The Devil's Larder

14

WHEN HE’D BEEN serving in the restaurant, his party trick had been to sing out the names of all the ninety types of pastas, in alphabetical order, in less than three minutes, from angel hair to ziti. It was a comic aria of food — and usually it had earned him a round of applause from the customers, and calls for an encore. He’d got huge tips.

Now that he was working for a bank, there wasn’t much demand for pasta, but still he liked to practise his party trick, if only for his own amusement. Skills atrophy unless they’re cared for.

Each morning, once he’d walked to the tram stop on the way to work, he muttered all the pastas to himself. Usually, if he cut his timing fine, he would only have reached cannelloni, cappelletti, cavatelli, conchiglie before his tram arrived, a modest daily pleasure he was eager to repeat.