The Other End of the Line Read online

  Arab sheiks come to visit the Valley of the Temples: The fictional town of Montelusa is modeled on the real-life Sicilian city of Agrigento (Girgenti in Sicilian), which features, on its outskirts, an astonishingly well-preserved group of ancient Greek temples from the period when Sicily formed part of Magna Graecia. These, too, are called collectively “the Valley of the Temples,” though this is something of a misnomer, as the complex is actually somewhat elevated.

  the Day of the Dead: In Italian, il giorno dei morti, corresponding more or less with All Souls’ Day in the English-speaking world, November 2.

  Marianna Ucrìa . . . Catarella’s becoming interested in literature!: Italian author Dacia Maraini (born 1936) wrote a book entitled La lunga vita di Marianna Ucrìa, published in 1990.

  The shears fly into the air . . . : A Sicilian saying (sàvuta ’u trunzu e va ’n culu all’ortolano), which means essentially that it’s the little people who always bear the brunt of misfortune.

  Chi l’ha visto?: A national television program about missing persons and unsolved mysteries. The title means “Who has seen him?”

  ciambella: A sweet, doughnut-shaped Italian cake, varying in ingredients according to region and tradition, and usually much bigger than an American doughnut.

  tressette: An Italian card game played with the traditional Italian forty-card deck.

  pasta with bottarga: Bottarga is cured salted fish roe, often used as a condiment for pasta or a supplement for other sauces and dishes.

  Timballo di riso: A Sicilian rice-casserole dish with a variety of possible other ingredients ranging from vegetables to fish to meat.

  sfincione: Also spelled sfinciuni, this is a Sicilian sort of thick-crust pizza that can be served with a variety of toppings including, as in this case, meat.

  rice sartù with fish: Sartù is a Neapolitan rice timbale usually featuring many ingredients, including vegetables, eggs, meat, or, as in this case, fish.

  pitaggio: A Sicilian vegetable soup (from French, potage).

  the unprecedented phenomenon of a police inspector asking anything at all of the carabinieri: In Italy, the police forces of the Commissariati di Pubblica Sicurezza, such as Montalbano’s, constitute a bureaucracy separate from the carabinieri, who form a national police force under military command, and the two institutions are often in competition with each other and see one another as rivals. The phenomenon has given rise to many popular jokes, usually at the expense of the carabinieri.

  Notes by Stephen Sartarelli

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