Like a flame my knee is burning, may my song arise to you... (*)
Brace yourselves, the 2025 Jubilee is coming!
(*) lyrics loosely based on the official hymn for the 2025 Jubilee…
My knee is still misbehaving, and that’s pretty annoying because I feel like I’m trapped at home. Sometimes I drag myself to the supermarket across the street, and when I get back home with groceries I feel so exhausted I’d bury myself under the duvet — only it’s not “duvet time” as of yet, so I don’t really bury myself under anything, opting for sipping herbal tea instead.
There are a million things I should be doing before it’s too late, and no, I’m not mulling over the brevity of life, I’m referring to the 2025 Jubilee.
It's there, looming over us all: il Giubileo, aka ER GIUBBBILÈO, as we say in Rome, making sure you're aware there's a “b” in there, did you notice that? We've tripled it for you, because why not?
Every twenty-five years, as you do, the Catholic Church celebrates an ordinary jubilee, which is nothing “ordinary” at all.
I don't remember the 1975 one, as I was barely a chubby toddler who couldn’t walk (a bit like today, except I’m not a toddler anymore. Still chubby, though.), but the 2000 one… it was utter madness.
It was two popes ago (yes, we sometimes count time in papacies rather than decades…): John Paul II was in charge, and he was already ailing.
Just because an ordinary jubilee wasn’t enough, His Holiness (that’s how according to ceremonial rules you’re supposed to address the pope, “Sua Santità” — btw, have I already mentioned here that I’m also a certified expert in national, international, Vatican, public and private protocol? Well, I am. No, I mean seriously.) decided there should’ve been several themed sub-jubilees, so to speak, so we have the jubilee of the sick, the jubilee of the youth, the jubilee of the elderly, the jubilee of the artists, the jubilee of scientists, the jubilee of the police (yes, for real, there’s going to be one during the forthcoming jubilee as well), the jubilee of you-name-it and I’m pretty sure there’s a jubilee for that, too.
At the end of the year an estimated 24.5 to 32 million pilgrims had come and gone, of which 8,515,088 had participated to events hosted by the pope himself. And these were just the numbers for Rome.
In a society ruled by consumerism like ours, one should be happy of such an amount of people travelling, visiting, spending their money here. In my own view, though, this is going to be a nightmare.
There are at least 98421753 ongoing roadworks scattered across the city, each and every one of them claiming to be an “infrastructure amelioration in view of the Jubilee” — which, in case you’re wondering, will begin on Christmas Eve…
That’s in three months time, and everyone is rushing to try and be ready for that (including people fleeing to second homes in order to rent out to pilgrims, at outrageous rates, their places in town…).
Rome wasn’t built in a day, they say, but I’m afraid three months won’t suffice to fix it, either — though I would be happy to be contradicted.
After all, this Jubilee’s motto, revealed by pope Francis in the bull of indiction of the event, is SPES NON CONFUNDIT (“Hope does not disappoint” — Romans 5:5), so let’s wait and see what happens…
And now, for the recipe that everyone seems to expect from this newsletter for the mere fact it's called puntarelle, even though I often repeat this is not a foodie newsletter…
When the stars make you drool just like pasta e fasùl’, that's…
…well, that's indeed pasta e fasùl'.
And here's the recipe of pasta e fagioli (that's the actual Italian name of the dish, as “pasta e fasùl’” is Neapolitan dialect…), i.e. pasta and beans (literally), as my Dad used to prepare it.
PASTA E FAGIOLI COME LA FACEVA PAPÀ
Ingredients for 4 servings:
• 300 grams of mixed pasta (most pasta brands sell "mixed pasta", if you can't find it you can assemble your own mix of different shapes of pasta, just make sure they all have the same cooking time) • 400 grams of either cannellini or borlotti beans (cooked/canned — you could also use dried beans, but then you would have to let them soak overnight and to cook them beforehand... just use the canned ones, sient' ammé.) • 4 tablespoons of EVO oil • 1 large onion, chopped • 1 carrot, halved lengthwise • 1 celery stick • 2 or 3 chopped tomatoes (or a couple of spurts of tomato paste) • 1 1/2 litre of vegetable stock (I'm sorry, I don't know how much that is in gallons, cups, tablespoons, flowerpots or whatever it is you use to measure liquid, please ask Google!) • salt, to taste
In a pot, cook chopped onion, celery and carrot in olive oil — *not* like soffritto, mind you, they’re supposed to become tender, so you might want to add a ladleful of water to prevent them to become deep-fried. Add the chopped tomatoes (or the tomato paste, whichever you have), let cook for a minute, then pour the drained beans in the pot, too.
Let cook for a couple more minutes, then add the vegetable stock, and let simmer for 10 minutes.
As the bean soup is boiling, add salt to it, and then cook the mixed pasta right into it — yes! This is basically our LEGIT version of the one-pot pasta (only it’s soupy, as it’s supposed to be)! Sorpresa!
Cook until the pasta is al dente, i.e. if on the packet it says 8 minutes, please don’t overcook it otherwise all the Italian nonne1 will cry.
When the pasta is cooked, put the pan into your CLEAN sink, with its bottom in cold water for 2 or 3 minutes — that’s to actually stop the cooking of the soup otherwise all the Italian nonni2 will begin weeping as well.
Now take a ladle, and pour the soup into your favourite bowls — and eat it, it’s yummy!
Buon appetito!
Anyway, this Friday I’m doing X-rays to my knee, and la scorsa notte ho sognato an entire chapter ancora non scritto du premier livre de
.Ho preso appunti? Mais non, bien évidemment, perché avevo sonno. Quel dommage! E adesso I can only vaguely remember bits of it, e per questo motivo sono très, très fâchée.
De plus, potete thank Duolingo for il fatto che aujourd’hui je parle comme une parfait imbécile.
À la prochaine newsletter, tschüss!
nonne = grandmothers
nonni = grandfathers
I was studying at Tor Vergata university at the time of the previous jubilee, that's where thousands of papa-boys were camping, it was a nightmare, people everywhere, couldn't find a seat on the metro a for the whole year!
Great essay as always. I guess one does not say "break a leg" when wishing you fast recovery in the knee department. In the mouth of the wolf?