The training activity was very intense but in spite of this reaching the 150 days of sleeping bag in the solar year (a bureaucratic discriminator invented to distinguish those entitled to the operating allowance from others) was not so easy: the Campi d 'Weapon.
It was a matter of spending 2 or 3 weeks in a location suitable for the program to be carried out, usually a polygon, camped in a stable and comfortable way (for the possible) where you can carry out intensive training of infantry and specialties, irradiation marches, mountaineering or other activities without the overweight of the barracks routine; if the period was winter, leaning on one of the bases here and there present then along the Alpine arc and develop the survival skills in the igloos, in the foxes or in the fox holes.
Mass skiing courses could be conducted to improve the ability to move on snow-covered terrain or to improve troop training in a particularly rigid environment or specific preparation for Ca.STA. - the alpine troops' ski championships - to which everyone, and I mean everyone, had to participate individually or in command of a platoon.
It was precisely during one of these Fields of Arms at the Bridge of Braies (BZ) that the facts were vividly remembered by these lines.
The sun of a midday end of August beat relentlessly on the tents of the camp and on the white stones of the river that collected the rivulets from the Croda del Becco on one side and Prato Piazza on the other, through the valley of Braies brings its waters in torrent Rienza and then down down to meet the Isarco at Fortezza, near Bressanone.
An idyllic place for the Dolomites as always, for example, for the Kaiser Franz Joseph who, protected by a Kaiserjager regiment stationed in Innichen (now San Candido), had a hunting lodge built nearby , in Ferrara di Braies, today transformed into a splendid resort for lovers of silence and tranquility.
The alpini family, after the activity of the antimeridiana, waited for the distribution of the ration when the silence was broken by the noise of a big off-road vehicle bearing the name of Naples .. loaded with tourists coming from the hotel of Ferrara di Braies at the beginning of his reputation.
These two families were on holiday: husbands, wives and some children, all crammed into a large Range Rover that alone, indicated that they were well-to-do or high-level people, in the vain search for a picnic place.
The column stopped them at the entrance of the camp, begging them not to insist: the passage was forbidden.
Interded by whom?
said the driver (later recognized for a mathematics professor of the Neapolitan University)
Nui simme tourists and vulimme makes u pike-niches
continued a middle-aged lady who was very make-up and jeweled as if she were going to La Scala.
Wait, I ask the Captain what can be done
the column answered.
So it was that I found them all in front of the tent because, having got out of the car, they had followed the poor alpine, regardless of his protests.
Gentlemen but you can not ... wait ... gentlemen please ... enter a military camp is forbidden ... they will punish me ..
No, no they will not punish you - said the second man, also a professor of physics, of the same University and brother-in-law of the first - I speak with the Captain, I did the corporal at the 59 ° infantry regiment "Naples" and now I'll tell him !!
No, no !! - retorted the alpine - otherwise he punishes me twice; one because I made you pass and the second because I did enter an infantry '' buffa '' !!!
Now they were all there in front of me, the stuttering column:
Mr. Captain, I did not want to but these gentlemen would want ...
The second lady in a rush of courage and precarious balance on the heels of a pair of good shoes just for a walk in Piazza del Plebiscito ..
Mr. Captain, we just wanted to have a picnic by the river, you know it's such a beautiful day ...
I did not know whether to laugh or be serious, I instinctively chose, by education, this second solution.
Gentlemen, I would like to point out that clothes like this do not go anywhere, you risk hurting yourself only to walk on the riverbed; you are not the first to be rescued because they imprudently face the mountain lightly.
My tone was firm and intransigent enough for the party to give a farewell greeting.
Getting there ... too bad we wanted so much to eat in the open air ... in Naples smog haunts us, then my wife had brought home a nice meal for the occasion.
the math professor emphasized.
I've always been a sweet tooth and the word "pastiera" had an almost muscle relaxant effect on me.
Wait - I said - if you like, I can invite you here under the tent; we are satisfied with what is there ... but it is almost a picnic, then maybe we eat the pastiera ...
A chorus of '' yes, yes, yes '' greeted my words and so we found ourselves around the table in the canteen in perfect joy.
The menu was the usual: pasta with sauce, steak and aubergine as a side dish that the cook, in a rush of generosity, had done "alla parmigiana" (or so he said he did not understand).
No, it's not a typographical error; he did not really understand it because he was a cook or presumed, in company I did not have any, and Stefano, the senior sergeant commander of the platoon command, had made the best choice by choosing a mechanic whose mother was a cook in a Trentino hotel.
To his complaints the answer was: '' The field oil-based kitchen needs a mechanic to work and you are a mechanic; when the kitchen works well, you do as you heard the mother say: heat the water, put the salt, throw the pasta and you're done. For the rest, tomorrow I will send you to the kitchen for an accelerated two-day course and then we will leave ".
And so it was. The rigatoni arrived steaming on the table, for the ladies, while, the husbands, the sons and I, we lined up as usual among the Alpini, last, then we sat down. The pasta was good but not excellent; I said nothing as I poured into the little turks the black wine of the company that provided the Army of a dark beverone, always the same for years but to which the label changed quarterly with absurd names that did not betray the chemical origin of the product (that day I served "Lambrusco del Trentino" I remember it very well).
The ladies, to whom the sparkling air of the valley had certainly whetted the appetite, rushed on the rigatoni and to my surprise they began a long sequence of praises on the quality and the perfect cooking of the "maccaruni" but, above all, on the delicacy of the sauce for them of absolutely superior level for taste and flavor, excellent scent certainly worthy of a chef of Italian cuisine; certainly better than that of the hotel; so good that "not even my mother does it accussì '' - said the first - '' No! Peppino or 'pastaro down in Posillipo' also added goodbye, as he added the second, carefully cleaning the plate of the encore with the breadcrumbs.
The praises continued even when the aubergines arrived: '' sublime '' for the taste of my guests. I was thinking of my pseudo cook, behind the curtains, grappling with the field kitchen.
Commander - said the ladies - you must give us the recipe, but above all, we want to talk to the chef to know the secret of this absolutely delicious flavor of the sauce and parmigiana; an unrepeatable touch of great cuisine.
My concern increased; I hesitated a little but the two ladies added the insistence of their husbands involved in spite of themselves in the diatribe.
On Gennarì, tell him too to the Captain that vulimme speaks or 'chef
said the super make-up.
Uò, Totò explain it to the Captain who then at Napule facimme a great figure with the pasta of the Alpini
the second one was always in precarious balance on the heels.
I yielded to the insistence looking at the faces of the two husbands, from which a silent request for pity and help appeared, a sort of mutual aid among males so that the torture might end.
Come, "I said," but get ready for any surprise; you are ready?
Yes, yes, yes - the gentleman exclaimed happily animated by renewed culinary ardor - Let's go to the cook and return to our friends in Naples with an unbeatable secret. True Captain that the chef tells us the secret?
Well ... we'll see, I think so, I think I know the secret that pasta I eat for weeks!
We had reached the field kitchen placed under a tarpaulin, behind an ACM 52 the standard medium, for over twenty years, of the alpine logistic activities. The scene is fully understandable only by those who soldier in those years.
Next to the field greased and greased by the diesel fuel badly held back by the increasingly old and inefficient gaskets, a boy with blue mechanic overalls (because this was) highlighted his '' valence '' as a cook through numerous '' decorations '' of sauce on an apron, once white, but now - used too often as a clean-dry-hands - had lost all its candor in favor of a reddish gray that tasted of San Marzano tomato paste, cooking oil, nut from broth and, not to miss anything, even diesel (omnipresent element around the field kitchens until the advent of gas burners and electric start currently in use). At the head of the Norwegian cap - or "stupid" for insiders - had lost, on the front, the olive color and the eagle was confused with the black coming from the soot that the fireplace emanated copiously.
Farther along the river, some Alpine men evidently in punishment, were already washing the pots passing the sand of the stream on the bottom; excellent detergent in the absence of the most titled dishwashing detergents that were supplied with the dropper and used only for special occasions.
Here sir. - I said - If you want to take notes, this is the right moment; I will give you the recipe of the '' alpine '' pasta that you liked so much. Take a rather large aluminum pot, it does not matter if you clean it well enough to rinse it, so it remains a little bit of fat the day before it does not hurt.
The ladies and husbands looked at me perplexed; '' maybe it's a joke '' was read in their eyes ...
Then - I continued - Put the water to boil, that of the river, but that of the tap in Naples is fine too .... Separately, with oil and garlic, in a pan fry carrots, celery and onions in random quantities, as it is, or how much there is at home ...... I recommend nothing from the refrigerator: it is good that the vegetables are wilted on lorry box or under the tent and old of 2 or 3 days (the frequency of supplies from the battalion); for you, just keep them on the balcony of the house, so they are well '' collapsed '' as the ground meat that you add when you feel a little 'smell of burning .... Do not worry, the onions are the first to give signs of cooking ...
The would-be cooks were already dazed: the semi-open mouth emitted small sounds that were only comprehensible to the husbands who, hugging them on their shoulders, consoled them:
Dai Ninuccia, the Captain jokes, true captain?
Never been more serious in my life - I replied - you asked for the recipe and I'll give you the recipe; including the secrets of cooking that we will see later - and I continued.
Sfumate all with wine, but not good wine, buy it at the supermarket, what is cheaper and made with powder, you see how it fades immediately is all alcohol ... Well throw 2 or 3 boxes of peeled and squeezed preservation tube, left go the sauce mixing it with a sprig of something, choose it at home between the rosemary or the unblessed olive tree the year before. In our case, as you can see, the cook chose for convenience, since it grows next to the tent, a branch of willow but all is well, believe, even a nice kitchen spoon but here it is not: it remained in the barracks or he got lost in the river; but trust me, with the boiling, everything always releases a good taste.
The ladies were sitting on the stones without words: they made air with two fans, provident purchase perhaps of their last holiday in Spain. The physics professor, more at ease with the experiments, tried to console them by remembering how everything that boils or in any case exceeds the 80 degrees, can be considered sterilized and therefore edible: professor's word! The gastric lavage was therefore averted. The reinforcement math professor emphasized:
Carmelina, but look at these alpini as they are beautiful, rosy and perky; if they ate badly ......
Attention >> - I said with a stentorian voice - So far nothing strange, now I will reveal the two secrets that make our pasta the best pasta in the world.
I had caught their attention and this was enough for me.
As our ladies know very well the sauce deserves some more flavor and the laurel is his death. But the laurel never give it to us so, in the morning, we send a pillar to the first village near the camp. Meta: the monument to the fallen. All countries have a memorial to the Fallen and beneath to fade in the sun there is always a beautiful crown of tacit laurel teaches of the last ceremony. Well here is the laurel mine for our kitchen: a sprig every morning and you're done! This is the first secret.
Never silence was more grave than significant.
But now comes the beautiful lords and ladies; the second and last secret concerns that '' tasty '' between sweet and bitterish, between salty and spicy, that indecipherable I do not know that makes our pasta the best in the world, as the ladies have got to taste. Well, our hidden and exclusive spice, here it is - and pointed to the pot full of water with which you had to make the soup in the evening.
See, look closely at what floats on the water! Those black dots here and there, a little iridescent; that's our real secret. As you may have seen, none of our pots has the lid, trouble to put the lid the flavor would be different - equal to all the others - but without lid ... - and I pointed to the chimney of the field that emanated a thick black smoke full of smoke that, out of the tube, it was deposited in the pots ... - over the sauce, in the water of the soup and tonight also in the minestrone and on the steaks. The quartet Neapolitan looked at the mechanic-cook clinging to the kitchen that was throwing in the warm water the vegetables for the soup, stirring them with a big barked branch, the eyes wide open, the breath suspended, the throat burnt ..
Captain ... but captain, it can not be true what he says !!
At that precise moment a gust of wind made "the stupid" greasy of the cook fall into the water of the minestrone and he, undaunted, picked it up, squeezed it on the pot, put it on its head and went on pouring into the "preparation" 'a big handful of salt.
All true, all true. If you do not believe it, come tonight to the 18.00 and you'll hear soup: to raise the dead, "I said." Let's go, maybe a little coffee is ready, maybe right.
At this point the ladies with a flicker of pride said in unison
U cafe no, u cafè the facimme nuialtre that tenimme the mocha and the mixture brought by Napule
And they made coffee: the best coffee in my life; I still remember it, as I remember with pleasure all their subsequent visits to the camp. They bought the aubergines at the market and presented themselves in the morning by the planting, delivering the vegetable box.
Tell the captain that we are here today and I recommend the parmigiana for all and double ration of pasta !!!
(Short story, kindly granted by the author, taken from the book "49 shades in grigioverde" published by Aviani & Aviani)
