Italian cuisine, at home and abroad

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I just returned from a quick trip to Florence, Italy to do a program for Friends of Florence, a group of philanthropists who contribute significant amounts of money to the preservation and restoration of art in Tuscany.

For example, Friends of Florence were responsible for the “bath” that Michelangelo’s David received for his 500th birthday in 2004.

Because of the importance of this group in Florence, we were afforded privileges of special private visits to museums. I was able to climb on scaffolding in three different places to look at famous works of art as they are being restored and to hear the restorers explain what they are doing and why.

This year I took my son Angel with me. He is 37, married with three children, and a New York State trooper. Especially during my two-year ‘exile’ in Indiana, I had not spent a lot of time with him and enjoyed the opportunity to hang out a bit with a son I am enormously proud of.

Among the many privileges we had in Florence were eating at some of the city’s best restaurants. On the first night, I estimate that our dinners cost more than 100 euro apiece; that is about $140.

I am not 100 percent convinced that any meal is worth that much money; but if there is such a meal, it was the one we ate.

On three occasions, all of us, about 15 altogether, ate in private homes in Florence. These were not cozy bungalows but palaces. Two belonged to the Frescobaldi family. Several years ago, I introduced one of my sons to Marchese Frescobaldi, pointing out that his family had been making wine for 700 years. He looked rather stonily into my eyes and responded: “That’s 800 years!”

At the dinner, Ferdinando Frescobaldi told us that the wine on the tables was precisely the wine that President and Mrs. Obama drank with dinner on the night of the election. That’s pretty cool!

In these palaces, there were wonderful Florentine paintings on the walls and all sorts of things to look at. The family Christmas cards were still out; one was from Queen Elizabeth and Prince Philip!

The night before the group arrived, Angel and I had dinner at what I believe is the best pizzeria in Florence. A pizza is about nine euro, i.e. about $12.50. And there, I was able to order my favorite beverage in Italy, Coca Light, what we call Diet Coke. More importantly, I sat across from Angel, and we talked about his wife and kids and job. It was the type of conversation we rarely have the opportunity to have.

You can imagine the contrast between dinner at the Palazzo Frescobaldi and the next day’s dinner while winging through the Friendly Skies of United. As always, the luncheon choice was chicken or pasta.

Since I was leaving Italy, I avoided United pasta after eating pasta with the Frescobaldi. The chicken was not great, of course, and neither was my early dinner at Dulles airport in Washington.

On my first night back in Indiana, I was invited to dinner at Phi Gamma Delta fraternity of Wabash College. Some members of Fiji, as the fraternity is known, had mentioned to me several months ago that their cook is the worst on campus. I assumed that took her out of the Frescobaldi league.

As it turned out, the evening meal was pasta — spaghetti mixed with quite a meaty meat sauce. It was okay, in fact better than I had expected.

However, along with pizza with Angel, it might have been the most enjoyable meal of the week. Several Fijis are students of mine, and they sat at my table. We talked about various topics concerning the courses they are taking from me.

I learned about their home towns and their majors and whether they had girlfriends. One was from Indianapolis, my home town, so we talked about Naptown and the Colts (of course).

Two of the students are in a large class, and they incorrectly assumed that I know their names. Well, I know their names now. One is from China and an exceptional student.

When he returned last fall, I asked him how he had spent his summer. He replied that he had taught himself Japanese and Arabic. One might doubt that except that Nich’s English is superb, he is minoring in Spanish, studying French, and the best student in first year Latin.

Teaching undergraduates is what I do. It is my entire career. Except for summer jobs at Sears (then Sears & Roebuck) and a recreation area, teaching has been my only employment.

Teaching involves many elements, including love of and keeping up in my subject matter so that I have something new to say each time I teach a course. But, one cannot be a good undergraduate teacher without loving to be in the presence of undergraduates.

I loved my gig in Florence, and it is a joy and something of a fantasy to dine with the very rich and somewhat famous. And what food!

Yet, if someone asked me to choose between pizza with Angel and toasting the Frescobaldi, it is no contest. And if I had to choose between the lovely people I was with in Florence and the men of Phi Gamma Delta, again, this is not a tough choice.

Ultimately, even a dinner is more about the people you share it with than the quality of the prosciutto and wine and the wild boar stew. I toast the Frescobaldi and honor their legacy and their generosity.

I hope to do so again. But only if it does not keep me from a dinner with Angel or being a guest of the Fijis in Crawfordsville, Indiana.