Warm Memories

 

As I sit here in the majesty of the pines – with birds chirping, listening to inspiring music of my choosing, sipping my third caffelatte, my palate and taste buds shoot me back in time, and I cannot ever remember not having coffee, or ever being too young to ingest it.

It is who I am – what defines me, in part – my Italian identity, as it were. As a child the caffelatte was a daily custom; a mixture of coffee, warm milk, and sugar, served by both my parents, along with a prodigious meal of pancakes laced in chocolate created by my mother. On other days, my father would dole it out to my brother and I, after he returned from his early morning rising at 5:00 to undertake his janitorial jobs. In he would walk with that big smile and jubilant nature as we were glued to the antics of Captain Kangaroo and Mr. Greenjeans. He would quickly prepare this wonderfully comforting caffeinated elixir, and lumber over to us with 2 steaming mugs of caffelatte. I was a nervous, anxious type – still experiencing the clash of the two cultures – the two countries- Italy, my birthplace, and all that was familiar, and America, still so very foreign and scary, but the caffelatte and all that it represented calmed me, along with the unconditional love of a most wonderful and brave father.

Caffelatte was also put in my thermos as part of my school lunches, along with a delicious chocolate sandwich, composed of two pieces of white bread between which chocolate pudding was inserted – all very commonplace to me- but not to those students sitting near me. It was a quite a feat to cower at the end of the picnic table, where I would hide my sandwich as I snuck a tasty bite, quickly unscrewing the top of the thermos to take a very fast swig of coffee, often scalding my tongue, as I rushed to put the top back on, so as not to permeate the area with the aroma of coffee, and the uncomfortable stares from those nearest me. Whew!!

The other variation is of course just a simple latte caldo – never ever freddo or cold, as my mother thought this was bad for us. Latte caldo to me is all about love, caring, family, peace, and recuperation. It was served with sugar, and at times, honey, at any hour, but especially during any and all illnesses.

I was most pleased with my inadvertent discovery of “latte corretto,” literally translated as “corrected milk.” While going to school in Padova, Italy, as a junior in college, I came down with a bad case of the sniffles, but not wanting to be indoors any longer, I bundled up in my heavy loden haired coat, and ventured out to my favorite café where I ordered a latte caldo. The barrista, having noted how sick I was by the endless sneezing and blowing of my nose, shook his finger at me, and said, “latte corretto.” I shrugged my shoulders not understanding what he meant. He motioned me to wait as he steamed a frothy glass of milk and added a shot (or two) of brandy. My eyes widened as he very gently, with the kindest eyes and smile, pushed it towards me. As I sipped this amazing potion, I warmed up quickly; my throat was soothed, and my sneezing stopped. I was forced to remove my winter outer wear, ordered another one, sat down, and read. To this day, if I get a cold, I go directly to “correcting” my latte caldo. It is a very distinct and wonderful memory that always makes me smile.

Sweet, warm milk is indeed my go to when I can’t sleep, as when I was recovering from knee surgery, and would awaken in the middle of the night to a painfully throbbing knee. Off to the kitchen I would go, and with the milk in hand, I would sit on the kitchen nook breakfast table and swing my leg, as instructed by the physical therapist. The power of the swing and the milk allowed me to return to bed and sleep.

My relationship with caffelatte and sweet, warm, frothy milk connects me to my life, instantaneously releasing a myriad of wonderful memories and sensations, and is explained very clearly in a novel I read in college by Marcel Proust, In Search of Lost Time. He differentiates between voluntary and involuntary memory, voluntary being something you try to remember using your knowledge of the world – your intelligence, and involuntary is reliant on your senses, and in the case of the “Petite Madeleine;” taste.

“No sooner had the warm liquid mixed with the crumbs touched my palate than a shudder ran through me and I stopped, intent upon the extraordinary thing that was happening to me. An exquisite pleasure had invaded my senses, something isolated, detached, with no suggestion of its origin. And at once the vicissitudes of life had become indifferent to me, its disasters innocuous, its brevity illusory – this new sensation having had on me the effect which love has of filling me with a precious essence; or rather this essence was not in me it was me. … Whence did it come? What did it mean? How could I seize and apprehend it? … And suddenly the memory revealed itself. The taste was that of the little piece of madeleine which on Sunday mornings at Combray (because on those mornings I did not go out before mass), when I went to say good morning to her in her bedroom, my aunt Léonie used to give me, dipping it first in her own cup of tea or tisane. The sight of the little madeleine had recalled nothing to my mind before I tasted it. And all from my cup of tea.”

—Marcel Proust, In Search of Lost Time

 

Memory is a funny thing, and it does wane as we get older and accumulate  an abundance of experiences, with details becoming fuzzy or simply no longer existing. This isn’t always the case with the involuntary – those memories hardwired to one of our senses. If we stay with these, parts of our lives are revealed, relived, and deliciously re-savored.