Never Trust a Thin Cook and Other Lessons from Italy’s Culinary Capital

Rats in the Canals, Peacocks in the Piazza

Rats in the Canals, Peacocks in the Piazza While waiting in line at the drugstore, I overhear the pharmacist inform an elderly woman, “I saw your husband today.” “Really? Where was he going?” “To Piazza Grande.” “I believe it,” the woman responds. “He claims he never goes there, but he always ends up there and spends his whole morning talking to his friends. Men are all the same; they all just want to go to the piazza!” It’s difficult to understate the importance of the piazza in Italian life. One day in Modena’s Piazza Grande, new electric buses are on display. The next day, schoolchildren show off dozens of dumpsters that they painted with bright pictures to cheer up the city and endorse a clean environment . On March 8, women carry little yellow mimosa flowers through the piazza in honor of the Festa della Donna, Women’s Day. Once a year, the classic antique automobile race, the Mille Miglia, blasts down main street. Modena’s famous gigantic son Luciano Pavarotti began his benefit concert series “Pavarotti and Friends” in the piazza, but in his last years digressed to operatic duets with the Spice Girls. The old men gather in Piazza Grande every morning to discuss politics and the fate of the world. If the weather is 42 hot, they stay in the shadows; on cold days, they shift every few minutes to stay in the sun. Women strut through the square as the men tip their hats and offer a formal “Buon giorno.” This ceremony takes a dangerous turn, however, as these ultrafashionable Modenese women attempt to cross the beautiful round stones of the piazza wearing sharp high heels and teeter precariously with every step. The edges of the piazza are filled with classic one-speed, rod-brake bikes, many dating back almost a hundred years and still working. In spite of the care given to clothes and to making a bella figura, futzing around through town on a squeaky old rust-bucket bicycle is common. A few of these less fortunate bikes have been left to die. Any useful part has been stripped, but the bike frames are still firmly locked to racks. The police have better things to do than clear out old bicycles. Next to these racks, a few newsstand kiosks display every magazine, newspaper, or videotape you could ever want. I notice a couple of teenage boys sneaking a peek at some salacious magazines with busty women splashed across the covers as the vendor is busy chatting with the old men. The centerpiece of the piazza is the stunning Romanesque duomo, or cathedral. Reliefs of religious figures grace the front, complete with oversized heads designed to keep the fear of the Almighty alive. Adam and Eve are being banished by an angry god, and Cain is continually bludgeoning Abel with a giant tree branch. Above these scenes is the gorgeous circular window representing the wheel of fortune, which is also the logo on the neck of local Lambrusco wine bottles. The side door of the church facing Piazza Grande is guarded by the lions of Modena. In spite of the signs warning Rats in the Canals, Peacocks in the Piazza 43 of severe penalties if anyone dares climb on these marble beasts, adults with bundled-up bambini hoist their little ones onto the back of the micio (kitty cat), that is if the old men aren’t using the lions as a table for a card game of scopa. A metal cast of San Geminiano, the patron saint of Modena , stands on a balcony above this cathedral doorway. The old men play their nickel-ante gambling safely under this balcony out of his view while the long-dead saint keeps watch over the piazza to bless the good and root out transgressors. Next to the statue of San Geminiano hangs an enormous bone, a good luck charm, but no one can give me a clear explanation of its origin. One Modenese tells me, “It’s a rib bone of a whale discovered under Piazza Grande when builders were excavating for the duomo. You know, millions of years ago, this used to be the bottom of the ocean.” “What are you talking about?” his friend interrupts. “That bone is an elephant tusk that was recovered from when Hannibal crossed the Alps to invade Rome!” In any case, this ancient trophy is another good...