Laughs and Bitters

 When I wrote recently about James Hamilton-Paterson's Gerontius, I mentioned that I was 'strongly tempted' by another novel of his with the intriguing title Cooking with Fernet Branca. Well, I yielded to that temptation, bought it (for a song), and I'm happy to report that it's one of the funniest comic novels I've read in recent years. It might even be, almost, what one excited reviewer called it: 'A work of comic genius.' I have certainly been laughing immoderately every couple of pages at least – a positively Wodehousean hit rate, though there's nothing of P.G. about the book. Published in 2004 and described as 'a gleefully tasteless bad dream of modern Italy', it's told through the eyes of Gerald Samper, a snobbish, somewhat effete, thoroughly absurd Englishman in Tuscany, who makes his living reluctantly ghost-writing celebrity memoirs, and has a penchant for cooking pretentiously disgusting food, passing on recipes for such delights as otter in lobster sauce and rabbit in cep custard. (He is rather reminiscent of Damien Trench, Miles Jupp's creation, in the radio series, In and Out of the Kitchen, though Trench's recipes are nothing like so outlandish.)
   Arriving at his new house in the Tuscan hills, Samper is appalled to find that he has a neighbour (albeit at some distance), Marta, whom he instantly mistakes for a half-mad, sex-hungry eastern European peasant woman, though she is in fact a Voynovian aristocrat who writes film music: Samper not only lacks self-awareness but basic awareness of, or interest in, other people. The narrative unfolds through two parallel accounts of events – Samper's often delusional version and Marta's more grounded account of dealing with her tiresome neighbour, whose antics provide her with plentiful entertainment. And what of the Fernet Branca of the title? The notoriously challenging drink is omnipresent, to the point where Samper and Marta each believe the other to be hopelessly addicted to the stuff, though in fact Marta, who has an unwanted box of it, is plying Samper with Fernet to get rid of it. It crops up also in Samper's recipes, one of which is for garlic and Fernet Branca ice cream. Yum.
  Fernet-Branca is an old-fashioned Italian amaro (bitters), a class of drinks of which I am very fond. It's made, of course, to a secret recipe, involving some 27 ingredients, and is very strong (39 per cent alcohol) and very bitter, with a sharp medicinal tang to it – just my kind of drink in fact, but somehow I'd never got round to trying it. Until last night, when, inspired by Cooking with Fernet Branca, I poured myself a glass, over ice, as a digestif. What can I say? It did not disappoint – it was the ultimate bitter bitters, with an almost eye-watering impact, but, once I'd got used to it, I became aware of subtle and intriguing undertones. I look forward to sampling it again – perhaps in the form of a Hanky Panky cocktail (gin, sweet vermouth and Fernet), created by Ada Coleman, head barman of the Savoy's American Bar back in the day, for the actor Charles Hawtrey (no relation to the Carry On actor who stole his name). On first knocking one back, Hawtrey declared, 'By Jove! That is the real hanky panky!'. Many other cocktails feature Fernet-Branca, and it is apparently the favourite tipple of the fraternity of barmen, hence its nickname, the 'barman's handshake'. In Argentina, where most of the stuff is sold, it is drunk with Coca-Cola – I don't think I'll be trying that...
  Anyway, I am grateful to James Hamilton-Paterson for not only providing me with excellent reading material but sending me off to listen properly to The Dream of Gerontius, and inspiring me to finally buy a bottle of the ultimate bitters.