The Telling Room: A Tale
of Love, Betrayal, Revenge, and the World’s Greatest Piece of Cheese
By Michael Paterniti
368 pages, Random
House, 2013
An entire
book, and a rather longish one at that, revolving entirely around a single cheese?
How could I resist?
The Telling Room’s author, Michael Paterniti, may have started
off writing this book as an outside observer, but the resulting book is a
deeply personal one – and good thing, too, because I believe that is what ultimately
saves the book.
Paterniti first reads about Pàramo de Guzmàn, the fabled Spanish cheese
in the title, as a college student in the early nineties. Although he cannot
afford to taste this wonder himself at the time, he is struck by the
description of the cheese’s fabrication, a painstaking process filled with care
and patience, led by a single old-fashioned cheesemaker in a tiny village in
the Spanish region of Castile .
The projected purity of the finished product makes a lasting impression on the
author.
Decades later, Paterniti finds himself tracking down this cheesemaker, Ambrosio Molinos, travelling all the way to Guzmàn (the village the cheese is named for) to meet with him and hear his story. Ambrosio, who is by then no longer involved in the cheesemaking business, reveals himself to be a boisterous, theatrical character, a born storyteller who so impresses Paterniti that the latter returns to Castile several times over the following decade, even moving to Guzmàn for a year with his young family.
Ambrosio is
described as a force of nature, strong in both body and spirit. He could also
act as spokesperson for the slow food movement. He continually advocates eating
real, local food, food that has been prepared with care by people who have a
personal investment in its quality. He is part of a vanishing culture that is a
large part of the reason the author falls in love with Castile and
Guzmàn: a culture of tradition, of simplicity, of taking one’s time.
Had The Telling Room been solely an ode to
Ambrosio and his cheese, I really believe I would have disliked it. But perhaps
that has more to do with my character than with the book itself. I am, no
matter how you look at it, an irretrievable urbanite. I can appreciate the
beauty of the mountains and the calm of the desert – but I don’t necessarily
want to live there. I am, overall, an introvert who stays in a lot, but I do like
the options the city offers, the buzzing activity of the crowd outside my
window. So an entire book praising the simple life should not be my cup
of tea. I’m also, frankly, pretty uptight. Constant theatrics and expansive
diatribes such as those attributed to Ambrosio would wear me out in less than a
day.
As a result,
when Paterniti’s account of Ambrosio’s story, of how he started manufacturing
Pàramo de Guzmàn as a homage to his father, how he nurtured the enterprise into
a flourishing success, and how it all fell apart, appeared to be complete less
than halfway through the book, I was both intrigued and afraid. How would the
author fill the second half? What was the rest of the book going to be like?
Was it all going to be pages and pages of the author gushing about the lost
world of Guzmàn and mooning over Ambrosio’s lessons in the throes of his
self-avowed man-crush?
Thankfully,
no. Instead, the rest of the book explores the evolution of Paterniti’s
friendship with Ambrosio, and his gradual realization that perhaps he has been
blinded (or, as his wife puts it, emasculated) by his admiration of the former
cheesemaker and the vision of Castile
he represents. When he starts asking the right questions to the right people,
Ambrosio’s tale of his cheese’s downfall, brought about, so he claims, by the
betrayal of someone close to him, begins to appear, at the very least,
exaggerated. Almost in parallel, the author realizes that his romanticized vision
of Guzmàn is for him a welcome escape from his own reality. And so it is that The Telling Room, a book named after the
room above the cellar where Castilians traditionally tell stories, unexpectedly
becomes a complex reflection about myth, truth, culture, and storytelling. What
is touching and quite admirable is that Paterniti manages to get through this
reflection without losing any of his affection or admiration for Ambrosio.
Another
reason this book manages to reach a surprising length given its extremely
specific topic is that the author transmits cartloads of information about Castile , and
other tidbits and anecdotes, in large part through massive footnotes. The
footnotes can become a little exasperating, especially since I would have been
more than happy to read most of this information woven into the narrative
itself; but having to constantly jump from one section to another (I cannot
leave a footnote unread) left me feeling scattered and ragged. Paterniti unabashedly
pushes this tactic to the max in one infamous instance where he puts multiple
footnotes into a footnote, then proceeds to adding other footnotes into those
latter footnotes. At that point, you can either close the book, or, as I did,
laugh at the absurdity and clear self-derision and just accept that this is the
way the writer has decided to tell this story: rather like Ambrosio spins his
tales, with multiple digressions and insertions.
In the end,
I enjoyed my time in Guzmàn, as well as Paterniti’s sensitivity and research. The Telling Room is clearly a labour of
love, and it presents itself as such. The love, it turns out, is contagious.
I hesitated
as to what kind of food to prepare for this review. Something Spanish? Chorizo
is often mentioned in the book, but it is, of course, homemade chorizo, which
was not something I felt equipped to make. I seriously considered making my own
cheese, as friends of mine have successfully done, but chickened out in the
end, daunted by an irrational fear of rennet and the lack of space in my
kitchen.
In the end,
I singled out this passage in the book:
[Ambrosio] pointed to the almonds on the table before us.
“These are almonds that are from the field here,” he said. “My father took the
time with a hammer to deshell them, and later my mother preserved them by
submerging them in salt water. Then, in an old pot, she heated a few drops of
olive oil, added the almonds, and stirred with a spoon for a couple of hours –
and this is the result.”
He handed me one. I slid it between my teeth, salt
sprinkling my lip, the hard hull poised, then cracked by molars. Its flesh –
the nut itself – was soft and gave, and the wood and mineral was instantly
transformed into something very sweet, spreading to the far reaches of my mouth.
“Mmmm,” I mumbled.
[…]
“But for me, it’s not special or unusual,” said Ambrosio.
“The biggest satisfaction is to offer a wine from these fields or a little
piece of cheese or some of these almonds from my mother. It’s another concept
of life. It’s another way to plant your existence on this earth.” He pointed to
the jar of almonds on the table. “That’s about six hours of work right there.”
“Six hours in that jar,” I said.
“Six hours by our hands,” said Ambrosio. “It sounds like a
lot if you’re rushing, but in the context of life here, it’s nothing.”
Did I spend
six hours preparing almonds? Hell, no. For one thing, finding almonds with the
shell still on was impossible. But the idea that it is sometimes worth taking
the time to do things slowly and properly is one I can, and do, get behind.
Many of my favourite foods are slow in the making, like homemade bread and stews.
I don’t have time to make them as often as I used to, but when I do, I do them
right. So I tried to do these almonds right.
In the absence
of a recipe, I had to do some guesswork. For instance, I was unclear as to
whether the almonds described in the passage were peeled or not. I tried with
both, and skinless blanched almonds were definitely better, as the salt infused
them more thoroughly. I cooked them in a crock pot, over very low heat, for
about an hour and a half, at which point they began to colour and I thought it
best to stop.
The result
didn’t really resemble the author’s description. There was no crunchy exterior,
no hidden soft sweetness – just really good almonds, their woodsy flavour
enhanced by the heat, salty throughout, with a hint of olive oil. Dead simple,
and completely worth the time.
Salted almonds
Yields 2
cups
2 1/2 cups
(625 ml) water
2 tbsp salt
2 cups (500 ml)
blanched unsalted almonds
1 tbsp olive
oil
In a medium
glass or ceramic bowl, combine the water and salt, and stir to dissolve. Add
the almonds (if necessary, add water to cover). Soak at room temperature for at
least 24 hours.
Drain the
almonds and pat dry. Heat a heavy-bottomed pot over very low heat and add the
olive oil. Cook the almonds, stirring occasionally, until they are golden
brown. Store almonds in an airtight container at room temperature.
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