Our group here in Montagano is not only made up of the DeCarlo-Goldberg party, which has varied between five and six people (plus and then minus Steven's mom, who left Sunday, and then plus Max's girlfriend, Stephany, when she arrived on Wednesday).There are also two other clients of the citizenship service, Michael, who hails from New York City, and Laura, who lives in Spain and came with her friend Jorge. From what I've overheard I'm pretty sure we are known collectively as "gli americani."
On Monday, June 19, a young fellow named Lorenzo, who'd gotten to know some of the younger members of our crew at one of the local bars, invited us all to his cantina for a party. Many of the old houses in Montagano have a cantina in the bottom, what we'd call a basement, a cool, dark place where traditionally wine is made, cheeses and hams are cured, and olive oil and all these other products are stored. A lot of people here have cantinas and use them, including Lorenzo. His is a shrine to wine.
"He makes a lot of wine and he drinks a lot of wine," said Maria, my inside source on all things Montaganesi.
She and our other new friends, including Lorenzo and his mother, brought all kinds of food for the celebration--meats, breads, cheeses, a traditional bean-and-farro soup of the area. This was the occasion for which Maria made a big tray of her delicious gratinato of wild greens. Another standout was the caciocavallo, a kind of provolone. Several were dangling from the ceiling above us. That and the ricotta were served with rum-spiked honey. So good!
More and more of his friends appeared. After quite a bit of Lorenzo's wine had been consumed, Pietro (on the left) brought out his guitar and another fellow played an instrument they called a buffo. (Or maybe bufo? I still have trouble hearing the difference between single and doppio consonants.) It looks like a combination bongo drum and butter churn. The musician holds the stick with a cloth and moves it rapidly up and down to produce deep groaning noises of varying pitches. It sounds like a jug, only deeper, and this guy really knew how to play it to give Pietro a driving bass accompaniment. It's very strenuous work, though; after they sang a few songs together, the bufo-ist gave out.
Then Pietro favored us with a very long, very scatological ditty about the taxonomy of bowel movements that I was hoping to find on line and reproduce here, but apparently no one has thought to put it up on Youtube yet.
By that point those of us elders who hadn't already left were saying our good-byes and thank-yous and making for home. I gather the party continued for quite a while thereafter. At least one member of our group admitted to a bit of a hangover the next day. A great party, in other words. And once again an amazing demonstration of the kind of open-hearted hospitality that is apparently just how they do things here in Molise.
2 comments:
Montagano appears to be an entire village of big hearted extroverts who love to eat and play together. Rehab for post modern isolation.
Or an Al-Anon hot spot waiting to happen. Or both, I suppose.
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