The Food of Love by Anthony Capella Page A

lungs and spleen skewered on a stick of rosemary and simmered with onions in
    white wine.
    Every part of an animal’s body had its traditional method of
    preparation. Zampetti all’ aggro were calf’s feet served with a
    green sauce made from anchovies, capers, sweet onions, pickled
    gherkins and garlic, finely chopped, then bound with potato and
    thinned with oil and vinegar. Brains were cooked with butter and lemon - cervello al limone - or poached with vegetables, allowed to cool, then thinly sliced and fried in an egg batter. Liver was wrapped in a caul, the soft membrane that envelops a pig’s intestines, which naturally bastes the meat as it melts slowly in the
    frying pan. There was one recipe for the thymus, another for the ear, another for the intestines, and another for the tongue; each dish refined over centuries and enjoyed by everyone, from the
    infant in his high chair to the nonnina - the grandmother who
    would have been served exactly the same meal, prepared in the
    same way, when she herself was a child.
    It was known that foreigners did not always share the Roman’s
    love of the quinto quarto. Even a Neapolitan, for example, could become a little squeamish when faced with some particularly
    obscure byway of the gut or stomach, or a quickly seared kidney
    with its sharp aftertaste of piscia. Bruno thought that Laura,
    however, might be different. There was something about her
    that seemed ready for new things, for adventures. And if she did have any culinary inhibitions left, his dishes would smooth them away, luring her with smell and texture and taste on a journey of the senses, step by step; an adventure into the entrails of Rome itself.
    For his first dinner he had cooked her the countryside. For his
    second he had cooked her the sea. For his third, he decided, he
    would cook her the city - the rich, dark, intense, blood-soaked
    city, in all its pungent history. If he was right, it would awaken something in her. If he wasn’t - well, at least he would have
    cooked her a real Roman meal.
     
    As they walked to their first lecture of the day, Judith told Laura about Bruno’s curious behaviour on the beach.
    ‘So he basically said that he was too much in love with this mystery woman to fool around with me,’ she explained.
    ‘Ahh. That’s so romantic’
    ‘Just my luck. I thought Italian men were supposed to be fickle, faithless horndogs, and I get one who doesn’t want to play’
    “I didn’t realise you liked him that much.’
    ‘After a meal that good, I would have done it with the Pope,’
    Judith said, with some feeling.
    Laura’s dirty laugh caused a cat, sleeping on the seat of a nearby scooter in the sunlight, to raise its head, startled for a moment.
    Then, seeing that it was only two girls animatedly discussing a boy, it settled back to sleep.
     
    Bruno was building a house of cards. Or so it felt. In fact he was cooking a fruit millefeuille - layers of delicate pastry leaves, crushed fruit and cream. This being Templi, however, the dish had been adapted by Alain so that it was a bravura display of technical virtuosity. First, the layers of pastry were cooked between heavy weights to make them flaky and crisp. Then they were sprinkled
    with icing sugar and caramelised with a blowtorch. Between each
    of the three layers was a filling of the lightest, most delicate fruit souffle. Because it looked exactly like pastry cream, the diner
    would only realise it was a souffle when he took a mouthful. But there were a frightening number of things that could go wrong
    with this concoction. F^ach souffle had to rise with a smooth,
    hydraulic motion, lifting its delicate ceiling of caramelised pastry without tilting it, so that it could provide a level floor for the next layer up. The slightest sticking or swelling would mean that the whole assembly would lean sideways like the tower of Pisa. Again, each souffle had to be just a little smaller than the one below, so that the weight of the top