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

A Page Boy in Pavarotti's Restaurant

A Page Boy in Pavarotti’s Restaurant Modena is home to Maserati, Ferrari, and De Tomaso cars, but far more important, to Luciano Pavarotti. The operatic tenor known throughout the world was the symbol and essence of Modena. Not for his voice, which by any measure faded as his girth grew, but for his belly, which bore testament to the fantastic food of Emilia-Romagna. Pavarotti was born and fed here on a steady diet of prosciutto crudo, tortellini, Parmigiano-Reggiano, and balsamic vinegar. This is why Modena is the place for me. Unable to sleep one early morning, I wander through the Piazza Grande of Modena and discover a group of dancers dressed in beautiful Renaissance costumes swirling elegantly to waltzes. I hurry home to grab my camera and am soon taking snapshots of this colorful group amid RAI TV cameras. One of the dancers, wearing a padded crown in her hair and a black dress with gold stitching, asks me why I’m taking photos of this precursor to the annual town festival. “I’m writing an article about Modena for my newspaper in the United States,” I exaggerate. Actually, I don’t know anyone at my hometown paper in Minneapolis, but I am writing a column on my experiences in Italy for the weekly newspaper of Modena, which pays me $15 a week—apparently not enough to live on. 10 “We are all journalists, too! My name is Marina; I must tell the others,” she says and begins introducing me to the others in their elegant outfits as an important writer for American newspapers. They are dressed in the old royal garb so RAI television can film a preview for Modena’s summer festival. I meet Fabio (in a bright red page-boy outfit), Luca (with a three-cornered feathered cap and the Duke of Este’s robe), Stefano (in black tights and a puffy baron’s gown), and Laura (with a gigantic hoop skirt and six-inch shoulder pads). I whisper to Marina that I’d like to be a bigwig journalist but have only had small articles published. “Oh, just tell everyone you’re a journalist and soon enough you will be,” she replies positively. She whisks me inside the city hall building on the edge of the piazza, where the mayor and other local businessmen are receiving the dance company under sweeping frescos of battle scenes on the ceiling. Marina convinces the leader of the troupe to dress me in an extra costume—a ridiculously tight, brightly colored page-boy outfit—for entry into a fancy dinner that evening at Pavarotti’s restaurant. I feign illness to my boss and cancel all my evening classes to go see the fat man in person. Unfortunately, Luciano doesn’t show up for this invitation-only party where medieval attire is required. Some guests speculate he’s on tour; others guess his tax fraud problems are pestering him again. A Modenese judge had dismissed the charges, but a judge from rival Bologna wouldn’t let him off the hook and reinstated the indictment. Only after we ate at his restaurant did we hear that Pavarotti was getting so big he couldn’t get around without help. Modena’s mayor sits at the head of the table with other dignitaries. When I get a chance to speak with him, I suggest the city of Modena open the ancient canals in the city A Page Boy in Pavarotti’s Restaurant 11 center that used to run all the way to Venice. The mayor smirks at me and puts his left hand on the inside of the elbow joint of his right arm. I assume he’s telling me vaffanculo , or fuck off, but he has a disappointed frown on his face. He’s gesturing that the rats that would come out of the canals are this big, from fingertips to elbow. Our strange conversation is interrupted when discotheque music by the poppy Danish band Aqua is blasted into the dining hall and a few people dressed in medieval noble outfits dance to the techno beat. Pavarotti never shows up to sing an aria to the crowd. Instead, fake dukes, barons, and earls flail their arms in glee as they dance to the rhythm of “Barbie Girl.” 12 A Page Boy in Pavarotti’s Restaurant ...