Scanatura

Last weekend we went out to Southampton to celebrate Mike’s birthday and I was finally able to experience the long-awaited Pasta Scanaturra.  This is an experience his first generation Italian family has been telling me about for three years.  I was excited to experience it and glad that we would also have friends to share it with.  Friends who did not really believe what we were going to be doing.  I’ll let you see why – Mike emailed this photo as the sole explanation of what dinner was going to be…

And it was that!  We arrived and were each handed a knife and sent over to the chopping block where the fresh pasta was being made.  “If you don’t help cut, you can’t eat!” we were told.  So we cut.

And we cut.

And we played.

And we ate bread.  (too much bread).

[photo not available due to its grotesque nature]

And we dined.

Sitting at one of the three homemade wooden tables, Uncle Michael came by and slopped pasta sauce right on the table.  Fresh cheese and roasted eggplant was also placed on the table.  Then, the cooked pasta was poured along the entire table.  It looked delicious, but I thought I might leave hungry.  I guessed it would be hard to make enough pasta to feed 24 people!

“Tira!” I yelled – the Italian word for “pull” – as I twisted my fork in the middle of the table, forcing as much pasta to pile up in front of me as I possibly could.  “Tira!” Everyone else yelled in unison.  We grated our cheese and started slurping our noodles.  They were delicious and slightly chewy.  The sauce, as always, tasted fresh with basil and garlic, and the Ricotta Salata was just salty enough to give the meal some bite.  As I was halfway through my pile, Uncle Michael comes back and pours a second, LARGER portion of pasta on the table.  All right! I think – guess I won’t be hungry after all!  Mike and I decide we want to make the meal special like the picture we saw.  So we dig in head first.

As we have faces full of pasta, Uncle Michael comes by a THIRD time with pasta.  Now I’m starting to think that perhaps we won’t be able to finish!  We push ourselves to eat until we get the pile down low enough to have an end in sight just as….. “No more!” we yell as a fourth pile of pasta is thrown down on our wooden tableplate.  

The Purrazzella family has done it again.  Not only do I never leave the table hungry, I am usually doubled over in pain, and this night was no exception.  As we continue eating, Mike's eyes have become large and he doesn't look like he's feeling very well.  He puts his fork down and is chewing very slowly - never a good sign for such a speed eater.  It hits us at the same time, we need to get away from the food!  We go for a walk in the yard to work off some of the meal.  Just as we finally begin to feel better and can come back to the table, we're greeted with this:

Mike's mom had made his favorite birthday cake!  Of course there was room for that!