Author Archives: Do Bianchi

Separatist and racist Umberto Bossi has resigned in disgrace!

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Whether flipping off the Italian national anthem or using the lyrics to wipe his ass, whether spouting racist rhetoric or aligning his separatist party with the evil empire of Silvio Berlusconi, Umberto Bossi (left) has been the face of one of the ugliest chapters of contemporary Italian history.

I am not Italian but I have devoted my adult life to the study of Italian culture, literature, history, and gastronomy.

And it was with great pleasure that I toasted alla faccia di Bossi last night upon learning that he has resigned “amid a widening scandal of illegal party financing.” (Here’s the NY Times report.)

As much as I miss my family in this moment, after being away from our home for nearly two weeks, I am glad that I was in Italy on the day that he left office. And in these troubled times for Italy and Europe, it is my deepest hope that this episode marks a turning point in Italian politics and a turning of the tide of xenophobia that has gripped this nation in the last two decades.

Please join me tonight in raising a glass alla faccia di Bossi…

Pier Paolo Pasolini “Bunch of Grapes” (poem)

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Photo via Pasolini.net.

I haven’t had time to perfect my translation but here’s an initial draft of the poem that I will be reciting tonight at the COF2012 press dinner. It’s one of Pasolini’s “forgotten” Friulian (language) poems (published posthumously in 1976) that didn’t make it into his songbook La meglio gioventù.

Bunch of Grapes

I dreamed that I was eating grapes
one berry at a time
from a plump green bunch,
a man’s entire destiny
his misfortunes
in those freshly picked grapes
as old as the world

in the dream, I’m the one eating
the grapes with a mouth
that laughs in despair, a pitiful sight,
because it’s been tricked
by the dark dream
and it must laugh as it chews
the infected berry

I crunch it between my teeth reluctantly
because when one dies, or eats,
shame will follow
as if I had scabies, I gobble down
its immobile grains
stuck in the glimmer
that descends on the dead

in the white, dry, limestone
glimmer that never dies,
I see Casarsa before me
and I am a child
in stockings and sweater that cover
my trembling flesh

the poor little, big house
with flies on its greased table
empty and tired,
its courtyard well
walkways and fields
are burning
in the blaze of the sun

wrought-iron beds in its rooms
white bedcovers that smell
of old fleas that died
in the time of my aunts and uncles
when poverty gnawed
even the branches of the fig-tree
in the sun-burnt garden

there, in the middle of it all, I,
a forgotten little featherless swallow,
felt the sin like the heat
and kept it under my scorching skin
as great as the world
that burned
in Casarsa

The Tagliamento, with its
asphalt road and green pastures
like the dried forests
and the yellow fields
of corn between the sea and the mountains:
everything burned in my childhood flesh,
an aching flame

Friuli, much needed rain this morning arrives

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Much needed rain arrived in Friuli this moring.

As you can see in the photo above, spring has come early to the region (and the rest of Italy) but the current drought here will stymie the vegetative cycle if sufficient water doesn’t arrive.

More will be needed but good news…

1998 Specogna Chardonnay INSANE #cof2012

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Last night at Specogna.

I was completely floored by this wine, aged in large cask.

Acidity, nuanced fruit and minerality… One of the best, if not the best, wine of the trip so far. One of the best wines I’ve had this year and a wine that bespeaks Friuli’s immense potential to deliver world-class white wines.

Brovada soup #cof2012

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At Specogna last night…

I’d never had brovada in a soup…

In case you’ve never had it, brovada is a classic Friulian dish made from shredded turnips that have been macerated and partly fermented with grape skins.

The acidity of the grape juice gives the dish a wonderful tang. The soup was off-the-charts delicious.