Back in Florence

We’re back in Florence for a few days before we fly home on Tuesday morning. We’re in an inexpensive hotel all of whose rooms are on the fifth floor of a building on the Arno. Lovely views, simple room, quiet street. And, best of all, an elevator.

Amateur fishermen

We returned the Alfa Romeo Giulietta to the rental agency yesterday and we’re happy to report that we drove 2,207 kilometers and that the car impressed us with 19.4 kilometers per liter of diesel. (No, that doesn’t mean much to us either. With the help of a spreadsheet and some conversion information from Google, it turns out that we drove 1,371 miles and the car got 44.6 miles per gallon of diesel. Not bad for a car that’s also a lot of fun to drive.)

Professional fishermen

This morning was cool and rainy. When we got up, we looked out the window and saw the scenes shown in the photos. Across the river were amateur fishermen under umbrellas, line up like birds on a wire. On our side of the river were a couple of professional fishermen, a pair of snowy egrets.

We went to the Florence-Inter soccer game this afternoon and the rain gave way to sun and clouds. Florence is having a difficult year and today the team’s best two offensive players were unavailable due to injuries. Despite all their problems, the team played with a lot of heart and the game ended with a 0-0 tie. It sounds awful, I’m sure, but the game was exciting. Things happen so fast that you can’t take you eyes off the action. The Florentine was aggressive throughout the game if a little overmatched.

Thanks for reading. See you soon.

San Martino in Pensilis, continued

Welcome sign

Our trips to Missanello, the home of Annette’s grandparents, and to San Martino in Pensilis, the home of Michael’s grandparents, have given us a lot to think about ... and something to rest up from. Many impressions of each of these towns have to be saved until later since there just isn’t time to reduce all the significant stuff to text and photos. But we will try for an additional blog regarding San Martino.

The sign that welcomes you to San Martino says that the town is known for its oil and its wine. This is not remarkable. Every town in Italy is well regarded for its oil and its wine, certainly by the townspeople who put up such signs. This is not to denigrate the local oil and wine, however; both are good. But oil and wine are always good in Italy.

Sign facing the street

La pampanella is a pork dish though we didn’t have a chance to try it while we were in San Martino. The pork chops are coated with chopped dried red sweet pepper, dried red hot pepper, and garlic and cooked in an oven. While the chops are cooking, vinegar is drizzled over the chops. When the chops are done, they are drizzled in olive oil and served. Seems like a simple dish and it is the trademark dish of the town. For a recipe see Ricetta Pampanella sammartinese - SECONDI - Corriere della Sera or, if your Italian is rusty, try the plus-or-minus translation at Google Translate.

This leaves the Citta della Carresse reference as an unknown on the sign welcoming people to San Martino. Another sign on the way into San Martino in Pensilis offers a pretty good hint regarding the meaning of La Carresse. The large poster on the main street at the edge of a public space shows chariots and horsemen, red and blue teams, and the official seal of the city. This is a race held each year on April 30 from a town called Campomarino near the Adriatic Sea about 12 kilometers to San Martino and the steps of the San Martino Duomo. We visited in early April and everyone encouraged us to stay until the end of the month to see the big race. As we thought about it, we noticed preparations for the big event going forward in various places in San Martino.

Arch and Duomo

The photo shows Annette looking up at an arch and a church a short distance beyond. The arch is the portal from the new town of San Martino (“new” means only 100 or 200 years old) into the old town and the Duomo or town cathedral and its bell tower just a short distance away. The old town is indeed old. Some of the buildings in the old town have been abandoned. The streets are very narrow and crowded. There are few services for residents in the old town. The new town has wider streets and there don’t appear to be any abandoned buildings.

The chariot race is between multiple teams (perhaps as many as three), each team has a chariot pulled by two oxen and horseman going ahead and following behind to offer encouragement and to fend off others. The race is not between neighborhoods as in other Italian towns; the race seems to be between families or collections of families. The chariots race up the main street of the town, turn to the right and go through the arch, and celebrate in front of the Duomo. 

I have a DVD of one year’s celebration of the race. The DVD is far too large to post so I’ve captured some still images. If you’d like, we’ll see the whole video when we get home.

The first still from the DVD is on the afternoon of April 29 when the ceremonies begin. Young people march, the clergy offer prayers, and the city officials talk of the pride of the town in the teams that will compete the next day.

Procession

The evening of April 29 is a huge party. Fireworks, people yelling and having fun, decorative lights over the street. Note the arch. The perspective is from inside the old town looking out.

Party in preparation for the race

On April 30 the race begins between a blue team and a red team. The course is long and soon the oxen will be tired.

The race begins

At least two times the teams make what a townsperson described to me as a “pit stop” to change teams of oxen. (English pops up in the oddest contexts here.) The tired animals are led away and a team members pull the cart ahead to a fresh set of oxen. Chaos erupts as the new team of animals react badly to the excitement. You have to see the video but imagine swarming people and huge, frightened oxen. 

Change teams of oxen; chaos ensues

The red team passes through the arch and stops in front of the Duomo. Triumph for the team in red!

Victory for the red team

I’m pretty sure that I don’t understand a lot of what’s going on with La Carresse. I was told that the oxen were specially bred for the race and that the horses were thoroughbreds. This sounds like there is a lot of money behind the contestants. On the other hand, the race has been going on for many, many years and it involves participants, oxen and horses, and skills, driving a team of oxen and horseback riding, that may have been very useful in the past. Of course, today the farmers in the area drive to town and around town on their tractors, not on their horses but the race might, in fact, be a celebration of the history of the area and its former way of life.

The Ramaio (The Coppersmith)

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The workshop

Montepulciano is known for its wine. The town in attractive, however, because it is still a real town with a store that sells appliances (to the local people) set between stores that sell leather jackets and expensive cashmere sweaters (to the tourists, obviously). The town is very attractive but it is not overwhelmed by visitors. Market day is Thursday morning and the market features fruits, vegetables, inexpensive clothes, and power tools such as tractors, weed whackers, and chain saws. This is an agricultural area and the people have very practical needs.

One craftsman who has a workshop in Montepulciano continues a business that was established by his grandfather and continued by his father to serve the local people. Cesare Mazzetti produces copper cookware and other objects as a ramaio or coppersmith. The cookware is lined with a thick layer of tin. The copper heats quickly and the layer of tin holds the heat and evens the heat efficiently. The layer of tin is soft so one must use wood or plastic spatulas and spoons with these pots and cleaning the pots involves overnight soaking rather than abrasives.

Pictures of the nipotino

Signore Mazzetti is assisted by his wife, Iolanda, who runs the shop nearby. They are warm and wonderful people and we stop by her shop and his workshop frequently. Today they serve the townspeople but they probably depend more on travelers for their business.

This year we brought out book a grandson pictures for the Mazzettis to admire. They both complimented on how our grandson, Noah, had grown and wished us many more grandchildren.

Artwork done for a
local winery

Signore Mazzetti is establishing a museum next to his workshop, a museum of his own work and of copper works that he has collected. It is a good thing for him to summarize his work and the work of his father and grandfather since his children have all pursued professions there is no one to continue his work and, further, since he is in his 70s. The museum includes art work in copper as well as tributes from others including the Pope who received a work by Signore Mazzetti in Rome. We wish him well as he summarizes his life’s work.

A brief video about Cesare Mazzetti can be seen at Cesare Mazzetti - Coppersmith on Vimeo.

La Porta

Thus far we’ve been kind regarding the mention of food and our time here in Italy. That has required restraint on our part since the food here is always good at least and normally food is excellent. Food in the markets is very fresh and mature. Tomatoes taste like (gasp!) tomatoes. Cucumbers that thin, bumpy, and crisp. Prepared food offered for snacking is very good, from pastries with cappuccino in the morning to panini or gelato in the afternoon. And restaurants, trattorias, osterias, whatever places to sit and have a meal are called, almost all such places are good or better than good.

We had a meal today in a excellent restaurant, our favorite restaurant, the Osteria La Porta in the tiny medieval town of Monticchiello, a town of 300 souls a few miles to the west of Montepulciano. There is no shortage of very good places to eat around here but La Porta is a jewel.

It was a pleasant day and we sat outside on the terrace with a view of the cypress lined roads in the valley of the Orcia River below. The air was a little cool but the sun blazed down from a nearly clear sky. Daria Cappelli, the owner and host, gave us menus and told us what were the specials for the day. We ordered sparkling water and a bottle of 2007 Luna d’Oro Vino Nobile di Montepulciano, a wine produced by her twin brother, Dario. It is a big wine but a wine that is easy to appreciate (and, sadly, is not sold in the USA.)

For an appetizer we split an artichoke dish pictured below. (Our enthusiasm got the better of us and we dove into it before we took the picture.) On the bottom was a gob of puréed artichoke with a patty of artichoke sformato placed on top. A thin cross-section of whole artichoke was placed on top of that and the whole thing was covered in a mild pecorino cheese sauce with a sprinkling of saffron threads.

The artichoke appetizer was so good that we decided to take pictures of the rest of the meal. 

Annette started with chickpea and bean soup with croutons which arrived in an bowl one would ordinarily use for food storage. Interesting presentation and a delicious soup.

Michael started with pici (thick, hand rolled cylinders of pasta) with a sauce of three different meats. The flavor in the sauce that rang through was the capon, a chickeny flavor but more intense, more robust.

Both first courses were servings of a modest size.

Annette continued with tagliata di manzo, thin slices of grilled steak, covered with very, very thin slices of lardo di Colonnata. (Sounds awful, doesn’t it. It tasted great!) The interplay between the lean, tender beef and the little bits of fatty, salty, seasoned lardo was delicious. Annette found a jumbled pile of artichokes chunks on her plate as well.

Michael continued with peposo, a Tuscan standby, a beef stew done in red wine and flavored with black pepper. The version here was less peppery than others and nicely flavored in ways I wish I could reproduce. The beef stew was accompanied with buttery mashed potatoes.

Recently I’ve been interested in sformati, vegetable based dishes which are similar in some ways to flans or, perhaps, quiches. The Italian version is a chopped up vegetable held together either with a matrix of potato or with a matrix of egg and bechamel. Annette and I split a rapini sformato that was showered in shaved mild pecorino cheese.

Again, the amounts were relatively modest. At the end of the meal we were not so interested in desert but we weren’t disabled by having consumed too much. We were very comfortable. Lunch, however, took two hours. (We remember our work years when lunch involved less time and much more agita. We’re balancing that out now.)

We finished with café and a look at the dessert menu which included some sweet wines which we didn’t try but we were interested in the idea of “Wines for dessert and meditation”. Next time we’ll try one.

Hello to Susan, Laura and Tom, Peter and Anne, Rory and Kathy. We were thinking of you and wishing you were here with us this afternoon. And we wish the same of everyone else who might read this and who hasn't been to La Porta. It would be a good group and a lot of fun!

The Alfa Romeo

This year we rented a car for three weeks. The first week we drove from Florence (letter A on the map) to Orvieto (B), a relatively short drive. The second week we did a lot of driving, from Orvieto to Sorrento (C) for Easter weekend. From Sorrento we drove on to Missanello in southern Italy (D) and then, after some days with Annette’s family, on to San Martino in Pensilis (E) on the opposite coast to see what we could learn about Michael’s family. The third week we drove from San Martino to Montepulciano (F), another fairly long drive north and then west through the Apennine Mountains. We’ll finish the trip by returning the car to Florence this weekend.

Three week trip in the Alfa Romeo Giuliettta

Since we had lots of luggage and since we planned to do quite a bit of driving, we wanted to rent a comfortable car. OK, that was just an excuse! I wanted to have some fun driving so I asked (begged) for an Alfa Romeo Giulietta, a car about the size of a Toyota Corolla but a car that really wants to go!

The Alfa we rented is a 160hp turbo-diesel with a six speed, a tight suspension, responsive steering, and great tires. The car has been a lot of fun to drive except in Sorrento which was absolutely jammed with people and cars. It was no fun there surviving the search for a parking garage.

Fiat builds the Alfa Romeo in Italy. As everyone knows, Fiat now owns Chrysler and the lineup of Chrysler products is changing. One on the changes will involve an old name on a new car. The old name is Dodge Dart. The new car will be some kind of version of an Alfa Romeo Giulietta. See this.

More fun when it's moving!

Google Maps says that our trip was in the neighborhood of 1,000 miles and all of the highway miles were fun. And, interestingly, the car turned a little over 45 miles per gallon of diesel. Shocking for a car that’s so much fun.

Maybe this is the Mazda Miata that I put off buying 20 years ago. Is it too late for a mid-life crisis?

San Martino in Pensilis

San Martino in Pensilis is a town of 5,000 people, a town in the region of Molise and the province of Campobasso in southern Italy. The town is part of what appears to be a productive agricultural region. The land around the town consists of rolling hills and valleys devoted to farming.

View from San Martino in Pensilis

Giuseppe Riposo and Leona DiCicco came to American from San Martino in Pensilis in the 1910s. At the time Italy and Europe were in flux, war was breaking out in the Balkans, and southern Italy was suffering from years of grinding poverty. 

We came to San Martino to spend a few days this month in the streets that our grandparents had perhaps walked and to think about them and why they left and what they must have thought about what they were leaving behind.

Today the area around San Martino in Pensilis is a busy agricultural area and the streets of the town often see tractors among the cars and motor scooters that you see everywhere in Italy. Some people who live in town commute to their farms in nearby areas on tractors. The town today must be very different from the town that my grandparents emigrated from.

The main street

Two years ago we made a quick stop here on a similar trip and talked informally with a few people. It is interesting that Italians in the small towns all seem to walk around with an extensive town history in their heads. Then, in 2010, we met a group of four men in their forties or fifties who were hanging around on the main street. When they saw us with our cameras, they clowned for us (and probably more for each other) and asked for us to take their picture. We did, of course, and showed them the images that we had taken. We then talked about my grandparents, their stories, their names. 

Both family names, Riposo and DiCicco, were recognized immediately. The Riposos, however, no longer lived in the town. One of the men, a person named Leo (pronounced LAY oh in Italian) said that he knew a family named DiCicco and that he’d take us there in his car. We drove off with Leo but we found no one was home.

A tight squeeze

This year we made a reservation in the only hotel in the town. The manager of the hotel said that he had noticed the family name Riposo as our request for a reservation came to him via email. He said that Riposo was a name that had been part of the history of the town. He also said that Leo was a very common first name in San Martino since Saint Leo was the patron saint of the town.

Hmmm. And Grandma’s first name, as we remembered, was Leona.

We went to town offices and checked with the Anagrafe, the town government officer who keeps track of births, deaths, and other vital information. She was very helpful and checked all the town records for information on the birth of Giuseppe Riposo in the late 1800s and early 1900s. She found a number of Riposos and RIposas but could not find a Giuseppe RIposo.

We asked her to look for Leona DiCicco. The Anagrafe looked back at us, puzzled. We repeated our request. She was still puzzled. Leona is not a first name that is given in Italy but she said that she would look. When she returned, she invited us into her work area to view the 100-year old documents. The records showed that Leontina DiCicco was born in San Martino in Pensilis in 1899. The change to Leona may have been made at some later date.

She also had a brother named Michele (Michael, of course) who was born in 1896.

Hmmm. Her brother was named Michael!

We asked for a copy of the birth information and Anagrafe was gracious in passing it along to us. The birth information, which we’ll share with you when we get home, indicates that her family were contadini, farmers.

What an interesting story and, of course, there is a lack of certainty about what we’ve found. There is not social security number to cross check. There aren’t people here with first hand information to talk to. But the circumstances seem so suggestive that we’ve found the record of her birth in her hometown.

Missanello

Senatro Albano, Annette’s grandfather, left Missanello in the mid-1890s and left behind three sisters. He never returned to his home in Italy though his wife, Maria Teresa, returned for a two week visit in 1965 and is remembered by the people we visited with. Senatro’s sisters visited America, but all three returned to Missanello, and many of the people who live in Missanello today are children or grandchildren or great-grandchildren of one of the three Albano sisters, Felicia.

We spent Monday afternoon, Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday morning this past week in Missanello. We were wined and dined and treated exactly as if we were family ... because Annette has been accepted as part of the Missanellan family, a member who happens to live at a distance. Annette is a cousin to all of the descendants of Felicia Albano and the kinship is palpable. (By the way, the custom in Italy is that women keep their maiden name when they marry and that their children take their father’s name.)

The Apennines

The area around Missanello is in the Apennines but the area seems Alpine. The mountains are rugged and the slopes are steep. This is a sparsely populated corner of Italy. Missanello is located in the region of Basilicata and Basilicata has the third smallest population (591,000) of Italy’s 20 regions.

Our host was Maria Micucci who welcomed us into her home. In fact, before we left she poured off some of her family’s own olive oil for us to take home with us. We’ll share some of the olive oil with you when you visit us in Syracuse or on Lake Ontario. Of course, the oil is delicious.

Maria Micucci

Maria is an official in the town government. She serves as ragionara, the town’s accountant. Her desk at the town office is covered with papers, reports, requests, proposals, all kinds of business. She has a fine mind for numbers; Maria had Annette’s Italian cell phone memorized after the first time she used it.

Maria’s husband, Giovanni, and her daughter, Antonella, had gone off to Pisa where Antonella is studying early childhood education. Their son Andrea was home and gave us a tour of Missanello and Aliano, the town where the Annette’s great grandfather came from. Aliano is about 10 miles from Missanello but the drive takes 40 minutes because of the rough terrain. Andrea also helped with some of the cooking. We especially appreciated his help with making bruschettas over their wood fire in the fireplace in their kitchen. Maria served the toasted bread with cut up tomatoes, fresh mozzarella, and her olive oil.

Andrea Micucci

We noticed lots of honking as people drove around Missanello. Not aggressive honking because there is little traffic. Friendly honking. Andrea explained that in their town of 500 everyone knows everyone else and it is customary to honk a greeting when you see someone you know. Since you know everyone, you honk a lot. (The honking that we’ve heard in big cities has a very different quality; it’s been must less friendly and the gestures have been different.)

Annette with Margherita Micucci

It was important that we spend time with the oldest member of the family, Margherita Micucci, who lives in a tiny apartment in the center of town. Margherita served us some homemade limoncello which she made from 95% pure alcohol which is easily available in Italy. We have to use vodka when we make limoncello at home.

The town is proud of the renovations to the former convent that is at the center of the town. Antonio Izzo and Teresa Izzo, children of Margherita, gave us a tour of place. The space is used for meetings and is shown off to visitors like us.

Antonio and Teresa Izzo

Teresa invited us for lunch at her home in the center of the town, in the midst of the narrow, twisting “streets”. Teresa invited her mother, Margherita, with her husband, Nicola, and Nicolas, Teresa’s grandson. Teresa pulled out all the stops with appetizers, homemade pasta, two meat courses, fruit, Easter cakes, and more. When we left, Teresa gave us a package of breads and cold cuts to take in case we got hungry on the way back to Maria’s home.

When we sat down for dinner at Teresa’s, we noticed two 1.5 liter bottles of Coke on the table. (“Hmmm. How do I ask for Coke Zero?”, I thought.) Nicola opened one of the bottles and poured out a purple liquid, some of his own wine. People here put wine in all kinds of containers. The other bottle really did have Coke in it. We focussed our attention on the other “Coke” bottle.

Nicolas, Teresa. and Margherita

The larger map of the town below shows some roads in yellow and some not in color. The yellow roads are drivable, but drivable only if you’re careful. Sometimes cars meet on these narrow roads and have pass each other carefully because they are so narrow. The uncolored roads are not drivable at all. These “roads” are sidewalks, really, and sometimes these sidewalks involve flights of stairs. The smaller map shows the center of the town and the roads are often 5 feet in width or less. It’s deceiving to look at the map and assume that you’d have the same kind of mobility in Missanello that you’d have at home.

A "street" in the
center of Missanello

On the larger map the letter A shows where Maria's home is located. Letter B shows where Senatro Micucci, Maria's uncle and our host last year, lives. Letter C shows where Senatro's son and his family live in the center of Missanello in the only place that is accessible by car in the center. All of these are lovely homes.

The number of young people in town is declining. The elementary school has 20 or so students and may close at the end of this year. Of course, the problem is lack of employment opportunities in Missanello. The adults hope for a better future but seem resigned to forces that are out of their control. The force that they can control, the strong bonds that hold families together, are strong and work in the opposite direction. We’ve been affected by that counterforce and we’ve enjoyed its attraction.

This only scratches the surface. There will be more, much more, to say in the future when we see you.

Next adventure: We’re on the way to San Martino in Pensilis to check on Michael’s roots.

Greater Missanello

Central area