You see the title of this blog? Well, it’s a bit out of date nowadays. It’s almost a source of shame to me: I live in a city so I don’t have a car. How can I drive like a maniac when I’ve got no wheels? Well, there are ways and means, dear readers. I may not have my red cinquecento (YET – one day it will happen …), but if you substitute ‘cooking’ for the word ‘driving’ I’m still well within the realms of reality.
I’m part of a group which has a fortnightly ingredient challenge, and the current one is fennel. Now, there are lots of ways to work with fennel. You can eat it raw, you can eat it cooked, or you can use the seeds. Then you can get creative and start making syrups and liqueurs.
After that, you can get a bit crazy and start baking cakes.
Yep, I went there. I made a chocolate-orange fennel upside-down cake, and lo! it was good. So because I’m nice (and not in the least because I’m trying to make you lot into maniacs, too), I’ve published the recipe over at my cooking blog, Quasi Siciliana (which, by the way, you should totally bookmark and like on Facebook and comment on and stuff).
Anyway, as regards the cake, squash your feelings of weirdness about vegetables at teatime (yes, I know you’ve got them) and give it a go. From start to stuffing it in your mouth takes less than an hour, and the chocolatey-orangey-sponge-with-a-hint-of-liquoricey-goodness is – if I do say so myself – delicious. Buon appetito!
As you walk around the Centro Storico of Catania, you may notice that many trattorie and restaurants have stone name plaques on their outside walls. The style is similar in each of them, with red and white colour schemes, but the most striking thing about them is their size, which is impressively big. I’ve become a bit obsessed with them recently, and have been collecting photos as I wander about. Salvina caught me at it the other day, and was most confused. “Kate! What on earth are you doing …?” Oh, you know. Just playing weirdo tourist. Well, that’s not what I said, but I might as well have done.
Anyway, the night before last, as a group of us wandered around town in search of culture on an alleged Notte Bianca (there was none: the only things open were bars and the music stage in Teatro Massimo) we walked past Trattoria del Cavaliere, which has one of the most impressive examples of the genre, taking up most of the end wall of the restaurant. As I was with Lucia, who is a veritable font of information on the history of Catania, it seemed the perfect time to satisfy my curiosity.
I wave my arm towards the sign. “What’s the story of this?” Lucia glances over. “Oh, bomb damage in the war.” I realise that she thinks I’m talking about the building. “Oh! No, the sign.” She looks back at me, confused. “What sign?” I gesture again, although we’ve now gone well past the big one on the end wall and can only see the smaller ones (which are still, to be fair, half a metre across) either side of the main entrance door to the trattoria. “The stone ones. With the names of the places on?” She follows my pointing finger and her brow clears. Then she and Clem burst into laughter. I look at them in surprise. This wasn’t the reaction I was expecting.
“It’s polystyrene!” says Lucia when she stops laughing. Clem chimes in after her, “Yes, polystyrene! I know the person who makes it.”
So much for cultural traditions. We giggle all the way to the next bar.
You know when you walk around a place so much that you don’t see it? Well, until recently that had been the case in Catania for me. I say ‘until recently’ because it all changed when I moved into my current flat. One of the wonderful things about living with a born and bred Catanese has been hearing the legends and history of the city: in the two months that I’ve been living in this flat I’ve learnt more about the city than I have in the previous 12 combined.
In Piazza Università, for instance, there are four lamp posts at the four corners of the square. I hadn’t noticed them until my flatmate started talking about the Biscostoria. “You know the lamp posts?” Cue blank look from me. “The ones in the Piazza?” I mumble something about having a vague recollection, while having nothing of the sort. “Well, anyway, they tell the legends of Catania, including the Biscostoria.”
Shamefaced, I make a resolution to check them out.
Arriving in Piazza Università I’m accosted as usual by the local self-appointed tour guide. He hangs around the bottom end of Via Etnea picking up foreign girls and generally being a bit of a pain in the bum. I’ve met him on a few occasions in social contexts and he’s just as limpet-like there, so I put my head down and try to look as inconspicuous as a tall redhead toting a large camera can look in the middle of a Sicilian city.
He immediately homes in on me. “These lamp posts tell the stories of Catania,” he tells me proudly. I’m dying to get an explanation in English to check that I’ve understood properly, but opening up a conversation with him is the way to disaster, so I continue taking photos as I reply, “I know.” He tries again.”So you like photography then?” Every time he’s seen me in the past week I’ve been taking photos, so I don’t deign to reply to that one. He realises the battle is lost and drifts away, leaving me to it. I heave a sigh of relief and return to the lamp posts.
The lamp posts depict four stories in bronze, three traditional and one which was invented by a journalist sometime at the beginning of the 20th century. Which is which, you ask? Well, in the best storytelling traditions I’ll leave it to you to discuss in the comments and let you know the answer next week. (I know. I’m mean like that.)
Are you sitting comfortably? Then I’ll begin.
The Legend of Uzeta.
The King and his daughter
Once upon a time there was a boy. He was neither rich nor well-connected, but he was very skilled at fighting, so King Federico II (who you’ll notice pops up a lot in these stories) made him a knight, and asked him to fight against the Saracen giants – the Ursini. If I were cynical I might say that he was given the task because he was more expendable than one of the knights from a well-respected family, but I’m not, so I won’t. Cynicism aside, however, the low-born boy confounded all expectations and not just fought, but won. A Sicilian David and Goliath story, if you will.
The King was mighty pleased, of course, and in some versions Uzeta even wins the hand of the King’s daughter. It seems that the sculptor, Mimì Maria Lazzaro, has gone with this version of events, as I see no giants, but there *is* a beautiful female.
The Legend of the Pii Fratres
The two ‘pious children’ of the title were called Anfinomo and Anapia and they lived with their parents here in Catania, a city which has been rebuilt, according to popular legend, seven times after destruction by either earthquake or one of Etna’s volcanic eruptions.
Honour thy father
Unfortunately for Anfinomo and Anapia, their life in Catania coincided with one of the eruptions. Fortunately Etna is gentle and her lava is slow-moving, so as a general rule she causes more damage to property than loss of life. All around the children their neighbours were therefore hard at work removing their possessions from their houses. However, Anfinomo and Anapia were more concerned about their elderly parents, who were even more slow moving than the lava. Faced with a choice of possessions or parents, the children chose to save their parents by carrying them on their backs.
Carrying someone in this way is no easy task. Despite the children’s best efforts, they found it hard to keep ahead of the lava. As they struggled on, it inched ever closer, putting all four of them in mortal peril. Still Anfinomo and Anapia refused to leave their parents behind.
It looked as though all would be lost. However, just as they were about to be consumed by the lava, the gods took pity and split the flow in two around them, saving both the children and their parents. The story goes that this was the basis for Virgil’s legend of Aeneas and the fires of Troy. Whatever the truth of this claim, it’s a strong allegory for filial piety, which is important to this day in Sicily.
The Legend of Gammazita
Gammazita was – as all girls of legend seem to be – a young, virtuous woman of humble stock. She lived in Catania in the days when Sicily was occupied by the French and was engaged to be married to a Catanese boy.
The escape of Gammazita
One day, as she went to the well to draw water, a French soldier sidled up to her and made a lewd proposition. Gammazita, horrified by the thought, tried to walk away, but found her exit blocked by her amorous accoster. Her only recourse was to dive into the well to escape – so that’s exactly what she did.
Gammazita’s well exists to this day in Catania, 12 metres below ground level, near Castello Ursino. The legend goes that her blood still stains the walls; in truth, it’s iron deposits, but that’s not half such a good story.
Lazzaro’s rendering of the legend comes across as comical, with Gammazita disappearing head-first into the well, feet flailing. However, quite apart from the fact that the poor girl died, there’s a serious and nasty undertone to Gammazita’s tale. Much like Sant’Agata, the patron saint of Catania, and Santa Lucia, the patron saint of Siracusa, Gammazita was a girl who was forced to choose between death or rape.
It’s not a choice that anyone should ever have to make.
The Legend of Colapesce
Colapesce was the son of a fisherman. His real name was Nicola, and in the most well-known version of the story, came from Messina. He was famous for being able to swim and dive, so he became known as Nick the Fish: ‘Cola (short for Nicola) plus Pesce (fish). Nick the Fish. What a nickname. Anyway, he used to dive from his father’s fishing boat and would come back with fantastic tales of the things he’d seen underwater including, on some occasions, treasure.
King Federico II (there he is again) heard of Colapesce’s magnificent diving abilities and, curious, wanted to test out the boy’s prowess. He therefore boarded a boat, along with all of his Court, and sailed out to sea, where he dropped a cup overboard. Colapesce promptly dived into the water and retrieved it. Impressed, King Federico sailed out to deeper water and this time threw his crown overboard. Again, Colapesce dived into the sea and brought back the treasure. For the final test, the King sailed out yet further and threw a ring overboard. Again, Colapesce dived after it – but this time he didn’t return.
Colapesce
There are two common explanations for his disappearance. The first tells of how, when he dived into the deep water after the ring, he saw that Sicily was held up by three columns, which were crumbling and full of cracks. In a variant of this story, there were still three columns, but they were about to be consumed by the fires of Etna. In both stories, however, the end result was that Colapesce stayed underneath the island rather than coming back to the surface, in order to hold it up and stop Sicily from sinking into the sea.
The above story is the Messinese version. The Catanese, however, have a different take on it. In our version, King Federico was scientific and curious about the world, so his reasoning for wanting Colapesce to dive was to find out more about how Etna functioned under the surface. Colapesce obligingly dived for him, and came back with a story of having seen fires burning under the sea which were feeding Etna. King Federico was doubtful of the truth of the story and asked Colapesce for tangible proof. The boy, ever loyal and willing, said that he could provide proof but that he would probably die in the process. Undeterred, King Federico sent him down into the water again, this time armed with a plank of wood.
Colapesce was never seen again.
The piece of wood, on the other hand, bobbed back up to the surface, burnt and charred.
So, did you spot the Biscostoria? And which of the legends do you think is non-traditional? Maniacs, it’s over to you …
“Look!” cries Lucia. “It’s a biscostoria!” True enough, there are the legends and history of Sicily spelled out in biscuits, with Greek columns and mermaids and fish and crowns – it’s a lovely little piece of whimsy.
Sabrina, the person behind it all, is shy and quiet. The other women in the artisan show that Lucia and I are attending, all jewellery makers, are more outgoing, chatting easily, but Sabrina stands in the corner, her whole body language pulled in on itself, only speaking when spoken to. Her biscuits do the talking for her. I ask if I can take a photo of the witches’ fingers sitting in a bowl at the front of the table and she nods, then hands me a platter for me to try one of her other creations. I take a bite and realise that they don’t just look good – they taste great, too. I’ve got delicious, crumbly cinnamon, but there are also mint-flavoured biscuits covered in chocolate and shaped like leaves, and little round bites of marsala and grape, as well as honey, and pistacchio and almond, and limoncello – oh, it’s a biscuit-lover’s dream.
Lucia comes over and Sabrina starts to explain some of her other work. Her shyness forgotten in the excitement of talking about what she loves, she grabs her camera to show us her round the world trip: Stonehenge and the Pyramids and many other places besides, all created in biscuits. She doesn’t use cutters, but shapes each biscuit individually and then decorates them with piped, coloured icing. Not for her a perfect, production-line birthday or wedding cake covered in marzipan and sugar flowers, designed to be seen more than tasted: she likes the rough-hewn simplicity of biscuits. More than that, she loves the fact that people eat them. Not just a bite, but the whole thing, without leaving a crumb. We’re happy to oblige.
The flute trills the opening bars of The Chinese Dance and Clem, Lucia and I all start to shake with suppressed laughter. It’s just as well we’re in a private box and not the stalls.
We’re at Teatro Bellini listening to a concert performance of The Nutcracker. My flatmate Clem used to work at the theatre as a costume designer and still has friends there, so she’s managed to get us free tickets in a box for the evening. It’s the theatre’s symphony orchestra playing, led by a guest conductor from Russia, Yuri Temirkanov, and up until now it’s been lovely. Well, it’s still lovely, but now it’s hilarious, too.
The three of us – Clem, Lucia and I – live in a flat that overlooks the back of the theatre. From the window over our kitchen sink we can see straight into the theatre dressing rooms, and we can hear all the rehearsals and performances that go on. So for the past month we’ve been hearing the same two bars of music rehearsed by the flautist, over and over – and over – again.
We catch each other’s eyes and bend double in our chairs, choking back the laughter. The Nutcracker Suite will never be the same again.
Later we sit outside on Via Landolina listening to a different kind of music: there’s an upright piano outside Bar La Chiave Bianca being played by a jazz pianist, who’s jamming with a sax player.
From the other end of the street comes the familiar tuneless suck and blow buzzing of the harmonica belonging to the gypsy girl who works this street with her mother. Her usual schtick is to work her way along the tables, playing a few bars at each one and then holding her plastic cup out for money. She’s maybe 10 or 11 years old and it’s routine for her. Rarely does she speak to the punters, and her eyes are dead underneath the garish make up and teased hair.
Tonight she works her way up the street as usual, ignoring the fact that there are two real musicians playing. She huffs and buzzes her harmonica at each table in turn, sometimes getting money, more often not. She’s getting closer and closer to the musicians and the sax player slides his eyes sideways at her. She reaches the table next to him. He could tell her just to go away and stop disturbing everyone, but instead he leans over and starts to play directly at her. She turns to him, a broad smile spreading across her face, and he winks at her without missing a note. She erupts into a peal of giggles as it turns into a brief musical question and answer, first sax then harmonica riffing. After 30 seconds she has to move on, but in those 30 seconds she’s become a child, rather than an old woman in a child’s body. She leaves with her round face split by a grin a mile wide, and her eyes shining. Tonight is music night for everyone.
“So have you seen the elephant’s erection?” asks my flatmate Lucia. I gape at her, wondering if I’ve misheard. “What?!” She cackles at my expression. “OK, I was sitting in a cafe one day and was messing about with my camera, as you do.” I nod. “Anyway, I zoomed in on the Elephant Building and what I saw made me nearly fell off my chair!”
Lucia’s friend Salvina arrives. We only saw each other an hour ago at the market, but between friends in Sicily there must always be proper salutation, so there are kisses all round. Lucia is jiggling with impatient excitement. “So, Salvina, have *you* seen the willies on the Elephant Building?”
The building Lucia is talking about is more formally known as Palazzo Senatorio, but I’ve only ever heard it called the Elephant Building. It stands on the north side of the Cathedral square here in Catania, and I’d assumed it had got its nickname because of its proximity to u liotru, the lavic stone elephant that stands above the fountain at the centre of the square, carrying an Egyptian obelisk on his back.
‘L’elefante’, as he is usually known, is Catania’s symbol, and the standard meeting point for anyone arranging to hang out with friends in Catania. Where Londoners have Eros, the Catanese have u liotru. “Meet you at the elephant!” is a common phrase among friends, and there are always people sitting on the steps that circle the base of the fountain, whatever time of day or night you walk through the square.
The more organised arrive clutching newspaper to sit on, brought from home so that they don’t have to come in contact with nasty, dirty stone. One evening, as I waited for a friend, a group of four Catanese turned up – two couples, one older than the other. The younger man – who’d neglected to bring anything to sit on – looked in disdain at the steps. When he saw a piece of newspaper lying close to the place where I was sitting his eyes lit up. He picked it up and placed it with fastidious care on a lower step so that both he and his girlfriend could sit down. They both appeared to be oblivious to the fact that if it had been there for any length of time it was likely just as dirty as the steps themselves.
“I don’t know the truth of the story,” I say to Lucia and Salvina, standing in the scorching midday sunshine, “but allegedly when the elephant – the main elephant, that is – was first made it didn’t have any genitals. However the men of Catania were so insulted by this that the sculptor was forced to add some.” I’m very excited to find out that, not only have Lucia and Salvina never heard this story, but they’ve never noticed the elephant’s appendages before. They exchange a wicked, wordless look, like naughty schoolgirls, and race across the square to see for themselves.
We stand in a row, like three Stoogesses, gazing at the prodigious pair of pachydermic palle dangling from the elephant’s underside. I glance across at the girls. “Um – did I mention they’re HUGE …?”
“Well! Now we *have* to look at the willy!” says Lucia, bouncing with glee.
I’ve never taken notice of the Elephant Building before, but now I see that all around the first floor window arches there are decorative elephants carved into the stone. There’s more to its name than just its proximity to u liotru. “Hmmm,” says Salvina, nodding towards a sleek-silhouetted carving with an art-pseud kind of expression on her face. “I think that one might be a lady.” I snort with laughter, looking at one that has a penis that stretches halfway along his belly. “That one isn’t!” Beside me, Lucia gives a filthy chuckle. “Just you wait!” she replies, her eyes glinting with mischief. “That’s not even the one I’m talking about.”
We round the corner of the building to the bottom of Via Etnea. “I was sitting in this cafe,” she continues, nodding towards Prestipino. “I must have been about here …” She slows her pace and glances upwards. “Yes! Look!” She raises her eyebrows with a pixie-like grin on her face. Her eyes dance as she tries – and fails – to hold in her giggles.
Salvina and I follow her gaze to the elephant on the corner of the building where it meets the University Square. We stare, awestruck, until I break the silence.
” …with trepidation I take the bowl out of the fridge and carry it to the table, along with a plate and a spoon. I serve myself a large portion – as my grandpa always used to say, ‘if you’re going to do something, do it properly’ – and peer at the pile of pudding on my plate.
Taking a large spoonful, I bring it to my mouth, close my eyes and hope for a miracle …”
Last week I was challenged to make a trifle. But not just any old trifle: a special St Clement’s trifle. The reason for the challenge? I detest the stuff.
Apparently this recipe is going to change my mind. As the saying goes: the proof of the pudding is in the eating. Let’s see if it’s proof positive or negative.
* * * * *
What’s this? Make a cheesecake, instead of a trifle? Much though I’m tempted by the suggestion, the challenge was to find a trifle that could overcome my hatred of it. And that’s modern trifle rather than the original version, sadly. Back in 1596, when trifle was first coined (puddinged?), it was more like what we would now call a syllabub or a fruit fool.[1] Then some plonker decided to add sponge to the mix and all was lost. Sigh. Still, I’m ever the optimist: today is going to be the day that I’m proved wrong and trifle redeems itself! Yes! I screw my courage to the sticking place and head to the shops, list in hand.
Ready to go
Armed with ingredients – minus mandarins, which weren’t available, so I bought pineapple as the next best thing – I whip the cream with the condensed milk and lemon juice to make the syllabub-esque top layer of the trifle. Five minutes of splashy mess-making later, I’ve got about half a jug of the stuff sitting in front of me.
OK, maybe a little bit less now that I’ve dipped my finger into it to taste. And again. And – ooh, go on – just one more …
OK, STOP.
Why are all my kitchen things yellow? I have no idea.
To distract myself from the lemon cream I break the biscuits into the bottom of the bowl. I pop a piece into my mouth as I work and am surprised to find that it’s nothing like as nasty as I would have thought. It’s fine-textured and delicately sugary, rather than the gritty, tasteless mess that would be expected from the way they turn out when they’re soaked with liquid. Maybe Italian savoiardi are superior to English trifle sponges? Holding onto this ray of hope, I pour juice over the biscuits and start to layer the fruit.
Tessellation
Ten minutes later, when I catch myself rifling through the bowl of uneven pineapple pieces in search of the exact size and shape to tessellate with three others around it, I wonder whether making trifle may be messing with my head. When I collapse in giggles after seeing what’s been created after adding the layer of cream and decorative fruit, it’s confirmed.
ALIEN PINEAPPLE CIRCLES!
The sight of half a jug of whipped cream left over shakes any thoughts of little green men out of my head. It does bring other ideas to mind, though.
This might have happenedAs might thisAnd this. I couldn’t possibly confirm, though.
I wake up the next day feeling sick. Maybe it’s the amount of cream and sugar I stuffed into my face the night before, but I prefer to think it’s anticipation mixed with just a little bit of fear. What if I actually like trifle? I’ll have to change my whole belief system.
“Loves cats. After a 30+ year vendetta has discovered that she was wrong and trifle’s all right after all. Drives like a maniac.”
It just doesn’t have the same ring to it, so it’s with trepidation that I take the bowl out of the fridge and carry it to the table, along with a plate and a spoon. I serve myself a large portion – as my grandpa always used to say, ‘if you’re going to do something, do it properly’ – and peer at the pile of pudding on my plate. The cream and the pineapple look just as delicious as they did yesterday, but the biscuits at the bottom look ominous. They’ve half-disintegrated overnight and they sit underneath the shining white cream and zingy yellow pineapple as an amorphous, glistening glob of beige.
I get a sinking feeling in my stomach.
Taking a large spoonful, I bring it to my mouth, close my eyes and hope for a miracle.
It’s FOUL. The liquid-soaked savoiardi are blobby and tasteless, sticking to my tongue and ruining the smooth, creamy syllabub and tangy fruit above them. Why, why, WHY did anyone ever think this was going to be a good idea for a pudding?
People LIKE this?
I dissect the layers, scraping the syllabub away from the pineapple, savouring its smooth texture and sweet and sharp lemony zing, unsullied by soggy blobs of pappy biscuit, and weighing up the pros and cons of today’s experiment.
On one hand, lemon syllabub is my kind of heaven and this one will, as Kate A says, be great on top of a cheesecake. On the other, I’ve been vindicated in my belief that trifle truly is utterly disgusting.
I’m chalking this up as a victory for the trifle-haters.
Once upon a time, back in the late 70s/early 80s, there was a little girl. This little girl had white-blonde hair, a mind of her own and a voracious appetite. She’d tried curry before she was a year old and she loved black pudding. If she’d been a bit older than she was she might even have said something like, “I’ve never met a food I didn’t like.”
One day the little girl went with her mother, her father and her little brother on a plane. They were flying to Portugal. In those heady, pre-budget-airline days, every flight had a meal included in the price. The little girl was excited. She’d been on planes before and she loved getting the trays of food. It was so different from the meals that she got at home. For a start, every piece was wrapped in plastic. She loved unwrapping each bit and stabbing at whatever appeared with her wobbly, inadequate disposable cutlery. Today there was a soft, white bread roll which she could spread with margarine from a little individual pot, and there was that strong, strange-tasting orange juice as well, which she rather liked. She peeled back the foil lid and, holding the plastic container with both hands so that she wouldn’t spill it, took a gulp. It made her mouth pucker up in a good way. Eating on planes was fun!
Pulling faces is fun, too!
Having eaten her first course and drunk her orange juice the little girl moved on to pudding. She’d been eyeing it all the way through munching the rest of her food. It was brightly coloured and pretty, with sprinkles on the top. Was it a birthday cake? She looked at her mother with big, curious eyes. Her mother answered the unspoken question: “It’s trifle, sweetheart. Try it.” As we’ve already established, the little girl loved food, so she didn’t need asking twice. She dug her bendy plastic spoon into the sprinkle-coated dollop of whipped cream and the layer of custard underneath it and scooped out a big spoonful.
Wow! Underneath the custard there was jelly! It was red. She liked red jelly. In fact she liked all jelly. Orange was her favourite, but red was good, too. She liked squishing it backwards and forwards through her teeth until it became a liquid again and she could make sloshy noises with it. Her grandpa had taught her that trick and it made her giggle. He’d taught her a poem about eating peas with honey, too. Her grandpa was funny.
She took a big bite of the cream and the custard and the jelly and the sprinkles. Yummy! She liked trifle! She told her mother. “Mummy! I *like* trifle! Can we eat it at home?” Her mother laughed. “Maybe, squirrel. Now finish it up, please.”
The little girl dug her plastic spoon deeper into her plastic bowl, past the cream and the custard and the jelly and the sprinkles. Wow! There was another layer of stuff at the bottom! She couldn’t quite work out what it was from looking at it. It was pale brown and a bit shiny. Maybe it was cake? Cake was good. She gouged a big spoonful out of the bowl and rammed it into her mouth with glee.
Had she not been such a well-brought-up little girl she would have spat it straight back out again. It was horrid! It was sort of like cake, but cake that had had orange juice spilt onto it and had gone all squishy. But not even properly squishy – that might have been nice. Then she could have pushed it back and forth through her teeth like the jelly. No, it was a bit like sand, too. Yes! That was what it was like: cake that had been sitting on a plate on the beach and had got a bit sandy and then had some orange juice spilt over it.
It was the nastiest thing she’d ever eaten in her whole, entire life.
It’s horrid, Mummy …
She swallowed it down, gagging, and looked at her mother with her mouth downturned. “Mummy. I’ve decided I don’t like trifle after all. It’s horrid.” Her mother raised her eyebrows. “You don’t want it when we get home, then?” The little girl shook her head. “No, thank you.” Her face brightened. “But can we have cream and custard and jelly and sprinkles? I like *that*!”
Fast forward to 2012. The little girl’s grown up. Her hair colour’s darkened to strawberry, rather than white, blonde, but she’s still got a mind of her own and still very much loves food. She also still hates trifle. Many people over the years have tried to persuade her that trifle is, in fact, a foodstuff rather than just the devil’s own snot, and when it comes to food she’s always willing to give things a second chance. (She’s not so forgiving in life, but food – well, food is different.) So she’s tried it. In various forms. From the lurid, many-layered confections that appear at children’s birthday parties, to the altogether more grown up affairs made with whipped cream and alcohol, to all the varieties in between, she’s tried – and detested – them all. Every time it’s the same. The upper layers are delicious. She likes custard and cream. It’s the bit at the bottom that always turns her off. The combination of soggy and gritty just. makes. her. gag.
Trifle is her Waterloo.
She hates it so much it’s become her internet schtick: ‘Loves cats. Hates trifle. Drives like a maniac.’ People react to this in different ways. Some find it amusing, some are offended (it’s just a pudding, people! Sheesh …), and then there are some who have the right kind of attitude and see it as a challenge.
Like Kate Allison.
Kate A (as opposed to me, Kate B – and yes, I am, of course, that same trifle-hating little girl, now all growed up) is one-third of the founding members of The Displaced Nation, a site for expats which focuses on food and humour. It’s my kind of place, so I was over the moon when they gave me an ‘Alice’ award for my Sunday Supper piece. In the write-up of the awards, ML Awanohara (another of the founding members of TDN) asked, in a throwaway kind of a way, just what was so wrong with trifle, anyway?
I replied. The comment thread got long and impassioned, and the upshot was that Kate A challenged me, Kate B, to try her family recipe for St Clement’s trifle.
I’ve been messing about with SoundCloud and have recorded myself reading one of my posts from earlier this year, so those of you who’ve never heard my dulcet tones can have whatever illusions you might have been harbouring about my voice shattered.
Can you hear me now, mother?
You’re welcome.
But wait!
Before you dive straight into the recording, I recommend listening to The Divine Comedy track that inspired me to write it: Too Young to Die. Far less morbid than the title indicates, it’s a beautiful, wistful song that talks about how, at certain points, you just need to shake off the shackles of a past life and go. Yeah, it’s pretty damn relevant, so turn up your speakers and give it a listen.
There’s a burst of Portuguese behind my left shoulder. I turn with a regretful smile ready on my face and shake my head, shrugging an apology for my lack of understanding. The old man behind me grins, crinkling his weathered face. He’s dapper and smiley and hellbent on having a chat. “Do you speak French?” he asks. “We can speak in French?”
I smile back and reply in a broken mix of French and Italian. “Yes, a little. My Italian’s much better, though.”
His face brightens, eyes widening and eyebrows shooting up into his silver hairline. “Perfect! Un po’ d’Italiano, un peu de Francais, maybe some English,” – he pulls a face – “but I don’t like to speak English. Never have I studied it.” He grins and gives me a conspiratorial wink: “Better Francais o Italiano, no?”
His enthusiasm is infectious. So what if we don’t speak the same base language – we’ll get by in the four that we know between us, and Latin will sort the rest. Ah, Latin. Never did I realise how useful you’d be when you were killing me at school nearly 30 years ago.
We stand at the top of a set of steps leading to the port wine cellars in Vila Nova de Gaia, looking across the River Douro at the city of Porto, and talk. When one or other doesn’t understand a word we switch to another language. There’s barely a sentence goes by in which there’s only one language used, but we both relearn and relish the fact that so long as you want to communicate, it’s possible.
“Adios – arrivederci – au revoir – goodbye!” The old man wrinkles his eyes and shakes my hand. “Are you going to the river? Go down these steps – here, see – and then around the corner – et voilà! You’re there!” I wave him goodbye and hop down the steps in search of the next adventure.
Porto is a lovely city. I don’t know what I’d expected, but I’ve found myself constantly surprised. Hills and narrow winding streets lead down to the river – always to the river. It’s Porto’s lifeblood. The port wine for which Porto is famous used to be transported downriver from the vineyards in the upper reaches of the Douro valley to the cellars in Gaia via rabelo boats to be aged and then exported. The boats now transport tourists, rather than wine, but they’re still doing their part for Porto’s economy.
On a sunny day like today children wriggle in the current on the Porto side of the river along with the catfish that nibble on the algae that grows at the bottom of the high stone quay walls. The kids – rather than the fish – strip down to their underwear and run down the cobbled jetty at Rua Cais Ribiera, pulling themselves out into the water with the help of a rope that attaches a dredging crane to the quay. The current has a strong pull towards the centre of the river, and their arms work overtime, tiny muscles bulging as they edge along the rope, legs trailing behind like flotsam.
At first there are only four or five young children – the oldest maybe eight years old – but then the word gets out. More and more join the mix, and now older teenagers are appearing as well. With them comes noise and laughter and jostling. Who’s going to be braver than the rest and risk the leap from the top of the quay, 15 foot above the level of the water? A couple of thick-set, older boys swagger to the edge and look down, but retreat, laughing. At the moment it’s a game. Nobody’s really going to do it.
Are they?
There’s an excited babble of noise a little further up the quay. The younger children are huddling together, shouting and laughing. The older boys eye them up and down. You can see bravado in their eyes, covering up a sliver of doubt. Are they about to lose face to a load of kids?
The noise from the little kids’ huddle increases. They buzz with excitement, winding someone in the middle of the group up. When the buzz reaches fever-pitch and becomes a roar, she bursts out of the group like a cork from a bottle. She’s no more than 12, with long, skinny legs and no shape to her. Were it not for the long hair and stripy teeshirt knotted just under where her breasts should be, you wouldn’t know if she were male or female. Her wet hair slaps against her back as she races across the quay and launches herself into midair, chest pushing forward like a long-jumper and arms and legs windmilling as she flies clear of the stone wall.
There’s a moment of silence as everyone on the quay holds their breath.
A tourist sitting at a cafè table claps her hands to her mouth, eyes wide with horror, and half-starts to her feet.
We hear a splash from below as the girl hits the water, followed by a triumphant yell as she resurfaces. The tourist slumps with relief and the tension is broken.
The little kids jeer at the older ones, goading them to action. Now they have to jump, or lose face. With resignation in their eyes, they back away from the edge of the quay, preparing for their run-up. First one, then the other makes their running jump into the water. They have none of the grace or fiery determination of the first girl. Where she glid through the air in slow motion, they drop like stones, their weight and age working against them. It’s not important, though. There are no marks for style here. All that counts is bravery, and they’ve proved their worth. They live to dive another day.
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