Road to Perdition. A Spag Bol in Venice
A straniero cooking dinner in Italy is like a sea-cow attempting to arabesque in a minefield. Unless you’re happy to be remembered forever as Homer Simpson for slipping a shred of star anise into your arrabbiata, it’s probably best not to try. Bulging eyeballs at the table, a pall of silence, discreet napkins to mouths. Little gobbets of unchewed lasagne in the plant pots. The Englishman is trying to feed us dog shit. Italians like it as it was in the beginning, is now and ever shall be. World without end. Just as nobody fucks with a communion wafer or their sister, nobody fucks with the sauce. Certainly not some lisping, four-eyed hermaphrodite who speaks the language like a three year-old.
My Mum used to make Spag Bol when we were kids. Everybody’s Mum did. It was something of a culinary flourish, a coup de grâce to round out a fortnight of Findus Crispy Pancakes and boil-in-the-bag Cod in Butter Sauce. Minced beef, fried to pallid grey with chopped onions. The bedrock not only of Spag Bol, but also shepherds pie, cottage pie, stuffed marrow and, well, minced beef. Add tinned tomatoes and half a tube of tomato paste. Maybe even a dollop of Heinz 57. Can never have enough tomato in a Spag. If it’s runny, that’s because it’s supposed to be. It’s how we do things. Incinerate first, then rehydrate with goop. If you can’t eat it with just your tongue and the roof of your mouth, it needs more cooking. The final stamp of approval is when Dad says ‘ooh, that looks fantastic, love’ in mellifluous Wallace & Gromit, and tucks in hungrily.
We’ve come so far and learned so little. Those dinners, we’d shovel ’em down like a family of octopuses, tentacles flailing. Now we prod and poke and snort that bacon is not actually pancetta and wonder whether conchiglie might have better caught the sauce? We’re done after three mincing mouthfuls and ready for Radicchio di Treviso. What a bunch of powdered ponces.
I’ve commandeered Pamela’s kitchen in Dorsoduro while she’s in Milan. She’s not even Italian, but 13 years of immersion have leached into her the thoroughbred gestures of the Italianate cognoscenta. The cursory arm’s length stir with wooden spoon; the raised chin, cocked eyebrow: the long silence followed by ambiguous grunt. In a different life these would have cauterized my zeal before I even began. But I’m a hoary old charger now, with scars across my withers. I will not be deterred by the probability of humiliation. If I can’t go over the fences, I’ll go through them.
It took an entire day of hermetic sacrilege to make the Bol. Everything was shopped for in the Italian tongue without setting foot in a supermarket. La macelleria, il mercato, l’enoteca. Maiale, manzo, fegatini di pollo. All shuttled home by foot and carrello. No company, no internet, no music. It was a black monk thing. Just me, the stuff, and an occasional foray into Pamela’s top drawer for a nasty roll-up. 5 hours in a low oven. The Satyrs of Taste were whittling fiery pokers in the ninth circle of Hell and the asterisk of my bottom was twitching.
TAG BOL ‘SANTA MARGHERITA’
Knob of butter
4 oz. pancetta, finely diced
1 onion, finely diced
1 carrot, finely diced
2 sticks celery, finely diced
6 oz. minced beef, room temperature
6 oz. minced pork, room temperature
Salt and freshly ground black pepper
Few scraps of prosciutto, chopped
2 oz. chicken liver, finely chopped
6 fl. oz. whole milk
Pinch or two of nutmeg
6 fl. oz dry white white wine
14 oz. tin San Marzano tomatoes
Pre-heat the oven to 250º F
Gently melt the butter in a large casserole, then add the pancetta. Once the fat has started to melt, add the onion, cook until softened, then add the carrot. Continue gently softening for 5 minutes, then add the celery. Cook for another couple of minutes.
Break up the beef and pork with your fingers then add to the pan, stirring to break up any lumps. Season with salt and pepper, then stir in the chopped liver and prosciutto. Cook for 5 minutes.
Pour in the milk and grate a little nutmeg into it. Simmer until most of the milk has gone, about half an hour.
Add the wine, break up the tomatoes with your fingers, add them and stir it all together. Put the casserole in the oven with the lid slightly cracked. Cook for 4 hours. Take a peek every now and then to check it isn’t drying out. Add a tiny bit of water if you need to, but you probably won’t.
Serve over and around pasta. In my case tagliatelle, because I thought it might better catch …. yeah. Oh, and grated Parmesan. Grana they say.
Make your way up two flights of stairs to the altana carrying the bowl, the cheese and a couple of bottles of wine. Gaze out at Dorsoduro as the sun goes down. If it didn’t work, well, who cares? The view from up here forgives anything.
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