A couple of weeks ago I wrote against the new tourist tax Florence and Venice are planning to introduce to finance essential tourist-related services (primarily cleanup); several people replied saying they didn't see anything wrong with contributing a few dollars to the maintenance of art treasures and whatnot. I suppose that if one is looking at the matter from an American wage perspective a few dollars aren't much. Shift the perspective to Italy, on the other hand, and things change. Substantially.

The average take-home-pay for a shopkeeper or factory worker in this country is on the order of 1.3-1.5 million Lire per month, which sounds like a lot until one translates it into dollars at 1800 lire/dollar, and comes out to between 725 and 835 dollars a month (between 650 and 750 Euros). This isn't much to live on, especially with apartment rents averaging at least 600-700,000 lire per month (plus utilities) in the cities. One suddenly understands why so many young people continue to live with their parents even after they have jobs, why almost all Italian households are double income, and by extension why the birthrate is so low -- many wives cannot afford to take time off for pregnancy. What's just a few dollars for someone working on a higher wage scale becomes serious money for an Italian store clerk or laborer.

What about other professions, you wonder? People with seniority obviously earn more than those who are starting out, and the technical professions, especially engineering of one kind and another, can do quite well. But well is a relative term; I recently saw an interview in which a recently hired full-time anesthesiologist working in a state-run hospital said he was earning about 3.5 million Lire/month. In other words 2,000 dollars, which is much less than his American colleagues would be earning. It is true that this was his take-home pay (the tax bite, which is Europe's highest, is between 50 and 60%), that since he is at the bottom his wages will increase, and that he has excellent job security, but considering the responsibilities the job entails he's not getting much.

One would think, given the relatively low pay of most Italian workers and the high national unemployment rate (12%, with pockets, especially in the South, of up to 50%) that government and union labor policy would favor steps to increase earnings, for example developing new types of activities and increasing job flexibility to let people take advantage of them. Well, not really.

The cornerstone of union policy is job security, and with the assistance of an odd coalition of Catholic and formerly Communist (now simply left of center) politicians they’ve set up a system that allows companies to hire but makes it almost impossible for them to fire. The new employee turns out to be lazy, inefficient, scheming, or downright nasty? Tough. Assuming he or she isn't caught taking money from the safe or destroying the machinery, there's not much the company can do -- and even then an end to the working relationship is not a foregone conclusion.

A trial period for the worker, you wonder. There is that possibility, but the duration is rigidly regulated, and it can only be extended once before the worker is declared an employee and given an open-ended contract in which everything is specified and job descriptions are painfully detailed. So, many larger companies cycle through large numbers of people, giving them the minimum training they need for the trial period and letting them go thereafter; this obviously does nothing for job stability. As Mario Pirani recently pointed out in an editorial in La Repubblica, this also makes it impossible for a startup operation to hire people legally -- an entrepreneur who doesn't know if her venture will still be here six months from now isn't going to want to hire her entire workforce for life. So she turns to the submerged economy, paying people under the table and hoping the Revenue department doesn't find out about her. Or she hires independent contractors who may or may not have her interests at heart.

Well, the Italian Senate has just approved a law that equates independent contractors and employees; once the House approves it too another slice of flexibility will float away. And though the authorities have finally decided to allow part time work, the parties involved have to agree to hours and conditions before a labor official; to change something they have to return to the labor official and renegotiate. Individual bosses and workers can't legally decide things just by talking them out. And finally, the labor people have decided that organizations such as Manpower can only place qualified workers, not the unspecialized ones who are more likely to be unemployed. The next step, which is already being debated in Parliament, will be to give any worker anywhere who deals with an Italian company via the Internet all the rights and privileges enjoyed by Italian employees.

Italy's a great place for organized labor, but for most unemployed Italian workers the only real hope of getting a job is to slide into the shadowy submerged labor market, where they have no rights, no security, and no pension fund.

Moving slightly more towards Italian cuisine, a while back I wrote about the EEU's attempts to force Italy relax its dioxin limits to allow other EEU member states whose meats don't pass now to sell their meats here. Well, now the EEU veterinary commission has decided that it's no longer necessary to test any European beef for dioxin content, and all EEU countries will have to accept whatever meat gets sent their way. Why? The EEU commissioners say it's because only 51 of 2,219 dioxin tests on Belgian beef revealed concentrations greater than 200 nannograms/kilo (30 of which in the 200-500 nannogram range), and they conclude that contaminations of this sort are the unavoidable result of growing animals in an industrialized nation (the beef was being tested because the Belgian pork industry was recently rocked by a dioxin scandal). Other people, according to Cecilia Casamonti's article in La Nazione, say the real reason that Belgian and by extension other European beef is no longer being tested for dioxin is that the Belgians threatened to test everyone else's beef. Faced with the danger of having their meats declared illegal, the other countries (except Italy) backed down. The health of the food industry is again more important than the health of the citizens.

The same page of the paper also has a long article on Mad Cow Disease, which is still quite with us despite the relative silence on the part of governments. And it seems to be spreading: a number of cases have been registered among wild ungulates in North America, and the disease is striking humans as well; the article mentions cases in Oklahoma and Montana. Nor is this all. Last week's Case Record in the New England Journal of Medicine (Vol. 341, Number 12, P. 901) discusses a 68-year-old woman who succumbed to Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease. While her illness could have had nothing to do with cattle because the disease can be familial, the Journal's decision to present the case does make one think. How to avoid the disease? Avoid meat from animals that have been fed feed made from other animals. Seek out organically raised beef, poultry, pork, and so on. Or become vegetarian. Sorry to bring these things up, but the only way to avoid them is to be as informed as possible. And to change the situation, put pressure on your legislators to get them to do something about it.

Returning more decisively towards food, Goldie recently wrote asking for Garlic Soup. To be honest, though there are parts of Italy that enjoy a reputation for extensive garlic use, I've never encountered it in a soup. I do happen to have a booklet entitled L'Aglio che Guarisce, Garlic that Cures, by Carlo Ducroix, who says the Noble Bulb is good for everything from fevers (a tossed salad dressed with abundant finely sliced garlic, salt, and a little lemon juice -- good also for persistent coughs) to baldness (make a paste from 5 or 6 cloves of garlic, a medium onion, the juice of a lemon and 2 tablespoons of oil. Apply to thinly haired sections of the scalp before going to bed, sleep with a towel wrapped around your head to keep the pomade in place, and wash your hair in the morning). When it comes to garlic soup, he suggests mincing a clove of garlic or more to taste and adding it to broth, consommé or cream of vegetable soup just before serving it (cook for a few minutes if the odor of garlic is a problem). Or, he suggests, make Garlic Soup, which is a variation on the bread soup of the Italian poor:

• 4-5 cloves garlic
• 4-6 ounces (100-15 g) stale bread
• Half a red pepper, shredded
• 4 tablespoons olive oil
• From 1 to 2 cups water (have more handy)

Finely mince the garlic and sauté it in a pot with the oil. When it begins to turn golden (but before it burns) stir in the bread, water, and shredded pepper. Keep the pot at a brisk simmer for 10 minutes, stirring it often and adding more water if it looks like it's drying out. Season to taste with salt before serving it.

Mr. Ducroix suggests those especially enamored of garlic sprinkle more raw garlic into their soup at table, use more hot pepper, or crack an egg into the soup upon removing the pot from the stove and give everything a good stir -- the egg will cook, and thus thicken things. While I might be interested in the latter two variations I think I'd avoid sprinkling more raw garlic into this, because it already packs a healthy punch.

A printer-friendly version of this recipe.

While we're on the subject of zesty foods, Vincent writes, "I've been scouring for recipe for Sicilian sfingiuni, sometimes spelled sfinghi, that bread-like pizza with beaucoup imported anchovies, made with semolina, unbleached flour, and no tomato sauce. Found occasionally in the older Sicilian homes 'way back when but impossible to find a recipe."

The only sfinci Pino Correnti mentions in his Libro D'Oro della Cucina e dei Vini di Sicilia (Murzio Ediotre) are sweet. However, he does give a recipe for Pizza Fritta or Calzone Siciliano, which sounds close:

• 1 1/3 pounds (600 g) risen bread dough (buy this from your baker)
• 1 pound (400 g) fresh tuma (a soft, mild cheese), thinly sliced
• 8 ounces (200 g) erba cipollina, which in Tuscany is onion grass, finely minced
• 2 ounces (50 g) anchovy filets, boned and shredded
• Olive oil or rendered lard, salt, and black pepper
• Olive oil or rendered lard for frying

This is a traditional recipe of the Two Sicilies, Mr. Correnti writes. One that brings up the question, 'was fried pizza born in the shadow of Etna or Vesuvius?' There's no proof though there are many clues, and it is possible that pizza fritta suffered the same fate as Sicilian Song, born of Barunissa di Carini's melancholy verses and carted off to Naples, where it gave birth to the grandiose institution of the Canzone Napoletana. Be things as they may, we are dealing with the Two Sicilies, even though Sicilian pizza has never enjoyed a pizzaiola like Donna Sofia [Loren], who also writes cookbooks.

Knead the dough for a few minutes and divide it into six small loaves. Dust them with flour and put them in a warm place for about an hour. Next, roll them out to a quarter inch (1/2 cm) and cover half of each disk with slices of cheese, minced onion grass, and shredded anchovies. Salt lightly and dust with freshly ground black pepper, and drizzle a little oil or some bits of lard over each. Fold the disks over to obtain large ravioli shaped like half moons. Fry them in enough oil or lard to allow them to float, until they are golden.

A printer-friendly version of this recipe, with a couple more form the BBS.

A presto!

A presto!
Kyle Phillips

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