naples. It is more than three miles long, and was designed so that the young Emperor Caligula could first ride on horseback wearing armor stolen from the tomb of Alexander the Great, and then ride on water in a chariot drawn by a full army of soldiers. It was built as a heavy ship. military attendant. A tribute to human endeavor and a testament to its limits. Caligula was assassinated shortly thereafter when he was 28 years old and Vesuvius exploded in 79 AD. A black torrent of hot gas and ash swept over the cities of Herculaneum and Pompeii, speeding up to 750 miles per hour and reaching temperatures as high as 1,000 degrees Fahrenheit, hotter than the surface of Venus and hot enough to crack bones and teeth. did. It evaporates the soft tissue and turns it into a mist that sifts through the meat. One of his skulls excavated from Herculaneum was found to contain a black, translucent substance. Tests revealed a protein commonly found in the brain, the human heart that is sealed inside.
“We live in the shadow of Vesuvius,” Amedeo Corella, a 60-year-old local historian who organizes gastronomic tours of Naples with his company Culinary Backstreet, told me. “Even when we talk about the future, we speak in the present tense.” Is this self-conscious romanticism, or is poetry the only rational response to living with a volcano on the horizon? Or? Not to mention, even closer, about nine miles to the west, is the increasingly active supervolcano known as Campi Flegrei (or Burning Field), much of which lies beneath the Bay of Naples. Half a million people live in close proximity to the eruption. More than 3,000 small earthquakes rocked the region in the first 10 months of last year, raising fears of a coming quake. The government has developed an evacuation plan.
The world will end. The world goes on. In Naples, I booked a small room in a dilapidated 17th century palace. An elevator was installed in this room at some point in the last century, and you can move it by simply sliding a coin into the slot. There seems to be a line between the past and the present. The Italians I meet are steeped in history. “After all, we were united in 1871,” some say, as if it were yesterday. As night falls, I ride my Vespa through the dark streets, blinded by that cliché, preparing to deliver myself to my maker. Italians from other parts of the country informed me that Neapolitans are the worst drivers on the planet, but I think they must be the best. Because how else can they cheat death on every occasion? And I realized that what seemed like a collision to me was actually a clever negotiation of a universe that knows exactly how close it can get.
Abagnale lifts a handful of soil in Monti Lattari's field, where volcanic ash fell nearly 2,000 years ago. The eruption “caused a lot of damage, but it also gave us something,” he says. The cataclysm that occurred nearly 1,500 years before the tomato appeared in Italy created the mineral-rich soil that would one day be essential to the flourishing of the tomato, and thus its fusion with pasta, and the birth of the entire dish. Now we are eating at Sant'Antonio Abate's dining table. In the past, writes Zanini de Vita, “pasta was reserved for holidays.” It wasn't until Italy recovered from the toll of war and its economy began to boom in the late 1950s and early 1960s that people in the countryside could get it whenever they wanted. Considering pasta al pomodoro as a basic everyday dish was a given, and it was a new kind of privilege.
At the end of the meal, you tear off a chunk of bread to wipe up any remaining sauce on your plate, a ritual Italians call scarpetta. It reminds me of those days when every bite mattered, when not enough was enough. Abagnale does it even better, bringing to the table a huge loaf of bread with precious crumbs in it, like a pulpy sunset, and we pick up the loaf and run with it.
Set design by Victoria Petroconroy. Retouching: Anonymous retouching. Digital Technician: Lori Cannava. Photo assistant: Carl Reitz.Set Designer Assistant: Natasha Lardera
