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     United States - 01 Sep 10     Eataly in New York     The philosophy and campaigns promoted by Slow Food over the past twenty years to strengthen regional, tasty and sustainable food, and reconnect consumers with the origin of their food, have...           News archive     Brazil - 17 Aug 10     Gastromotiva     Terra Madre chef and Slow Food convivium empower disadvantaged youth to enter culinary careers ...     Russia - 16 Aug 10     Biodiversity Hangs in the Balance     Slow Food joins the protest against destruction of Europe’s largest repository of rare fruit ...     United Kingdom - 13 Aug 10     Food Justice     Slow Food UK praises social justice report’s call for action ...     Philippines - 10 Aug 10     Against the Grain     The Indigenous Taguibong people in the Philippines continue to practice the traditional rice threshing and milling methods of their ancestors ...     Georgia - 05 Aug 10     Meeting in the Birthplace of the Vine     First Terra Madre Georgia held with a focus on wine and small producers ...     Italy - 03 Aug 10     Strengthening the Indigenous Voice     Slow Food enters into a partnership to advocate for indigenous groups around the world ...     Archive previous news   Slow Food 2010 - All rights reserved - P.iva 91008360041 - Powered by Blulab