A borrowed heritage

I am oft lamenting, to my oft lamented to boyfriend, the incongruence of our respective cultural heritages. And when I say culture I of course am talking about food.

He grew up in an extended Italian family where every occasion centred around food. The tomato harvest meant the entire clan gathering for the making of passata, liquid summer captured in brown beer bottles that were all boiled up in a 44 gallon drum. Pigs were slaughtered, grapes were pressed and olives were cured as social events where every family member had a job and a place in the hierarchy. These people did self-sufficiency before it was cool. He speaks of a large rambling orchard and of grandmothers that rolled pasta by hand. If they had a family motto it would surely be 'Mangia, mangia' at every opportunity. And what impression has this upbringing had on said boyfriend? Nothing but an increased appreciation and capacity for good food and better company. His grasp of the Italian language and food culture is rudimentary at best.

I would kill to have such a food culture running through my veins. Not to say my mother is not the best cook I know. But if we had any food culture in our blood it would be so working class Australiana it would surely clog an artery. Nothin' but mutton and white sauce running through these veins. Any cooking prowess that Mum possesses she gained through reading, travel and, above all, eating. I love having access to the cultural melting pot that is Australia. That I can happily eat and cook countless different cuisines in the one day without a second thought or a glance at a recipe is testament to the gifts that my mother has given me and the gifts that this city gives me every day. But what I wouldn't give to have been born with an Italian accent, a little European chic and have spaghetti do for me what it's done for Sophia Loren.

So, they say you fake it till you make it and until I'm told otherwise my boyfriend's family is as good as mine. What could be more Italian that using the very last of the season's produce, the green tomatoes that would otherwise go to waste to make delicious Pomodori Verdi Sott' Olio? That's Green Tomatoes in Olive Oil for those of you without my rich cultural heritage!

Turn turn turn....

A new house means a new garden and a farewell to hardy established plants and growing cycles. It is exciting to begin a new garden, to learn from past mistakes and triumphs. While winter may be the time to build these new constructions, I see little to do once the soil, straw and compost are layered neatly in their little beds. A pea planted here or there will be nothing to the frenzied planting of a few months time.
I cannot decide if I prefer spring or summer in the garden. Spring is exciting as soil unveils it's tender little offerings into the air, everything shooting and budding and full of promise. All is lime-green potential, crisp mornings and rosy hued sunsets. Summer is, by comparison, showy, obvious, a corner hussy advertising her wares. All is forbidden fruit and broken promises. The ripeness of fruit ready for the picking is somehow tinged with the regret of death, of rotted flesh, of seasons ebb. A flower only blooms for so long. A fruit ripens but a short while before descending into decay. As the parsley bolts to seed I try to prune and prune and prune, somehow delaying the inevitable parsley-free period of the year. Yet at summer's end, who can deny the beauty of Autumn, the last sweet tomatoes off the vine, the figs and quinces asking for a syrupy baking and a  generous splodge of cream. Aahh, comfort food, hello my old friend. Winter is the quiet achiever of the bunch, a severe schoolmarm who forces us to eat our greens. The much maligned brassica is, luck would have it, the friend of bacon and anchovies and there's always dessert if we manage to get through our veg.

So, like the book and the song say, to every thing there is a season, a time to plant, a time to reap. There is beauty and anticipation in every season. But for me, this year, spring has got my name written all over it.