Under the Tuscan Sun by Frances Mayes Page A

help them tunnel out of the fruit. Then they
die. The females fly out, carrying enough sperm from the tryst to
fertilize all their eggs. Is this appetizing, to know that however
luscious figs taste, each one is actually a little graveyard of
wingless male wasps? Or maybe the sensuality of the fruit comes
from some flavor they dissolve into after short, sweet lives.

    THE WOMEN IN MY FAMILY ALWAYS HAVE MADE BREAD AND butter pickles
and muscadine jellies and watermelon rind pickles and peach
preserves and plum butters. I feel drawn to the scalding kettle,
with a flat of rapidly softening raspberries leaking juice on the
counter, to the syrupy clove-scented bowls of sweet peaches about
to be poured into an astringent vinegar bath, to ring-finger-sized
cucumbers. In California, I've cried over rubber sealing rings
that turned to gum, over jams that wouldn't jam, over a cauldron
of guavas that made two dozen jars of gray jelly instead of the
clear exotic topaz I expected. I don't have the gene my mother
had for laying-by rows of crimson and emerald jars of fruit
preserves and the little pickled things called
sottaceto
(under vinegar) here. When I look at the product of a sweating
afternoon, all I can think is “Botulism?”
    This long-lost owner who placed the fruit trees on a terrace
so they sweetly dangle over a grassy walk, she, I'm sure, had a
shelf under the stairs for her confitures, and no qualms about
breaking open her spicy plums on a January morning. Here, I
think, I'll master the art my mother should have passed to me as
easily as she passed her taste for hand-painted china and
expensive shoes.
    From the Saturday market I lug a box of prime peaches downhill
to the car. They are so beautiful all I really want to do is pile
them in a basket and look at the delicious colors. In the one
cookbook I have here so far, I find Elizabeth David's recipe for
peach marmalade. Nothing could be simpler: The halved peaches
simply are cooked with a little sugar and water, cooled, then
cooked again the next day, until the preserves set when ladled
onto a saucer. Elizabeth David notes, “This method makes a
rather extravagant but very delicious preserve. Unfortunately it
tends to form a skin of mold within a very short time, but this does
not affect the rest of the jam, some of which I have kept
for well over a year, even in a damp house.” I'm a little bothered
by this mold note, and she's vague about sterilizing jars and
never mentions listening for the
whoosh
of the seal I
heard as Mother's green tomato pickles cooled. I remember my mother
tapping the tops to make sure the lid had sucked down. It sounds
as though Elizabeth David just dishes it up into the jars then
forgets it, scraping off mold with impunity before spreading some
on her toast. Still, she says “rather extravagant but very
delicious,” and if Elizabeth David says that, I believe her.
Since I have all these peaches, I decide to make seven pounds
and just eat the rest. We'll use the preserves this summer before
an unappetizing mold can form in this damp house. I'll give some
to new friends, who will wonder why I'm not painting shutters
instead of stirring fruit.
    I drop the peaches into boiling water for a moment, watching
the rosy colors intensify, then spoon them out and slide the skins
off as easily as taking off a silk slip. This recipe is simple,
not even a few drops of lemon juice or a grating of nutmeg or a
clove or two. I remember my mother putting in a kernel from
inside the peach pit, an almond-scented secret nut. Soon the
kitchen fills with a fly-attracting sweetness. The next day, I
boil the jars for good measure, while the fruit cooks down again,
then spoon it in. I have five lovely jars of jam, peachy but not
too sweet.
    The
forno
in Cortona bakes a crusty bread in their
wood oven, a perfect toast. Breakfast is one of my favorite times
because the mornings are so fresh, with no hint of the heat
to come. I get up early and take my toast and coffee out on