When I was young I wanted to be a
journalist as an adult. I had been, romantically,
figuring myself sending reports from far lands, facing dangers, avoiding
bullets and having troubles and adventures. Then life drove me through other
roads: I found a job as employe when I was 19, just at the return from a three
months trip in England to improve my English skills.
I applied at
University to study Foreigner Languages, but i have never attended a class. I tried
again some years later signing at the Superior School of Journalism: same end.
I had to do boring paper and telephone work and I have been doing it for 8
years. Then my husband and I decided to open a restaurant. You can well
understand that I had to forget my willing of writing professionally.
But life
starts again every single morning. You never know what there is round the
corner.
Here I am
writing. Writing professionally, I mean, because, as people who write well
know, writing is a primary need, as I have been doing it every day, almost the
same way I sleep or eat every day.
What took –
and is taking me – to see my young desire to come true is….food.
The very day
that changed my life one more time was exactly May 15th, 2004. A
crazy day, at a crazy feast, with a crazy companion and a myself, suddenly (and
maybe for ever) got crazy.
Imagine the
heart of Italy, in Umbria, a hilly country side pointed with several medieval
castles.
Imagine the
soft, almost mystic atmosphere, with silence, birds sound, green trees,
churches and, at noon, magic ring from bell towers.
Imagine
something that breaks, I’d say, kinks the usual peace. Beating drums, shouting
voices, flying flags thrown by banners in colourful renaissance uniforms.
Imagine the whole population of a town running down the streets, like a flooding
river, filling them completely without a bubble of air between the crowd and
the edges of the narrow alleys.
That was what
I saw behind one of the last corners of my life, that was actually the angle of
a stout grey wall of an ancient house in Gubbio: a river of humanity running
the crazy race.
My good
companion of adventures – in reality the one who convinced me , not with great
effort, but just with her graceful and the same time naughty smile, to go there
– was Lauren Cranford. Not enough words to explain our friendship, based on
lovely smiles, respect, estimation and a bit of crazy-ness.
We were
terrified, stuck flat at the wall, while the crazy river was running half inch
from our noses.
Maybe it was
destiny that my professional writer career had to be started with something
dangerous, like in my dreams of young girl.
The people in
Gubbio were celebrating their patron, Saint Ubaldo, whose mummy lays in the
sanctuary on top of the hill facing the old town. The race is not a real
competition and it is known as the Race of the Candles. The Candles are not
made of wax, but they are three gigantic wooden columns, as tall as the houses.
On the top there are the statues of three saints, Ubaldo, Giorgio, Antonio,
representing medieval guilds. The huge candles are lifted on platforms: the
ceremony of their lifting has a big emotional impact on the people of Gubbio.
Then the platforms are carried on the shoulders of teams of strong boys, called
Ceraioli. What they have to do is to run the Crazy Race with the Candles on
theirs shoulders, making a few stops to allow the change of the bearers. All
the people run behind their saint, along slopes going up and down, while the
Candles lean dangerously on a side, or forward down, on the crowd. The big deal
is to be able to reach the platform and just touch the Candle. Old and young
people, men and women: all try to get to their Candle and would cry as they do
it.
All this
happens late in the afternoon, until the long running tail reaches the sanctuary.
It is the
Festival of Crazy-ness, the real celebration that takes place in Gubbio every
year. Like a sort of common purification: when you run like crazy, you forget
all the bad things of your life, clarify your mind, wash off worries, - at least
for the lasting time of the race -. Within that short segment of time you feel
free.
Wasn’t that
the perfect point to start from?
I did not
run, but I was touched by a good crazy-ness that made me to see my actual
problems much smaller and to become more optimist about the future.
Although the
deepest aim of the feast is a social purification, rather than the
glorification of a Christian saint, however this festival is sanctified with a
profusion of food.
Which kind of
food?
Something
that would sounds a little crazy, too: sea food and fish.
That it would
not be strange if Gubbio, in the middle of Italy, that is the heart of Italy,
would not lay in a territory locked to the sea. The sea water is not visible,
even with a binocular.
The reason is
fasting: May 15th is the anniversary of saint Ubaldo’s death.
Since the
meat was abolished for fasting times, to justify the lack of it during winter
and convince poor people that was God’s willing, the medieval monks inside the
cloisters had the smart idea to start fish farming in pools built with this
purpose. Fish was not meat in their opinion. So they were allowed by the Mother
Church to have fish also in fasting times.
The
anniversary of a death is fasting time. Thus, fish!
The most
available kind of fish in such a far place was salted cod. Of which Italy
boasts the most number of recipes and is the biggest consumer in the world.
Here they are
a recipe with cod with which you would delight your guests. And believe me:
good salted cod is not that much “fishy”
.
SALTED COD FISH WITH TOMATOES AND PRUNES
Ingredients
for 4- 5 people:
800
gr (2 Lb) salted cod fish
800
gr (2 lb) canned tomatoes
extra
virgin olive oil
garlic
and onion, minced
¼
glass vinegar
100
gr ( 3 oz) raisin and dried prunes
salt
Soak
the cod fish since the day before, changing water often. Cut it in big chunks
and take off the bigger bones.
Make
a "soffritto" with the olive oil, minced garlic and onion. Add the
pureed canned tomatoes, a tiny pinch of salt, hot chili pepper. Cook a few
minutes before adding the fish and the raisins and prunes previously softened in warm water and
squeezed. Put a lid on and continue the cooking on low heat for 15 minutes,
stirring with care occasionally. Pour in the vinegar and let it to evaporate on
higher heat and without the lid.
Serve
hot with toasted bread or slices of polenta.
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