Yesterday when I visited Peppa, she was sitting on a bench outside of chicken coop, chopping walnuts open with a hammer. “Buonissime!”, she said happily as she munched the nutmeats. Her walnuts are tasty this year and will be perfect in the pasta dolce she’ll make for November 1st, All Saints’ Day and November 2nd, All Souls’ Day, two important feast days here in Italy. Here in Umbria, at the end of October the farmwomen start chopping the walnuts they have gathered in preparation for the traditional early November Umbrian sweet, la pasta dolce….
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It will soon be time to gather the wildflowers, weeds, grasses and leaves for the wondrous rural concoction, l’acqua di San Giovanni. After all, no morning wash is more glorious than that of Umbria’s rural people in the early morning of June 24th. On June 23rd at sunset, vigil of the Festa di San Giovanni Battista, the farmwomen head out into the fields with baskets or bags to gather the cento erbe (literally,”one hundred greens or plants”, though flowers as well as plants are picked). The flowers and plants will then be soaked all night in a basin – outdoors. The flower-filled basins of water must never enter the home.
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Pino and I had been working the land here outside of Assisi for about eight months and collapsed into bed exhausted on April 30th (1975) – as we did most nights in those days! At around 2:00 am, we were awakened by robust, joyous male voices singing under our window, accompanied by rollicking accordian music and the jangling of a tamburine: our first introduction to the maggiaioli! (“May singers”).
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Driving through the Umbrian countryside during the week prior to Easter, you’d note whiffs of smoke drifting up from the outdoor stone bread ovens fired up by the farmwomen. Holy Week for the Umbrian farmwomen is a busy one, an exhausting one: making the torta di Pasqua (“Easter cake”) or pizza pasquale, as it is often called, in the stone bread ovens is a major task. The traditional Easter “cake” or “pizza” is a raised cheese bread, make of eggs, flour, olive oil, salt, pepper and three kinds of cheeses: parmigiano, pecorino and groviera…
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I’ve been writing for quite some time about our life on the land here in Umbria – and our rural friends, “givers of the greatest gifts”. I started sharing the memories long before I launched the blog. Our farm neighbors remain our dearest friends… over the years, each has given us treasured gifts…
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For Roosevelt, a “fireside chat” denoted intimate dialogue with the people. The fireside chat – called “veglia” (”vigil”) – was always an intimate moment of life in central Italy’s rural culture. I miss those years of the “andare alla veglia” (”going to keep the vigil”) at our neighbors’ farmhouses on winter evenings, where so much rural lore and rural wisdom was passionately shared by our farm friends around the fireplace.
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Wine and its sharp-tongued sister, vinegar, are certainly sacred in rural culture, if not harbingers of truth. Our wise farm friend, Peppa, told me that when her family farmed, weak baby chicks were strengthened by wine…
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After living the rural life with them for over thirty-five years, I am still learning from our farm neighbors. Over the years, each has given us treasured gifts. The gifts keep coming. Here are some of the people who taught us about the land. Some are still alive. Others are gone. Each has given us the greatest of all gifts: of themselves, fully.
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Not “show and tell” but “show and sell” is the theme of the Italian mostra mercato. These markets – generally open-air – can feature just a handful of vendors or hundreds and anything on display can be bought – and in some cases, tasted. For us, no better way to warm up a chilly November night than at the Mostra Mercato del Tartufo near Valtopina…
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The truffle has always been the richest and most refined element of Mediterranean cuisine. Certainly not desired for its beauty – it resembles a measily rotten potato – the truffle grows underground, like the potato, far from light and air, taking its nourishment, like other mushrooms, from the forest undergrowth.
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