Naples: Sustenance First

We arrived in Naples on Tuesday afternoon, after an overnight flight from Montreal with a two hour layover in Munich. Our rental apartment is on Via Toledo, in the heart of the old part of the city, and there’s a market street that runs diagonally from Toledo, right below us to the left. So one of our first tasks after unpacking was to head into the market and get some provisions: in this case, clementines, plums, grapes, and the small tomatoes grown on the side of Vesuvius that are incomparable for intensity of flavor, along with some fresh bread, marinated eggplant, and fresh butter.

As some of you know, one of the reasons for coming to Naples, a long-awaited destination for us, is pizza. It may not be a religious pilgrimage, like the Camino de Santiago, but it’s certainly a secular one. We have eaten pizza together all over the world, for 45 years, and Jonathan has made pizza at home ever since I’ve known him; it is close to an obsession. This city is pizza’s beating heart, so we knew we’d have to end up here eventually.

You find these clusters of small, pointed tomatoes hanging everywhere; I’m not sure if they’re decoration or actually get used, but they’re certainly beautiful. The ones we bought at the market that first afternoon were firm, luscious, and bursting with flavor; you feel the sun captured in every bite.

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Today, Sunday, was market day in nearby Piazza Dante, so we shopped again, this time for oranges, some tiny green beans, a beautiful aged cheese, one large lemon still on its leafy stem, and a cherry jam tarte.

I also bought some fresh porcini mushrooms that had been foraged in the woods, and cooked them in butter and olive oil for lunch.

Yesterday we went to Herculaneum, one of the ancient cities that was buried in the eruption of Vesuvius in 79 AD. I’ll write more about that later. But this was my dinner in a small local trattoria in the modern town of Erculano. I had ordered zuppa di pesce, thinking it would be a simple fish soup, but this is what arrived, along with a loaf of fresh, crusty sourdough bread. I ate every bit of it.

We did NOT eat any of this, but admired it through the glass vitrine. Resisting the pastries completely is futile, but we’re trying to restrain ourselves somewhat!

And finally, the jewels of the city. These are our second pizzas from Pizza Starita, one of the famous pizzerias of Naples and the one we’ve liked best; it’s still unspoiled and uncommercialized, still overseen by the original owner, and seems to deliver consistently excellent pizzas to every table within minutes of your order. I’m sure Jonathan will be devoting a whole post to Neapolitan pizza, so I won’t say more except that these are some of the very best I’ve ever had. The local red wine was also delicious.

Much of my time here has been devoted to seeing art, as well as experiencing the crazy intensity that is Naples itself, and I’ll write more about those subjects soon. We are also trying to heal and recover from not just the death of our beloved Manon, but the loss of Jonathan's older brother David, who left this life unexpectedly on October 29. The family urged us to continue with our trip -- David loved Italy and his family lived in this country for quite a while when he was stationed here as an Army doctor - and he is very much in our thoughts as we move through our days.