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L’AQUILA’S DEVASTATION

Travel changes you. By visiting other countries and cultures, we seem to return with a fragment of that place within us. It’s carried in our memories and our senses. Deep within ourselves.

So when a tragedy hits a place we have visited however briefly it becomes even more alive and more poignant.

Our time in L’Aquila in Italy’s Abbruzzo region, was only an hour or two, yet my memories are vivid. I am flooded with pictures of a vibrant marketplace, people working hard, noise, colour, and one of the best and most simple meals we had on our month-long trip self-driving around the south of Italy.

In my book, Just a Little Italian, written about that magical month in Italy’s mezzogiorno,here is what I said about L’Aquila, which it now seems lies almost entirely in ruins due to Sunday’s terrible earthquake.

Our thoughts and prayers are with those struggling to compehend this event, and also with those who must deal with the aftermath.

From Just a Little Italian:

“It’s a different matter when we reach L’Aquila. Here we discover a market in progress selling everything from fruit and vegetables in crates under striped canvas umbrellas, and vans dispensing cheeses and porchetta calda (hot pork sandwiches), fresh flowers, overcoats and knocked-off designer handbags.

This is Abruzzo’s principal town, with a population of 70,000 and, at 720 metres, Italy’s coldest regional capital. Further north than we will travel today, stand the highest parts of Italy’s Apennine chain, with two peaks over 2500 metres.

The market is almost over, and I sense that the vendors are eager to be off. It’s siesta time after all, and already a few are beginning to pack their wares away. I sort through some things on a table selling kitchenware, momentarily taken with the idea of a buying crostoli roller. I find a zucchini-corer there too, but I already have one which has never been used.

We have some discussion about where we should eat. This is after all our last lunch in Italy, as we can’t count on whatever we will pick up at the airport this time tomorrow. The market square is bordered by cafes and restaurants, so we ultimately we cross our fingers and choose Brancaleone, because it appears bright and well-patronised.

The waitress directs us to an unoccupied side room, the saletta, and seats us at a table laid with a sunny yellow cloth. This turns out to be a mistake (the room, not the table) as the customers in the main room are more visible, and after our drinks order, we are forgotten. It is only when I return to the other room, much later, that we are able to order.

To stay in the zone of this area, Gordon orders a saffron dish, risotto allo zafferano, and it arrives, at long last, slumped out on the plate like buttery scrambled eggs. It tastes as delicious as it looks.

I order chitarra al tartufo fresco from the menu del giorno, the menu of the day. I know that chitarra refers to the pasta which will have been cut on a press of fine wires (like a guitar) that allows the edges to be rough enough to collect whatever sauce it is served with. After our experience in Castelmezzano, I am keen to try truffles again, too. Until now I have never quite ‘got’ truffles, yet I think this may be about to change.

It does, with this plate of pasta served so simply with a generous amount of finely diced crunch-fresh black truffles and extra virgin olive oil tossed through it. The merest scattering of chopped parsley and pepper is all that is needed to make this last lunch dish a memory I will cherish forever.”

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