TRAVEL

Book Vanilla Beans and Brodo
Author Isabella Dusi
Publisher Pocket Books
Reviewer Kit Heathcock

Vanilla Beans and Brodo is for anyone who has ever visited Tuscany and wished they could spend more time there in its captivating medieval hill-top towns. Isabella Dusi did just that. She left her high powered life in Australia and settled in Montalcino, a small traditional Italian community and a wine area famed for its Brunello di Montalcino. Vanilla Beans and Brodo tells the story of the village and people of Montalcino, as Isabella gradually becomes accepted as a member of the community, hears their stories and participates in their life.

She paints a lively picture of a close community cemented by traditions and festivals, that has managed to adapt to the new millenium without losing the sense of family that holds them all together. A few signore of her quartiere Pianello regularly produce meals for 100 whenever there is a celebration or a meeting to discuss important issues affecting them all. Everyone comes to give a hand and it all sounds as natural and effortless as a family lunch for six. This is the true meaning of extended family, beyond blood relations to include your neighbours and all those born within your ‘quarter’of the town. Loyalty is primarily to your quartiere :


'The citizens of Montalcino live in a tightly-knit community, with those who uphold the values and traditions of their quartiere doing so with absolute and unquestioning loyalty. Although village friendships cross quartieri boundaries, at tournament time the elders and youngsters from each quarter gather and, wearing their colours, display their quartiere loyalty even to their closest friends who may belong to opposing quarters. Husbands and wives born in opposing quartieri will not change quarter even on marriage; they remain divided by their loyalty, wearing opposing colours at the tournaments to demonstrate the extent of their unwavering commitment.'

Vanilla Beans and Brodo

Isabella takes us through the seasons, from the first bloom of green in the hidden vegetable gardens within the town wallls, to the grape harvest for the Brunello and the cold winters smelling of mist and wood smoke. Through all the annual festivals from the Sagra del Tordo with its archery contest, the culmination of months of intense training, to the Benvenuto Brunello, welcoming the new Brunello vintage.

It is the intimate glimpses into everyday life that fascinated me most however: a vignette of shopping at the butcher’s, not just the purchase of that day’s lunch but a whole social interaction; her delighful friend Maria-Pia’s impromptu expedition to pick spring flowers, culminating in a wonderful feast cooked in an old wood oven on a farm below the village. Her vivid portraits of her local friends give you the feeling of being a part of the community yourself, that you could walk into Bar Mariuccia and greet the regulars at the bar by name, ordering your coffee and a delicious snack as if you’d been doing it every day of your life.

Alongside the traditions of the archery tournament that reinforce ties to the past, she describes a very modern day enthusiam for the Montalcino football team as it makes a bid to move up the leagues, the younger generation introducing exotic foreign ingredients into the family greengrocer’s shop and using the internet to publicise their appeal for restoring the Pianello church. Above all you get a sense of continuity – the past is alive in the foundations of the town, going back more than a thousand years, it has shaped the nature of the people and the town, but it doesn’t hold them prisoner, they move forward into the future with confidence and find ways to embrace change that preserve the integrity of their lives.

If you would like to immerse yourself in Italian life for a few days, feel how it is to belong to such a close community and hear plenty of fascinating stories about its people and history, in Isabella Dusi’s vivid, conversational prose, then I highly recommend her Vanilla Beans and Brodo.

Author interview: Isabella Dusi tells us more