A Farm Feast, Coll Val d’Elsa, Bongo Drums For The Bishop

Hot spaghetti swimming in olive oil, garlic, red pepper and parsley, is dished high by Rina upon my flower-encrusted dinnerware till I cry “Basta!”

“I hope you don’t mind garlic,” she says. This does not seem a problem for me, since once I begin to eat the wine dilutes most pleasantly any shock to the tongue, whether it be induced by too much garlic or too much peperoncini.

While we swirl the strands of spaghetti around our forks, the Count and Countess tell us of their busy lives, lived half the year in Florence and the rest at the farm. Their Fattoria Belvedere is one of a group of seventeen farms in the area between Florence and Siena that offer rustic accommodations at a much lower price than a hotel-vacation would cost. (An apartment for two in Fattoria Belvedere costs this year about $300 a week.)

All those who run the farms cook home-made food (or sell their farm products to the visitors who may want to cook in their own apartments) and offer activities like cooking-classes, horseback riding, folk dancing, country hikes, fishing, and various activities for the children.

In addition, Roberto tells us, here at the fattoria they make their own wine and if, after lunch, we’d like to see his small wine-making apparatus, he’d be pleased to show it to us. The wine, he tells us, is made from their own grapes: Sangiovese, black Canaiolo, Tuscan Trebbiano, and Chianti Malvasia. (Rina says it is all written in their little booklet, if we’d like to have a copy to take home with us.)

When I have eaten all I can of the pasta and imbibed all I can handle of the delicious wine, I push my chair back, expecting we will shortly leave to see the wine cellar, but Rina goes to the kitchen and comes back with an enormous bowl of green, ragged-edged escarole. She disappears to return again with a pottery casserole filled to the brim with beans and sausages. To all of this she adds additional slices of the coarse Tuscan bread.

“You said a simple lunch! A light lunch!”

“Oh, but this is. This is what we eat every day at lunch. We work so hard, we are very hungry at lunch time.”

“If this is simple, then what is a fancy meal?”

“If you could come next Friday night, you would see. That’s when we make the farewell dinner at the end of the season for all our guests. On that night, we serve all our special recipes. After that we shut down the farm for the winter and do all the repairs and work on the apartments.”

The beans are delicious, plump, and tender in tomato sauce, but when I cut into the thick, round sausage, oozing with juices and fat, I see the curly tail and the bright eyes of the pigs in their pen. I do the best I can with it, not wanting to offend our hosts, but in the end most of the sausage remains on the plate.

“Don’t worry,” Rina says, clearing my plate away. “We know Americans these days don’t eat so much meat as we do.”

This time I don’t make a move to leave the table. I wait for the last course, which is dessert, a cake made from chestnut flour and pine nuts, dark, delicious and sweet. Rina serves it with espresso coffee, strong and pungent. I sigh with contentment as we sit, relaxed, and talk about our lives and children. Again I have the sense of how Italians live in the moment, take their reward after working hard, and relish the gifts of food and rest well earned.

Roberto leads us to the small stone building that houses the wine cellar while Rina stays behind to tend to the kitchen. We follow him carefully down the stone steps to a chilly room, where he shows us four tanks for storing red wine and only one for white wine. (This last has an engraving on it of grapes and grape leaves painted in pastel colors, an image that lends a warmth and softness to the chill of the cell-like room.)

I open the brochure Rina has given me and read: “Fattoria Belvedere wine is characterized by a lively ruby-red color; the bouquet is intensely vinous with hints of violets; the taste is dry, harmonious, sapid, slightly tannic, lively, and full-bodied. The alcoholic strength is around 12%. It is a wine for the entire meal, best with pasta dressed with meat sauces, boiled and stewed meats, but also excellent with roast white meats and sheep’s milk cheese of average ripeness.”

This is the same wine we had for lunch, with pork sausage and beans. I am certain that no matter what food it accompanies, it must bring a thrill to the veins, a limpness to the limbs, and a dreamy glow to the mind… as it has to mine.

When we return to the dining hall, Rina suggests we might like to see Colle Alta, the ancient medieval city high above the farm fields and pastures, famous for its crystal glass works and for having been the city where Arnolfo di Cambio was born, the same man who built the Palazzo Vecchio in Florence. She suggests that Roberto and she drive us up to the top of the mountain and leave us there to explore the city. Then, if we would like to join them for dinner, Roberto will pick us up at an appointed time and place.

There is a problem with this plan—the last bus to Florence leaves Colle Val d’Elsa’s main square at 8 PM. Rina agrees that dinner would barely be on the table by that hour. So we decide that we’ll say good-bye in Colle Alta. We’ll find our way down the mountain ourselves (at least it will all be downhill!) and catch the bus to Florence at the scheduled hour.

We climb into Roberto’s Jeep-like vehicle, Rina in the front and we in the back—and he pulls out onto the dirt road. Our teeth shake as the wheels take the ruts; the metal frame rattles and clanks as we begin the climb to the medieval hill town.

He lets us off at the Palazzo Campana, a handsome 400 year old villa built on a viaduct that now serves as the arched gateway to Colle Alta. Roberto and Rina bid us a warm farewell, making us promise to visit at the farm again sometime. Then they are gone, leaving us in another world, mountainous, picturesque, alarmingly fortified, as if each family living here still feared invasion and attack.

The city wall along a precipitous cliff is dotted with narrow peepholes from which Joe says, centuries ago, watchman stood guard. The streets are arranged, maze-like, angling suddenly into unknown territory, a torturous and twisted set of pathways and alleys between buildings. We set out to see it all, this embattled, threatened world. Yet children are playing in the street, a gelato cup stands on a stone stair, dogs and cats are basking in the sun. Clearly it is a city under siege no longer.

Passing the shops famous for crystal, we study the shimmering inventions in the window. My gift-seeking sense is always on the alert, but as soon as I imagine packing glass in my stuffed suitcases I relinquish the impulse. (Though I did buy my daughters tiny blown-glass cats in Venice, they will occupy not two square inches in my suitcase when I go home.) These crystal objects are large, imposing, heavy, elegant. If I must spend money here, a gelato will do.

We walk all afternoon, from the city’s gateway at Palazzo Campana to the very far end of the hill town where, at the tip of the world, a great open piazza looks out over all of creation. Such a view seems to inspire young lovers, for at every lamp post there stands a melded form, two closely entwined figures wrapped together and contemplating an eternity of love.

By dusk, we realize we may have a very long walk down the mountain to the city center below, where the SITA bus arrives at 8 to take us back to Florence. We begin our leisurely downward trek. Coming back through the city, we notice a great crowd forming in front of the town’s duomo—all the townspeople apparently turning out for some event. The men are in suits, the women in fine dresses, and the children in Sunday best.

I take Joe’s hand and lead him in the open door of the church where, apparently, some kind of ceremony is being prepared for. A silken cloth has just been laid at the altar. A gleaming silver chalice is set out, and golden candlesticks. Is this going to be un matrimonio religioso? If so, I badly want to stay for the wedding ceremony! I must stay! “Please,” I tell Joe, “let’s just take a seat and wait.”

But how long can we wait? What about the 8 PM bus? That’s still an hour from now. But how long will it take us to walk down the mountain? What if we miss the bus? We can always go back to the fattoria (if we can find it!) and ask for lodging at the farm. There might even be a hotel in the town. Or we could stay at Hotel Belvedere, why not? (We have our credit cards with us!)

Just then two young men wearing especially shiny black shoes arrive in the church, each carrying a set of bongo drums! And two other men follow with speakers, wires, a microphone, electric amplifiers. Is this to be a rock concert?

I notice a pile of flyers in a little box on a table near the entrance. I take one and ask Joe to decipher it. He studies the page. “It says something about a dedication by the bishop. Or to the bishop. I can’t tell.”

“Could this be it happening right now?”

Joe doesn’t have a clue…

“Should I ask someone?” But there is no one to ask without seeming intrusive. We know we don’t belong here.

The guests who have been standing outside are filing in and taking seats. Some of the women wear large hats with flowers upon them. Perhaps whatever is bound to happen will actually take place now. But no, our impatience is not rewarded. The musicians plug in the machinery, test it, and unplug it. Joe assures me that whatever is supposed to happen will take hours to begin and hours more to take place. If it’s a dedication, there will be long speeches, if it’s a religious service, there will be lengthy prayers. It doesn’t seem to be a wedding; no bride is in evidence. I try to reconcile myself to the fact that is not our fate to be at this ceremony in Colle Alta. It’s our fate to take the bus home.

We do have to hurry. The downhill walk is extremely steep; in certain places the narrow road slants down in an almost vertical drop. As cars pass us by we must flatten ourselves against the wall of rocks bordering the road. My knees are aching from the strain. I have the sense I could tumble forward and somersault all the way down the hill. But the descent is surely a longer distance than we thought it would be, and the hour is later than we thought. We rush along, thinking of home, of Florence, and how it seems absolutely essential to get back tonight, to our safe apartment, to our comfortable, most desirable basket of a bed.

When we come in view of the city center, our bus is already in the square, parked, and waiting to leave. The driver is inside, the doors are still locked. I immediately take my place at the front door, first in line. (Others seem to be waiting for the bus on the edge of the square, talking with one another. But I am so tired! I must get a seat for the two hour trip home. If I had to stand in the aisle, I’m sure I would collapse.)

We wait. We wait even longer. It is well past 8 PM. Finally, the driver opens the front door. I step up into the bus (Joe is behind me, tickets in hand.) But the driver holds me back. Shakes his head. Points toward the rear door of the bus, which he has now opened. People are pouring in. Many people. Maybe more than there are seats on the bus.

“But, but…” I sputter, meaning: I was here, I was waiting patiently in line, I did the right thing. But apparently it’s the wrong thing. The driver says something gruffly about “controllo”—I’m in the wrong place for the wrong reason. The ticket machine is at the back of the bus, that’s where I must get on. I look at the line waiting to get in the back door, and now we will be at the end of it.

Oh! Keep your Italy! I think. Keep your dumb rules, your bishops and your bongo drums, and all the mysteries I can’t in the least penetrate. Keep your palazzi and your magnificent views and your lovers. Just let me on the bus. Just let me get a seat home.