GUESTPOST BY HANSOSAN
I don’t remember when I first tasted grappa. I must have been just twenty, when a bunch of my high school friends travelled to Italy, all squashed into a white Nissan belonging to Koen’s mom. I remember my clothes slowly getting wet driving home as the soaked tent dripped through the back seat cushion from the trunk, after breaking up from a flooded Austrian campsite. That poor car took quite a beating on that trip, but Koen’s mom, who still had a fish store at the time, was very nice and forgiving. We all came from families where eating and drinking well was very appreciated, and you can see how we took those traditions into our own lives. At the time I was experimenting with cocktails, and I still see me drinking my first sidecar, on a metal terrace table near Pisa. Courageous as we were, we also ordered octopus. A big plate filled with soft, big, pink chunks of fibrous meat with the round feet still attached arrived. All garlic oil and wine, it was delicious. I have ordered a lot of disappointing or even horrible octopus dishes since, knowing that somehow, it can be fantastic. Did we finish that meal with espresso, and a grappa ? I’ll have to ask the others.
Koen later married a lively girl from Rosheim in Alsace – also a fine cook and a great source of delicious wines from some small viticulteurs like Maetz from the same village. But as after-dinner drink, the huge bottle of Italian grappa was always on offer too. After their divorce, we tried to stay friends with both of them, but I now wonder whether that isn’t the most likely course to lose them both. When we helped her move out, back to her family in France, she left us a whole box of bottles – also the grappa. I felt embarrassed – I could hardly put that bottle back on the table next time friends would be eating with us. So I brought the whole box to the small cabin my parents had in the forests of the Ardens. That cabin had no electricity, so the dark evening by candle light were a great place to sample nice drinks, and the freeze proof grappa wouldn’t mind overwintering in a place without heating.
A couple years after I started work, I ended up spending a lot of time in Tokyo, fixing one of those impossible joint-ventures that were en vogue then. The Australian head of the office, left it up to his secretary and a friend of her to rescue us occasionally from the obligatory under the bridge after-work drinking, and take us to something more sophisticated. That often translated into very expensive but fantastic Italian cuisine, way above the low end of the market standards I was used to with my friends and family. One funny difference was that although the dishes were traditional, the eating style was very Asian communal, everyone reaching with their chopsticks into each other plates, sampling all the fare and ordering more of the ones liked best. And I still think that, as long as you’re not eating in one of those places where every dish becomes a piece of art, that is a lot more enjoyable. In one of those places, where the girls were clearly familiar with the staff, we got a special grappa at the end. It made such and impression that ever since I have been trying to find it back – a quest not really helped by my only recollection being the scrambled up name “lepertone torte”. For long I wasn’t entirely sure it even existed in Italy – Japanese are notorious for relabeling drinks – and probably the memory of that evening is better than whatever I could find. But I now think it must have been a grappa from “Le Pergole Torte”, from Tuscany.
When Paolo & topo started to show up at our place, it didn’t take much to find out Paolo likes a good grappa. As with anything remotely Italian, he is also convinced that the only really good ones can only be found in Italy, preferably somewhere close to Venice. Mussels, pasta, fish, whatever… the Belgian variety just isn’t up to standard – and who are we to argue with his memories ? But it is certainly fun to take up the challenge – especially the time when we battled in the kitchen during the great Carbonara Contest ! (I almost creamed him there…) I did find a very good grappa di moscato from Alba locally – but it has one drawback : the cork must be deficient because the bottle is always emptier each time I check… . It’s good competition for that fantastic Grappa Ruta - rue flavoured - he brought along. He did not give us the full background though - here is what I found on the net : “In homeopathy, rue is sometimes used as a fever suppressant, but according to Italian folk-lore it not only increases male potency but assists women to relax. A fairly useful combination.” I couldn’t have said it any better.
Yesterday we were back at my parents cabin. We had come in early, driving in breakfast for the 20-ish relatives my Mom annually invited, and it had been a full day with a little bit of hiking and an awful lot of barbecuing. After surviving war famine, my Mom doesn’t believe there is such a thing as too much food. Most people had left before dark fell and I was sitting with my dad outside as the day cooled off, chatting about work, spilling my guts about all the crap that I was going through lately. Somehow these conversations occur so much easier there, amid the quiet of the trees. Still stuffed, I didn’t care for the usual evening tea and chocolate, but when that old brown grappa bottle surfaced, I couldn’t refuse. My dad claimed the taste remained as great as when we brought it years ago, but of course there is no way to prove that. But the memories that come with it, apparently have gotten richer over the years too.
