Abruzzo and Puglia

We began as Romans do in the late-afternoon traffic headache that is Rome on the eve of a long weekend; battled our way on the Tangenziale: if all roads lead to Rome, this is the highway from hell. Then as we threaded through the absurd Romans and their arrogant nonsense, the traffic cleared and we were clear to cross the mountains into Abruzzo, watching the sun go down. Arrived late in Pescara and wanted to find a place by the sea. The waterfront was packed. We found a low-budget place on the Lungomare that was attractive not for its ambiance or services as such but because its proprietor, a old, stinking man (in fact he had lived in New Jersey for a number of years) took an instant linking to us.

Abruzzo
He had never wanted to come back to Italy, but had for family reasons. He loved America and hated it here – it was the same story we heard everywhere in the South -- ‘Italia e un sacco di problemi’. Whatever people’s political affiliation, this was the one thing they all agreed on. This man literally attached himself to and felt compulsed to tell us his story, grabbing at me repeatedly while explaining how he was not really Italian at all, but had become a naturalized American citizen. He was certainly a patriotic American on this stormy seafront in Pescara he and his pensione looked worse for wear. Italians are all thieves, he said. Then he had the nerve to charge us 5 euros extra for breakfast.

Purposely against his advice, we grabbed a pizza at the seafront restaurant across the street, and suddenly, I realized where ALL the Italians in Jersey had come from. We were pretty close to the middle of nowhere and yet all these people were dressed in their finest sequined disco wear, eating mozzarella and grooving to YMCA and Gloria Gaynor. In our casual travel wear, we looked out of place and were happy. But still you had to give them credit for effort -– these people had made something out here, some special spot to don their finest when there was really no reason to ever get dressed up. Old ladies and bleached broads were getting down together, throwing a fist up in the air to the strains of ‘I will survive’. Even some children had been dolled up and taken along for a special evening by the sea. This place was good -– I just hope these folks don’t realize the whole thing is and give it up. We finished our pizza and left the spectacle, crossing back to our bare-bulb and hard-bedded room. The old guy was sitting in the dim lobby playing cards with a young. He kissed us goodnight.


We set off early the next morning. Mr New Jersey came running after our car to show us his American passport with the photo taken in 1955. It didn’t look anything like him. But we were free, off to Vasto, a seaside town further south with some respectable beaches, although the weather was cold and nasty. No matter, we were there mainly to eat anyway, at ‘Lo Chef’, the kind of unassuming, no-atmosphere place that you would never step one into into unless you knew because it was going to be the best meal of your life. We knew, and had called the day before from Rome to make a reservation for that day’s lunch –- so they could catch the fish. The local specialty is called brodetto, made with fish and broth that are both made to order. The place looked especially vacant in the pouring rain, but they were expecting us. We were sat in an empty cavernous room and the waiter turned up the television in it to a deafening pitch; all the tables were set up to face the TV, on which the Italian news was blaring. At the front of the room, next to the TV, was a large wooden crucifix. But before I could get too irritated, our zombie waiter arrived with two large terra cotta bowls filled with several fish each in different shapes and sizes. They were surrounded by octopus, cuttlefish and various other sea creatures, and were followed by a basket of fresh-gilled bread.


There are no words to describe the sensuality of this meal. The sweet green peppers used in the broth, accompanied by sumptuous cherry tomatoes, give off an almost Mexican flavour. You taste cilantro, undefined herbs. You taste the south. The fish, whole and varied in texture, are bathed in the lavish brodo. With a carafe of the best local Montepulciano d’Abruzzo and the channel 2 news, it was not long before we were sitting before empty bowls and a pile of bones, lulled in to a kind of post-coital slumber. After a course of the freshest melon with the taste of pure honey, we were ready to die. This is one of the best meals you will have in your life – it is worth a trip from anywhere, especially New Jersey. Somehow, the cold surroundings and sullen waiter had transformed into something comforting –- the last thing we wanted to get back in the car and face the driving rain, but we didn’t feel a thing.

Ristorante ‘Lo Chef’: Via Incoronata 39/C, Vasto (Abruzzo) Tel. 0873 391 604

Puglia
Incredibly beautiful medieval architecture in the hill towns surrounding the city of Foggia on a wide plane in Puglia. This is the breadbasket of Italy, where they grow the wheat for all that pasta. In the hills rising above these immense fields, Fredrick II, half-German, half Norman-Sicilian, built numerous monuments in stone around the year 1200. But although Fredrick brought a perfect combination of classical, gothic and Islamic architecture and cultures here, it is little visited and sadly lacking services for tourists, especially on a rainy Saturday. In the medieval quarters of Lucerna, Troia (the bronze doors of its 12th century cathedral standing guard under a huge rosetta window protected by a womb of scaffolding) and Bovino, two Americans were somewhat an oddity, but we encountered only kindness from the locals, who felt and understood the significance of the backwaters they inhabited, peasant guardians of a unique heritage that has influenced and continues to influence western European culture to this day. From one town to another there were no hotels, pensiones or B&Bs, few bars or restaurants and many old people with nothing to do but watch their world slowly come to an end.


We decided to head for the coast looking for signs of civilization, and from what appeared in the darkening sky and driving rain, the coastal region below Foggia had peaked for the last time around 1960 and then fallen into an abrupt and precipitous decline. When Italians talk of ‘abusivismo’ or abusive building with no regard for planning, environment or safety, this is the picture that usually comes to mind. Somehow we had taken a wrong turn: we had been heading for Barletta, another town of immense importance in the middle ages (one of the departure points for the crusades) but which both our travel book and two gas station attendants warned us about the dangers of walking, parking or sleeping in at night. It was just weren't there, but determination can take you to some even stranger places. Whatever city we were in, there were many signs pointing to Barletta, but following only led in a large dark circle through the congested and flooded streets; nowhere to stop. nowhere to stay.

Then out of nowhere like Hotel California stood a large, modern hotel beckoning in the distance. And although the desk clerk was so large that he broke the elevator while showing us to our room, it was a really comfortable place in an otherwise desolate land, with a respectable restaurant in which we tried the local ‘Castel del Monte’ wine. My antipasto –- some kind of delicately smoked meat that I had never tasted before and wasn’t sure if it was in fact meat or fish, covered in slices of wild mushrooms –- induced a deep and lasting coma before my filetto con pepe di tre colori even came out.

Cristal Palace Hotel Via Firenze, 35 A - 70031 Andria (Puglia) Tel. 0883 556 444
www.cristalpalace.it

It’s amazing what a good night’s sleep can do for you -– and satellite TV. The sun was out the next morning but we’d seen the weather report and knew better. After breakfast, we set off to Trani, an exceptionally beautiful seaside town with a medieval cathedral just metres from the sea -– high and vertical, angular, with a slightly leaning tower, Trani cathedral seems to be perched on the precipice of the orient. Lazy back streets and piazzas give a taste of the Italy you came here for, which no longer seems to exist in the places trod upon by tourists; a lonely boy kicking a ball and a clever old man eyeing you in a sun-drenched piazza. Sun between the clouds and we could bask a bit. Most of the shops were boarded up, but we managed to get a coffee in an old-fashioned place where I also sampled a crisp chocolate roll filled with the most lavish hazelnut cream. In another bar on the seafront, there was a picture of Charles and Diana cruising into the harbour on their yacht; they looked confused, as if they’d taken a wrong turn, expecting to end up in Monte Carlo instead of the mezzogiorno.


The cold wind returned and we hauled back to the car hoping to find more treasures on par with Trani. Barletta, the town we had spent hours searching for unsuccessfully the previous day, seemed to live immediately up to its reputation. It was poor, crowded and harried (in fact, thank God we hadn’t found it at night), but its streets suggested that there was something more if you just looked beneath the surface. Having had enough of Barletta’s traffic snarl, we left the car and penetrated the narrow winding streets of the centro storico. With an air of criminality, Barletta’s centro also has plenty of charm and one of the more important cathedrals of the region. Not far off is the colossus, the largest bronze statue to survive from antiquity, it washed up on the shores of Barletta after being plundered from Constantinople by the Venetians, then shipwrecked (depending on which story you believe -– in the South, there is no objective reality). No one is quite sure which figure is represented, maybe Emperor Valentinian, but they have stuck a large cross into his outstretched hand just to be safe.

There are many small restaurants around the centre of Barletta -– a bit curious since the streets were empty -– but I had a good feeling about one I’d seen when parking the car. We crept up close to peer at the menu, and a white-capped woman popped out to tell us that it meant nothing. The menu had changed. Ever paranoid in these tricky parts, I asked if the prices had changed as well; she assured that whatever we ordered would total 15 Euros a piece. The place looked more down at heel than I had first perceived it, which is always a positive sign: it’s the fancy places you need to watch out for. We started with the antipasto buffet, which offered the usual assortment of vegetables under oil (these however, unusually fresh and flavourful), and included the lightest and most delicious frittata I have ever consumed – fluffy and white, 1½ inches thick, bursting with fresh zucchini and with the thinnest crust of a toasty dark brown.

The mussels that followed deserved a standing ovation, both mine served sumptuously in a zuppa and John’s – shelled and combined with perfect little cavatelli barese; the local wine rolled off the tongue. A dessert of fresh fruit and the white-capped woman, who had cheerfully cooked lunch as her children doted on us between bouts of staring at the omnipresent TV, came out to see if we’d liked the meal. I congratulated her perfect frittata and she was happy to provide me with the recipe. The bill: exactly 15 Euros each, and we were ready to resume our attack on Puglia.

Il Valentino, Piazza del P.zza Plebiscito, 53 Barletta (Puglia) Tel. 0883 348 060

After a failed attempt to visit the much-advertised baths in Margarita di Savoia (what was strange was not so much that they were so run down but that they were closed on weekends), we headed north through the saltpans that hug the coast north of Foggia. This haunts you in the late afternoon light; like much of life in Puglia, rhythms have not changed – they’ve been drying sea salt in the sun here since the 3rd century BCE. Driving the road up the narrow strip that separates the salt pans from the sea, little shacks, gardens and beaches scattered around. Up ahead, the imposing plateau of the Gargano Peninsula -– the spur on the heel of Italy’s boot and one of its the finest national parks –- with ancient forests, winding roads and spectacular views down olive-tree covered hillsides to the clear blue sea.


On the Gargano, shepherds and cattlemen have been tending livestock and making cheese for millennia, the Normans were inspired by the locals to take over southern Italy and, most recently recently, Padre Pio was born. We headed strait for the tip -– a winding 60 kilometres on par with the Amalfi drive –- to the charming whitewashed village of Vieste and checked into the Hotel Seggio, perched on a promontory overlooking the sea right in the centro storico. If the weather was nicer, we could have enjoyed the pool or even a swim in the sea down a long spiral staircase from the hotel’s sunporch. But once again, we were in need of rest and an amazing meal, so contentedly checked ourselves into a room with two large windows overlooking the sea (but no bathtub – much to John’s disappointment, they don’t seem to exist in the South) and scoured the slightly touristy old centre for a place that reeked of charm and oozed local flavour.


I spied one place in a nook with wooden tables, candles in chianti bottles – despite what I may tell you about being a food purist, I really am a sucker for cheesy ambiance and this place looked just enough. So we settled into a shadowy corner by candlelight and began a special meal for our fifth wedding anniversary. As we enjoyed our delightful grilled fish and meats, and subdued the moment with the full-bodied local wine, the owner came out to chat with us, as is the custom in these parts. We talked about we were from –- she had been to New York once but didn’t like it because the smell of cooking hamburgers was everywhere, and it made the air heavy and overly pungent so she couldn’t breathe. It was an astute observation; despite their love of cooking that smells up the whole palazzo, Italians are positively sickened by the smell of cooking meat. To our host (and probably to many others) New York was a cesspool of sizzling grease.

To close the meal, I enjoyed a light millefoglie layered with fresh cream –- the only sweetness coming from a fine dusting of powdered sugar. John wanted a cheese plate but the waiter informed him that unfortunately, all they had left was caciocavallo, a typically soft and mild local cheese that would not add much gusto to a rich meal. He thanked the waiter and decided he’d do without, but within five minutes the owner rushed to our table to explain: this was no ordinary caciocavallo. It was from her family’s own farm nine kilometres from here. Her father was too old to work, but her brothers carried on the ancient family tradition by milking the cows by hand and cheese-making according to the old ways in order to create the freshest and most flavourful caciocavallo there is. What’s more, if John tried and liked this cheese, he would be affirming all the time-honoured traditions of her family; she beseeched him and he could not refuse (one likes to fantasize at this moments about what would happen if he did, but one doesn’t take the chance).

The cheese arrived in three thick wedges; it was firm and translucent, the colour of teeth. I too was overflowing with curiosity at this point –- the greatest marketer of cheese in creation; I was in awe. And it was heavenly: sharp but pleasing, firm but yielding to the bite – it WAS the most spectacular caciocavallo indeed on this earth, -– don’t think the Italians haven’t perfected their own brand of hype. It is just follows their priorities: food, politics and soccer in that order. Theirs is a conspiracy of flavours, which, woven together, captures perfectly the complicated richness of life.

Osteria La Ripa, Via Cimaglia 16, Vieste (Puglia) Tel. 0884 708 048 www.laripa.net

Hotel Seggio Via Vesta, 7 71019 Vieste (Puglia) Tel. 0884 708 123 www.hotelseggio.it