The Garbage Update
The trash troubles continue in Campania, and they offer opportunity for thought and reflection. The Government, faced with the necessity of getting mountains of refuse off the streets, is filling trucks and boats, and sending them elsewhere. The reception elsewhere has been mixed; bands of Sardinians tried to block the port of Cagliari to keep a boat of Campanian trash from docking, and since then two people have been arrested with fire bombs they planned to use upon the house of Renato Soru, President of the Regione Sardegna. If nothing else, Sardinia as a political entity is coming to the assistance of those in need, while Sardinians who disagree with their island's government are being up front with their feelings.
Lombardia has been much more simpering in its handling of the crisis; the Region's President Formigoni said in an interview that he'd be happy to come to Campania's aid, if it weren't for the fact that his region's trash collection is entirely differentiated, and they're simply not set up to handle mounds of undifferentiated stuff, especially not stuff that was set alight by enraged Campanians and put out with fire hoses -- who knows what dangerous chemicals might be lurking in there? An Italian might say, Non Fa Una Grinza -- the reasoning is formally correct, but…
An honest refusal, and there have been those as well, would have been better.
And that’s the situation; the EEU has said Italy must resolve the problem, but exactly how Italy will, especially in the long term, is not clear.
To keep this discussion at least nominally food related, sales of Campanian products have taken a tremendous hit since the story broke. The most obvious victim is Mozzarella di Bufala, probably because the word Campania figures prominently on the packaging; though the Consorzio admits there has been a 15% decrease, some other sources say it's closer to 40. But it's not alone; sales of fruit, vegetables, and even wine are off.
My thoughts?
While the mounds lining the streets are frightening to look at and as such are a PR disaster, I don't think they are responsible for current contamination problems, especially in areas removed from the accumulations. The real problem besetting Campania is its hundreds of undeclared dumps, some operated by the mob, which earns hefty sums for disposing of stuff (from all over Italy, and other parts of Europe as well) without asking any questions, and some that were filled and forgotten before people realized how dangerous dumps can be to the environment. In other words, these are problems that have been long in coming, and are going to require a great deal of thought and resources to solve.
And how do I feel, watching from the outside? At least the Campanians know they have problems. Elsewhere, including Tuscany, people enjoy a sense of false complacency. A number of years ago, I translated a study of Tuscan ground water for a professor at the University of Florence.
The results were disturbing: It turns out that the groundwater is uncontaminated in the steep-sided high mountain valleys, but as soon as the slopes soften enough for cultivation to be practical one begins to find agricultural chemicals (fertilizers, pesticides, and animal waste) in the ground water, and when the valleys widen enough to contain towns one also finds urban and industrial contaminants; under Florence, for example, the water is contaminated enough that of one sinks a well one must run what comes out through a purifier of the sort used by the municipal water company before drinking it. Along the Tuscan coast, the problems posed by industrial and urban groundwater contamination are compounded by salt water infiltrations consequent to pumping for irrigation. I'm certain that if one were to look elsewhere, say the Pianura Padana, which is agricultural, heavily settled over large areas, and industrialized, one would find much the same situation.
In short, Campania's problems may be more obvious, but they're not alone.
Acque Minerali: Boon or Bain?
While we're on the subject of water, Italians are known for sneering at what comes from the tap, and considering it much better suited to housework or cooking than drinking. As a result of these feelings there has been a dramatic increase in the country's per capita consumption of bottled mineral water, which went from about 80 liters per person in 1988 to 182 in 2003 (+ 115%), and is by now approaching 200 liters/year -- the highest per capita consumption in the world.
When asked why they drink bottled water, many people reply that they find it lighter than what comes from the tap, and therefore think it's healthier.
Alas, though this is what the advertisers spend terrific sums to convince people of, consumers would have been wrong about the healthier part until recently, and perhaps still are: Until 2005 Parliament considered mineral water to be therapeutic, as opposed to a foodstuff, and therefore tolerated much higher concentrations of many chemicals in mineral water than they did in tap water, for example five times as much arsenic and manganese.
But that's not all: in 2003 a magistrate from Torino ordered mineral water analyses that turned up all sorts of things that would get a municipal water supply shut down, including hydrocarbons, tensioactive compounds (soap) and pesticides.
Rather than order the bottlers, most of whom are owned by multinationals (the brands owned by Nestlé and Danone account for close to 70% of the Italian bottled water market), to clean up their act, the then Minister of Health Girolamo Sirchia relaxed the standards to allow them to continue bottling.
As you might expect, there was considerable outcry on the part of consumer organizations, and the Minister of Health decreed that as of January 1 2005 bottled water should meet the much more stringent standards set for tap water in a law passed in 2001. All of the major bottlers passed the analyses and continue to sell briskly, but everything I have read on consumer sites about bottled water is quite wary in tone, with people wondering what the bottlers did to purify the water they had analyzed, because some substances, for example ozone, can introduce other hazardous compounds as they remove those that are banned.
We drink tap water.
Frittole di Mela, Uvetta, E Frutta Secca
Winding down' we're still in Carnival season, and it's time to enjoy some sweets before the long privations of Lent set in. Fritters are especially popular, and these, made with dried fruit, apples, and raisins, are tasty and a pleasant surprise when you bite into one. You'll need:
- 2 3/4 cups (275 g) unbleached all purpose flour, plus 2 more tablespoons
- 1/2 cup (100 g) sugar
- 3/5 cup (150 ml) whole milk
- 2 eggs
- 4 ounces (100 g) raisins
- 4 ounces (100 g) whole shelled pistachio nuts, chopped
- 2 baking apples (in Italy one uses renettes, which are pale brown, sweet, and a bit mealy)
- A shot of brandy
- 2 teaspoons baking powder
- An organically grown lemon
- Olive oil for frying
Put the raisins in a bowl, sprinkle the brandy over them, add warm water to cover, and let them plump for 20 minutes. In the meantime, peel,, core, and quarter the apples. Dice them and sprinkle them with lemon juice.
Grate the zest of the lemon.
Prepare a batter by beating the eggs in a bowl with all but 2 tablespoons of the sugar, and the grated lemon zest. Beat in the flour and the baking powder, followed by the milk and the pistachio nuts.
While doing this, set your oil to heat. Next, drain the raisins well, and dust them with the 2 leftover tablespoons of flour, shaking them about in a strainer to dislodge excess flour. Incorporate them and the chopped apple into the batter.
By now the oil should be hot; drop the batter into it a tablespoon at a time, and fry the fritters until they are golden, turning them about to they brown evenly. Drain them on absorbent paper when they become golden, and when they are cool enough to handle dust them with the remaining sugar.
Well, that's it. Happy Carnevale!
Here's a proverb: E' come un cardo senza sale, far col marito il Carnevale - It's like eating a cardoon without salt, if you celebrate Carnevale with your husband.
Kyle Phillips
Editor, The Italian Wine Review
http://www.italianwinereview.com
Want to comment? Drop me a line at Kyle@cosabolle.com
PS -- Please forward this to anyone you think would enjoy it!
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