Overnight in Cerignola

[6 March 2004, Saturday evening]

Leaving Cannae we headed off to Cerignola, a drive of about 30 minutes, where we linked up with Luisa and her father –  they met us at the toll gate coming off the A16.

We followed them into town and down a series of progressively smaller streets to their house where we parked. (Later in the evening we would park our car in their “box” as they referred to their garage.)

 Naturally, Rosa (Luisa’s mother) had prepared a lunch for us in their informal dinning room right off the kitchen. It seemed as if Rosa cooked and prepared food constantly, much to the delight of her family and guests.

They had just finished their soup course when we called. Tiny pasta in broth with vegetables, followed by fried beef scaloppini with chicory and lettuce in oil and vinegar and for dessert we had a ricotta cake with a crumb topping – absolutely fabulous.

 After lunch (which took a while) we retired to the formal dinning room – which was also the sitting room – and looked at more family photos. This seems to be one of their favorite pastimes and curiously we found ourselves drawn into their enthusiasm and excitement in sharing their family memories with us.

Susie and Vito

Vito and Cinzia soon arrived from Stornara, and Steve brought out the computer and showed a few prepared movies of photos taken during our previous visit to Stornara and Cerignola earlier in the week. We also showed them Susan’s website (on the computer not online) as well as Steve’s site on Siena and Italy.

At about six in the evening Rosa began making the pasta dough for the evening meal – the main course would be fried panzarotti with fillings of either tomatoes and cheese or prosciutto.

Rosa

Rosa and Peppino

 After the dough was prepared and set aside to rest for a couple of hours, Peppino (a nickname for “Giuseppe”) went next door to his office to catch up on some paper work – he is very active in the Italian nursing association -- while Vito, Cinzia and Susan and I went for a passegiata, with Luisa serving as our tour guide for the sights of Cerignola.

 To the average foreigner such as ourselves we might have passed through and never given Cerignola a second look, just concluding as we had done for so many other cities and large towns along our trip that it was too busy or not designed for easy tourist access, etc. Yet with Luisa’s explanations of so many of the things to be seen we had to conclude that a guide, and preferably a local guide, can indeed provide a world of new things to see and learn.

 We saw the church near the Tampone home where they attended mass when the children were little – and mass was underway as we walked in. Interestingly there were no men but the church was filled with women only. The men, we would soon come to find out, were in the center of town, in large groups, standing around talking, smoking, and, according to Luisa, many of them were daily agricultural workers looking to line up jobs for the next day.

 The evening was cool but the sky clear and the moon full and as we walked around with Vito and Cinzia and Luisa explaining what we were seeing it was as if we were seeing a slice of Italy through local eyes. We also stop to buy a second bag for the additional items Rosa has given since we arrived Saturday afternoon.

We walked back about 8 or so and the family moved to the top floor apartment for the evening meal and where we spent some time looking at photos on Luisa’s computer. We saw her doctoral presentation (done in Power point) on medieval ceramics in a dig near Florence, as well as photos of her and other students at their present dig in Matera in Basilicata. 

Tina

Cinzia

Nino

Luisa’s fiance’s parents, Nino and Tina, soon arrived for dinner (her fiancé is studying in the Netherlands) and the rest of the evening was devoted to either preparing or eating dinner which commenced at about 10 pm.

 We had fresh mozzarella rolls, beef pizzaiola, chicory, and of course the panzarotti. The wine, a light and simple, slightly sweet white wine was provided by Nino who is also a local wine producer. The meal also consisted of talking about food and politics and many questions were asked of us, particularly from Tina who is a professor of history at one of the local universities.

We retired to bed – actually “beds” since we were sleeping in Luisa’s room, which consisted of two very comfortable single beds -- sometime after midnight.

The next morning after coffee we were on our way back to Rome.