Zaftig I

My mother said the word zaftig means “fat,” with all the judgment associated with that word. I believed her. But yesterday, I looked it up. Zaftig doesn’t mean “fat,” with a sneer, a turned-down mouth, and a shadow of disgust. A sheen of sour.

According to Merriam-Webster: “It comes from [the] Yiddish zaftik, which means ‘juicy’ or ‘succulent’....”*

Juicy or succulent, that is something very different from plain old fat. It’s delicious, a Creamsicle melting in the sun, a ripe peach, a fig full of purple, a sweet plump burst of joy.

Succulent. Ripe. Juicy. Delicious.

That’s more like it. That’s me.

*Publisher’s Note:

From Merriam-Webster’s online dictionary (link retrieved on 27 July 2023):
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/zaftig

 

 

Zaftig II

At Cretaiole, the Italian Agriturismo where Steve and I stayed several times over the past ten years, every Thursday was a Pici Party!

Pici is the local pasta of the Val D’Orcia region where Cretaiole is located, and every Thursday, all the guests gathered in the glassed-in craft space for a pici-making class.

Heavy wood tables were spaced throughout the room, and loaded with flour, water, and fresh eggs. The flour was mounded, then scooped in the middle, creating a basin with flour hills surrounding it.

Isa, one of the owners of Cretaiole, showed us all how to add the warm water and eggs to the center of the mound, and slowly incorporate the flour into the well, mixing everything together to make a dough. She demonstrated a secret method of kneading it, with the heel of the hand, and many rotations that I can’t remember, but after a while the dough was soft but not sticky. Then we rolled it out, cut it into strips, and rolled these strips along the worn wood, back and forth under our palms. Isa made it look easy, rolling the dough quickly back and forth into perfect, even, thick strings, pasta worms that wriggled and snaked along the tables. Mine looked like wobbled, fat fingers, with thin strands trailing behind them; worms dragging spider webs.

Every guest’s pici looked different, and all the piles of pasta-Medusa-hair were spread out onto baking sheets, and swaddled in cornmeal to keep them from sticking together in a lumpy log. Then, after boiling them in a massive pot, Isa mixed the noodles into the Bolognese sauce that she had been cooking all day.

While the pasta simmered the sun retreated, the stray cats ran near our feet, and Carlo, Isa’s husband, lit the black BBQ, piled with wood and large stems of fresh rosemary, which smudged their sharp, smoky fragrance into the air. When the grill was hot enough, he set pork sausages on top, where they danced and sizzled, wafting clouds of the most delicious smell into the rosemary smoke all around.

While the sausages cooked, Carlo grilled large rounds of homemade bread, which he rubbed with whole garlic-cloves, Cretaiole’s homemade olive oil, and salt. We ate these appetizers one after another, mouthfuls of crisp bounty, alongside glasses of Cretaiole red wine made from the farm’s own grapes.

When the food was ready, we pushed the tables together to make one long U-shape, with benches on both sides. Everyone who was staying at Cretaiole brought something: vegetables, salads, desserts. Sausages were served with white beans, plates mountained with pici and sauce. There was no such thing as half-portions; no restrictions; no gluten-free, keto, calorie-counting, horse-turds allowed. There were only food and laughter, and the feral cats lurking.

At dessert time, guests brought in more offerings. One of the favorites: a boxed panna cotta from the local grocery store. Easily made on the stovetop, settled in the fridge, dribbled with a stirred-together dark berry coulis. It was sweet, smooth, luscious gratitude. From a grocery-store box. Only in Italy, where even the instant desserts are a prize.

Isa’s father-in-law, Luciano, sat next to me, spooned more food onto my plate. Poured more garnet wine into my plastic cup. This was Steve’s and my third visit to Cretaiole, and every visit I was larger than the last. I had been creeping in corners, afraid of being seen, hiding in baggy pants and shirts, terrified of being bigger than everyone else, always the largest: a huge, gray trunk in a room full of fanny packs. I was different than I used to be. Twice the body, half the reward.

“Sei una grande donna,” Luciano said, looking at me. I feared hearing these words from everyone who saw me. “You are a big woman.” But he said it with no sour cherries, no vinegar wine in his voice. He said it with simple relish, gentle admiration, eyes that invited dancing and celebration. His eyes saw in me a juicy fig, a luscious grape, harboring hidden sweetness, able to make the most bodacious wines. I was a full plate of pici, a whole wheel of pecorino, a bounty of discovery, bursting with multitudes of delight.

I was a big woman, I was grande. There was nothing about me Luciano would change. He wouldn’t exchange my fullness for a dry breadstick that sticks in the throat, and chokes the life out of a juicy, sizzling sausage on a hot grill. I was ripe perfection, picked with relish. “Sei una grande donna,” he said again, raising a glass of sunset wine toward my joyful, glowing face.

“Yes,” I agreed, “I am.”

Jocelyn Rose

received her Master of Arts degree in educational theater from New York University. Her script “Maze” reached the Quarter Finals of the Academy Nicholl Fellowship for Screenwriting in 2007. She was an actor and theater teacher for 20 years in Los Angeles, New York, Chicago, Charlotte, and San Francisco. Jocelyn’s love for cats and dogs led her to create Boo Boo’s Best, a successful treat company that she sold in 2022. Her writing is published in Steam Ticket and MacQueen’s Quinterly.