Joe Ray
Food & Travel / Words & Photos
EATING
THE
MOTHERLAND
Food writer and photographer Joe Ray's gastronomic visits in Europe - the home of his ancestors - and beyond.
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Saturday, May 31, 2008
A mouthful of memory
Yesterday, I interviewed a farmer in his Ferrari for a story about the Sicilian melon market. Taking notes in a car with a suspension-adjusting switch marked “RACE” is not unlike trying to do the same in a 4x4 bumping through an olive grove.
Meeting a couple of melon farmers yesterday, Mr. F430 included, I kept getting distracted by their tomatoes. Odd bedfellows, melons and tomatoes love the soil and hot climate around the southern Sicilian town of Pachino and have become the town’s financial backbone and its claim to fame.
Standing in a giant tomato greenhouse filled with the wonderful green smell of the vines themselves, Bruno Cicciarella (who drives a more modest ride pulls a fat thumb-shaped tomato he calls a ‘pixel’ from a cluster and hands it to me.
The taste isn’t perfect, but compared to what we’ve grown accustomed to from the grocery store, it’s mind blowing. It’s plenty enough to put me out on the back deck with my family, eating salted chunks of dad’s tomatoes straight from the garden.
I also try some tomatoes sold by Sebastiano Fortunato (a.k.a. Mr. Ferrari) and understand why he’s got such a fancy pair of wheels. His cherry tomatoes are so sweet, it’s easy to understand again why tomatoes are fruit.
Later, Francesco and I have a great glass or two of Sicily’s signature Nero d’Avola wine in my kitchen. It’s good reminder of why he and I spent a lot of time with our noses in glasses and turning our tongues purple a year ago trying to learn the flavor characteristics that make it such a good pour.
“Why do we have to be so technical when we try to describe a wine?” he wonders to no one in particular. It’s a fun question and a debate for which he knows and appreciates the arguments of both sides. “Why can’t we say this wine tastes like…The Police?” he asks, clearly thinking back to a good moment where he had the British trio on in the background.
In the end, what better compliment could you give than associating good food with a good memory?
I end the night with one of Cicciarella’s tiny melons. It’s a mouthful of summertime, past and present.
This is Joe Ray reporting from the Motherland.
