The Chef's Apprentice: A Novel (15 page)

“That’s ingenious, Maestro.”

“Well then, what have you learned?”

“That food can manipulate men’s hearts and minds.”

“Very good. Now finish those dishes.”

But the chef had omitted an explanation for his greatly praised Sauce Nepenthes, the high point of the meal and the turning point of the doge’s attitude. I asked, “And the veal sauce, Maestro?”

“What about it?”

“Well, after they ate the sauce—”

“That’s enough.” The chef adjusted his high white toque so that it sat low on his forehead, never a good sign. “You can’t learn the secrets of the maestro without first doing the work. Wash the dishes. And next time, scrape them first, the way I taught you.”

Marrone
.

*

I was impressed with the chef’s skill, but it was clear that he would not share his secrets easily. I’d have to earn his trust, so that night I
decided to take this matter of cooking into my own hands. I would make a grand gesture. How hard could it be? If you combine nothing but good-tasting ingredients, the result would
have
to taste good. It seemed like simple common sense. I would make something so delicious, so original and extraordinary, that the chef would beam with pride, call me a culinary virtuoso, and promote me on the spot. After I adjusted the fire under the stockpots for the night simmer, I fired up Enrico’s oven and planned my strategy.

Meat was out of the question because I didn’t know the secrets of seasoning and roasting. Vegetables were a bit tricky as well, all of them needing delicate preparations unknown to me. I started with a wedge of triple-cream cheese because that seemed like a rich and elegant base that would need little embellishment. I cut a large slice of cheese and stripped off the skin, leaving only the voluptuous center, which I set into a clean bowl. I had noticed that wine went into the best dishes, so I added enough claret to thin the cheese to a mixable consistency. As I beat it together, I watched the pure white turn a murky shade of rose, and the sharp smell of wine overpowered the milky fragrance of cheese. Although such a dramatic change in color and aroma was unexpected, I decided it was not a fatal blow to the plan.

The chef had once said that the cornerstones of culinary art were butter and garlic, so I cheerfully whipped in a knob of softened butter and pressed a large clove of garlic. I whisked it all until it was smooth, tested it with a fingertip, and judged it to be not bad. But not bad wasn’t good enough for a grand gesture. I stood before the brick oven and pondered what might elevate this concoction from an oddly flavored cheese to something that would make the chef raise his eyebrows with appreciation.

The brick oven reminded me of Enrico, who often bragged that his lightly sweetened breads and confections were everyone’s favorite. He once said, “Meals are only an excuse to get to the dessert.” I wasn’t sure that was true, but I had noticed that people
usually greeted the dessert course with smiles, even though they had already eaten their fill. Confections always found favor, and so I poured a golden stream of honey into my mélange.

After it was well blended, it was rather pretty—smooth and thick, luscious looking, like pudding or custard. I’d even gotten used to the raw veal color caused by the wine, and I thought the whole thing might really work, but my next taste was jarringly unpleasant. Something was off, out of balance, just plain
wrong
, but what?

I recalled Pellegrino adding raisins to frumenty with the remark “Any pudding is improved by fruit.” In desperation, I tossed in a handful of raisins and stirred. Now I’d lost the silky texture, and the raisins looked a bit like small dead roaches, but I hoped that the magic of cooking would plump the raisins, make the batter cohere, and meld the flavors. I poured everything into a square pan and slid it into the hot oven.

The kitchen immediately filled with the smell of garlic, which was normally a good thing but not, I suddenly realized, for a dessert. Still, honey and garlic were both fine ingredients by themselves, and perhaps I’d stumbled upon a new and wonderful combination. I watched bubbles appear around the edge of the pan, and the mixture became pockmarked with tiny wells of bubbling butter. Next, the raisins swelled up, covered in a cheesy film that looked like white scabs. The whole mess glistened under an oily layer of melted butter and bore a sickening resemblance to chunky vomit.

I couldn’t bring myself to taste it. I scraped it into a dish and offered it to Bernardo, but after one sniff, he looked at me with narrowed eyes and glided away with his tail in the air. I went to bed puzzled but not defeated.

CHAPTER XI
T
HE
B
OOK OF
L
ANDUCCI

I
didn’t press the chef further about the doge for fear of being cast back out on the street; Venice is an uncommonly painful place to be poor. To be poor in Venice means deprivation amid staggering wealth; it means scavenging garbage heaps in a city bursting with delicacies imported from all parts of the world; it means shivering in the shadow of marble palaces that are breathtaking in their opulence.

There was only one week in the year when all Venetians might feel cared for and carefree. In midsummer, Venice celebrated La Sensa, the doge’s symbolic marriage to the sea. During La Sensa the city fathers provided food and drink enough for all Venetians to make merry for eight uninhibited days. During La Sensa, the sea, on which Venice depended for her prosperity, became the symbolic bride of the doge in a dazzling display unequaled among Venetian celebrations.

For us—orphans, drunks, prostitutes, mental defectives, and all the other outcasts of Venetian society—the excited chatter started weeks in advance. We sat in exuberant groups on the docks and in crumbling piazzas, bragging about how many chicken gizzards we’d devour, how much cheese we’d shovel down, how many liters
of wine we’d swill. We vowed to gorge and sing and dance until we fell unconscious. Ruined men, toothless, malnourished, and stinking in their lice-infested rags, promised to ravish every woman in sight, humble or noble. The women, equally scabrous and filthy, tittered like flattered girls.

The great day dawned with a procession of boats festooned with rose garlands and packed full of senators dressed in scarlet capes. Citizens crowded into the Piazza San Marco and jockeyed for a favorable position from which to watch the doge, the resplendent groom in golden robes, as he emerged from the ducal palace and boarded the
Bucentaur
, which was ablaze with crimson banners waving from her masts. The
Bucentaur
led a flotilla out of the lagoon; the sun flashed on hundreds of oars while a choir of two hundred men chanted onshore and all the bells of all the churches pealed continuously.

A contagious giddiness swept over the city when we saw the doge stand at the bow of the
Bucentaur
to intone his vow. He raised his arms and proclaimed, “We wed thee, O sea.” Then he cast a gold wedding ring into the Adriatic. The crowd cheered, and the flotilla swarmed round the
Bucentaur
. Trumpets sounded, guns boomed in salute, and the people raised their voices in a cacophony of jubilant shouts.

Gondolas bearing aristocratic coats of arms bumped alongside gondolas full of courtesans blowing kisses and baring their creamy breasts. Every piazza burst to life with acrobats, bird callers, magicians, jugglers, dancers, singers, and musicians plucking pear-shaped lutes or banging tambourines. After dark, countless bonfires reddened the night sky, and a torchlight procession wound through the streets like a river of flame.

The first day was always joyful, but after that it was simply too much for too long. People with homes to go to did so and continued the celebration as it suited them. We in the streets did what we’d promised—we gorged and guzzled to the point of sickness
and beyond. As the days passed, people sagged under the weight of too much cheap wine, not enough sleep, and the burden of relentless merriment. In the heat and throng, people fainted, vomited, quarreled, and flew into hysterics. Somehow, most people forgot this aspect of the festival from one year to the next, but not me. I found the excess stupefying. It was a mad, congested mass of men and women and children and horses and dogs and donkeys and cats and chickens (yes, chickens), a gluttonous, raucous, drunken clamor that went for eight long, loud days and nights, leaving me crushed and gaping.

But I believed that my first La Sensa in the palace would be different. In years past, I had watched the dignified senators and their polished ladies disappear into the palace, and I was sure their celebration would be far more measured and refined than the chaos in the streets. I fantasized about serving at a stylish gala given by the doge for his court, regal ladies and gentlemen enjoying themselves with grace and decorum. There’d be no stepping in puddles of urine or slipping in vomit, no jealous wives tearing the hair of other women, no brawling drunks falling into the canals, and no pitiful babies crying in baskets while their young mothers drank and danced, tipsy and oblivious.

I looked forward to participating in an evening of fine food and gentle music that would leave my sensitivities unmolested. I planned to wrap two packages of the finest leftovers in oilcloth, tie them with a bow, and present them the next day to Marco and Domingo. It didn’t matter that Marco took everything without thanks. It would be a display of my own largesse, a demonstration of how gracious I’d become as a result of my proximity to the highborn. I didn’t need his thanks.

Domingo, on the other hand, was always grateful. Once, as he thanked me too effusively and too long for a dry rind of Parmigiano, I cut him off.
“Niente,”
I said, motioning dismissively at the cheese.

He said, “Not only for the cheese.” He put a hesitant hand on
my arm and then quickly withdrew it. He looked down at the pavement and spoke in his quiet way. “You’re a good friend, Luciano.” His pimples glowed red.

I mumbled, “
Boh
, it’s nothing.” But we both knew that for boys like us, friendship was indeed something.

As the morning of La Sensa dawned, I was surprised to see that there was no unusual flurry in the kitchen. In fact, the pace seemed lethargic. I asked the chef when we’d begin our preparations for the feast, but he said, “Watch and learn.” He smiled and walked away.

My first taste of reality came after the ceremony in the lagoon. Our frail old doge collapsed the moment the palace doors closed behind him, and he had to be carried up to his rooms by two burly guards. The old man had fallen prostrate from exertion and heat, and his court was nowhere in sight. The chef wagged his head and said, “Every year this ridiculous thing becomes more strenuous. One of these times we’ll have another one dropping dead.”

“Another one?”

“The last doge. On his very first La Sensa—‘his day,’ as he called it—he ate too much melon while he sat bareheaded in the garden under a scorching sun. The old fellow turned red as a radish, foamed at the mouth, and died on the spot of apoplexy.” The chef shrugged. “They’re not meant to be very smart or last very long.”

But our doge was more prudent than his predecessor. He simply retired to his chambers to recover quietly from the one essential duty Venice required of him. That evening he ordered a cup of cold soup and ate it while propped against pillows in his high, canopied bed.

I was disappointed that the doge’s court would not be in attendance, but at least the Council of Ten and the senators would dine in the palace that evening, and I looked forward to my first good look at that powerful group of men. I’d seen only one of them before—Maffeo Landucci, who had the unusual habit of appearing in the kitchen unannounced.

Once, Signor Landucci had arrived while the chef was consulting with a papermaker and a calligrapher about menus for a banquet. Landucci entered the kitchen and stood just inside the service door, wrinkling his nose and dabbing his brow with a gray silk scarf. He reeked of good health and old money. While he waited for the chef, he stared at Giuseppe, who was sweeping up after breakfast, and a look passed between them, but it had no meaning; both men, after all, were something to behold, each in his own way.

The chef rose to greet him, but Landucci waved him down with his silk scarf and waited in the doorway. After the chef finished, Landucci politely introduced himself to the papermaker and asked technical questions about his process. Next he inquired into the names and locations of the best calligraphers in Venice. He listened carefully, his head cocked and a small, polite smile fixed on his face. He thanked the craftsmen and left as casually as he had arrived.

The chef was inexplicably irritated for the rest of the day. He banged around the kitchen short tempered and dissatisfied with everything and everyone. At the time I attributed his mood to having too many intruders in his kitchen. Now I know he understood Landucci’s questions only too well.

Maffeo Landucci appeared another time while the chef was chatting over a glass of wine with an antiquarian bookseller. The chef had professed an interest in a rare, hand-copied book of recipes from North Africa, said to have been collected by one of the cooks who accompanied Scipio at the defeat of Carthage. Although the originals were long lost, the bookseller thought he might know where to find one of the few copies still in existence. The men were discussing cost when Landucci appeared. Landucci introduced himself and then peppered the bookseller with questions about his sources for antiquarian books. When he left, the chef’s mood once again turned dark.

I asked Enrico about the chef’s foul moods following Landucci’s visits. Enrico, always enthralled by gossip, virtually twinkled at
the prospect of relating a succulent story. “The chef despises that man,” he said. “Haven’t you heard about Landucci and his son? I thought everyone knew.”

“I don’t.”

“Oh-ho.” Enrico rubbed his hands together. His face was brick-red from the heat of his oven, and his eyes sparkled. He said, “There were two boys, eight years old, playing at hanging, and one was accidentally killed. The dead boy was Landucci’s son.”