Over the years I have seen Ettore Scola's film several times The family that I've always liked for two reasons: the scrolling of the time which, through the characters, tells the social changes in 80 years of Italian history and the apartment where the narration takes place, unchanging and always ready to welcome those who arrive grown up, changed, aged or listening indoors in confession rooms, secrets and truths.
Home and family: two nouns more relevant than ever in these days of duty "seclusion”, So much so that I didn't miss the flashbacks. I don't remember being at home with my parents for so long sons, today large and, despite inevitable small tensions, I was pleased to hear them talk, discuss, joke and even play, as if time had stopped. I appreciated the thoughtful calm of Lorenzo and his discussions suspended between politics and history, as well as enthusiasm for the life of Oliviero, also manifested by the search for and tasting of good food and good wine.
I liked the little things and my cherry tree in bloom which in normal times I would not even have touched with my eyes. I considered the value of having a job that I can do remotely. Every morning, the family grows and enters my editorial staff, through a chat where to start with a good morning, then mail, telephone, skype, zoom and all the systems that allow you to see each other and those with which to paginate and send to print.
In this way, different from the usual, the May issue was born. Also different in content, because circumstances did not allow us to travel around Italy on food and wine itineraries, to host chefs and personalities and above all to let photographers, stylists and home economists work. But we opened ours virtual pantry and, as in the family, we tried to do our best with what we had: a mix of new services, timely products and others that are the result of our beautiful archive. To share, as always, the pleasure of the table with the large family of our readers.
For my opening story, something surfaced in the room of memory: a dish tasted a few kilometers from Vasto, in the small and beautiful winery of the Altieri brothers. In front of a glass of Cerasuolo d'Abruzzo I got to know the "pullastr arpijne", Ie the chicken stuffed with sauce. A dish of home, family, fruit of the peasant tradition that, in Vasto, they told me, it is typical to prepare for Ferragosto. The protagonist is a free-range chicken stuffed with eggs, cheese, breadcrumbs, almonds and its entrails ready to cook for a long time immersed in tomato sauce. The sauce tasty that derives from it, it is used to season wonderful handmade "maccherune".
The recipe is also found in Chieti, where maybe it comes from. In this city the association "Women in Campo-Cia" in collaboration with professor Francesco Stoppa, a scholar of popular traditions, has enclosed it with other 129 from the province of Chieti in the volume The heart of the swallow. Peasant wisdom for a dual-use chicken, prepared on Sundays or holidays, when you didn't go to the fields and there was more time to cook. But above all to stay indoors. With the family.
Laura Maragliano
on Sale & Pepe of May 2020
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