The photographs of empty supermarket shelves I have been sent by friends living in the kingdom of Brexitania (AKA the UK) are to me reminiscent of the scarcity of food items in groceries I found during our trip in the then recently opened-up countries of Eastern Europe.
The trouble is, of course, that today many of the food items found on supermarket shelves are quite the opposite of zero mileage yearned for by environmentalists. There is no such thing as out-of-season fruit and veg in so many ‘affluent’ countries. Strawberries, for example, can be purchased throughout the year. Nothing then to look forward to in the summer….
The empty shelves in supermarkets are blamed on the shortage of goods vehicles drivers. So many of them have been pinged off the steering wheel by well-meaning government apps and so many have left the UK for fresher pastures or returned to their birthplaces where the quality of life and the cost of living have made such rapid improvements this new millennium.
What should one do to avoid the empty-shelves situation from getting worse? Start up one’s allotment over a good half of one’s suburban back garden lawn or, in our area, remove those horrible thorns and acacia trees from some part of our increasingly infested territory. Or perhaps, in the UK go to one’s nearest farm and volunteer to pick the fruit and veg left decaying because the brexitishianists have scared foreign workers away?
It’s always good to discover local market-gardening centres where one can buy fresh, wholesome veg at truly zero mileage.
It’s extraordinary that I never realised that just across from Fornoli, on the road to Calavorno on the left, there is such a local centre. It’s run by a couple and offers excellent quality produce at very decent prices. They have been running it for years and I can’t quite believe why I missed it in all the time I’ve been here.
The opening hours are mornings only and naturally the place is closed during the winter months for how could one possibly grow those strawberries in winter? In the afternoons the gentleman owner volunteers for Bagni di Lucca’s local Red Cross for, as he says, ‘I like to do my little bit for the good of the community.’ He is, of course, already doing his little bit in contributing towards the safeguard of the planet from the unnecessary pollution caused by distance fruit and veg deliveries and by selling wholesome, chemical free produce. What more could environmentalists wish? Well done to him, his family and his honest efforts.
In Italy any concerts one might be wishing to attend these days, particularly if the venue is not an open air one, any sagre or feste including Barga’s famous Fish n Chips one which opened last Friday and will continue until 16th August, any exhibitions such as the one on American art at Florence’s Palazzo Strozzi which I described at https://longoio3.com/2021/06/05/american-art-comes-to-florence/
and which is closing at the end of this month, any night clubs or dancing venues, indeed any location which involves several persons getting together in a public hall or venue have this type of notice attached to them:
‘We remind you that from 6 August, in compliance with current government regulations, entry to the exhibition/concert etc. is allowed only to holders of a valid COVID-19 green certification (Green pass), to holders of a negative test certificate carried out in the 48 hours prior to the visit, to those exempt on the basis of suitable medical certification, to non-European visitors with certification of recovery or vaccination. All certifications must be shown together with an identification document. Children under the age of 12 are exempt.’
There is (naturally) a heated debate continuing with regard to the legality of the green pass in enforcing exclusion of persons without such a pass from most public venues.
Typical of these arguments is the following, (I have underlined the most relevant points. The fact is however that one is hardly in the position to enter into a legal confrontation with a museum keeper or restaurant owner over the issue especially when the fines meted out to them are likely to be considerably higher than those for customers who do not have a green pass (up to euros 4,000 presently). Moreover, when the covid pandemic is over confrontational customers may still be barred from such venues).
ARGUMENTS AGAINST THE GREEN PASS
Decree n. 105/2021 has the force of law. The rules contained therein are therefore immediately operational. It states that access to indoor activities relating to catering services, shows, museums, swimming pools, festivals, fairs, spas and cultural centres, game rooms, as well as public competitions, only for those who have been vaccinated, even with a single dose, or to anyone who has carried out a swab within the previous 48 hours.
The regulations are in effect from August 5, 2021. However, it is essential to highlight that the checking of vaccination or swab documentation is delegated to the owners or managers of the facilities, who will do so in the manner indicated by the decree of the President of the Council of Ministers.
INDICATIONS FOR OWNERS AND MANAGERS
The Prime Minister’s Decree has not yet been issued. This governs the procedures for verifying documents, in cooperation with the provisions of the privacy guarantor. Therefore, at present, no request is necessary to allow customers access to the interior of the premises. Owners and managers must refrain from making this request because, if they request sensitive data, they could incur criminal complaints and civil damages.
INDICATIONS FOR CUSTOMERS
Given the protocol for verification of the so-called green pass, each person has the right, until there is approval of the aforementioned regulation, to access any place without showing the vaccination certificate or the result of a swab. If a manager in the absence of a regulation on how to request the green pass, should, in any case, request to see it, he must be reminded that, pursuant to art. 3 c. 1 n.4 of law 105/2021, he does not possess this legal authority. The mainstream continues, in fact, erroneously to affirm that the green pass entered into force on August 5, but in practice no restrictive rule is applicable until the presidential decree is issued.
ILLEGALITY OF THE ITALIAN GREEN PASS BECAUSE IT IS CONTRARY TO THE EUROPEAN GREEN PASS
The entry into force of the Italian green pass was on 5 August while, on 12 August, the European green pass will be issued through EU Regulation no. 953/2021. The latter, in article 10, restricts the right to request the green pass except for health and airport authorities. The Italian government has therefore introduced a rule that differs from the European one, resulting in a violation of the law that can be effectively challenged by both managers and customers.
IMPORTANT WARNING ABOUT EXEMPTED CASES
Exempted from the green pass are subjects excluded by age from the vaccination campaign and those because of suitable medical certification issued according to the criteria defined by the circular of the Ministry of Health. Even this circular has not yet been issued, so everyone can access any venue or event without the green pass being verified, as they can declare to be exempt. The owner and / or manager must let them in.
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My own opinion on these matters is quite simple. I don’t want to be excluded from my favourite opera performances, excluded from traditional Italian feste and sagre, excluded from art shows or museums, excluded from heritage sites in a country which holds over half the world’s listed ones, excluded, in short, from the things I love about life in Italy.
Stunning Vintage Cars at Fornoli’s Recent Summer Festa
Some people may consider that not having a green pass stigmatized them like those of Jewish extraction who had to wear yellow stars of David during the Nazi regime. However, we all have to show passes at some time in our lives, often more than once a day. Driving licenses, seat belts, National Health cards, disabled car stickers, club entry cards, and, of course, one’s own national passport which is now needed by all EU citizens entering the third country the UK has become because of Brexit (before Italians, for example, only required their ‘carta d’identità’ to enter the UK). What is so gross about adding a green pass to the list? And, when the advantages of such a protection from the ghastly pandemic is greater than any threat of persecution felt by those who refuse to get one, why hesitate?
Stalls at Fornoli’s recent Summer Festa
Incidentally, religious reasons are not enough to allow one to abstain from showing a green pass. According to the Roman Catholic church a green pass will not be required “to participate in liturgical celebrations”, but the observance of the rules already in force remain mandatory: masks, spacing between pews, the communion wafer only given in one’s palm and not in one’s mouth, no handshake exchange of peace and empty holy water stoups (in case one was wondering whether there had been some negligence on the priest’s part to refill them…)
I doubt whether there is anyone who is NOT fed up with this cataclysmic world pandemic event which has so disrupted our way of life for far too long. Are we going to let it carry on even longer because of qualms from anti-vaxers? Remember that for every few thousand anti-lock down protesters in the world’s metropolis there are millions in developing countries who are protesting because they can’t get vaccinated (and where graves can’t be dug or funeral pyres built fast enough for Covid victims).
A Nice Pot of Polenta at Fornoli’s Summer Festa last week-end
What is the most shocking thing that can happen to one? Well, perhaps not the most shocking and not even the second most shocking but certainly one near the top of the panoply of atrocious things that can happen to one. What is it then?
Loosing most if not all one’s photos taken in the last ten years! Of course, now loosing photos doesn’t mean misplacing that photo album yet again. No for in our digitalised age it means that the hard disk on which the photos are stored suddenly refuses to work! Sure, the computer recognizes the fact that there is an external hard disk attached to the computer but it declines to open and read its contents. Why are the photos anyway stored on an external disk? Simply because one has run out of storage space on one’s laptop’s C drive. Why then did not one make a back-up of the external hard disk?
I searched all my media. There was a one-Terabyte hard disk which managed to save something but only last year’s. The bulk of the photos taken during the two thousand and tens had vanished. I did manage to find a couple of extra years of photos but they were only in re-sized form suitable for sending as email attachments.
Horror of horrors! My helpful computer man in Fornoli did his best to try to read the disk with his own equipment. So many corrupt technical errors were signalled though! Impossible to do anything. Give the damn thing a couple of days rest to perhaps reform its character and make it behave better? No good. The hard disk will have to be sent to specialists in a major Italian city to take it apart and see what can be saved. How much will it cost? Anything up to a few hundred perhaps? But then irreplaceable visual memories of days and years past, lost in the murky mists of time are without value, without price!
In these months apart, my wife and I have been keeping in touch with WhatsApp and Skype. Sometimes we keep Skype running for hours even hearing our snores during the night. I wake up in the morning to catch Sandra saying to me ‘what’s happening today?’ I reach out for her only to realise than she has been condensed into a tablet picture somewhat like that Genie trapped in a bottle. At least, however, I have that. In previous more credulous ages this would have been taken as a miracle. I thought of the story of Saint Clare who one morning was too ill to attend Mass celebrated by her soul-mate Saint Francis. In her disappointment she suddenly saw Francis appear, projected on a wall in her convent cell in full technicolour with stereo sound too! No wonder Saint Clare has since been appointed as patron saint of television and, indeed, all manner of telecommunication including, of course, the internet.
Yesterday morning I too had a vision. Not of Saint Francis but it could have been sent by him or indeed any great saint or sage. One of our morning rituals on Skype is to read a chapter from a book. We’ve gone through ‘Little Women’ and ‘Siddhartha’ among others these months. There’s no particular guide as to why we choose one book rather than another; they somehow fall into our hands from my library. We are now reaching the end of a tome which was the only book Steve Jobs kept on his IPad: ‘Autobiography of a Yogi’ by Paramahansa Yogananda. It is both a charming and an impressive volume describing the great Yogi’s yearning to find a guru and seek spiritual knowledge from an early age when, as a teenager, he and his school chum caught a train to get to the Himalayas where prodigious sadhus spent their time in holy nudity in the icy receptacle of a mountain cave. Unfortunately he didn’t get there that time since the local school informed the station master of their plans and he sent them back home.
Yogananda eventually found his guru in the form of the superlative Yuktesvarji and the autobiography remains a celebration of this life-changing meeting. On his last visit to India Paramahansa mourns the death of his spiritual master and cries with despair. All of a sudden Yuktesvar appears to him in a blaze of golden light, astrally travelled from the cosmic realms of the universe. The chapter on Yogananda’s master’s resurrection is awesome and Yuktesvar goes on quite a bit to explain the nature of the astral body and how once achieved it can surmount the sad duality of this world, overcoming good versus evil, day versus night, earthly love and earthly hate to enter into a supreme world of celestial bliss.
I too had a vision. It seemed to me that Paramahansa Yoganandaji appeared to me in a blaze of golden light with his ochre robe and his flowing locks pointing me to my library. ‘You will find the answer to your search there. Look towards the island where Ram went to save Sita from the evil Ravana.’
I got out of bed and headed towards my library. Where could I find the island of Sri Lanka there? Travel was clearly out of the question. I was locked down in the same way that poor Sita was all those millennia ago. Suddenly it dawned upon me: the Ramayana! I took from the shelves the first of my three volumes of the Shanti Sadan translation of this marvellous epic and, lo and behold, behind the books there they were! I had truly forgotten that I had made backup of all photographs up to 2017 on five hard disks! Unbelievable but true. How could I have forgotten? How could I have lost my memory regarding this fact?
On this occasion I found my memory twice over. Suddenly remembering where I had stored my backups. Suddenly finding those photographs though lost for ever! Two memories found in one…. beyond duality into the cosmic ether of astral consciousness and eternal joy!
Capers are not just naughty frolics or escapades. They are also some of the loveliest and most useful plants one can have in one’s garden.
The garden walls of our place in Longoio host four caper plants.
We didn’t plant these delightful plants; they just happened to be there when we found the house and have remained so through the hottest summers and the coldest winters. Indeed, it’s not that easy to plant capers: like cats they have a mind of their own and choose the places where they wish to flourish.
Capers, the flower buds of Capparis spinosa, have been used in Mediterranean gastronomy since ancient times to flavour a great variety of foods: from meat, to fish, to pasta. I especially like them with a tomato sauce for pasta, in salads and sprinkled on cheese toast. I’m sure that capers can be grown in the UK using a heated propagator but to see these beautiful plants grow on one’s garden wall in Italy is truly a joy to behold.
As with all capers one has to reach a big decision: either pick the bud or let it flower into one of the most delicate blossoms we know.
We have to continue to make this decision during our indolent August days, for capers flower between May and October.
There are two methods to prepare capers for our table: either using salt or using vinegar. My wife Sandra has used both methods.
Preparing capers with salt.
Cut the stem of the capers one by one, wash them gently, drain them, dab them with a cloth and allow to dry completely.
In a jar proceed with a first layer of salt, a layer of capers of about 1 cm, another of salt and proceed in this way until the jar is complete.
Store the jars in a dark, cool place and shake the jars from time to time. The salted capers will be ready after forty days and will keep for almost two years.
To consume salted capers, they must first be de-salted in plenty of cold water, changing it several times, drained well and dabbed with kitchen paper, rinsed with vinegar, squeezed gently, placed in a jar covered with extra virgin olive oil and kept in the fridge. It is better to de-salt small quantities of capers and leave the rest in salt.
Do you know the difference between capers and cucunci? Capers (capperi) are the unopened flowers
while cucunci are the fruits containing the seeds that come from uncollected flowers or capers.
Capers grow throughout Italy but the best ones are reputed to come from the island of Pantelleria.
Preparing capers with vinegar.
Wash the capers, drain them and dry them with a cloth.
Put the capers in a bowl and sprinkle them with coarse salt and bay leaves. Let them macerate for 2 – 3 days, mixing them occasionally with your hands. After this time, put the capers in the sterilized jars.
Boil white vinegar for a few minutes. Pour the hot vinegar over the capers so as to completely cover them, seal and leave to flavour for five days.
Drain the capers from the vinegar. Then put them back in sterilized jars.
Boil the remaining vinegar, let it cool, then add it to the capers, seal and keep in the pantry.
Medicinal uses of capers
Capers contain more quercetin (an anti-inflammatory agent) by weight than any other plant. The root bark is used in herbal medicine. The active ingredients have diuretic and blood vessel protective properties. It can be used in the treatment of gout, haemorrhoids, and varicose veins. An infusion prepared with caper roots and young shoots was used in folk medicine to relieve rheumatism.
PS the Italian expression ‘capperi’, said as an exclamation, means ‘crickey’ or ‘gosh’ or ‘wow’. It’s obviously a polite way of avoiding the expression ‘Cristo!’ E.g. ‘Capperi che pizza!’
PPS The caper plant hibernates in winter. Do not be alarmed if it looks dead in that season. Come spring the cappero will re-flower in all its full glory.
