Yakkety Yak

My A-Z Challenge series is about Italy, it's lifestyle, the country and other miscellaneous things in regard to it.

Italians do like chiacchierare, or chatting. They chat all the time, at home leaving home when they bump into neighbours, while walking to the shops in the shops, when bumping into friends after leaving the shops, going for their evening passeggiata (walk), with shop keepers bar owners, bank staff whoever they see, really. I don't mean discussing things of impotance, just general chit chat. This is part of the reason they know everyone in the vicinity of the area they live. Not only do they know them they know all about them. Gossip. To them gossip is just part of life, it's what would be called nosiness in other countries but there it's accepted that what you do in the morning will be known by the local pizzeria owner by evening. Life is lived outdoors as much as possible and secrets are hard to keep.

This poses a problem for some, including teenagers wanting to do something their parents (and Aunts, Uncles, Grandparent) may disapprove of, holding hands with the wrong boy or girl will be back to the parents in no time. It does help with keeping people on the straight and narrow, it also causes some conflict but no-one gets cross about the actual way the news travelled.

Once something is known it will be talked about. If that news was not what people approve of they will let that person know. Someone has decided to leave their job for another and someone else thinks they should have stayed they will tell them - not your business is something else not done here. It is their business, so they believe. Everyone feels they have the right to tell people how to behave, tell them if they think what they do is wrong, including things to do with appearance so if that dress makes someone's bum look too big they will be told, no need to ask.

This is frightening and a nuisance for non Italians moving over to Italy, expats need to develop a thick skin. They can't understand how Italians can be so rude, so nosy, so gossipy. It takes a little while but thy start to realise that it's all part of they way things are. No offence should be taken nothing is meant maliciously, people just like to talk about things, anything and everything. But food is still the main topic of conversation so if you are there and want to take the flak off yourself just mention you've bought some new vegetable and what's the best way to cook it and all attention will move to everyone telling you the best way to cook it is their own way.

Xavier Soup

Photo from here

There are many feast days in Italy, associated with the many Saints. People will either celebrate with big Festas, with smaller feasts with friends and family, or sometimes just at home with their family eating a meal in the usual way but with the designated food for that particular day.

One of these meals is Xavier Soup, also spelled Xaver Suppe. It's the meal for the celebration of St Francis Xaviour (1506-1552) an aristocrat from Spain who became a prolific missionary travelling to places previously never visited by the Catholic faith, such as India, Japan and Borneo. He also co-founded the Society of Jesus. His feast day is December 3rd, and this soup is meant to be eaten on that day.

Copied from Catholic Cuisine which in turn came from Cooking with the Saints.

INGREDIENTS:

• 1 1/2 cups flour
• 1/2 cup cream
• 1/2 cup butter
• 1/2 cup Parmesan cheese, grated
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 teaspoon pepper, white
• pinch of nutmeg
• 2 eggs
• 2 egg yolks
• 1 Tablespoon parsley, chopped (for dough)
• 12 cups chicken stock
• 2 Tablespoon chervil, chopped
• 2 Tablespoon parsley, chopped (for soup)

DIRECTIONS:

Over low heat work the flour, cream, butter and Parmesan cheese to a solid dough. Work in the salt, pepper, nutmeg, eggs and egg yolks and parsley. Put the mixture into a piping bag with a big nozzle and pipe pea-sized balls onto a buttered tray. Let stand for about 30 minutes.

In the meantime heat some salted water until it boils, then drop in all the "dough peas". Cook for 5 minutes, then remove them with a slotted spoon and add to the warm chicken stock. Season soup to taste and add the chervil and 2 tablespoons parsley.

Serves 10 to 12 people.

Today, the 28th April, the feast Day is for St Gianna Beretta Molla. Tomorrow, 29th April, is for St Catherine of Sienna. Neither having a dedicated food for their feast days, actually, so if you have any ideas for celebratory food for them do let me know.

Woeful Corruption

My A-Z Challenge series is about Italy, it's lifestyle, the country and other miscellaneous things in regard to it.

There is a dark side to Italy, unfortunately. The politics are fair enough but the politicians not always so, as mentioned in a previous post the ex Prime Minister was one of the most infamous with his private and public life coming under scrutiny. He came to power by being voted in yet there are many rumours he paid money to help with this. Plus he owns a lot of media, some of the main TV channels and newspapers which were biased in favour of him. This is partly the problem with his long service in this position. One reason he was voted in was that he was a multi billionaire so the general public hoped there would be no need of corruption by him. Sadly it's been proved he evaded tax payments, changed laws causing it to be unlawful to imprison Prime Ministers (in other words, himself) and committed perjury eg in regards to a 17 yr old prostitute who'd been at one of his Bunga Bunga parties, where he told police that she was the granddaughter of the Egyptian leader.

Of course the other dark side to Italy are the groups who break laws, extort, threaten, even kill. The main one everyone knows of is the Mafia, also known as the Cosa Nostra. They are mainly but not exclusively situated in Sicily. Starting up in the late 1800's they now make most of their money through prostitution, drug trafficking and loan sharking. They still offer protection to people mainly shops and businesses if they get money (to protect against themselves). They have now also found a new way to terrorize people and make themselves more money, by controlling food, they have a strong hold on certain tomatoes for instance and make money that way. My aunt is from a village in Sicily which still has no running water, the reason being that the Mafia control a local spring, they force the water company to not put down pipes to being in ta water for free causing the people who live there to bu their own bottled water - this is the 21st century so it's hard to believe.

I want to let you know that this is changing, people are fighting back. Many shops carry a sign to show they don't pay the protection money encouraging others to do the same, there are groups against Mafia, the police are capturing more and more of them. One group against them is Women Against Mafia who are just that, a growing group of women coming together and staging demonstrations.

There are other organisations, the Camorra in Naples and the 'Ndrangheta of the south of Italy in Calabria are two of the others. The 'Ndrangheti specialize in kidnapping people for ransoms, and people trafficking usually women for the sex trade. Both organisations deal in drugs and money laundering. The Camorra also are believed to bribe or terrorize politicians into doing what they want them to do.

Reading this back, it's not so much a dark side as a black one, or at least very bleak. Italy has many coruptions, even the general public themselves often see rules and agree with them but may bend them a little to suit themselves. It's not that they are bad - not like the organised crime syndicates anyway - but more that this is how it is done, I think it's how they get through, how they can put the bad sides behind them. But, I've said it before, things are changing. Things are getting better, that's why the picture I have added is one of the public demonstrating in Rome against corruption.

Vino d'Italia

My A-Z Challenge series is about Italy, it's lifestyle, the country and other miscellaneous things in regard to it.

Do you like wine? If so, chances are you may be fond a a tipple from an Italian variety. It's been grown there for nearly 2000 years, with the Roman Empire prohibiting other  countries under their rule to make it, so it naturally flourished.

In Italy it's still common to dilute a glass of wine with some water, though with the better wines this doesn't happen so often. Children start drinking it at a younger age with it very watered down, it's mainly only drunk while eating a meal which also helps dilute the alcoholic affect. In fact you don't often see a drunken Italian, it's just not the done thing, this is partially attributed to the allowance of children being allowed to drink it to help demystify it, though I think the culture of a country also has a large part to play in this as it's not always been my experience of what I've seen in the UK, unfortunately.

There are several appellations ranging from Vini, the most basic, to Reserva which is wine which has been aged for some time. My family used to make their own wine and some branches of my family still do. When I was young they even still did the crushing by feet which I did join in with. Our wine wasn't called a decent glass of wine unless it had the odd wine fly floating in it - yuk! Definitely not a Reserva.

There are 20 regions with different types of wine, some being frizzante, sparkling. A couple of the nearest to my family are the Frascati, a nice white sparkling wine good for Summer in the garden, and Veletri, a good robust Rosso, red, wine. Good wines of other areas are the Barolo, a very nice red, Pinot Grigio, which is fairly popular, Chianti and Sangiovese. Moscato d'Asti is a sweet wine to be drunk only while eating a sweet or pudding or it tastes nasty, but miraculously tasting wonderful while eating something equally sweet.

It's lovely driving through the countryside and seeing the vineyards stretching out with bunches of grapes hanging over the sides of fences as you pass. The vineyards will make the most amazing wines, people do like French wine, America make decent wine now, South African wines gets good reviews but do try an Italian if you haven't already, maybe pair it with a good Italian cheese.

 Did you know that the red colour of red wines comes from adding the skins of red, purple or black grapes? I'm not actually much of a wine drinker, now preferring to use it in cooking where it leaves a nice flavour and no alcohol. Do you drink wine? Do you prefer to have it with a meal in the evening or perhaps during an afternoon picnic?

Unification of Italy

My A-Z Challenge series is about Italy, it's lifestyle, the country and other miscellaneous things in regard to it.

Italy as it is now

Italy used to be a place made up of different states and not the unified country it is today. There were the Papal States where the Pope lived, the Republic of Florence, the Kingdom of Naples, Republic of Venice, Duchy of Milan and several others. There would be wars and disputes between them, attempts at taking over  other states and also other countries altogether would try to take them over too, especially the Papal States in the middle. Slowly a national identity was born, and by the late 1700's early 1800's people were starting to call themselves Italian though from the state they had been born into. The Northern areas were most against a unifying country as were the Austrian Empire who may have been influential in this thinking. 

Between the states wanting to unify there were disagreements as to how it would work and who would be the ultimate controllers of a one body. Two men in particular spurred things on, Mazzini and Garibaldi (he of the current biscuits). Over the years several insurrections occurred and then a war mid 1800's quickly followed by another. All in all it took many many years to finally end all struggles with the final decision of a unified Italy being 1871.

Italy pre-unification

There is a famous quote in Italy which goes 'We have made Italy, now we must make Italians', this refers to the way of thinking of Italian peoples even today where the area they live comes before the fact they are from Italy, someone from Tuscany will say he is Tuscan before he is Italian for instance. Life is more or less the same, though food and music may be different and perhaps a few other local traditions. It seems unifying a country takes a long time to overcome an historical local way of thinking. Still there are disputes between areas, the North are not so fond of the South as they believe all their hard earned money is sent there where there is not much work nor wealth. They dislike Rome as this is where the politicians make their decisions on where the money will go. Slowly slowly but hopefully soon enough it will unify in minds as well as country.

 Italy as a whole makes the shape of a boot kicking a football, I wonder if this is part of the reason of their prowess in 'The Beautiful Game' of soccer. Surely this must help with eradicating differences, after all sport is a unifier all of it's own, isn't it?

The Tarantella

My A-Z Challenge series is about Italy, it's lifestyle, the country and other miscellaneous things in regard to it.

                           

This is a dance mainly danced in the South of Italy, generally during traditional festivals or weddings. The name comes from a type of poisonous spider whose bite was believed to cause people to move convulsively. This in turn was used as a form of medication back in the middle ages, if someone had a bite wound doing this dance was meant to remove any venom. It may have had it's roots from further back in Roman times and is still actually used today to remove depression and similar mental health ailments, the belief going that the fast music and movements will drive it out somehow. Research has begun to see how much efficacy there actually is in this.

There are different versions, either being used for courtship or as a simulated sword fight between two men. When danced at a ceremony such as a wedding all guests often join in and it's just a fun dance for entertainment.

Another dance where lots of people join in is the Hulli Gulli which was American but seems to have reached Italy back in the sixties and is still very popular now. You see it at weddings, dances on the beach and all over. It generally is danced to the tune of The Watusi, a song which will undoubtedly get your toes tapping, hum it anywhere in Italy and someone will sing along and probably start up the dance. It's a type of line dance, some people get it right every time but often people will be out of time but no-one minds, a fun dance for everyone of every generation. Click on the link below to watch The Hully Gully being danced to The Watusi, and see if you can find any recommended YouTubes for The Tarentella being danced by brides and grooms and their guests at a wedding.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pr4-5kKcn_4

Sagra and SPQR

My A-Z Challenge series is about Italy, it's lifestyle, the country and other miscellaneous things in regard to it.

A Sagra are festivals held in towns, each town will have it's own local one. Each one will celebrate one particular thing which could be anything but usually some type of food or maybe wine. They started originally as some kind of religious celebration but over the years this gradually changed so they mark a type of food grown locally or made there or perhaps some kind of tradition the local residents follow. There is a Sagra held in the north of the country in Trento, in March, which is a tradition Sagra going back to the ancient Roman times. The local people walk up the nearby hills and shout out Trato Marzo then follows 3 days of tricks and joking around with a large bonfire to warm yourselves by.

The Sagra pesce and patate (fish and potatoes) is held in Lucca in July with accompanying dancing and children's area for playing.

 Anzio also have a fish Sagra, in July, with lots of beautiful and noisy fireworks let off over the sea by many boats, fishermen's and other local boats, at midnight with the whole town standing on the promenade watching after dancing in the piazza.

La Madonna della 'Stella' a Pallagiano, October in Taranto starts with Mass followed by a pagan festival with tagliatelle with tomato sauce served on tractors.

Other Sagras are in San Severino Marche which celebrates the chick pea, a funghi (mushroom) Sagra in Cusano Mutri for all recipes containing mushroom and wine Sagras such as the one in Verdicchio in August. Some of the wine festivals have not only wine on all stalls but also coming out from the fountains instead of water. There are even Sagras celebrating omelettes or fried stuffed olives. There must be one to your taste somewhere surely.

SPQR stand for Senatus Populusque Romanus and literally translates as 'The Senate and People of Rome'. It was used by the senate of the ancient Roman times to denote anything which was theirs and is still used as the emblem of modern day municipality of Rome and is seen everywhere. I just wanted to add this in as I see it so often when visiting family in Italy so has a sort of good feel of familiarity to me. It's on coins, documents, monuments and especially on drain covers, so next time your in Rome have a look down at your feet to see this SPQR emblazoning a drain cover set in the ground protecting you from falling in.