One nice thing about living in Orvieto, is that it has multiple other interesting sights around it, instead of being totally isolated. So when I started to get burnt out from all the travelling and schoolwork and job applications, I decided to take advantage. It was simply a day for exploring and relaxing. No computer, no camera, no worries. Just myself, my phone, and my sketchbook.
Hoping on a bus first thing in the morning, a twenty minute ride through the twisting country roads around Orvieto deposited me in the town of Bolsena. While it is a sleepy little city, there is just enough to see in order to keep things interesting but not overwhelming. The first of these is the Church of Saint Christina.
Bearing the name of “Christina,” I was, obviously, expecting a lot out of this little chapel. Luckily, the church lived up to expectations. If you remember, I referenced in my first blog that Orvieto’s duomo was special, as it holds the cloth that started the Corpus Christi festival in Catholicism.
However, while Orvieto may house the actual artifact, the miracle that started everything originated in Bolsena. La Chiesa di Santa Christina, is supposedly the location in which the doubtful friar of legend, broke bread at communion and witnessed twelve drops of human blood spill forth.
So basically, the church of the saint that shares my name is the epicenter of one of the largest festivals in Catholicism. I may or may not have preened a little bit when I learned this particular fact. And luckily, with a long afternoon and not much to see, I had enough time to sit down and sketch it.
After finishing this, I took the opportunity to wander around the town and do some window shopping as I made my way down to Bolsena’s second claim to fame: the Lake of Bolsena. The lake of Bolsena is the filled crater of an ancient caldera and the biggest volcanic lake in Europe.
It is also the perfect place to sit down and unwind.
After all the travelling of the previous month, it was wonderful to simply spend time down by the water. It was also nice that it was a lake instead of the ocean. It was fun spending time by the Mediterranean on the trip south, but the mountain girl in me will always appreciates rocky shores lined with trees over endless expanses of sand.
Something about the calm still waters of a lake, make it infinitely more relaxing than the constant lapping of the ocean. Taking the time to bask in the sun and sketch gave me a much needed break from the constant hustle and bustle of this trip.
Pasta, Pasta!
So after my much needed recharge, I hopped back into the week and kept steaming ahead. This included one last workshop. Acting as the finale of our orientation to the true Italian experience, the class headed off to a local farm/restaurant to experience the joys of pasta making.
Now, this was the one workshop I was the most apprehensive about. I distinctly remember making pasta (or trying to) in home ec, freshman year of high school and it was not a good experience. Long story short, the noodles were entirely too dry and chalky, so everything fell apart. Then trying to put it into a machine just made everything worse, and since that day I never had any desire to attempt making my own pasta again.
Yes, time has probably exaggerated those memories, but it still makes a girl apprehensive to do it again. Luckily however, making pasta with an authentic Italian chef is so much easier than making pasta with an American high school teacher. Or maybe I’m just older and wiser, so I actually know what I’m doing now. Probably both.
So here’s how Italians make pasta. First, you need the right ingredients.
There’s a big difference between making pasta from soulless American flour, and freshly ground ancient grains, harvested from the yard out back. This was probably the coolest thing about the experience. Growing up a city girl, I’ve never actually grown my own food. Sure, I’ve tasted some fruit or vegetables from friend’s gardens, but this felt different. It’s common to pick an apple from a tree, it’s not so common to see a person grow and mill their own grain for bread. The industry is so monopolized in the US, you don’t even consider it. We don’t place value or importance on it as we have other things to do.
Only in Italy have I come to truly appreciate the value of locally grown food. And what was especially cool about this farm, was the fact that all their crops were ancient grains. That means, they were literally given seeds for extinct lines of wheat from the local agricultural university. The family then kept a portion of the harvest for themselves, but gave a portion back to the University for Research. So not only was our pasta made of homegrown wheat, it was made of ancient home grown wheat. In America, that alone would allow restaurants to charge you a completely ridiculous price. Yet here, it’s just part of their culture and life.
The next step, is ridiculously simple. Take flour and water and mix them (or flour and egg, depending on the type of pasta). Knead the mixture till the dough achieves an elastic consistency, adding flour or water as necessary. Much easier to say than to do, but still nothing terrible. Then roll it in to a ball and let it sit for half an hour or so.
Honestly, was annoying how simple it was. I have traumatizingly bad memories from almost 7 years ago, of pasta making gone wrong. And here I am, finding out that I was bested by a dish with a total of two ingredients. Two.
I kind of want to time travel back to freshman year and tell mini me to pull herself together.
Anyways, thirty minutes later, we unwrap our balls from their saran wrap cocoons and roll them out. At this point, in America, you throw them into a machine and it does all the work for you. Italians, however, are the masters of pasta, so they don’t need a machine to slow them down. Here, they simply take a wooden frame and thread wires between each side at appropriate intervals. Using this, you lay your piece of pasta down on the strings and roll over it a few times till the wires cut through everything.
And that’s it. Fresh made pasta, ready to go.
Two ingredients. Minimal effort. No traumatic experiences. Absolutely Delicious.
Seriously mini me, what did you even do??
After finishing everything up, our instructor went off to prepare the food and we got some time to ourselves. Thirty minutes later, we were treated to a good, old-fashioned, three course Italian meal. The first being appetizers made with various ancient grains and beans. The second, the pasta we made with water, paired with a light cream sauce and parmesan. Then the third, a ragu sauce covering the pasta made with egg.
Oh yeah, we also had desert. Chocolate torte, again made with grains grown on the farm.
By the time we were finished, we were all riding back with content grins and comfortable food comas. Have I been cured of my fear of pasta making? Maybe. We’ll have to see. Chances are I’ll attempt it again and without a helpful Italian chef nearby I'll have a relapse of freshman year. Miracles can happen though.
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