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05/30/2005 Archived Entry: "Smelling My Own Coffee"

I’m back. I love to travel, but I love to come home, too. After four days of touring, eating, and drinking around Verona, a day in Venice, a cruise on the luxurious Crystal Serenity that took us to the Greek islands of Santorini and Mykanos, a Greek pile of rocks called Monemvasia, a port in Turkey, and then to Athens, where I stayed for three more days, it was, as my friend Rozanne Gold puts it, time to come home and smell my own coffee. Actually, my first morning home, Friday morning, I drank tea. I thought it would be better for the head cold that came home with me.

I had not been to Verona in at least 15 years, and it is as beautiful and charming as I remember it, only the stores have gotten trendier. Apparently, young people stay in Verona, or even migrate to Verona, because there is good work there. Besides the large wine industry – Valpolicella, Bardolino, Amarone, Soave, to name the highest production wines only -- the city hosts many huge trade shows, including Europe’s largest wine fair, VinItaly.

As for its touristic appeal, Verona is second only to Rome in Roman ruins, the locals like to tell you, and the historic center has an enchanting mix of antique buildings, many of them housing those trendy shops. In the heart of the city is a Roman amphitheater, like Rome’s Coliseum, although smaller. The Arena, as it is called, is not just a ruin. It is a living theater with a famous and important opera season in June and July. Maria Callas made her debut at the Arena. My dream is to one day see Aida there – the triumphal march includes elephants.

There is also an impressively well-preserved and still used semi-circular Roman theater built against one of the hills that surround the city. I climbed to the top for a panoramic view (and the small archeological museum). It’s a classic, gorgeous Italian vista, with tall Cyprus trees towering around red-tiled roofs, set in a river valley surrounded by hills. It is for this landscape that Verona is often called the Florence of the north (Florence being central Italy). From the Roman theater, you can see how the Adige river loops around the city, enclosing the center on three sides. Indeed, one of the most memorable things about my first time in Verona, about 30 years ago, was the mosquitoes that the river spawned. And wherever you went in the city you couldn’t be far from the river. May is not mosquito season, but I understand that the city fathers have dealt with the problem. In any case, now that Italy is air-conditioned, you don’t have to leave the windows open while you sleep.

Risotto and horsemeat are Verona’s most famous local specialties. The locally grown rice is called Vialone Nano, but Carnaroli, another type of risotto rice, is also grown in the area. I took my group to a rice mill that dates from 1648, Riseria Gazzani, to see how the rice is processed. We saw the rice paddies, too, although they had just been planted and didn’t look like much yet.

Horsemeat is eaten in many ways. A stew called pastisada is usually served with creamy polenta. Sfilacci are thin filaments of smoke-dried horsemeat, usually used as a garnish or flavoring element. Sfilacci taste like smoked beef jerky, but cut to the size of thread. Horsemeat tartar – yes, raw ground horsemeat – is popular, too. You obviously have to be careful where you eat raw meat of any kind, so I went to a famous horse butcher to buy mine – just a little taste. It was great, but I’d be hard-pressed to identify it as horsemeat. If you didn’t know otherwise, you’d think it was very tasty beef, well-seasoned with mustard, capers and anchovies.

Bigoli, a fat spaghetti-like pasta, is the town’s distinctive pasta shape. We got to eat it two of the traditional ways – with an anchovy sauce, and with a duck sauce.

Celery root, white asparagus, and radicchio are the famous Veronese vegetables. The region – the western Veneto – is also known for its cured meats – salumi – and for polenta, which is served both soft and creamy and firm and grilled on a charcoal fire to make a base for those transcendent cold cuts, cheese, and other toppings.

My people got to eat all of these things while in Verona, and perhaps a little more risotto than they bargained for. Everyone made a dash for the stewed prunes at the breakfast buffet. And I’m sure I will never live down our finale in rice country. At La Campagna, a trattoria down the road from the Gazzani rice mill, we had a four-risotto lunch.

The only thing really disappointing about Verona is the Piazza Erbe, which is one of the two main squares in the historic center of town. It used to be a produce market; hence its name. The long, narrow square itself is still beautiful, some buildings decorated with lesser or greater frescoes, and the grand Baroque palace of the Maffei family at its head. But … there is only one produce stand left. All the other vendors are selling the worst kind of tourist souvenirs, which in Verona leans heavily to heart-themed trinkets. That’s because the city is the home to what is supposed to be Juliet’s house, with its famous balcony -- as in Romeo and Juliet. Judging by the crowds around it, the house itself appears to be the city’s main tourist attraction. And what the tourists have done to is a disgrace. There are loves notes on every available wall surface. To prevent the house itself from being vandalized, it is protected by burlap screens that prevent you from actually seeing the house, or even getting near it, which is a pretty Gothic-style building in a pretty courtyard. During tourist season, or on a weekend, there are so many people in the courtyard that it’s like the Lexington subway line at rush hour. You can’t do much but push your way to the statue of Juliet next to the house, and have your picture taken rubbing her bare, and nowadays highly polished breast. Oy vay!

Before boarding the ship in Venice on Monday, May 16, I also took my group to visit the Masi winery in the nearby Valpolicella countryside. I love the philosophy of this company, not to mention its wine. Sandro Boscaini, its president, greeted us himself, and explained to my group that his aim is to use the traditional grapes of the region, and the winemaking traditions of the region, to produce wines that are for today’s tastes. Many wineries in Italy, and very many in most other parts of the world, notably in California and including Greece, where we went next, have succumbed to using originally French and now international grapes, such as Chardonnay and Sauvignon Blanc in whites, and Cabernet and Merlot among reds, and to aging them in new, small oak barrels. I don’t like either trend. Same grapes. Same aging methods. It makes all the world’s wines taste alike. There’s too much to say on this subject, and this isn’t the place. Suffice to say, Masi makes impressive traditional wines that at the same time suit today’s consumer. Try their Campofiorin Ripasso, which is a so-called half-Amarone – more complex and richer than a simple Valpolicella, but not as powerful as Amarone. As for Valpolicella, which used to be a simple, light red wine, it has evolved, through modern winemaking techniques, into a much more complex and satisfying wine. If you haven’t tried it lately – it was one of the most important Italian wines when I was learning about wine in the 1960s – then you are in for a new and very satisfying experience.

Tomorrow, I’ll give you all the names, addresses, and numbers of the restaurants and places we went to, in case you are traveling to Verona in the future. Enough for now.