The Night of the Hunters
Or Lidue Might Be Ticked
It was a dark and stormy night. It was raining, the parking area lights were not working. A car pulled up outside, and its horn started honking furiously. Totà jumped out of the car, ran up the steps, told me to put on my coat, we were going to eat uccelini. Literally, that means baby birds, but in fact, he just meant we were going to eat small birds. I had no idea what he was talking about, but I put my coat and hat on and jumped into his car. Once again, it was 'Anything Can Happen' Day.
He took me to Angelo Sinacorri's apartment in our complex. Angelo works at the hospital in Sciacca, and, like so many other Sciaccensi, he lives in the city except during the summer. His son comes here about once a week to play soccer on the soccer pitch, and occasionally has a small party at the apartment. He is a good guy.
The apartment was just about full. It is a small apartment, and they had strung two tables together to make one long table. Onofrio, hereon in known as Pippo, was there, as was Emilio from the little house just below our apartment, two or three others who have apartments here, and the rest were people I did not know from Adam. With Totò and I, there were fourteen of us.
Some of the men were busy putting little naked birds on small wooden skewers. Pippo was filling a large pot with water, and Emilio was trying to get the charcoal grill going. Someone else was making a salad, and someone else was setting the table, and some one else was pouring out pitchers of Nero D'Avola wine from a box. Totò explained that everyone there were friends, and that they had all gone hunting during hunting season, and now they were going to eat some of what they had killed. Tonight it was birds. Some other time it might be rabbits. Some other time it might be friends of Dick Cheney.
As folks took care of whatever they were taking care of, Pippo kept a constant patter going, mainly telling Sicilian Jokes. Sicilian Jokes are Italy's answer to American Polish Jokes, or Canadian Newfy Jokes, or Republican Party realities. There was one about a Sicilian who had gone north to visit, and someone noticed he had his underpants on backwards when he was going to the bathroom, and called him stupid because of it, so the guy, in order to not appear stupid, started to go everywhere walking backwards, so no one could accuse him of having his underpants on backwards. You get the idea.
After watching organized chaos for about thirty minutes, it was time to eat. We started with the 8 pounds of pasta that Pippo had made. After it was cooked, it was mixed with Pippo's home made sauce, which was apparently made up of a few onions, a few carrots, a few tomatoes, and the drippings from some birds that had been baked. It did not seem like much of a sauce in the beginning, but oh my, was it good. The Pippo brought the first course of birds out of the oven. There was one bird for each person, with a few birds left over for the hungry ones. They were small birds, about the size of Lidue, our canary. I thought Lidue might be ticked at me, until I remembered Fran feeling guilty about eating a chicken with Lidue looking at her, and I explained that it was no worse than our having eaten other mammals. So I hope Lidue takes a liberal interpretation of this, and does not think I would eat him. At least not today.
The birds were good. They tasted like, well, they did not taste like chicken. They tasted more like, and this surprised me, liver. Good liver. Great liver. It was all dark meat, and Totò explained that they were not that moist because they were wild birds, and did not have enough fat. He thought they were quail, although he said that the hunters had four different kinds of small birds, and once they were plucked and ready for cooking, no one could really tell them apart. Not even their mothers.
When we finished our little birds, Emilio brought the next course in fresh from the grill. We were each given a skewer with three birds on it that had been cooked over charcoal. I was not that hungry, and another man wanted only one bird, so we split the skewer two and one. Totò warned me to watch out for the bones.
Again, they were good. Again, they tasted like liver, good liver. These were stuffed with sausage. I say stuffed, but not in the way one would stuff a turkey in the US of A. Here, a two inch piece of sausage was up into the bird where the innards had been, and it ran from outside the throat opening to outside the . . . other opening. The sausage was to give it some fat while it was cooking, but it also tasted good to me. The salad was passed around at this point as well.
Then we had salad, then oranges from Totò's uncle's orange grove. Then all of a sudden the dolce appeared. There was a cake that Totò called 'Una Torta Americana', but it was really sort of like a double layer pie crust slathered with apricot preserves, then dusted with pistachios finely ground, then criss crossed with more pie dough, then whole pistachio nuts added. It was great, but not real American as I remember. There were also cannoli with fresh ricotta filling, with either chocolate pieces or pistachio nuts inside.
Then came the grappa, the amaro, the lemoncello, arangina, and the Zabbibo. Zabbibo is a strong and sweet white wine from Pantelleria. Arangina is like lemoncello, only made with oranges. Lemoncello is like arangina, but made with lemons. Amaro is a bitter liquore, as the name implies, and grappa is distilled wine, which can be used in kerosene heaters and top fuel dragsters.
A man who runs a mom and pop grocery store near the post office started telling more stories about Sicilians who had gone north to work, and of course Pippo helped out.
I was surprised when I got there that I was friends with six of the thirteen men who were there. I was even more surprised when I left, and felt like I was friends with all of them. It was my first real time at a 'boys night out' sort of thing in Sicily, and I enjoyed it very much. It was a wonderful evening, full of good cheer, and I found myself laughing and smiling more than at any other time since Fran became ill. Angelo told me that Fran would have liked to see me laughing, and i think he was right. I felt at home, and I felt even closer to Fran. I wish she could have been here to enjoy it with me.
It was a dark and stormy night. It was raining, the parking area lights were not working. A car pulled up outside, and its horn started honking furiously. Totà jumped out of the car, ran up the steps, told me to put on my coat, we were going to eat uccelini. Literally, that means baby birds, but in fact, he just meant we were going to eat small birds. I had no idea what he was talking about, but I put my coat and hat on and jumped into his car. Once again, it was 'Anything Can Happen' Day.
He took me to Angelo Sinacorri's apartment in our complex. Angelo works at the hospital in Sciacca, and, like so many other Sciaccensi, he lives in the city except during the summer. His son comes here about once a week to play soccer on the soccer pitch, and occasionally has a small party at the apartment. He is a good guy.
The apartment was just about full. It is a small apartment, and they had strung two tables together to make one long table. Onofrio, hereon in known as Pippo, was there, as was Emilio from the little house just below our apartment, two or three others who have apartments here, and the rest were people I did not know from Adam. With Totò and I, there were fourteen of us.
Some of the men were busy putting little naked birds on small wooden skewers. Pippo was filling a large pot with water, and Emilio was trying to get the charcoal grill going. Someone else was making a salad, and someone else was setting the table, and some one else was pouring out pitchers of Nero D'Avola wine from a box. Totò explained that everyone there were friends, and that they had all gone hunting during hunting season, and now they were going to eat some of what they had killed. Tonight it was birds. Some other time it might be rabbits. Some other time it might be friends of Dick Cheney.
As folks took care of whatever they were taking care of, Pippo kept a constant patter going, mainly telling Sicilian Jokes. Sicilian Jokes are Italy's answer to American Polish Jokes, or Canadian Newfy Jokes, or Republican Party realities. There was one about a Sicilian who had gone north to visit, and someone noticed he had his underpants on backwards when he was going to the bathroom, and called him stupid because of it, so the guy, in order to not appear stupid, started to go everywhere walking backwards, so no one could accuse him of having his underpants on backwards. You get the idea.
After watching organized chaos for about thirty minutes, it was time to eat. We started with the 8 pounds of pasta that Pippo had made. After it was cooked, it was mixed with Pippo's home made sauce, which was apparently made up of a few onions, a few carrots, a few tomatoes, and the drippings from some birds that had been baked. It did not seem like much of a sauce in the beginning, but oh my, was it good. The Pippo brought the first course of birds out of the oven. There was one bird for each person, with a few birds left over for the hungry ones. They were small birds, about the size of Lidue, our canary. I thought Lidue might be ticked at me, until I remembered Fran feeling guilty about eating a chicken with Lidue looking at her, and I explained that it was no worse than our having eaten other mammals. So I hope Lidue takes a liberal interpretation of this, and does not think I would eat him. At least not today.
The birds were good. They tasted like, well, they did not taste like chicken. They tasted more like, and this surprised me, liver. Good liver. Great liver. It was all dark meat, and Totò explained that they were not that moist because they were wild birds, and did not have enough fat. He thought they were quail, although he said that the hunters had four different kinds of small birds, and once they were plucked and ready for cooking, no one could really tell them apart. Not even their mothers.
When we finished our little birds, Emilio brought the next course in fresh from the grill. We were each given a skewer with three birds on it that had been cooked over charcoal. I was not that hungry, and another man wanted only one bird, so we split the skewer two and one. Totò warned me to watch out for the bones.
Again, they were good. Again, they tasted like liver, good liver. These were stuffed with sausage. I say stuffed, but not in the way one would stuff a turkey in the US of A. Here, a two inch piece of sausage was up into the bird where the innards had been, and it ran from outside the throat opening to outside the . . . other opening. The sausage was to give it some fat while it was cooking, but it also tasted good to me. The salad was passed around at this point as well.
Then we had salad, then oranges from Totò's uncle's orange grove. Then all of a sudden the dolce appeared. There was a cake that Totò called 'Una Torta Americana', but it was really sort of like a double layer pie crust slathered with apricot preserves, then dusted with pistachios finely ground, then criss crossed with more pie dough, then whole pistachio nuts added. It was great, but not real American as I remember. There were also cannoli with fresh ricotta filling, with either chocolate pieces or pistachio nuts inside.
Then came the grappa, the amaro, the lemoncello, arangina, and the Zabbibo. Zabbibo is a strong and sweet white wine from Pantelleria. Arangina is like lemoncello, only made with oranges. Lemoncello is like arangina, but made with lemons. Amaro is a bitter liquore, as the name implies, and grappa is distilled wine, which can be used in kerosene heaters and top fuel dragsters.
A man who runs a mom and pop grocery store near the post office started telling more stories about Sicilians who had gone north to work, and of course Pippo helped out.
I was surprised when I got there that I was friends with six of the thirteen men who were there. I was even more surprised when I left, and felt like I was friends with all of them. It was my first real time at a 'boys night out' sort of thing in Sicily, and I enjoyed it very much. It was a wonderful evening, full of good cheer, and I found myself laughing and smiling more than at any other time since Fran became ill. Angelo told me that Fran would have liked to see me laughing, and i think he was right. I felt at home, and I felt even closer to Fran. I wish she could have been here to enjoy it with me.
posted by Steve at 2:09 PM
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