Only in Naples (32 page)

I
make really good salad dressing. It's in my blood. My grandfather, the southern preacher of Italian origins, was known for his salads. When his church, in Hinton, West Virginia, hosted potluck dinners, the congregation would not expect my grandmother to bake a casserole. She didn't melt marshmallows over sweet potatoes or baste a pot roast. She bought the lettuce, picked the tomatoes, got out the great big wooden bowl, and left Reverend Salango to it.

I can't say how much oil, vinegar, salt and pepper, or garlic he used or my mother uses or I use. Impossible to quantify the amount of feta cheese or onion; impossible to describe in words how we do it. Which is a sign, I learned in Naples, that we know how to do it really, really well. Salads are in our DNA.

It was in my Americanized kitchen in Rome that I first made a salad for Raffaella. She had opened her magical suitcase, with eggplant Parmesan, mozzarella, lasagna, and
pizzette
from Naples. The kids and Salva dug into the suitcase, and I asked Raffaella what
she
wanted for lunch. She'd been up since 6:00
A.M.
baking, buying the freshest mozzarella, and had just arrived on the Eurostar train.
“Solo insalata,”
she said. Thanks, Ketrin, just a salad.

I got to work. Without thinking, measuring, or judging, I made the salad that I know how to make. I told Raffaella that she had to sit down and eat, the kids could wait. I served her.

“Ketrin, è fantastica!
” This is the best salad I've ever tasted, she said. I'm having a lunch for the ladies next Friday—could you teach me how to make it? Is there more? Could you make some more?

I reached for a jar to fill with my salad dressing. As I squeezed the garlic and poured the vinegar, I heard the kids and Salva in the living room, laughing and fighting over the contents of the suitcase. Papi, I get the mozzarella! That's mine! Lella, those
pizzette
are for us, too!

There's enough to go around, I called out to my children. Nobody's going hungry.

I screwed the lid on the jar of salad dressing and wrapped it in cellophane. Then I rolled a sheet of newspaper around it and fitted on some rubber bands to keep the packaging in place. It was ready: Raffaella could take it with her on the train back to Naples.

Please appreciate the numbers that are included in the following recipes. They weren't easy to get. As Raffaella plopped and poured, stirred, and talked, I called Mitzi surreptitiously in from his living room rug cleaning to ask how much oil was in the pot, or how much that piece of mozzarella weighed. I had to use the stopwatch function on my iPhone to know how long the meat had been frying. It was better to do this unbeknownst to Raffaella: running numbers by her resulted in a confused, pained look on her face. It was enough to take the Joy out of Cooking.

(Serves 6 to 8)

My mother-in-law knows you're busy (
“Chiste hanno 'a fa, non tengono tiempo,”
she says. These people don't have time, Ketrin, they've got things to do), so here's the three-hour
ragù
recipe rather than the twelve-hour one. She also knows you'd prefer olive oil to lard, and that you probably don't have a pot that's made of hardened clay. So here's what you need and here's what she'll give you: a recipe for “rushed”
ragù.

First, put an apron on, and don't think of removing it until you've turned off the stove. When the
ragù
starts to spit, it takes no prisoners. Get a pot that is not only wide but tall. (The height is important when the sauce spatters—Raffaella is worried about your kitchen as well as your clothes.) Dice the onion and put it in the pot with the olive oil.

Non ti ho detto di accendere ancora.
She hasn't told you to turn on the flame yet, so keep your pants on. Position all the chunks of meat on top of the oil and onion, and scrunch them in tight with your fingers. Shanks and hocks, pigs and cows—all down there together, at the bottom of the cool pot.

Now it's time to turn on a medium-low flame.
Si deve imbiondire la cipolla,
the onion has to become blond, and the meat has to
rosolare,
pinken. You can put away dishes, or wash a pan in the meantime. You'll be tempted, like me, to keep walking over to the pot to make sure something bad doesn't happen. But you've got to leave it alone. It's like raising kids. They're always there, in your mind, but you don't have to hover over them. Don't be a helicopter parent to your
ragù.

Move the chunks of meat around every once in a while with your wooden spoon so they don't stick to the bottom of the pot. After 8 or 9 minutes, turn the pieces over. The meat is releasing water, and will continue to do so for about 20 minutes. As long as there is water in the pot, it's too early to add the wine. You know there is water because of all the brown bubbles. (I thought that was oil boiling, but no, it's water. Oil doesn't boil.
What, do you fry blindfolded, Ketrin?
)

When the meat is a dark crusty brown, the onion looks a little burned, and there are fewer bubbles, turn up the heat to high. Pour a few drops of dark red wine on each chunk of meat, like you are performing a baptism. (
Nel nome del Padre, del Figlio, e dello Spirito Santo.
) Enjoy the sound it makes. After a minute or two, repeat until you have poured the whole glass of wine.

Continue to scrape the sides and bottom of the pot regularly. The chunks of meat should slide around more easily now, and the sides should look like you are never in a million years going to get this pot clean.

In the pools of dark purply-brown liquid in between the pieces of meat, drop half-teaspoon dollops of tomato paste. After plopping in each dollop,
stemperatelo,
mash it with the back of your wooden spoon. The paste should become one with the liquid in the pot. (You've been at this for around 45 minutes now, but don't despair! The
avviamento
of the
ragù—
setting it on its way—is almost completed. The time is coming when you're going to send this
ragù
off to college.)

A word on the tomatoes that you are about to pour in. The six cans of peeled tomatoes sitting on the counter ready to be ground up would ideally have been canned by you, during hot summer days, with your womenfolk. Since they probably haven't, you must trust the brand you have chosen. The ingredients should say:
TOMATOES
.
Basta.
Okay, salt we can let slide. But if it says anything else…Raffaella will teach you how to can your own. Oregano? Garlic? Preservatives?
Scordatevelo.
Forget about it.

With an immersion blender, grind up three cans of the tomatoes you've chosen and add them to the pot. Continue to scrape the bottom and sides of the pan. After a few minutes, grind up the other three cans and add them to the now red
ragù.

Turn the flame down as low as it will go—
piano piano piano piano!—
gently gently softly softly!—and cover the pot
.
Now you can get back to your busy life. (But remember, don't take off your apron, because in about an hour, your
ragù
is going to start spitting up a storm.) The sound that until now has been a frying
zzzzssssssshhhhhhh
now should become a very mellow
bloop…bloop…bloop,
which Raffaella calls
purpullià.
(I thought the verb was
pippiare,
but I've heard
pappulià, pippulià…
apparently there are as many Neapolitan terms for the slow boiling of
ragù
as Eskimos' terms for snow.)

Check on your
ragù
every half hour or so. Take the cover off the pot, and wipe away the water on the underside of the lid that has accumulated from the steam. Add salt and the basil leaves. Stir the
ragù,
and make sure it doesn't stick to the sides and bottom of the pot. Admire how it is becoming denser, darker, and more
arraggiata
—Neapolitan dialect for angry, but meaning tense and dense. A spitfire.

Cover the pot again. After hour two, you can take out all the pieces of meat except the ribs: leave them in until the end. When the
ragù
has been cooking for three hours total, turn off the flame. Boil rigatoni in salted water (use coarse sea salt for the pasta water, never table salt!) and after straining, dump the pasta into the pot of deep red
ragù
. Sprinkle grated Parmesan and serve with fresh bread to sop up the
ragù.
The pieces of meat can be served
after
all the pasta has been consumed, never together.

Ecco fatto:
all done. Now you can take off your apron.