Italy at Easter

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Several years ago I learned an Italian saying, "Natale con i tuoi, Pasqua con chi vuoi." This roughly translates to “Christmas with your family, Easter with whomever you like." I take this idea seriously. I wouldn't dream of missing Christmas with my children and grandchildren, but whenever possible I spend Easter in Italy, sharing the holiday with friends. 

This year marks my third Italian Easter; one of my favorite times to visit. I love marking the change of seasons in Italy, watching as Tuscany slowly moves from winter to spring. When I arrived at the beginning of March, Lucca had quiet streets, bare trees and vines, and brisk weather (including my first Italian snowfall).

March remained mostly cold and rainy, but slowly, over the past week, spring has started to tiptoe in. On one of the first warmer days outdoor seating suddenly spilled into the squares from cafes. 

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Overnight, the atmosphere in town changed. People filled the streets and cafes, beautifully decorated Easter window displays appeared, outdoor vendors set up stands to sell sweets and balloons, the walls surrounding Lucca began to buzz with activity, and the first tentative spring blossoms surfaced. It seems Lucca has awakened from its winter rest.  

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The last week of March was Holy Week - the week leading up to Easter. It began with Palm Sunday events, including the blessing of palms and olive branches and services in many of the local churches. Venerdì Santo (Good Friday) saw the traditional procession in Lucca in which a heavy wooden crucifix is carried through the streets by black-robed and barefoot members of the Misericordia. This is a solemn event made even more dramatic by the backdrop of Lucca’s Medieval streetscapes. I always find the procession moving, meaningful, and uniquely Italian.

Good Friday was also celebrated with an evening concert at the Cattedrale di San Michele in which a small symphony played the Stabat Mater, with lyrics (in Latin) from the 13th century and music composed by Boccherini (who was born in Lucca in 1743). The church was full, the soprano sang beautifully, and the music was (no pun intended) divine. 

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Today is Easter. I’ll walk through town this morning to a favorite pasticceria to pick up a desert for today’s lunch (perhaps a pretty cake like the one pictured here) and then I’ll get busy cooking for the friends who are coming for lunch this afternoon. We'll be enjoying “Pasqua con chi vuoi."

Buona Pasqua.  Happy Easter to all who celebrate it - and happy Passover and Happy Spring too! 

-post by JMB

The Easter flower market in Lucca

The Easter flower market in Lucca

Parla Italiano?

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Spending time in Lucca encourages me to speak Italian.

Spending time in Lucca encourages me to speak Italian.

Parla Italiano? Do you speak Italian? I always hem and haw when asked that question. I often answer with, “Well, I do speak some, but not very well; I’m nowhere near fluent, I forget more words than I remember, I’m at a very beginning level." Always with the excuses! 

I often think of a conversation I overheard once in the small town of Barga. A visitor said to a Scottish woman who was living year-round in Italy, “So you must speak fluent Italian now." Her answer was something like this: “Oh dear no, I STUDY Italian, I don’t speak it." I can relate.

And yet, I do speak Italian, even if imperfectly and nowhere near fluently. I’ve made progress during the past few years of study; my comprehension has grown and my accent has improved. I am able to negotiate daily life – grocery shopping, purchasing train tickets, making reservations, etc.  I’ve come a long way from the first time I walked into my favorite panificio (bread bakery) in Lucca to buy some focaccia and totally froze – prompting the man behind the counter to gesture grandly and slowly say, “Vorrei” (I would like) … just to get me started. These days I have no trouble buying my focaccia, explaining in Italian that I want the morbida (soft) type rather than the rustica (thinner and crispier). Progress! All my growth is thanks to spending more time in Italy and studying at Lucca Italian School (though my errors and limitations are not the school's fault – they remain all my own).

Giacomo Puccini - I practice my Italian on him and he listens most patiently.

Giacomo Puccini - I practice my Italian on him and he listens most patiently.

But I am still a hesitant speaker when outside my comfort zone of the vocabulary of everyday life. I find this is a common frustration for those of us trying to learn a new language. So what’s our problem? In large part it’s fear of making mistakes (and sounding foolish). It's also that the process of mentally translating from our native language into Italian makes us slow (and we might sound foolish), and that we forget words, even ones we just learned yesterday, and that makes us feel … foolish. Do you see a common theme here? Probably the biggest lesson I’ve learned is to stop worrying about sounding foolish and just get on with it – start speaking! Yes, there will be mistakes, and I’ll need to throw in an English word now and again when I can’t think of the Italian one, and I often have to find a round-about way to describe something using the words I know to compensate for the ones I don’t.  But, the majority of the time I can make myself understood. Plus, when I talk, I often catch my own mistakes and learn from that too.

Perhaps most important, the Italians I’ve met appreciate attempts to speak their language. When I explain that I am in Lucca to study Italian (sono qui per studiare la linqua), they are incredibly patient and every interaction in a shop, restaurant, bar or bookstore turns into a mini language lesson for me. As a bonus, I sometimes find myself giving directions, in Italian, to Italian tourists visiting Lucca. That makes my day!

I've tried several ways to keep up on speaking Italian when not in Italy. I’ve taken classes at home and participated in conversation groups. Both are helpful but sometimes a challenge to schedule. I study grammar and vocabulary on my own – each helps my comprehension, but neither encourages me to speak. I go to Italian movies and listen to Italian radio.

I’ve recently started trying some new things in an attempt to increase my comfort with speaking. First, I’m reading aloud. I realized that one reason I am timido ( timid) when I need to speak in Italian is that I am not used to hearing my own voice in Italian, which makes me overly attentive to every syllable. To get past this, I’m searching out articles and books in Italian and reading them a voce alto (out loud). This helps with the rhythm and flow of speech (and pronunciations) but mostly I hope it will make me stop getting caught up in worrying about how I sound.

For reading aloud,  I like the monthly Gazzetta articles in Italia magazine (a good use for all my back issues). Another good read-aloud source is the book “In Other Words," by Jhumpa Lahiri.  Both the magazine and the book provide Italian passages with English translations, so they also help with comprehension and vocabulary. 

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I’m also trying to spend more time listening to spoken Italian. I particularly like News in Slow Italian, a weekly discussion of current events delivered at a slowed pace. Each episode comes with a written transcript, making it possible to read along with the broadcast, and a “click to translate” feature that helps build vocabulary. News in Slow Italian is available as an app in both a free version and an expanded paid version.

Then there are my morning shower conversations - where I talk out loud about what I plan to do that day, or what happened the day before. It's a bit like singing in the shower, all performance and no audience!

I’m back in Italy, and will take more classes at Lucca Italian School. Here’s hoping that my reading aloud and listening activities  help me transition more easily to speaking Italian.  -post by JMB

 

Sometimes a "Caprino" is Not a Little Goat

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Sometimes a “caprino” is not a little goat, which is proof positive that knowing a little bit of a foreign language can sometimes lead you wildly astray.  Let me explain.

Shopping for groceries in one of the small, family-owned shops in Italy is part of living like a local. In Lucca, one of my  favorite shops is Il Mercatino. This is a small market run by the friendly team of Walter and Lucia. The shop is brimming with cheeses, meats, anchovies, marinated vegetables, olives, and a variety of prepared foods to take da porta via (to go). There are also local olive oils and wines, along with pastas, breads, smoked salmon, dairy products, and an assortment of other staples. I can stand outside and just gaze into the window for hours; better yet, I can go in and do some shopping!

Because I love this store so much, I frequent it regularly. When I enter the store the owners know exactly what I will buy before I say a word – a caprino. Perhaps two! So, what exactly is a caprino?  Directly translated, it would mean “little goat” (goat = capra, little goat = caprino). However, what I want is not a goat, but a small log of soft white cheese marinated in olive oil and spices. It is creamy and delicious, with a a bit of heat from chile flakes. It is especially good when spread on a fresh-from-the-oven piece of focaccia. When I first saw these cheese logs in the display case, I asked, “Come si chiama questi?” What are these called? The answer was “caprini."  Little goats.

A tray of caprini at Il Mercatino, Lucca, Italy.

A tray of caprini at Il Mercatino, Lucca, Italy.

Based on my imperfect grasp of the Italian language, I assumed this meant they were a type of goat cheese. After all, they were called caprini, so it seemed logical. I bought several caprini on that trip. When I arrived home to New Mexico, I set about trying to re-create that taste, which I had grown to love. I don’t know how many brands of goat cheese I tried paired with multiple spice and olive oil combinations, but I never came close to duplicating that fabulous flavor.

When I returned to Lucca the next year, I told the proprietors that when I was home in the United States, I dreamed of their caprini but no matter how hard I tried I couldn’t find a goat cheese as good or the right marinade. They explained that the caprini were not made with formaggio di capra (goat cheese) but rather formaggio di mucca (cow’s milk cheese). Cow’s milk? How did I misunderstand? It turns out that long ago this type of marinated cheese probably was made with goat’s milk and when production changed to the more readily available cow’s milk, the name just stayed the same. Caprino. Little Goat.

This spice mix is the magic ingredient when making caprini.

This spice mix is the magic ingredient when making caprini.

My complicated attempts at making the marinade were also way off.  No steeping of herbs in warmed olive oil needed, no grated lemon peel, no fresh garlic. They kindly showed me how to do it. Open the small package of cheese (very much like a log of cream cheese), put it in a dish, pour some good olive oil over it, and then sprinkle from the little packages of dried spices in the market. Done!  Because the shop owners are so kind, they sent me on my way with several of the spice packages to take home; another example of the generosity of Italians.

I’d like to say that I was able to exactly re-create the caprini at home, but our cow’s milk is just not the same as Italian cow’s milk and pure cream cheese didn’t quite do it. I did, however, come up with a pretty good version that combines mostly cream cheese with a bit of mild goat cheese sprinkled with the spices I carry home from Il Mercatino each time I visit and some good Lucchese olive oil.  It isn't Il Mercatino's caprini, but it helps carry me through the months at home. Of course, when I get back to Lucca this spring, I’ll head straight for Il Mercatino.

Here is the recipe for my version:

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8 oz cream cheese, room temperature                                                                                                            3 oz mild goat cheese, room temperature                                                                                                        6 tablespoons good olive oil                                                                                                                             1 teaspoon aglio, olio, & peperoncino spice mix

Mix softened cheeses together until well blended.

Divide into 2 equal halves, place each on a large square of wax paper, folding wax paper to cover the cheese.   Roll each half of the cheese (using your hands over the paper) into a 6-inch log.  Transfer logs to a shallow dish.

Spoon 3 tablespoons of olive oil over each log.  Sprinkle each log with a rounded 1/4 - 1/2 teaspoon of the spice mix (more spice = more heat).  Let stand at cool room temperature for an hour before serving, spooning olive oil over cheese to keep it moist.  

May refrigerate up to 24 hours before serving; let stand at room temperature  hour before serving.  Spooning olive oil over cheese to keep it moist.

Serve with crackers or bread.

My homemade version of caprini. 

My homemade version of caprini. 

-post by JB