Tomato Rhapsody: A Fable of Love, Lust and Forbidden Fruit - By Adam Schell Page 0,35

in his psyche, what part shall she play in this plot?

In Which We Learn

of Carciofi alla Judea &

Il Fodero di Moses

By Nonno’s standards, the village market was nothing compared to the giant markets of Florence, Venice and Rome, which stretched for hundreds of stalls and were crowded with people, produce and goods from all parts of the world. In Venice alone you had more fishmongers than this market had vendors, but despite its relative paucity, Nonno could not help but think that the market, piazza and surrounding village were not without a modicum of charm. In the Etruscan tradition, streets were narrow and had a slight bend to them before flowing into the piazza. The piazza itself was small, Nonno estimated sixty paces in diameter. The encircling buildings were uneven in height but stood at roughly two stories. They were covered in various tones of amber-colored mortar, which in many places had begun to crumble, revealing the brick and stone beneath. Vines crept up walls, and in the sunnier spots, flowers bloomed from pots and hung from balconies.

As in many towns Nonno had seen throughout Tuscany, a sculpture stood at the center of the piazza. Only this statue was no bombastic recounting of Neptune’s adventures or some biblical epic. A slightly larger than life-sized figure of a monk gazed benevolently, if slightly dazed, at passersby. He sat upon a donkey and drank eagerly from a goblet in his left hand. A wine jug was slung across the monk’s chest, wine grapes hung from his mendicant sack and by facial expression—rather cherubic—one could reasonably assume the monk was drunk and happy. Though obviously Cristiano, the statue appeared blatantly pagan, a left-handed Bacchus draped in a monk’s frock. To punctuate the incongruity, the monk’s robe was fashioned in such a way that he seemed to have no right arm.

“Thank God,” Nonno mumbled to himself after pondering the statue for a moment. Experience had taught him well, and he preferred when Cristiano religious art conveyed some lightness of spirit. Goodness knows how the sculptures throughout Spain, with their fixation on the devil and sin, persecution and crucifixion, used to unsettle him. Hardly a surprise that the Inquisition found such ripe soil there. Thankfully, thought Nonno, this sculpture differed from those in Spain and suggested that the village might have the necessary sense of humor that would allow a pair of forbidden-fruit-selling Ebrei to escape the day unscathed.

Regardless, Nonno was hardly comfortable with what he’d gotten himself involved in. The village padre had not been there to greet them, and their entry into market was one of the more mortifying instances in Nonno’s life. He should have just conducted his wagon right through the piazza and headed home, but by some foolish impulse he did not rightly understand, he followed the pointing of his grandson’s finger and parked their wagon at the last spot in the market row.

Faccia di merda, thought Nonno as he considered the sheer stupidity and danger of their current situation. Have I grown senile? At one point in his life he’d been considered the shrewdest man in all Toledo, but at this moment he seriously wondered whether he was beginning to lose his mental faculties. How could he have been so foolish as to consent to his grandson’s desire? Of course the village priest wasn’t present to greet them—if that odd character had even been the village priest. Only a priest bent on excommunication would be reckless enough to escort a pair of Ebrei and a cart full of Love Apples to market. Nonno considered whether the whole thing wasn’t a ruse, a humiliating setup by the nasty old padre. And if it was, how could he have been so stupid as to fall for it? Why didn’t I do, Nonno cursed himself, what I have always done? Send in some scouts, a few of Rabbi Lumaca’s men from the nearby lesser city of Pitigliano, to assess the situation and report back their impressions of the village.

It was a grievous mistake, he feared, one of many. All stemming from the original mistake of entertaining the bizarre padre’s invitation in the first place. It had always been Nonno’s idea to introduce the pomodoro to the Ebreo markets of Florence, Venice, Siena and eventually Rome. These larger urban markets were often visited by gentiles, where locals came to snack upon carciofi alla Judea, a ghetto delicacy of battered and fried baby artichokes, eaten with a sprinkle of salt and a squeeze of