Bella Bella

The choice of champions.

‘Is that Jacconellis?’

‘Aye, this is Jack Bonellie’

‘Where's me ice cream?’

‘...Excuse me?’

‘Where’s me Ice cream?’

‘I am terribly sorry. I think you might have the wrong number’

‘Is that Jacconellis?’

‘Aye, this is Jack Bonellie’

‘Then wheres me ice cream?’

‘...Im terribly sorry but...’

My Grampa was Jack Bonellie and he was a fantastic Grandfather. A number of years after his death tales of deep mirth are still told at family gatherings (see above). Some apocryphal, some exaggerated, all still hilariously funny.

After the war he worked for the Glasgow Corporation as an electrical engineer on the trams and latterly the underground. When someone put a spade through an electrical cable, and after the fried cadaver had been removed, my Gramps would get a call instructing him to come sort out the power supply and get the city moving again. As a result he had a telephone, which was unusual in those straighten times. The Coroporation only paid half the line rental, mind you. Which was pretty tight of the city fathers, considering no one else my Grampa knew had a telephone.  Outgoing calls from the Bonellie household were rarer that hens teeth. Incoming calls were mainly from the Corporation... and occasionally from irate customers looking for their ice cream.

Cafe de Jacconelli is an institution. It opened in the 1930s and is still going strong. Although Italian, it is not exactly a classical Italian restaurant. Indeed, I fear it is some distance from achieving a Michelin star.  However it was rated as the 14th best Cafe in the UK by readers of Time Out magazine in 2007, and you don’t get many bigger accolades than that. If ever I want to impress a young lady I will always take her to Jacconellis. The all day breakfast is a steal at less than 3 quid, after all, and the square sausage, beans and chips are simply to die for. If I have particular amorous desires towards the young lady she might even be allowed a penny cone, of I am feeling particularly generous, a knickerbocker glory. The Ice Creams are legend and I can well understand the ire that might be raised if a delivery was to be misplaced. 

Jacconellis is hardly the most salubrious of establishments. At a shade over 6 feet my head hits the roof if I don’t hunch up whilst walking through the cafe and if you require to ‘freshen up’ during your meal, then you will be taken through the galley style kitchen and have to squeeze past the chef in order to gain access to the toilet – not before the customers umbrellas have been removed from the sink, you understand.

The staff are salt of the earth and hugely friendly.

‘You don’t happen to have a decaff coffee?’ Asked my dad on a recent visit.

‘A whit?’

‘A decaffeinated coffee?’ My dad is from Perth and he has been known to make the occasional cultural faux pas.

‘Ahm no sure... If you tell me whits in it, ahll make it fir ye. Is it like a latte? Ahm a dab hand at a latte, so ah am.’

‘Och no. Don’t worry. How about a sparkling water?’

‘A whit?’

‘Do you have a bottle of sparkling water?’

‘A sparkly watter? Naw, ah dinnae think so, hen... Do you mean a can of fizzy juice?  A wee can o fanta, mibbies?’

I like Italy. I have never been. But I like it, or at least I like the idea of it. The scenery, the history, the culture, the cars, the bikes, the style, the football, the food.

Mama mia, the food.

There are about 100,000 Scots Italians, which is about 2% of the population. The first wave of prospective Italian immigration came with the Romans. Their dalliance with the Scots was fairly short lived, however. They made a half hearted attempt to civilize us, but deterred by our obdurate nature, the poor fare on offer and the weather, they promptly threw up a wall, left us in splendid isolation. Putting an end to cross cultural collaboration for a couple of millennia.

There was a second wave of immigration in the late 1800’s. I read somewhere, that the influx of Italian immigration to Scotland came largely from only a couple of villages. Yeah... Some Italians emigrated to Scotland. To think that they had all the world to pick from, New York, Sydney, Los Angeles and a number of them chose Whitburn or West Calder. What were they thinking? Things in those wee villages must have been pretty rough.

At one time before the inexorable march of McDonalds and KFC, it seemed that every town in Scotland had an Italian owned Ice Cream Parlour, Cafe or Chippy. To think that the Italians have one of the great cuisines of the world but it seems they forgot to bring it to Scotland. I wonder how the health of the Scottish nation might have been improved had the Italians introduced the Mediterranean diet. It seems that perhaps they had learned from the Romans that the Scots were not to be changed. Or maybe they decided to exact their revenge for internment, imprisonment and some pretty shoddy treatment, by being willing accomplices to our predilection for any food with a negative health benefit. In the same way that drug barons don’t dabble in heroin themselves, they were sitting at home cooking up pasta whilst pushing saturated fat and sugar on us jocks.

I was at Hampden park a few years ago when Scotland were playing Italy. Scotland had to get a draw  in order to make the playoffs for the World cup. On a filthy Glasgow afternoon Scotland were making a decent fist of it and at times looked almost like a football team. The Tartan Army was, as usual, well lubricated. During a lull in play, to the tune of Guantanamera a refrain rang out from the stands...

‘Deep fry your pizza! Wer'e gonna deep fry your pizza!

Deep fry your piiiiizzzzaaaa, wer'e gonna deep fry your piiiiiizzaaaaaa!’

Presumably, after we had deep fried their pizza, we were then going to eat it. I could just imagine the Italians looking at each other quizzically, then shrugging their shoulders and saying, ‘we wouldn’t recommend it, there are far better ways of consuming pizza, but go right ahead, if you feel you must, we shan't stand in your way’. We may not be a force on the football field any more, but if there is one thing that we are seemingly world class at its taking an naturally unhealthy foodstuff and ‘improving’ it so much that it becomes lethal.

This weekend was my last chance to put some big miles in before the Tour. Next weekend will be spent cleaning the bike, packing my kit and probably running around like blue arsed fly. I planned a couple of back to back rides on the Saturday and the Sunday. 600km (350ish miles) was the rough target. So it was up at some ungodly hour on the Saturday morning and a train to Perth, then a route taking in Pitlochry, Blair Atholl, Kinloch Rannoch, up over Schehallion, through Glen Lyon, up over Lawers, round Loch Tay, down through Callander, up over the Dukes to Aberfoyle and 170 miles later back home.

I had planned to go tag on a wee jaunt round Loch Katrine, however that would have seen me finish past midnight and with no lights on my bike I decided that discretion was the better part of valour.

Inspite of the curtailed route I arrived at Aberfolyle busted and starving. I had planned on a pork pie purchased in the local Co-op. But then I saw it; an oasis in the desert. A proper, living and breathing Chipper. A proper Italian chipper. With a proper slightly-grumpy-but-at-the-same-time-very-friendly-proprietor in a white jacket, stiff with chip grease. Signalling, of course, that these chips were not fried in healthy vegetable oil.  But instead with proper shortening that would furr up your arteries and had your heart screaming for mercy before you’d even taken a bite. It had seats inside where I could rest my weary legs and, oh the luxury, help-yourself-condiments on the table. None of this tiny wee sachet nonsense. A proper salt cellar, a proper squeezy bottle of malt vinegar and proper glass bottles of Heinz Tommy K. This place was the real deal. In Scotland Haute Cuisine loosely translates into 'hot food'. Fresh out the friar, this food was as haute as it comes.

After my dinner had been drowned in vinegar, as all fish suppers should be, and inhaled. I felt like a new man with renewed strength in my legs. A fricassee, or pasta salad might have been the real athletes choice, EPO or testosterone the choice of the pro, but right there and then, despite what my heart was telling me a fish supper and a can of coke was just the ticket.

Sunday was another scorcher. So I decided a wee trip to Largs for an Ice cream was in order. Largs is only a 30 mile ride away, but if you go via Lochs Lomond, Long and Fyne and get the ferry across from Dunoon to Gourouck  and then go up over the braes at the back of Greenock you add on another 100 miles or so. Sure, it’s a long way for a short cut. But on a day like Sunday, I don’t think there is a more beautiful ride in the world. For those in the know, Largs is a wee town with a big ice cream shop. Infact it has at least two Ice Cream shops. Both selling Italian Ice cream and on a hot day like sunday there is nothing more welcome than a big ‘Tally’ Ice Cream.

Italy, you have given us Tom Conti, Rocco Forte, Charlene Spiteri,  Peter Capaldi, Richard DiMarco, Dario Franchitti, Paolo Nutini, Armando Iannuci and Jack Vettriano. All of whom have contributed immeasurably to the cultural wellbeing of Scotland. You’ve led the way in gastronomic innovations like deep fried pizza and 'Mars bar tempura', you have refined fish suppers into an art form and in doing  so have contributed immeasurably to the (poor) state of the health of the Scottish nation. But, see when you are starving hungry or a wee bit hot? A fish supper and an ice cream. You canny whack it. So, sincerely, thank you Italy, from bottom of my disease ridden and cholesterol soaked heart.

Bella bella, indeed.

From Aberfoyle,
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