New Year's Day was looming and we somehow found ourselves playing hosts to around 17 full blooded southern Italian characters. I say 17, but one can never be quite sure of the exact number of guests who would turn up as we are in south Italy after all, and all that passion and fire in the blood seem to make things rather dynamic...
As opposed to Christmas Eve, New Year's Eve is traditionally an affair with the loudest of friends and instead of full service dinner, we would use plastic plates and cups. Yes, turn away now if you have the slightest snobbery to eating and drinking from plastic containers, as I do. Even so, the table was set (oh, the irony) with plastic plates (antipasti and first) and cups (one for water, the other for wine and another for champagne *horror). Of course it was not just any plastic - we actually purchased different plates for each course, different napkins to match the plates, and cups, all of which had to match the iridescent silver table cloth and centerpiece...
Dinner, quite like the silver plastic service, was also prepared pot luck style. Ladies sashayed into the house dressed to the nigh and their men trooped in after them carrying crates (literally) of food. The plastic affair does not deter the obligatory amount of food one must consume during festivities; prosecco abundance, pigs in blanket, spinach and ricotta pasty, homemade smooth hummus as creamy as a baby's bum, cheese board of Asiagos and Parmesans, savoury crepe smothered in cheese, vegetarian cous cous and parmigiana, were just the starters and first courses. In my fascination with everything plastic, it would be amiss to withhold that there were three plate changes a head (why, isn't it obvious that one simply must not eat parmigiana after eating creamy crepe as they are not the same coloured food and couscous just cannot be eaten with any sauce no matter the colour...?)....!
In a truly Italian fashion, our guests held a protest and insisted on a 20 minute food-hiatus, the time of which was filled with toasts of mutual appreciation of the ability to cook industrial portions of food and purchase equal amounts of matching wines. The main course was then presented, melting slow roast pork marinated in tahini and humble but wonderful pork crackling (http://duckandthyme.blogspot.co.uk/2015/01/the-queen-and-her-pig.html?m=1), served with oven potatoes and peppers. I'm also happy to report that we were allowed to eat all that food on a single plate!
Another food-hiatus was declared, and the table was cleared for gambling. The hiatus was shortly rescinded as clementines were presented as amuse bouchée. As gambling always does, it was soon time to countdown and have that bottle of Moët amidst a panaroma of fireworks in the horizon, a contented chaos of arms, legs and bodies, kisses and wishes. And if you thought that food consumption was over, you would be wrong as it is customary to have lentils cooked with ham-like sausages, as soon as possible after midnight as lentils represent round coins and signify wealth. And not to forget that dessert of chocolate sausages in three flavours was yet to be served. As the night of eating, quite like this post, gets long and tedious, I was chuffed with the imminent ending of the night but we are lulled into a false sense of tranquility as soon after 1a.m. the door bell starts ringing continuously and in trooped more well wishers, more gamblers, and at half past one, I lost count of both plates and people and also of consciousness. Rowdy table banging antics continued well past 4a.m., but I was as oblivious to it as a discarded plastic plate in a large black bag.
Fat lentils:
You lot sure know how to party!
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