Persimmons and fog

Persimmons and fog, two sure signs that the autumn is waning and winter is just around the corner.  My home town of Castell’Arquato is on the fringes of the bassa padana, or Po Basin, otherwise known as Europe’s biggest natural fog trap.

The fog here is relentless. It can lie for days on end. Luckily, as I said, I live on the very edge of the basin and from time to time we get a break in the weather – not always, just from time to time. I’m not complaining because travel just a few miles down the road to the neighbouring market town of Fiorenzuola and it’s not unusual for the fog to make camp for 10 days at a time. I feel sorry for my neighbours. Indeed, just a few more miles further down the road, along the banks of the River Po, the fog’s so dense that it only takes minutes to soak to the skin.

But then again, if we didn’t have to suffer these unique climatic conditions, our local cured meats would be much the worse for it. The humidity in the air, they say, contributes as much to the local cuisine as does the pig.

As if by way of compensation, once the fog settles down, it means that the persimmons are just about ready to eat. Persimmon, or kaki trees, are grown throughout the region. How they got here, I can’t say for sure. The tree didn’t arrive in Europe until quite recently – some time in the mid-19^th century. Yet despite their late arrival, they are hugely popular. On the other side of the Po, in Romagna and in Campania, kaki are cultivated commercially.

Here everyone seems to have a persimmon tree or two in their garden. They yield a lot of fruit and require minimal maintenance. We tend to pick the fruit just before it fully matures, allowing the kaki to ripen slowly in the cantina. They are ready to eat when bright orange, meltingly soft to the touch and deliciously sweet. They can be eaten in ice cream, as a preserve or simply on its own, as a dessert fruit (if anyone’s interested, I’ll post a recipe for the preserve early next week once the kaki are ripe enough). As I walk out the door, a whicker basket and step ladder underarm, it occurs to me that in the fog persimmons remind me of oversized Christmas decorations. Unfortunately, however, these decorations have to come down early!   

Thanksgiving, tractors and turkey

In Canada, thanksgiving is celebrated on the second Monday in October. In the United States, it’s the third Thursday in November. In Vigolo Marchese in the province of Piacenza in Emilia Romagna, it’s the second Sunday in October (this year).

Thanksgiving in the town of Vigolo is not quite Thanksgiving as we know it, although there is turkey and chestnuts! The main event focuses on the blessing of the tractors. The blessing has been bestowed by the local parish priest every year for as long as anyone can remember. One of the local farmers, a cheerful, burly hulk of a man who was waiting next to his John Deer along with his two equally solid-looking sons told me that he still remembers driving on the back of his grandfather’s tractor to Vigolo for the annual blessing. That was over 50 years ago!

The likelihood is that today’s mechanized blessing is an evolution of the longstanding tradition of a formal thanksgiving for the annual harvest. It therefore has parallels with Thanksgiving in the American sense which owes its origins to the time when Europeans first started arriving in the Americas, bringing with them their own harvest festival traditions.

Agricultural harvests have always been occasions of celebration in Italy and, like all celebrations in Italy, they always involve food. Just a couple of weeks back the vendemmia, or grape harvest, was celebrated with an uphill barrel-rolling competition followed by grape pudding (known locally as mosto cotto) and a delicious sweet bread, made with dried grapes from the previous year’s harvest, served with a selection of local cheeses. A week later the chestnut harvest was celebrated through a myriad of chestnut festivals in towns throughout the region. In Vigolo, local farmers are simply celebrating the end of the summer harvest, a time to give thanks, relax and enjoy the fruits of their labour.

The main event takes place in the small piazza facing the medieval church and baptistery in the centre of town. It begins without warning, mid afternoon, with a loud rumbling sound like distant thunder. There’s a dull trembling in the ground, faint at first, but gradually building. Then they appear, a solid line of tractors, hundreds of them, every make, every model, every colour, slowly descending like a line of liberating tanks. The air fills with the smell of diesel as the tractors circle the small piazza. The noise is deafening and exhilarating at the same time. Then, as suddenly as the noise started, it ends. Engines turn silent and, perfectly on cue, the priest emerges, a bible in one hand and a vial of holy water in the other. All heads lower as a short benediction is read, his right hand is raised to the sky and the blessing is bestowed. A sprinkling of holy water, each tractor in turn and then it’s time for turkey.

It arrives, of course, on the back of a tractor. Five birds in all, roasted to a golden, crisp brown perfection. The aroma is heavenly, mixed with the smell of chestnuts roasting on an open fire. Wine bottles are opened and glasses are filled. A local butcher arrives with an armful of homemade salami. Thick wedges are cut and served on top of chunks of rustic country bread. There may well be turkey and chestnuts but ultimately, it’s a very Italian thanksgiving.

The mushrooms are back!

Today was a good day. I found mushrooms today. Porcini mushrooms that is, Italy’s favourite foraged food. I became hooked six years ago. I’d gone out with my wife’s uncle, Giacomino. At the time, I saw it as a walk in the woods… but it became much more than that.

Porcini mushrooms, from the boletus group - ceps in English, simply funghi in Italian or, believe it or not, ‘Fonz’ (how cool is that?) in the local dialect - are Italy’s most loved wild mushroom. They can’t be cultivated and there is no other type of mushroom that comes close. The best of ‘the best’ are the cep mushrooms of Borgotaro, the only mushroom to have earned protected status under the EU’s Designated Food Protection Scheme. And here’s the thing – Borgotaro, in the neighbouring province of Parma, is less than an hour’s drive from my doorstep!

Today was a good day because these are the first mushrooms of the autumn season. It’s been a bad year generally for mushrooms. It was a frustrating summer season, blighted by high temperatures, high winds and very little rainfall. Hours spent trawling through the woods resulted in little reward. So that makes these particular mushrooms even more special. And what’s more, I didn’t find them in Parma. Nor did I find them in my home province. I found them on an impromptu trip in the mountains above Lake Como. I won’t say where exactly as that would be giving the game away. Suffice to say, mushrooms are growing and every indication is, there’s more to come. So keep tuned, I'll be back…