Finally, one of my favorite movies is found.
Movie Plot: Two Italian brothers come to America to make good by opening an 'authentic' Italian restaurant. Primo the elder, the cook, is willing to bring his blessed Italian cuisine to the new promise land, Secondo the younger, isn't too fussed about the food, he just wants to touch every shiny and plastic new thing America has to offer.
Secondo, basically the front man, the broker for the talent, Primo, puts up with his brother's desire to stay true, but Secondo's not such a savvy restaurateur; this new way of doing business, like Italian cuisine, takes time. Both business and art must be learned, or rather, in the promise land, business trumps true talent.
The successful 'Italian' restaurant across the street thrives, in this 50's milieu, the food's American style and they have entertainment. People don't want to wait for something 'foreign', they want a steak and a scotch, now! basta cosi, capeeeech?
Primo and Secondo, even their names are funny.
The first scene is the fave; a dumpy couple from Jersey show up. When Secondo serves the ravioli with basil on top to the husband, the risotto to the wife, the woman's response is nasal and knee jerk, "oh, hey, look, you got some leaves with yours, but what's this, where's the stuff that supposed to come with this, I don't see any seafood"...she moves the foreign rice around, upset.
They then request a side order of spaghetti, with meatballs.
Secondo, "no meatballs"
"Whadayamean, no meatballs"
"Sometimes the pasta just wants to be alone," Secondo suggests.
Secondo takes the order to Primo but Primo refuses to serve the woman two starch dishes.
"Philistine!" he yells.
It just gets better and better. The crescendo occurs on the Big Night, the night they expect a famous patron to attend the party, a famous jazz musician who will then bring them both business and stature. They spend their last red cent preparing a 10 course feast in which a young girl begins to cry after the final course, so sated is she, weeping, 'my mother can't even cook...'
My beloved Muv could, she didn't necessarily relish the day to day, but every blue moon she'd host an elegant dinner party, sometimes 'themed' before they were 'in', with divine fare, her cheesecake recipe was stolen by a top restaurant in Seattle, she was making marzipan before anyone, she was so skilled and artistic those miniatures are not any different from what I see here in Paris....I can recall a time I was to attend a reception where something home made was required, as I was heading out the door she handed me an elegant egg white canister, long before 'packaging' was understood, she'd whipped up some amazing duck pate that afternoon.
Some people try to buy style, Muv was style.
I digress.
I love this movie. Food is integral to our lives. Until I met mio marito, I was an independent working girl, hedonistic even then, but entertaining my clients in restaurants only. Pauvre mon marie, he's rarely allowed in the kitchen, but every now and then he whips up something fabu, Italian children learn early and well.
His uncle Giacomo is a bit of a Primo. He lives near Bordeaux, spends his entire morning finding the right ingredients, then eats and drinks his way through a superb lunch, sleeps, then does the same thing for dinner. Everyone is surprised he hasn't died of a heart attack, but no one is having as much fun as Giacomo. 'Cept for me, maybe, until last week.
The other uncle, Franco, lives in Milan, he's an engineer, thin and fussy, different, he and his wife have a very serious garden, it has everything. I've seen Carla make hand made pasta, the thought of not cooking first principal is simply implausible. Slow food is not a concept, it is their life.
Btw, they're northerners. Once, when I was dining with Giacomo, we swapped recipes, I was describing my eggplant bundles which are such a hit. No one has been able to replicate my dish in the same way as I, Caro Ianesco suggests he has, but he's the only one I'd believe.
Anyway, as I'm rattling off the recipe he begins to grow very agitated and I'm clueless as to why until he goes on a rant about how Mozzarella is an 'Arab' cheese. This is so predictable, the Northerners call the Southerners Arabs and the Southern Italians call the Northerners Germans, which is sort of true, in a way, even though they are all very Italian, some cultural differences persist, I suppose.
He has since warmed to me, we are kindred spirits after all, but at that lunch he was so pissed that when I didn't finish my dessert he began shoveling the baked apple into my mouth.
Even their humour is sorta German.
This movie is so endearing, I love absolutely every minute of this film, it's not just a perfect recipe, like our favorite classics, its messages resonates, but that ship has sailed, hasn't it.
The States are great, but mio marito's uncles wouldn't move to the States, now or then, and when mio marito's mother lived there briefly after the war, acting as seamstress for Scaasi, even delivering a dress or two to Mimi Eisenhower, even then, I don't think she liked the States much.
When she visited Seattle a decade ago, the 'coffee capital' , mio marito showed her the 16oz latte, it was incomprehensible to her, I think she secretly mused 'Philistine!'
