Tomato Rhapsody: A Fable of Love, Lust & Forbidden Fruit - Hardcover

Schell, Adam

3.83

893 ratings by Goodreads

9780385343336: Tomato Rhapsody: A Fable of Love, Lust & Forbidden Fruit

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0385343337 ISBN 13: 9780385343336

Publisher: Delacorte Press, 2009

View all copies of this ISBN edition:

A village in Tuscany is the setting for this joyous debut—a novel that defies all our expectations as it puts a fresh, clever, captivating spin on the age-old tale of forbidden love. Rich in literary delights, filled with spectacular wordplay, and rife with the bawdy humor of Shakespeare’s comedies, Tomato Rhapsody is the almost-true tale of how the tomato came to Italy—at once a brilliantly inventive fable of love, lust, and longing, and a dazzling feast for the imagination.

This is a story born from love—a forbidden love—between Davido, an Ebreo tomato farmer, and Mari, a beautiful Catholic girl....But it’s not only Davido and Mari who have secrets of the heart. Everyone around them yearns for something—from Davido’s grandfather, who tenderly cultivates the tomato plant he stole on his voyages with Columbus, to Mari’s villainous stepfather, whose eye is trained on his stepdaughter’s virginity and his neighbor’s land.

Caught in the midst of these passions and machinations is a village full of eccentrics who speak in rhyme, celebrate the Feast of the Drunken Saint, and live a life untouched by the passage of time. The schemes and dreams of these men and women are about to change as what is forbidden becomes too delicious to resist. Tradition, religion, and good taste collide unforgettably in a story about the courage to pursue love and tomato sauce at all costs.

"synopsis" may belong to another edition of this title.

About the Author:

Adam Schell holds a master’s degree in creative writing from Antioch University. He played inside linebacker at Northwestern University, has made two award-winning short films, worked as a screenwriter, directed commercials, cooked professionally, picked grapes and olives in Tuscany, got fired as a food critic, then moved to the left coast with his wife, where he works as a yoga teacher and writes.

Chapter One
In Which We Learn How an Ebreo Travels Best in Tuscany

Nonno looked east across the roll of his farm at that particular moment in a late—summer dawn when the soon—to—be—risen sun threw an expectant hue of orange and purple across the horizon. It was a beautiful sight, indeed, but the day—breaking spectrum held a bit too much uncertainty for Nonno's comfort. The old man scrunched his eyes for better focus and continued his gaze outward, searching the horizon for some small harbinger affirming that their travels today would go safely and that he was doing what was best for his grandson. Then, in the distance, it lumbered into view.
It was the obstinate old stud, the one inherited along with the farm and the one Nonno loved the most. The donkey paused along the eastern border of the land, atop a slight knoll and between a pair of ancient fig trees. This alone was a sublime image, but when the gnarled beast suddenly dropped its prodigious cazzone to dangle before the horizon, careened its head upward and let go with an impassioned bray, Nonno knew the God of Abraham would be with him and his grandson as they traveled to Florence.

The mournful cry erupted from the donkey's mouth and filled Nonno's ears as profoundly as the sounding of a shofar on Rosh Hashanah. Against the still morning it was a sound of such magnitude that it rose from the horizon like a gust of wind billowing a ship's sails and drawing all hands to deck. Songbirds quieted and competing roosters halted in mid—crow as the lonely bellow ballooned to a mass, teetered on its own enormity and began to roll across the land. The sound, robust, anxious, a touch melancholy, tumbled across the farm, hurdling row upon row of tomato plants before leaping the old farm's wall. It rambled down valley and over hill. It combed through grape vineyards and rustled about olive orchards. It rumbled up the road and breached the village walls. It echoed through narrow streets and wide piazzas. It moaned in wine barrels and whistled through empty oil jugs, moving every like creature to concur until the entire countryside rang with the chorus of a thousand lonely donkeys.

Allied with the crisp dawn air and amethyst horizon, the bray had a supernatural quality that affected and connected all of our tale's characters. To begin with, it put a smile on the face of the Good Padre as he tended the church's vegetable garden. It eased the anguish of Cosimo di Pucci de' Meducci the Third, Grand Duke of Tuscany, after an awful week in Rome. It disturbed the stomach of Chef Luigi Campoverde as he stuffed ground pork and veal into sausage casings with fennel, sage, salt and yellow raisins. It startled and annoyed Giuseppe, as did anything that seemed to emanate from a power greater than himself, while it thrilled both Benito and Bobo the Fool for the very reason it unnerved their boss. With amorous serendipity it caused our heroine, Mari, to pause while stirring a batch of her favorite olives at the very same moment our hero, Davido, paused as he loaded a basket with tomatoes.

But for Nonno, the sound of an obstinate and misunderstood beast of burden wailing against an uncaring world was a physical and aural incarnation of what it meant to be an Ebreo in a gentile world, and a tear of both sadness and joy streaked the old man's face. By ways unexpected and through loss unimaginable, Nonno had managed to relocate his family and closest of kin from the ghetto of Florence, with its vicious plagues and politics, to a safer home and farm in the country. A place, he wished, where his extended family could peaceably prosper.

Though all the children who lived on the farm called him Nonno, his one true grandchild, Davido, was soon to be married, which meant Nonno would have something real to leave him—land and a wife. Nonno hoped that under Davido's leadership the farm would blossom into a place where Ebrei from Florence, Siena, Pitigliano, even as far away as Venice and Rome could seek refuge, flee the ghettos and create a new life. Nonno understood that this late—coming dream would not reach fruition in his lifetime. He could feel his power waning. His body was still fairly limber and his mind still somewhat sharp, but he knew it was Davido's time to come to the fore and prayed daily for the strength of his grandson.

He was an odd boy, his Davido, odd in ways Nonno admired and also feared. Goodness knows, Nonno was pleased by the seriousness with which his grandson took to farming. The boy was coming into his own. A year of hard country life had toughened up his grandchild and put a bit of muscle on his skinny frame, but Nonno found the boy's devotion to the tomato a bit obsessive. He had no problem with his grandson's newfound love of the earth, but he didn't want the boy turning into one of those half—crazed farmers he knew from the markets of Florence. The kind of folk who mumble and grumble when conversing with another human, yet speak clearly and sweetly when talking to the vegetables upon their stand. Truth be told, the way Davido would talk to the tomato plants—his nose pressed closely against the leaves as if to inhale their entirety into the depth of his brain-Nonno was concerned some of this countrified madness had already beset the boy. Nothing a good wife and some children wouldn't cure, thought Nonno. God willing, their trip today would help see to that.

Il Raglio Sacro, the Holy Bray, echoed into oblivion and returned Davido's thoughts to the day at hand. Woefully, he lowered his gaze from the horizon so to look into the basket held in his hands. His eyes could not help but mist with tears—the tomatoes were that beautiful. His first true crop: lush, round, slightly ribbed, a shade of red unmatched in all of nature, with a melding of yellow as the fruit bent and crinkled toward its green stem. What a shame, he thought to himself with an earnestness more appropriate to how the old look upon the young as they're sent off to die in a pointless war. He would rather be doing anything than traveling to Florence today to visit with the girl and the family who in sixteen short days would respectively become his wife and in—laws. Davido brought his thought full circle. He had already met the girl once and the notion that fruits so glorious were bound to waste their goodness and vitality upon an ignominious cause pained his heart exquisitely.

Davido took a few steps forward and set the basket of tomatoes onto the rear of the wagon, sliding it forward so to brace it against another basket. The wagon was nearly full with a dozen similar baskets: presents for old friends and a wife—to—be in Florence. She wasn't at all like Davido's late sister—shrewd, strong—willed, adventurous, beautiful—and she was nothing near what Davido had hoped for in a spouse. On the contrary, she was shy and skinny and she reminded Davido of himself when he was about her age—a puny schoolboy of Florence holed up in the lightless Seminario di Ebrei for hours on end—and for this he could not stand being in her presence. She was a child, just fifteen or so, a good five years Davido's junior and the youngest daughter of a successful merchant more than pleased to pawn off the last of his progeny to the grandchild of a legendary Ebreo like Nonno.

Though Nonno had explained to Davido a hundred times that this was the way things were done—that family knew best, tradition dictated the way—Davido was not convinced. He was repulsed by the girl, and the fact that their Chituba1 stipulated that they would spend the first year of marriage living together in the home of her parents, in Florence, was a thought so horrible it brought bile to his throat every time he thought it, and he thought it often.

Davido turned and walked to the rear of the barn. He knelt down and took a handful of hay and set it in the bottom of another wood basket. He slid himself a bit closer to the large burlap cloth stacked with ripe tomatoes-close enough so that he could catch one more whiff of their beloved fragrance—and then, one by one, he began to gently set them into the hay—lined basket. A layer of hay, a layer of tomatoes, a layer of hay, a layer of tomatoes, two deep and well cushioned for the bumpy three—hour ride ahead. It would be a hot journey too, and though the sun had just begun to rise, Davido found himself sweating uncomfortably beneath the heavy robe he wore. With a curt sniff, he caught an anxious undertone in his sweat that always reminded him of rotting onions. Of course, a heavy wool robe worn in summer made him perspire, but it was the girl who caused his sweat to stink.

The monk's robe was a necessary burden that Nonno had thought up many years ago while hiding about the cities of Tuscany. Nonno realized then that nothing protected a traveling Ebreo like the brown robe of a mendicant monk, a heavy wood cross dangling about the chest and a few well—said phrases in Latin. Hence, whenever Davido or Nonno or any of the extended family members living on the farm traveled to Florence, Pitigliano, Livorno or any other city, they did so draped in the hefty robes of Franciscan monks and pulled along by humble donkeys.

"By and by!" Davido shouted to his grandfather to let him know the wagon was just about set. Davido spread a large burlap cloth over the back of the wagon. The tomatoes would be fine exposed to the sun, but it would be imprudent for a pair of false monks to openly travel with a cart full of Love Apples. It was unlikely that anyone they happened to cross paths with would know what a tomato was, but nonetheless, as Nonno often repeated, it was always best to keep suspicions at bay. Davido then walked into the barn to load a basket with some provisions: a loaf of bread; a hunk of cheese; a few bottles, some with water, others with wine; a handful of figs and a half dozen peaches. He and Nonno would have tonight's Sabbath meal with the family of his betrothed, spend the night with friends in...

"About this title" may belong to another edition of this title.