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I’ doto voi, del mese di gennaio, corte con fuochi ed in salette accese, camer’e letta d’ogni bello arnese, lenzuol’ di seta e copertoi di vaio, treggea confetta e mescere a razzaio
(Folgore da San Gimignano: Sonetti dei mesi)
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Under the lashing of the wind and the white snow mantle the holidays in the farms help a return to the family , the pauses of meditation, the rediscovery of little daily pleasures |
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Text by Maria Concetta Nicolai Photo D’Abruzzo Archive |
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Family Time |
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The traditional iconography of the calendars carved on the portals of the cathedrals represents Winter or January, the central month of the season seen as a man sitting by the fire of a big fireplace turning round a spit of roast meats.
Here’s January by the fire
Turning the roast and making games
Sitting at table like a great Lord
Of all the months he’s the best
The ancient song of the twelve months tells the direct descent of those sculpted works. It can still be found in the peasants’ carnivals repeating, at a folk level, a didactic genre which finds in the learned literary form of the two-three hundred centuries famous examples in the Carmina De Mensibus by Bovesin da la Riva and in the Sonnets by Folgore da San Giminiano. It goes on till our times with a more stereotyped tone, in the books of Hours and in the Almanacs
Je me fais janvier appeller
Le plus froid de toute l’annče
Mais si me puis je bien vanter
Que ma maison est approuvče
“I’m named January, I’m the coldest month of the year, but I can boast myself because everybody appraises me”. This is the incipit of a Franco- Burgogne of the XVI century widely diffused by travellers and road artists in Italy. It came from the South of Italy the secularisation of the ecclesiastic calendar structured on the epact, the Roman summoning, the Sunday letter and the martyrology letter. The school from Salerno suggested in that opera of cultural syncretism which is the regimen Sanitatis, hygienic behaviours and medical practices adequate to each month.
In iano claris calidisque cibis potiaris
Atque decens potus post fecula sit tibi notus
Cedit enim medo tunc potatus bene credo
Balnea tute intres et venam findere cures.
“In January you’ll drink hot and clear soup, but after the meals you know you must drink moderately. In that circumstance in act the best thing to do is to sip a syrup with honey, then have a bath and a bleeding”. It is pointed out the convivial aspect of winter and particularly of January maintained up to our times by the peasant culture as family time and housework. This is the season of wisdom and tales. The old and the children find around the burning fire the spaces of memory and curiosity of secrets and sentiments.
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| Winter Time |
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Tell-a Tale Time |
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The time of the popular tale is winter and the privileged space is the glowing reflection of the burning fire.
All the tradition of the telling tales, starting from Perrault’s tales deals with the winter fireplace. The oral Abruzzese culture expresses its examples above all in the big winter feasts, when the grandparents become depositaries of memories and knowledge.
Times change, yet it is in these occasions that the whole family, composed of grandparents, parents, uncles, children and grandchildren, find its role. And if to the elder it is assigned the role of telling, to the younger it is assigned the role of listeners.
Myth and Fantasy are the protagonists of the winter tales even in our times of multimedia communications. The narrating voice enhances the mysterious space of imagination. The look and the gesture thrill the curiosity and attention of the listeners.
The Abruzzese country is spread with farmhouses where you can still find an old woman, in the cold and long evenings, ready to entertain the children with everlasting tales.
The dusk covering the surrounding hills and its inhabitants, the frozen fields light up with thousands colours and while the little Queen is leaning out of a palace with hundreds of shining windows, the King of Portugal sets off to find a spouse as white as milk and red like blood. As he goes ahead and ahead, in Naples he met “a little old lady who stopped him and asked him:
“My handsome young man, what are you looking for?”
“My good old lady, I’m looking for a white and red spouse like this ricotta red as blood; but I wondered and wondered but I haven’t found her yet”
“Is this the reason why you are so sad? Don’t worry I’ll help you. Here you are three nuts, when you get to the first fountain, break one and a beautiful young girl, white and red like this ricotta will come out. She won’t wear any dress, just wrap her with a cloak otherwise she will disappear…”
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| Winter Time |
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Magic Time |
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Winter is the time of predictions and horoscopes. It is Christmas time, at dusk the patriarch of the family sweeps away the cinders and puts twelve grains on the hot stone in order to predict the meteorology of the coming new year and the quality of the harvest. The women of the family, on the contrary, on Christmas night, renovate virtues to loose the bad eye and evil spell and pass to the others, specifically, to the younger generation, the knowledge of the family and the therapeutic and religious practices.
The old in the family bless the house with an olive branch. At the same time, they hide the sickle under the black chimney and, in so doing, they chain the sad souls to the fountains, so they won’t disturb the children’s dreams.
It is a magic moment. In the country it is time to renew fire and water. The first one is represented by a big log burning night after night in the fireplace till the Epiphany. The second one is renewed on the New year morning by a natural and old spring.
The girls throw out of the door one of the shoes to predict the fortune of the bridegroom and the date of the wedding while a gay group of young men sing door to door.
Tomorrow’s Epiphany
And tonight’s Epiphany
I sing in the street
For the Virgin Mary
I sing in this house
For the blessed Virgin
I turn to the left
Father, Son and Holy Spirit
I turn to the right
And I find the written anger
And written and writing
God may send you the fortune
Good fortune God may send you
Good Epiphany to all of you.
The magic time goes on even after the Epiphanies which “ take away all the feats.”
On the 25th of January, the day of St. Paul’s conversion the snake (representing the evil) wakes up. Those who are born on that day are able to win the bite of the snake. “St. Domenic created the snake, St. Paul discovered it, put it in the sea, melted it like salt, like the salt in the soup, go and melt away bad beast”.
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| Winter Time |
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Carnival Time |
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For the peasant culture, Carnival is one the most complex, contradictory and intriguing moment in the year because it represents the border between Winter and Spring. For the peasant world Carnival is the biggest feast because it expresses the farmers’ founding values. It is a period of meditation looking at that particular scenery: frozen fields and windy nights.
Excess, Licence, Disinhibition, Orgy overturn completely the daily system of life. The presence of a mask gives the individual the possibility of representing himself and anybody else.
Not many things of the ancient symbology are left in the present peasant Carnival. Peasants used to represent in the different squares of the village, with a procession, the twelve months, trying hunger, misery and Carnival himself was personified by an old woman saucy and eager in the act of devouring sausages in a shining night pot.
Nowadays discos and allegorical carts have replaced the old representations even if in some remote villages of Abruzzo you can still find a gay brigade of young men going door to door and singing old motives:
And on the Carnival evening
In search of a wife I was
She didn’t want to make bread
If it wasn’t corn flour
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| Winter Time |
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Full Barn Time |
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In wintertime, especially if the harvest has been generous, the peasants thank God for the daily bread and enjoy that fortune.
They rejoice at the endless variety of colours. In fact in a farmhouse you can see sacks full of corn, the wine getting clearer and clearer, the jars are full of oil, and from the beams of the ceiling hang different kinds of fruit with grapes, tomatoes and peppers, pumpkins, melons, dry figs, maize.
In a corner, hidden to the children, nuts and almonds, jams and honey. While the cheese is still getting dry above everything you can witness the triumph of the pork. It is the real richness of the peasant winter and the apotheosis of the habitually poor table.
“You don’t waste anything of the pork”. Even the ears and the feet are considered a delicacy. Not to speak of the blood which as soon as the pig is slaughtered is fried with rosemary and garlic with an addition of nuts. It also becomes a delicacy.
All the country churches have a statue of St. Antonio with a pig beside him. The begging friar used to recite at every door:
Sausage and salami
Wine and boiled wine
Even the bone of the ham
St Antonio accepts everything
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| Winter Time |
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"Panarde" Time |
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The winter banquets are always epic, starting with the Christmas dinner and going on with the New Year’s banquet and with the ritual “panarda” of St. Antonio Abate, finishing with the orgy of Carnival.
Food is in the peasant culture a basic symbolic element. Gathering around the same table, especially in solemn recurrences , different related generations, expresse a sacred conception which identifies in the food, the fast or the prohibition of particular nourishments, religious , moral and social values.
Christmas Eve dinner is characterised by nine poor courses like the nine months of the pregnancy of the Virgin Mary. In fact the popular wisdom identifies in the necessity of interrupting, even if symbolically, the difficulties of life and this is better expressed in the saying: “At Christmas neither cold nor hunger”.
The event which more than the others , in winter time, comprises and enhances the ritual characters of the collective banquets is the great “PANARDA” of St. Antonio Abate. This tradition is better expressed in Vallelonga, a small village in the Abruzzo National Park. The most spectacular aspect of the “panarda” relies in the quantity of the courses which, sometimes, can be more than fifty and in the etiquette which imposes to the fellow-companions to honour the table, consuming the food in the dish.
Nowadays about twenty families every year on the evening of the 16th of January prepare a great banquet which lasts all night long. In the same room an altar is put up and on it the statue of St. Antonio dominates among ornamental arrangements of fruit, eggs, and cakes. When all the guests have taken seats at table, the host recites the rosary, tunes up St. Antonio’s prayer; and then the host gives the order to serve all the guests. The dinners lasts the whole night, alternating prayers with religious songs; every now and then begging groups go “panarda” to “panarda” asking for gifts and food in the name of St. Antonio Abate.
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| Winter Time |
The flavours and the scents of the countryside in winter
The typical winter products (salami, legumes, jams and cakes) can be tasted and bought in the following farms
Bellavista. Campotosto (Aq). Tel. +39 0862 900128.
Mortadella and other salami from Campotosto
Casa Colonia. Barete (Aq). Tel. +39 0862 976322.
Sweets and salami
Casale Mancinelli. Capitignano (Aq). Tel. +39 0862 902259.
Beans and salami
Da Adele. Calascio (Aq). Tel. +39 0862 930104.
Typical sweets
La Canestra. Capitignano (Aq). Tel. +39 0862 901243.
Emmer sweets and jams
La Casa Rosa. Montereale (Aq). Tel. +39 0862 902339.
Salami, sweets, chick-beans, lentils and beans
Casa Sole. Castelvecchio Subequo (Aq). Tel. +39 0864797206.
Sweets, chick-beans, grass peas
Jovana. Scanno (Aq). Tel. +39 086474657.
Typical sweets
Le Prata. Scanno (Aq). Tel. +39 0864 747263.
Typical sweets
L’Ape e l’Orso. Villetta Barrea (Aq). Tel. +39 0864 890129.
Typical sweets of honey
La Porta dei Parchi. Anversa degli Abruzzi (Aq). Tel. +39 0864 49492.
Typical salami (sheep salami)
Fattoria dell’Uliveto. Scerni (Ch). Tel. +39 0873 914173.
Sweets, legumes, jams and ventricina
La Collina degli Allori. Casalbordino (Ch). Tel. +39 0873 900369.
Typical sweets and salami
Il Profumo dei Ricordi. Celenza sul Trigno (Ch). Tel. +39 0873 958159.
Salami and sweets
Montefreddo. Palmoli (Ch). Tel. +39 0873. 955254.
Salami
Casino di Caprafico. Guardiagrele (Ch). +39 0871 897492.
Legumes and emmer sweets
Ferrara Linda. Montazzoli (Ch). Tel. +39 0872 947286 - 947134.
Salami
Il Mulino. Montenerodomo (Ch). Tel. +39 0872 969729.
Salami
La Vecchia Casetta. Montenerodomo (Ch). Tel. +39 0872 960154.
Salami and legumes
De Lutiis Maria. Palena (Ch). Tel. +39 0872.918391.
Salami
L’Uliveto. Palombaro (Ch). Tel. +39 0871 895201.
Salami
Bruno Palmerino. Roccaspinalveti (Ch). Tel. +39 0873 959142.
Salami
Olimpo. Villa Santa Maria (Ch). Tel. +39 0872 900425.
Salami and jams
Agriverde. Ortona (Ch). Tel. +39 085 9032101.
Salami and jams
Collalto. Penne (Pe). Tel. +39 085 8215003.
Jams and legumes
Ai Calanchi. Loreto Aprutino (Pe). Tel. +39 085.4214473.
Salami
Collatuccio. Loreto Aprutino (Pe). Tel. +39 085.8210737.
Jams
Di Mascio Ernesto. Loreto Aprutino (Pe). Tel. 085 8289263.
Salami
Il Portico. Penne (Pe). Tel. +39 085 8210775.
Jams
Il Vecchio Frantoio. Farindola (Pe). Tel. +39 085 8236271.
Salami
Fonte Cupa. Farindola (Pe). Tel. +39 085 8236272.
Salami
Di Giacomo Sandro. Pianella (Pe). Tel. +39 085.971163.
Typical sweets, bread and jams
Di Cesare Alberto. Pianella (Pe). Tel. +39 085 971196.
Salami
La Ventilara. Penne (Pe). Tel. +39 085 823374.
Jams
Tenuta Sigillo. Penne (Pe). Tel. +39 085 28102.
Dolci tipici
Rasetta Orlando. Catignano (Pe). Tel. +39 085 845351.
Salami
Di Giovanni Pierluigi. Cepagatti (Pe). Tel. +39 085.9749561.
Salami
Speranza Domenico. Cepagatti (Pe). Tel. +39 085.9771517.
Salami
Mucciante Dino Vittorio. Carpineto della Nora (Pe). Tel. +39 085 849203.
Salami
L’Aperegina. Corvara (Pe). Tel. +39 085 8889351.
Honey, jams and salami
La Lindera. Corvara (Pe). Tel. +39 085 8885859.
Jams and sweets
Cusano. Roccamorice (Pe). Tel. +39 085 8572208.
Jams
La Pagliarella. Caramanico Terme (Pe). Tel. +39 085 928174.
Salami
Tholos. Roccamorice (Pe). Tel. +39 085 8572590.
Sweets and jams
Fonte Riccione. Rosciano (Pe). Tel. +39 085. 8505832.
Sweets and jams
Grande Giuseppe. Villa San Giovanni -Rosciano (Pe). Tel. +39 085 8505848.
Salami
Capodacqua. Cermignano (Te). Tel. +39 0861 66678.
Salami, sweets and jams
Colle San Giorgio. Castiglione Messer Raimondo (Te). Tel. +39 0861 990492.
Salami
La Fattoria. Castiglione Messer Raimondo (Te) Tel. +39 0861 990378.
Salami
La Ginestra. Castiglione Messer Raimondo (Te) Tel. +39 0861 990140.
Sweets and salami
Colle Settevangeli. Arsita (Te). Tel. +39 0861.998008.
Sweets and jams
Conti di Monteverde. Cellino Attanasio (Te). Tel. +39 0861 668598.
Jams and dry fruit
Gioia. Cellino Attanasio (Te). Tel. +39 0861 659055.
Sweets and jams
Il Melograno. Cellino Attanasio. (Te). Tel. +39 0861 659041.
Sweets and jams
Di Marco Eugenio. Arsita (Te). Tel. +39 0861 995208.
Salami, sweets and jams
Lo Zar. Giulianova (Te). Tel. +39 085 8000145.
Wild boar salami
Il Feudo. Castellalto (Te). Tel. +39 0861 556241.
Sweets and salami
La Tana del Lupo. Crognaleto (Te). Tel. +39 0861 95460.
Salami
Le Macine. Teramo Tel. +39 0861 555227.
Sweets and jams
Picchio Verde. Teramo. Tel. +39 0861 328737.
Typical sweets
Cerquone. Tossicia (Te). Tel. +39 0861 698097.
Jams
Trabassi. Isola del Gran Sasso (Te). Tel. +39 0861 975185.
Salami
I Tre Comignoli. Tossicia (Te). Tel. +39 0861 593147.
Salami
I Vaccari. Isola del Gran Sasso. (Te). Tel. +39 0861 975045.
Jams
Il Borghetto. Tossicia (Te). Tel. +39 0861 698498.
Salami and jams
Il Regno dei Sogni. Colledara (Te) Tel. +39 0861 698253.
Sweets
Di Carmine Adina. Castel Castagna (Te). Tel. +39 0861 650165-650070-697227.
Salami
La Quercia. Colledara (Te). Tel. +39 0861 698350.
Salami and jams
vTembrietta. Isola del Gran Sasso (Te) Tel. +39 0861 975262.
Salami
Le Macine. Silvi (Te). Tel. +39 085 9354033.
Salami
Gioie di Fattoria. Controguerra (Te). Tel. +39 0861 82269.
Emmer flour and biscuits
Cardelli Annibale e Giuseppe. Corropoli (Te). Tel. +39 0861 82550.
Salami
All this has been issued by the Associazioni Agrituristiche regionali Agriturist, Terranostra, Turismo Verde and with the contribution of the Region of Abruzzo Assessorato Agricoltura Forsete e Alimentazione L.R. 32/94
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