The Food Maven Diary
[Archives]

[Previous Entry] [Diary Home] [Next Entry]

09/02/2007 Archived Entry: "Italian Vacation Time, Belgian Waffles"

I have been back in Paestum for two weeks now, but haven’t caught you up on what’s happened since I left Calabria. One reason is that absolutely nothing happens in Italy the last two weeks in August. Everyone is on vacation at the beach or in the countryside. Most restaurants are closed. Most cities are empty. Iris reports from Rome that it is very quiet there. I can report from Naples, as I have in my last newsletter (please sign in the box above, if you haven’t already) that it was empty the third week in August. I ate in the same two restaurants five times, which wasn’t such a bad thing actually. I was able to stick to my diet. I didn’t feel the need to taste around new menus. I kept to vegetables, and salads, and plain grilled fish and chicken. On the other hand, I wasn’t able to expand my knowledge of restaurants in Bella Napoli.

The Italians have it right. Their world stops in August. Nothing is as important as vacation with the family – or without the family, especially if you are man with a mistress. You send the wife and kids to the beach. You take a trip with the girlfriend. What these guys tell their wives I have no clue, but they somehow get away with this. I have met several in the last two weeks.

The big story in the States before I left, and I have read it again on line, and it was a story, too, in Corriere della Sera, The New York Times of Italy, is that Americans don’t even use up the paltry vacation time to which they are entitled. To Italians, it is shocking, just for a starter, that many Americans get only two weeks vacation, maybe three. Here, four weeks is typical, and many people get as many as six weeks, not counting national holidays. Not to use up your vacation time is an American insanity that they cannot comprehend. It is even more baffling than our engagement in Iraq.

During the week of August 15, even the few people who are not on extended August holiday stop all work. The only exception is some restaurants, mainly near the beaches or in the country. That’s because everyone who is not a restaurant employee is on vacation and wants to eat out.

August 15 is two holidays in one. It is the Feast of the Assumption, the day the Virgin Mary ascended to heaven, and it is Feragosto, a secular day of celebrating summer. Or the end of summer. Some people around here say that August 15 is the beginning of winter. Given the last week’s weather of mid to high 90s and an equal percentage of humidity, it is hard to think of this as the beginning of winter.

Tenuta Seliano (also called Azienda Seliano), where I have my cooking school, was filled with people on August 15. Seliano is one of the places – in the country, as well as near 15 kilometers of beautiful white sand beaches – that Italians flock to on Feragosto. There were 150 for lunch that day, 100 for dinner. Seliano is a restaurant as well as a farm-inn.

Bob Harned and I, along with our dear friend Nicolas Claes, who lives at Seliano full time (He says, sometimes bitterly, that he lives between the artichokes, a famous product of Paestum.), took a break from the crowd here to participate in the procession of La Madonna della Granato, the Madonna of the Pomegranate. Besides artichokes and buffalo mozzarella, Paestum is famous for its three beautifully preserved Doric Greek temples, two of which are dedicated to Hera. Hera always holds a pomegranate, which symbolized fertility to the Greeks, as it still does in many contemporary cultures, including Jewish tradition, and other Mediterranean traditions. As happens in the world, one culture often takes on the attributes of the one that came before it, so the church dedicated to the Virgin Mary here, on a mountain overlooking the plain of the Sele river (hence the name of Cecilia’s property: Seliano), is the Madonna of the Pomegranate. Before it became a Catholic church, it, too, was likely the site of a Greek temple dedicated to Hera.

On August 15, the golden statue of the Madonna housed in the church on top of the mountain, is carried down the long, ramp-like road preceded and followed by flower and ribbon bedecked paper boats, each additionally formed by 100 candles. These boats are seemingly quite light, as some of them are carried by individual women on their heads. Some are carried by two people, or four people. They are not very big. Most are about three or four feet long. Each one, however, is decorated differently. That they are shaped like boats is another reference to ancient Greek times. Paestum is the Latin Roman name for the site where the temples are. The Greeks called it Posidonia, referring to Poisidon, the god of the sea, next to which the city was originally built. Over the millennia, the sea has receded, or the land has silted up -- actually both -- and the water is now about a mile from the ancient city. Incidentally, as if I haven’t mentioned this before, the beaches here are the famous beaches of Salerno where the Allies landed in 1943. There is even a memorial to that event just outside the ancient Greek city walls.

Bob, Nicolas and I trudged up the long road to the church at 5:30, expecting a large crowd and wanting to find a good spot to park the car, so we could move out without much traffic when the procession was over at 9-ish. It was supposed to start at 7 o’clock, but as nothing in Italy ever starts on time, the church service that precedes the procession didn’t end until nearly 8 o’clock. The scene outside the church, where as many participants waited as went into the service, was very interesting. For a short time, I sat on a bench with a bunch of old men who were gossiping in dialect. I could understand only a few words but along with their hand gestures, I got the gist: The son of a friend had left his family for a wonton woman, and one of the men was experiencing stomach pains that the doctor couldn’t diagnose.

The community turned out in the hundreds, many of them with small children. It looked like this was a major opportunity to show off children and grandchildren. The procession had more strollers than candle-constructed boats. The dress code was decidedly casual. There were a few men and a few women, especially middle-aged and older women, who had obviously taken some care to cut a good figure (bella figura is the Italian expression), but T-shirts, muscle shirts, and, for younger women, tight jeans, were more common.

There was a band. They were teenagers and didn’t play very well, but the dissonance of their off-notes and not quite unison execution added to the atmosphere. It reminded me of the band in the movie “The Leopard.” The priest, who lead the procession was miked. His singing – not very good – and recitations were broadcast on loudspeakers carried aloft by a layman. Children not in strollers were carried in the arms of their fathers -- mostly fathers, not mothers. The way Italian men have become so attentive and affectionate to their children is very warming to see. A few nights after the procession, we went to see Massimo Ranieri in concert here in Paestum. He is a hugely popular Neapolitan singer who renders some of the old traditional songs in a contemporary way but also has had numerous popular hits with new songs over his now 40-year career. Why I mention this is because the men at this concert, a very different, much more upscale and fashionable crowd than the one at the procession, also were the main caretakers of the small children they brought with them. I saw many mothers sitting and enjoying the concert while their husbands tended to babies and toddlers. I suppose they brought them along so they didn’t have to leave them with babysitters. In many cases, I saw that the built-in babysitters, the grandparents, were also in the audience.

Back to the procession. I am proudly Jewish and obviously not a believer in Catholic dogma, but I have to say that being amidst all these people who do believe and were ardently chanting and singing, was a very moving experience.

On the way home, Nicolas reminisced about his childhood in Belgium, where, on the Feast of the Assumption, it was traditional to eat waffles. I told him how Belgian waffles had become a sensation in New York when they were sold at the Belgian pavilion at the New York World’s Fair in 1964. I have a great recipe for Belgian waffles, which are yeast raised (not baking powder) and not merely waffles with big indentations, as the waffle iron companies in the States would have it. The recipe was cut from “Arthur Schwartz’s New York City Food,” but I offer it here.

Belgian Waffles
Makes about 20 waffles

At the 1964 World’s Fair Belgian waffles were served heaped with whipped cream and strawberries. That’s the way Nicolas ate them in his youth, too. I love them with ice cream, waffles topped with ice cream being a favorite treat of my own youth. This recipe produces wonderfully yeasty, crisp-surfaced waffles that actually improve with reheating. This quality makes them perfect for a party or just more convenient even if you are feeding only four. Bake them on the waffle iron, cool them, then wrap them in aluminum foil. They can be stored at room temperature, wrapped well, for up to two days. Refrigerate to extend their life by a day or two more. Reheat them on a baking sheet – or, even better, directly on the oven shelf – in a 350-degree oven for about 5 minutes.

1 ounce fresh cake yeast or 2 packages active dry yeast
4 cups milk, warmed to 100 degrees
3 eggs, separated
6 tablespoons (3/4 stick) unsalted butter, melted and cooled to lukewarm
6 tablespoons (3/4 stick) margarine, melted and cooled to lukewarm
1/2 cup vanilla sugar, or 1/2 cup sugar and 1/2 tablespoon vanilla extract
Pinch of salt
4 cups all-purpose flour

For serving:
Confectioners’ sugar
Whipped cream
Sliced fresh strawberries

In a small bowl, dissolve the yeast in 1 cup of the lukewarm milk.
In a large, deep mixing bowl (the dough will double or triple in volume), whisk together the egg yolks with 1/2 cup of the remaining milk, the melted butter, and the melted margarine.
Stir in the yeast mixture, sugar and salt.
Using a wooden spoon, gradually stir in the flour, alternating additions of flour with the remaining 2 1/2 cups milk. Stir well between additions.
In a clean bowl, with clean beaters, beat the egg whites until they hold soft peaks.
Fold the beaten egg whites into the batter.
Cover the batter bowl with a clean towel and let it rise for about 1 hour, or until it has more than doubled, and as much as tripled in volume. Check the batter from time to time to make sure it isn’t about to erupt. Stir it down if it is ready to bake before you are.
Bake the waffles in a hot waffle iron. The easiest way to get the batter onto the waffle iron is to pour the batter into a large liquid measuring cup. How much batter is needed will depend on the size of your waffle iron. Do not over fill. Remember that the cover will spread the batter with its weight. The waffles are done with they can be removed easily from the iron.
If preparing ahead, let the waffles cool thoroughly on a rack before wrapping them.
Serve the baked waffles sprinkled with confectioners’ sugar, and topped with whipped cream and sliced strawberries that have been macerated in a sprinkling of sugar.