Festivals. Every town seems to have at least one celebrated annually, and many have more than one. The more popular festivals are anticipated with the same excitement as a holiday. Most last for a weekend starting Friday night, some last for a week or more and a few are over in the blink of one day. Stilt racing, religious, music, fried food, fish, historical event, cherry wine, cheese, chocolate, communism: they always have a theme. Festivals bring everyone together,, from the town, from the province or sometimes, from the entire region. They are the perfect excuse (as if one was needed) to socialize, eat food “typical of the region”, drink, dance and shop for prodotti tipici e artigianali con i produttori locali.
Last Friday night, we left after work to go Ostra, a small town about 40 km from Ancona for La Notte degli Sprevengoli a Ostra.
According to local folklore, Sprevengoli are goblins that torment people while they sleep by jumping up and down on their stomachs and stealing their breath (just like cats!) so you wake up in the morning unrested and out of breath. Ostra hosts this festival so the joy, good food and fun will chase away the Sprevengoli. As their slogan said: “The party that casts out fear…even that of the [economic] crisis!” The party lasted well into the night and cast out most fear, except the fear of the price I was going to pay when I woke-up the next morning (ehrm, afternoon).
Saturday, I woke-up feeling like a shoal (congregation, troop, drove, swarm, clutch?) of Sprevengoli had spent the night doing the samba on my stomach. By the evening I had scraped together enough will to live to join Valentina for the drive to San Paolo di Jesì, a commune about 35 km from Ancona, where the Festa del vi’ de visciola was going on.
This is a wine festival for the latest bottling of visciola, a meditation wine made from cherries typical to the Le Marche region. The Gomma Gommas were headlining that night and by the time we arrived, they had already set-up and then heavily sampled the viciousness.
For dinner, we joined the very long line to order from the community cassa. Just as we placed our order, the power went out for about 20 minutes, including to the receipt printer. They had our money but we had no receipt. No receipt, no food. Panic! Eventually, with the power restored and anarchy avoided, we found a seat in one of the large dining areas set-up around the piazza. When your food is ready, a waiter wanders around until food and table are matched which means whenever you see a waiter with a tray of food you signal frantically in hopes that it’s yours.
I had stinco (plural: stinci) because the opportunity to order a plate of something called stinco or stinci for dinner should not be missed, and it's delicious, and because it came with mashed potatoes which you rarely see.
The vicious power of the visciola launched the Gomma Gommas to never before reached artistic heights and between post-concert tear down, a DJ in the piazza and the generous offerings of wine from the band’s hosts, we didn’t leave until near four in the morning.
I am living a rock and roll lifestyle. And I feel like a pensioner.
This weekend is a long-weekend because Monday is All Saints Day, a national holiday so we are going to Perugia for a couple days. Perugia is home to a couple massive universities and I’ve been told has a fantastic historic center in the middle of a warren of tiny streets where visitors can’t help but become hopelessly lost. I can’t wait.
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