MAMMA PAPPA... Culinary delight the way it should be

There's a beautiful lake, Lago di Bolsena, in the province of Viterbo, Lazio Region, Italy.

It's the biggest of volcanic origin in Europe and the fifth biggest lake in Italy.

At he lake, there's a small town called Montefiascone, Etruscan origin here, glorious past as a summer residency for the Popes.

It's Easter Monday, lunch time, I'm with my family in Montefiascone; hunger and... desperately looking for a place to eat.

We find the tiny, slightly hidden Osteria Mamma Pappa. This place is  located in a 400 years old wine cellar, at the feet of the town's Rocca, Rocca dei Papi. The restaurant is a slow food member, guaranteeing that most of the products are from the area, fresh and - mostly - organic.

The welcoming ambience, the pleasant and  knowledgeable owner, Angelo, just give the feeling that the food will be sensational.

And so it was: ah! We started with 'la colazione del pellegrino', the pilgrim's breakfast, an Easter holiday special with hams, salamis, sweet and salty focaccias. Other unforgettable dishes were the fresh asparagus omelette, the fried artichokes and lamb, a special pasta carbonara prepared with a sauce of red wine and sausage.

The sausages were among the best I have ever eaten and everything was prepared and served with care and attention.

Some people were sharing a table; the atmosphere was festive and relaxed. We sat there for a long time, just enjoying the place, the friendly service, the attentive look of Angelo.

We had some local white wine, Est! Est! Est! The name has interesting origins. The legend says that a bishop on his way to Rome from Germany was very passionate about food and wine and every time he was travelling, he used to send his cup-bearer to the next village to explore what there was on offer. The cup-bearer was supposed to leave a sign on the door of the inns saying EST!,  Latin for "is", in the sense of "the good wine is here".

Apparently the wine was so good, that the cup-bearer wrote EST three times on the door of an inn in Montefiascone and once the bishop arrived, he decided to spend not only the night but to stay longer, falling in love not only with the wine, but also with the village and the scenery.

I could not agree more with the bishop, Johannes Defuk, who visited Montefiascone later on as well and died there in 1113, now resting in a local church: the village is really worth a visit.

 I would recommend even spending a couple of days there and visiting the enoteca located in the Rocca, or strolling at the romantic lake Bolsena. Plenty to see, excellent restaurant, just an hour away from Rome.

Who can remember L'Aquila?

Three years ago the earth trembled in L’Aquila; it was April 6^th at 3:32 AM. The earthquake lasted for 25 seconds and it left behind a disfigured city, 309 dead, thousands of injured, thousands of homeless and countless tears.

Three years after that day the city still resembles a ghost city, with only a few cafes and restaurants open, most of the shops still closed. The military is controlling that no cars go to the city centre and that no people venture among the ruins.

On one of my family trips to Abruzzo, I ended up in l'Aquila a few months ago. Now not only the old city centre is in ruin, but it also carries the burden of three years of tentative adjustments, of ill-spent money, of corruption and neglect. Only 5% of the debris has been removed and the city looks like an eternal construction site. 

When I arrived in L’Aquila on a cold Sunday afternoon in January, a group of men advised me to park the car outside the main centre: “Don’t go up there; the military doesn’t let anybody pass; we’re still living here like in Santiago de Chile and we have no idea why”.

L’Aquila is a dead city right now; having been there before the earthquake, I found it hard to understand that I was in the same place. I remembered the city as being lively, glimpses on the majestic mountains at every corner, beautiful buildings, most of them, today, in ruins.

 “There had been many foreshocks,” recalls a lady eating next to my table in one of the few open restaurants, who happens to be the owner of the very building we are in. “Just a few days before the earthquake a commission of scientists had come here and told everybody that there was no risk for a ‘big one’. One has to laugh not to cry.”

She says: “We were allowed to reopen the restaurant and the cafe next door a year ago, but we still cannot move back in our apartment, which is on the fourth floor because it is not considered safe and there is no gas supply for private households.”

Her family lives out of the city, like everyone else: “Yes,” she says, “the city has completely relocated and it seems there’s no hope we can move back soon.”

The reason is that most of the buildings in the city centre are of historical value and therefore under the protection of the Ministry of Culture: rebuilding operations follow detailed - governmental - procedures.

She says: “It is sad that people may think that we, as inhabitants of the city, should do more, that we should rebuild L’Aquila whereas the truth is that we can’t. Unfortunately we often read about some involvement of the mafia; there’s been so much money pumped in, all gone in the pockets of some politician, or some ‘study group’, or some ‘expert’.”

Unfortunately, as Natalia, a bar owner, tells me, “there is always someone who is getting rich thanks to us”. “We are lucky because we could reopen our activity ‘officially’ already in December 2009. Unofficially we were working already a few weeks after the earthquake, sneaking in from the back door because this is our family business, the only one we have and we couldn’t afford not to work.”

Not everybody has been as lucky and walking on the small, barely lit streets, a profound sense of emptiness is tangible.

Natalia says: “I find it hard to understand that everyone has forgotten about us; what we want is to be able to rebuild our city, we want to reopen our hotels, welcome tourists, do our Christmas shopping in the old town and not in a sterile shopping centre in the suburbs.”

The aftermath of the earthquake has been disgracefully handled; for some people, the only decent thing the Government did, was building real houses for the homeless. For others, that money could have been spent in starting the reconstruction earlier. But, as someone I talked to pointed out: “If things would have gone that way, this would be our third winter in a container.”

Last night, at 3:32 AM the bells of the main Church in L'Aquila rang for 309 times, as a sign that the community is not forgetting those who died three years ago. 

Let's hope that L'Aquila - which also means eagle in Italian - will be freed from her cage of ruins and debris and will be able to fly, free, once again.