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10/23/2006 Archived Entry: "History Repeats Itself"

My October “Cook at Seliano” group has just left after a week full of cooking, eating, drinking, laughing, and very interesting cultural and gastronomic touring. Baronessa Cecilia and I always like to change the program, if for no other reason than to keep our own enthusiasm high. On this trip, on one of our two excursion days, we took the group to two ancient Roman sites – excavations -- that are much smaller but, we think, even more impressive than Pompeii and Herculaneum, which is where all the tourists go. Neither of the sites we visited get much traffic. In fact, at one site, Stabiae, we were the only visitors. At both, the villas are so complete you really get a feeling for how the rich lived.

In Oplontis, which is in Torre Annunziata on the Bay of Naples, there is the Villa of Poppeia, the second of Nero’s infamously wanton wives. She lusted after gladiators. And what a house she had to entertain them! (By the way, Nero had her executed for her infidelity, and she was played by Claudette Colbert in the 1932 film “Sign of the Cross,” where you can see her bathing in donkey’s milk, which Hollywood changed to mare’s milk to make it seem less exotic – or something.)

Ancient Stabiae, also on the Bay of Naples, and with a spectacular view of Mt. Vesuvius, is on a bluff above the town of Castellamare di Stabia, which, I have to add, is a dump. The sea has receded in the nearly 2,000 years since Stabiae was buried by the eruption of Vesuvio in 79 AD. Now, at the base of the bluff, the dilapidated modern town sprawls where the sea used to be. At the top of the bluff, however, are two Roman villas belonging to obviously very, very rich Romans.

You have to understand that the coast flanking Naples was the Hamptons of ancient Rome, a place where rich Romans would show off their wealth and do the naughty things that they couldn’t back home in Rome, a relatively prudish city.

In Stabiae, there are two villas that have only recently been fully excavated and opened to the public. One is the opulent Villa Arianna. The other is the even more spectacular and large Villa San Marco. At both, as well as in Oplontis, there are many whole rooms with their original mosaic floors, frescos in ochre, brown-red (what we now call Pompeian red), and black, all painted with geometric designs, faux marbles, and delicate images of birds and flora. Many of the best fresco vignettes were removed in the 18th century, when the first excavations were begun by the Borboni, the Neapolitan monarchs, or more recently. They are in museums, many in the fabulous archaeological museum in Naples. But there are plenty left on the walls that let you get the effect. There are also colonnaded gardens that you can walk through, and in the Villa San Marco, there is a kitchen with its cook-top and food store rooms. The kitchen gave me the opportunity to talk a bit about the foods that were eaten in the villa’s dining rooms, halls with vistas of the sea and windows into long-gone gardens.

As soon as the words came out of my mouth – “In ancient Rome, among these decadent rich people, the rarity of the ingredients and the elaborate preparation of the food – the ostentation -- was more important than the actual taste.” – I realized I could easily say the same thing bout the food served today in New York’s top echelon of restaurants. Yes, you could say this about the most expensive, top echelon of restaurants anywhere in the world today. Speaking of Rome in particular, I keep thinking about the ridiculous, truly disgusting dishes I ate last year at the insanely expensive and stupidly hyped La Pergola, the top-rated restaurant in Rome, at the top of the Cavalieri Hilton Hotel. Operated by the German chef, Heinz Beck, it just got its third Michelin star. It has crossed my mind that this is the German retaliation for the Italians abandoning them in World War II. Friends of a friend just ate there at a cost $500 a person. I would pay that much to avoid it.

Being at a distance from New York City culture right now – I have been in Italy now for seven weeks – I think I have gained some perspective on what is happening in restaurants at home. It is not attractive. Fortunately, most of us cannot afford to go to the silliest restaurants. The question of their being worth the money is moot. I couldn’t afford them even if they were worth the money.

Just my thought for the day.