L'Italo-Americano

L'Italo-Americano THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 19, 2015 www.italoamericano.com 8 Modern Italy food court on the top floor of Florence's central market, named appropriately Il Mercato Centrale di Firenze, only a few minutes' walk from Eataly's location on Via dei Martelli. Many see such large-scale food spaces markets as little more than a commercial- ization of Italy's sacred culinary tradition: the small trattoria owned and operated by local fam- ilies. When I learned of Il Centrale, Carole and I had only arrived the day before from Rome with twen- ty students from the University of La Verne, our fourteenth tour of Rome and Florence during January term since 2000. By 10AM the next morning, Carole and I took our first small group on a short walk from the Hotel Globus to the Mercato Centrale. We toured the vegetable and meat market on the first floor, examin- ing its array of food products, all in their own way an important window into Italian culture. Before ascending the stairs to the second floor, I explained to our students that several years ago, the comune decided to improve the upstairs space where the vegetable vendors once had their stalls. The understanding was that the vendors would move, but only temporarily, to empty spaces on the first floor and others to a covered space in the parking lot. However, when the remodel was completed, the word on the street was that they refused to move their stalls back upstairs. They were making more money downstairs where there was better customer access to their products. Acquiescing, the comune gave in, moved those in the parking lot into vacant stalls on the first floor and allowed the others to remain. But the comune was faced with a big problem: what to do with the vacant second floor space? In its hulking silence above the very center of the town, the cavernous vacant space spoke volumes about Italy's depressed economy and high unemployment rate. At first, again according the word on the street, the comune considered putting in a disco. But discoes open around 10PM and close around 4AM. The foot traf- fic it would generate would be of Many years ago the famous British writer Elizabeth Bowen announced to her friends that she intended to write a travel book on Rome. They warned her that bet- ter writers than she had tried to write about Italy and failed. To write about Italy, or paint images of the Italian landscape is to enter into an historically conflict- ed zone where the real is con- stantly at odds with the ideal. This conflict has a storied his- tory in Italy. In January, my wife, Carole, and I visited a show, The Baroque Underworld: Vice and Destitution in Rome, at the Villa Medici. Over fifty Baroque-era painting, drawings, and engrav- ings depicted the darker side of the otherwise idealized Eternal City. In many paintings, murders, thieves, and prostitutes, often engaged in lascivious, drunken bacchanalias, are depicted among Rome's classical ruins. The Baroque painters consciously placed the "darker side of Rome" in a landscape that Renaissance painters had used to symbolize Italy's idealized past. These same Roman ruins would become icon- ic images of an idealized Italian countryside in nineteenth century paintings, both European and American. Today, any challenge to the otherwise romanticized image of the Italian landscape is sure to bring controversy with it, that same clash between writers depicting a constructed, idealized Italy with those who are more deeply in touch with Italian cul- ture and society. Last year I wrote about a con- troversial subject, one that has Italians, in and outside Italy, including tourists, irreconcilably divided: the new large-scale food courts that are springing up throughout Italy. I wrote about Rome's recently opened Eataly in the abandoned train station Ostiense, now one of many throughout not just Italy but the world. I could hear in my mind's eye my critics' disapproving glares and hear their arrogant muttering: "That's not the real Italy." But "real Italy" it is, like it or not. In April of 2014 the comune of Florence opened a large-scale no value to the surrounding busi- nesses, including the San Lorenzo Market stalls. Then according to word on the street again, Prime Minister and former mayor of Florence, as he is sometimes known, Matteo Renzi, asked help from an old friend, purportedly an Eataly executive. (I tried hard to verify this one, but Renzi was in Rome meeting with Merkel). The out- come was that the comune hired a firm, not Eataly, to remodel the space and put in a large food court, in the style of Eataly. With Renzi behind the project, the filibustering Italian bureaucra- cy was silenced. In the era of austerity, the comune quickly found five million euro to develop the project. After little more than six months, by the end of April 2014, Il Mercato Centrale di Firenze opened. The once hollow space was transformed into a wel- coming, inexpensive, and enjoy- able place to eat, drink, and just hang out. Each day, its doors open at 10AM and do not close until 12 weekdays and 1AM on the weekend. As one young Florentine said to me, this is just what the youth of Florence needed: an inexpen- sive place to hang out with friends. But judging from the crowds I surveyed in my many eating and late-night reconnais- sance visits to Il Centrale, it is a space now enjoyed by all age groups, including large families that come early and commandeer tables for dinners that last hours. As one middle-aged shop owner said to me, Il Centrale is a nice addition to the city, because it is "new." Only a cynic, one hopelessly wedded to those idealize images of Italy, would not be impressed with Il Centrale's spectacle of wine and beer bars, blazing pizza ovens, mozzarella bar, dessert counter, sandwich booths, fresh fish counter, and restaurants grilling bistecca alla fiorentina over wood fires. Adding to the hip atmosphere, at one end is the Leonardo Da Vinci Culinary School with its glass wall that allows viewers to watch the making of the next gen- eration of Italy's chefs. Architecturally, the space is but- tressed by giant, black I-beams tied together by steel cables. I was reminded of Turin's and Rome's Eataly: the spectacular and creative design of those older spaces by Italian architects. They are inspired reuses of once aban- doned and presumed useless structures. I must echo the opinion of those Florentines I spoke with and say that Italy has a right to be modern and progressive. The search for that "out of the way" trattoria has become another of the many clichés used to locate the "real" Italy. Carole and I have found that our favorite restaurants anywhere in Italy are often just a step away. In any country, you must know how to look, not just where. During our weeks of prepara- tion before we left for Italy, Carole and I spoke at length to our students about the regional nature of Italy's cuisine and how important it was to an under- standing of Italian culture to sam- ple and savor local dishes in the various towns they would visit. Before we entered the first floor of Il Mercato, we stood outside and I explained that much of what they would find inside, among the meat, cheese, pastry, and bread stalls on the first floor, as well as those on the second floor, would reflect that commitment to local cuisine. As part of our course, they needed to try everything. When ordering a panino in a café or dish in a restaurant that is unfa- miliar, never ask "what's in?" Just order it and eat it. Given American students' fast food palates, I might be asking too much of them. When we went upstairs to the new space, we passed first the cheese vendor where the propri- etor makes mozzarella daily. After tasting the mozzarella at Il Centrale, there is no need to go to Naples. We also took special note of the prices of all the food and dishes, all priced reasonably. This is not for the crowd that hangs out at the Cantinetta Antinori located in the Piazza Antinori at the end of Via de' Tornabuoni, but for families and the under thirty-five crowd on a budget. At the moz- zarella bar, large cheese plates, certainly for more than two peo- ple, range in price from 10 to 12 euro. We stopped before the two large wood-burning ovens at La Pizzaria, where the pizzas range in price from only 6 to 9.50 euro with less expensive pizza al taglio. In addition to the reason- able prices, there is no charge for table service: no two price menu, one standing and one sitting. In fact, servers will take your order and serve you without a service charge. At La Pasta Fresca, the dishes range in price form only 4 to 9 euro, all made on site. La Birreria has a full range of artisan beers, all at a reasonable price. Il Ristorante Tosca has a full menu, priced competitively. For the evening meal, they have the third floor mezzanine, which affords a spectacular view of the entire sec- ond floor, including the large bas- ket chandeliers that hang from the high ceiling. At Il Pesce Fresco, you can have fresh oysters or your fish and shrimp any size or number prepared to order. At Marco Rosi e Paolo Soderi's space you can have a plate of pollo or coniglio, including a side dish, for only 8 euro. It would be pointless to look for a less expen- sive dish elsewhere in town. At Il Lampredotto, run by Lorenzo Nigro, you can have your sandwich with salsa verde, piccante, or peperoni for a mere 4 euro. For only 5 euro next door at Il Tramezzini, run by Fabrizio Bodini, you can get the town spe- Pizza ovens at "Il Centrale". Photo credit: Carole Scambray KENNETH SCAMBRAY Continued on page 10 The Leonardo Da Vinci Culinary School. Photo credit: Carole Scambray

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