Slow Food home | About us | Foundation | Editore | Sloweb | Press Office | Store     Sloweb     Home | Sloweek | Voices from the Slow world | Slow Talk | News | Watch & Listen             EASTER ROUND THE WORLD - Easter in Taranto 12 Apr 01 - John Irving - Sloweek Of the many Easter celebrations staged all over Puglia, the region which forms the heel of Italy, none are more spectacular than Taranto’s. In this ancient seaside city, they take Holy Week very seriously. So much so that on the evening of Palm Sunday, a gara, or auction, is held in the sixteenth-century Chiesa del Carmine in which the members of the city’s two religious confraternities (Confraternita del Carmine and Confraternita dell’Addolorata) bid for the troccola, the odd rattle-like instrument used to mark the rhythm of the week’s religious processions. On the Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday, the city is criss-crossed by a number of minor parades and pilgrimages, but it is on Maundy Thursday that things really begin to heat up with the so-called Pellegrinaggio ai Sepolcri. At 3 o’clock in the afternoon, creepily hooded and hatted, the members of the Confraternita del Carmine, set off on a pilgrimage round the churches of the Borgo Nuovo, the new town, and the Città Vecchia, the old town, including the Cathedral, dedicated to St Cataldo, the patron saint of Taranto (an Irishman, incidentally) and described by Norman Douglas as a ‘jovial nightmare in stone’. They only return to the Chiesa del Carmine round midnight. The pilgrimage resumes at dawn on Good Friday and ends at about 11 o’clock in the morning. The ritual dates from the birth of the confraternities in the sixteenth century, though, since World War II, only the Confraternita del Carmine has kept up the tradition. During the Good Friday section, the pilgrims sometimes cross the path of the Processione dell'Addolorata, organized as the name implies by the ‘rival’ Confraternita dell’Addolorata, in which case they kneel and pray before the ‘Cross of the Mysteries’ and the simulacrum of the Virgin Mary. Last but not least, the Processione dei Sacri Misteri, which has been celebrated in Taranto since 1765, sets out from the Chiesa del Carmine late on Good Friday afternoon and only returns the following dawn. During the march, the barefooted members of the Confraternita del Carmine (at Easter, referred to as perdune, or pardons) don their ritual pyramid-shaped white cloth hoods with only slits for the eyes and black hats. Arranged in pairs, or poste, they pull along behind them the statues of Our Lady of Sorrows and the Dead Christ, as well as the papier-mâché Statue dei Misteri, which reproduce episodes of the Via Crucis. Each of the two perdune in the posta carries a two-meter staff which symbolizes the rods of pilgrims of yore. They stagger along slowly, almost drunkenly, to the monotonous beat of the troccola. Trac-trac-trac! In local dialect the exasperatingly slow walking pace is referred to as the nazzecàte. The week’s celebrations come to an end with the traditional Easter Saturday Vigil and, on Easter Sunday, the ‘Holy Mass of the Resurrection of Our Lord’, attended by all the confratelli, the members of the Confraternities, and their families. Not that the Easter festivities are confined to religious functions alone; they also extend to the table. Taranto is renowned in Italy for its oysters and mussels. Not surprisingly, since the Città Vecchia is situated on a sort of island cum isthmus between the sea proper, il Mare Grande, and a huge lagoon, il Mare Piccolo; in antiquity it was noted for this peculiar geographical position and already famous for its cultivation of shellfish. Facing onto the Mare Piccolo, Piazza Fontana and Via Cariati are the venue for a bustling fish market where, festooned with nets of black mussels and buckets full of clams and oysters, makeshift stalls brim over with the best of the day’s catch. The fishermen of Taras-Tarentum-Taranto have almost 3,000 years’ experience behind them, and their expertise spills over into the local cuisine. Classic dishes include tiella tarantina (baked mussels, potatoes, courgettes and rice, a dish reminiscent of Spanish paella, just as the garb of the perdune betrays resemblances with the iconography of the Spanish Inquisition - memories perhaps of the foreign domination of the past?), ostriche ripiene (stuffed oysters) and cavatelli con le cozze (pasta and mussels). But if it’s meat you prefer, gnummerieddi are rolled lamb gut, stuffed with minced offal, herbs and garlic (the best place to eat them is the lovely baroque hill town of Martina Franca, just inland from the city), while horsemeat steaks, braciole di cavallo, are popular stewed slowly in tomato sauce to dress pasta dishes (especially in the western part of the province of Taranto). Local cuisine also sets a great deal of store by fresh vegetables and pulses: hence ‘ncapriata (broad bean purée with bitter wild meadow chicory dressed with chopped raw red onion, red pepper and extra virgin olive oil), orecchiette con le cime di rape (pasta with stewed turnip tops) and frittata coi lampasciuni. (an omelet filled with a bitter wild local tuber). Moving on to dairy produce, the fine local scamorza is molded into dove-shapes for Easter, while ricotta squanta, piquant ricotta, is grated on orecchiette and cavatelli to heighten the flavor. The area also boasts a whole range of Easter cakes and biscuits (bocconotti, dita degli Apostoli, carteddate and many others still), the main ingredients of which tend to be almond paste, wine, dried figs and honey. To drink? Primitivo di Manduria from the east of the province, of course. What else? John Irving is one of the editors of the Slow Food website Photo: the Aragonese Castle (www.tarantonline.it)   News archive from Terramadre News archive from Slowfood Foundation for Biodiversity News archive from University of Gastronomic Sciences News archive from Watch & Listen           News     Italy - 05 Feb 10     Pasta Madre     Farmers, academics, researchers, and members of the public will gather in Bologna this weekend as the city becomes host to Pasta Madre, Slow Food's two-day event focusing on bread, pasta...           News archive     France - 04 Feb 10     Europe Edges Towards Bluefin Ban     France announces their support for trade ban on blufin tune caught in the Mediterranean and Atlantic. ...     China - 03 Feb 10     China Considers Dog and Cat Meat Ban     Defenders of traditional cuisine and animal rights activists battle over potential ban on eating dog and cat meat in China ...     Paraguay - 01 Feb 10     Greenwashing for Beef Land     A Brazilian cattle-ranching company has been exposed for illegally bulldozing land belonging to a native tribe in Paraguay ...     Turkey - 29 Jan 10     First Slow Cities in Turkey and USA     New Slow Cities on the Californian and Ageana Coastlines ...     United States - 28 Jan 10     Freedom Food     Prisons launch grow-your-own schemes for inmates ...     Australia - 26 Jan 10     Slow Australians Awarded     Second-longest Australian Slow Food member named a Australian of the Year 2010 ...     Archive previous news   Slow Food 2010 - All rights reserved - P.iva 91008360041 - Powered by Blulab