Hangin' with the Wine and Cheese Crowd Again

Ciccio and Salvatore

We’ve beeen hanging with the wine and cheese crowd again.  And loving it.

It started last week when we went with Fernando, Katiuscia and Fabio to Santa Maria di Castellabate, the seaside village below our favorite hill town, for the Festa del Pescato, a festival celebrating the local fishing industry.  Basically a good excuse to gorge on some of the freshest seafood you can imagine for not very much money.

Pasta with mussels

Fritto misto di mare

Locally made liqueuers

From a central ticket booth, we bought tickets in increments of 1€ for a series of booths that served flash-fried seafood (7€), pasta with seafood (6€), wine (2€ for a tall cup), sweets, etc., but there were also small kiosks where you could pay cash for local artisinal products.  As Fabio wandered the perimeter, he came across a stand selling locally made cacioricotta, our local goat-milk cheese, struck up a conversation with the proprietor, told him how obsessed Fernando and I are with these little cheeses, and before we knew it we were in an intense cheesy conversation which was capped by free cheese samples and an invitation to the creamery.  Mozzarella di bufala from this area is world famous, and should be, but I believe these little cheeses should be equally famous, so it was an invitation we couldn’t refuse.

Francesco's booth at the Festa

Fernando samples Francesco's fresh cacioricotta with arugula, which Fernando made as a child

So last night, we drove with Fernando to nearby Rutino, a beautiful little hill town about which I recently blogged.  On the way I thought I heard Fernando say something about meeting for pizza and assumed perhaps that was the plan after our visit.  But we stopped in the town’s centro, inquired about our host and soon were met by…Mr. Pizza!  Signore Francesco Pizza, to be exact, as warm and friendly a guy as you could hope to meet.  After a quick stop at a local bar for the obligatory caffè, Francesco led us to a high ridge just outside Rutino where he has his farm.  Now, the views from Rutino are spectacular, but I swear they’re even more eye-popping from the creamery, looking out over the Alento River valley to the north, to Monte Sorpano and the Alburnii massif in the distance, looking up to the imposing castello of Rocca Cilento and the peak of beautiful Monte Stella to the west, looking southward toward mighty Monte Gelbison and the mountains of the Cilentan interior.  I suppose I could come to work every day without wasting a good 20 minutes just gawking at that view, but I wouldn’t want to bet on it.

The view from the azienda

Francesco’s cheesemaking operation is as sophisticated as you could want while still making real artisinal cheese, with a large stainless fermentation vat with a hot-water jacket to control temperature, a large stainless table for draining curd and placing it in the little plastic forms which have replaced wicker almost everywhere here, but still leave the imprint of a ‘basket’.  Behind the lavoratorio was the temperature- and humidity-controlled curing room, where rows of wooden shelves housed some 120 cheeses of various shapes, sizes, and ages of curing from fresh to several weeks.  To one side of the room is a large walk-in where another 100+ aged cheeses wait for distribution.

Temperature-controlled fermentation vat

Cheeses aging in the curing room

Cacioricotte from fresh (r) to slightly aged (l)

Posters for the Frecagnola

A beautiful, fresh cheese

On the wall were posters going back many years for the Festa di Frecagnola at Cannalonga, held every year at the beginning of September.  We had actually tried to visit the festival this past fall, but it was raining buckets and most of the purveyors had given up and gone home (it was the last of the four days of the festival).  Francesco explained that the age-old practice of transhumance, the herding of dairy animals to the high mountain pastures in spring and back to the lowlands in autumn (think of Heidi going with Grandpa to the high Alpine meadows), was a standard practice with local goatherds, and the local herds typically came down the old drove roads through Cannalonga about the first week of September.  In the little town, goatherds would meet and gossip, buy and sell livestock, and dispense with some of the extraneous bucks, (of which there would be many after the spring kidding season) by slaughtering and butchering them and boiling up the meat in a stew called frecagnola in the local dialect.  The meat was a treat for poor goatherds who rarely tasted it, but Francesco says that the broth is now the real delicacy.

Francesco took us to one of his three barns where he keeps his bucks, two handsome fellows from a famous Swiss breed which he purchased in Holland for an exorbitant sum, and a little fellow who had bronchitis and looked pretty puny.  Goats are notoriously susceptible to chills.

Francesco explains how Ciccio was purchased in Holland

Sadly, we weren’t allowed to see the ladies; Fernando explained that ruminants such as goats need a nice, quiet riposo to digest the day’s grazing, and any excitement like a an introduction to a couple of rogue Americani could ruin a whole day’s milkings.  But Francesco showed us the pasture where the prima donnas graze beneath those same incredible views.  Francesco explained that he likes to allow the gals to free-range as much as possible because it improves the quality of the milk.

Many of us have the false notion that goats, like their ovine cousins, will eat just about anything.  In fact, I was indirectly indoctrinated in that nonsense as a kid (sorry about that pun) when my piano teacher, the saintly Mrs. Counce, tried to flog a little ditty into my talentless hands.  The treble hand played a phrase and the bass hand reiterated it with a series of chords.  Think of a barbershop quartet where the tenor sings the phrase and the lower voices respond in three-part harmony.  But the fun part was that the music book included the words, which I found so hilarious that I almost became proficient at this one song.  And so I give you the immortal “Bill Grogan’s Goat”:

Bill Grogan’s goat (Bill Grogan’s goat) was feeling fine (was feeling fine),

Ate three red shirts (ate three red shirts) from off the line (from off the line).

Bill took a stick (you get the picture), gave him three whacks,

And tied him to the railroad tracks.

The whistle blew; the train drew nigh.

Bill Grogan’s goat was bound to die!

He gave three groans of awful pain,

Coughed up the shirts, flagged down the train!

Music available upon request.  You’ll definitely want this magnum opus in your repertoire.  

But, in fact, goats are very picky eaters.  They receive their omnivorous reputation because they will gum almost anything, to release the esters so that their incredibly sensitive noses can make a judgment as to its desirability.  But most of their ‘tastings’ are actually rejected.  But goats absolutely adore herbs such as sage and thyme and the various mints, flavor notes that are transmitted to their milk.  And those herbs are rampant here in the Cilento.

The ladies' pasture

Transmitted along with their therapeutic powers, I might add.  Fernando assures me that goats are one of the few animals that never develop cancer, and medical science ascribes that in part to their feeding regimen.  And I can tell you from my own research that herbs and spices have powerful antibiotic and antioxidant qualities, powers which are synergistically increased in combinations.  And there is some evidence that all those therapeutic powers are present in our little cacioricotta cheeses.

We left the farm, but Francesco had another delightful surprise in store for us.  He led us through town, down a local road towards the Alento valley to a gorgeous agriturismo called ‘I Tre Tigli Casa di Campagna’.  Housed in a lovingly refurbished villa with manicured grounds, the villa has five guest rooms to let and the Paciello family provides meals to their guests.  Most of the products come from the farm itself, all organic produce, or from local (as in Rutino) producers.  Signore Paciello brought out a soprasatta, his own handiwork, Francesco sliced up a fresh cheese, and we uncorked a bottle of Il Barone Fiano, made up at the top of the hill.  I’ve raved about the fiano grape before, but I will reiterate, the wines from the Avellino appellation are good, but to my palate they pale by comparison with our Cilento versions.  And this one was stellar. 

The Villa 'I Tre Tigli' in Rutino

Signore Paciello with his soprasatta

Fiano, an undiscovered jewel

Maybe it was the ambience, maybe it was the delicious food and wine, perhaps the luscious weather or the aroma of the three linden trees which have lent their name to the villa, but by the time the bottle was empty, we knew we had met two more talented but unpretentious and thoroughly gracious Italians whom we are thankful to call new friends.

http://www.itretigli.it/

Fernando, Francesco, Sandy and Signore Paciello

Trekking

      Disclaimer:  probably the least authoritative voice in the world on hard-core trekking in Italy is a sixty-seven-year-old chubbers.  But perhaps there’s some value even in that.  To most of the world, a trek is a long, difficult voyage, and it can certainly connote that in Italy as well.  But here it can also mean a nice amble out in nature.  And as I hope you have gleaned from Sandy’s photos, if not my little blogs, there is a wealth of spectacular nature to amble amid, here in the Cilento.

Here, and I suspect in all parts of Italy, there are hundreds of sentieri (trails) of only moderate difficulty that can be accessed by anyone in reasonably good health.  And there are trekking clubs for almost all of them, many with excellent web sites and offering guided hikes at regular intervals.  Probably the most popular is trekking.it.  The one problem we have found with Italian trekking is that trail markers, especially at trail heads, are poor or non-existent.

Right here in Agropoli, from the Bay of Trentova, there are several sentieri which traverse various parts of Monte Tresino, the local hill which forms the southern terminus of the Bay of Salerno.  

The Bay of Trentova from the coastal trail

The city wall of abandoned San Giovanni

The church and monastery in the little village

A view from Monte Tresino

Monte Tresino is only a bit over a thousand feet high, so even the trek to the top is not just for the hard-core.  We’ve enjoyed hikes here several times, most notably one along the coast past Il Vallone, an old Roman port from which spectacular Roman archaeology was extracted, primarily by our scuba-diving buddy, Franco Castelnuovo:  lead anchors from Roman ships, dozens of amphorae, gobs of ceramics.  All now in the Agropoli and Paestum museums.  Also on the mountain is the evocative little abandoned village of San Giovanni di Tresino, established in 957 around a church and monastery but abandoned in 1962.  We’ve also hiked out to the Torre dei Saraceni, the 'Tower of the Pirates', at one point designed to spot and warn the locals of the approach of Moorish pirates, but also perhaps used by those same pirates, who captured Agropoli in 882 and used it as a citadel for their local raids until they were forced out in 915.

Monte Soprano above, Monte Sottano below, and the Canyon of the Three Mountains

More recently we hiked part of the Sentiero di Tremonti, the Trail of the Three Mountains, a trail which leads through a strange and spectacular feature of three local mountains near the beautiful little towns of Giungano and Trentinara.  A look at the map shows two parallel mountains, the northerly Monte Soprano, aptly named ‘Mount Higher', and below it Monte Sottano.  You guessed it, ‘Mount Lower’.  The Romans would be proud of such literalness.  Both are gorgeous in their own right, but the feature that is really intriguing is that cleft that you see right through the middle of Monte Sottano.  My friend and font of information on all things seismic and geological, Andrea Tesoniero, tells me this was caused when the European tectonic plate, overthrusting the Adriatic plate to form the central Apennines, got in such a hurry that it ripped a tear in its britches.  Andrea has a Ph.D. and is doing a post-doc at Yale, so his explanation was a bit more technical, but you get the picture.  That small cleft, a fairly common feature in such peripheral zones, provided a channel for a mountain stream, which eventually carved its way down the limestone and dolomites of the mountain to create the canyon.

The parcheggio with the canyon in the background

Trailhead markers can be a bit iffy.  This one is in the middle of a quarry.

Acess to the trail through an old quarry.

We were introduced to the canyon by our friends Fernando and Fabio during our first summer here back in 2010.  The guys, very much tongue-in-cheek, referred to it as ‘The Grand Canyon of the Cilento’.  A bit of an exaggeration, but it’s still beautiful.  There’s a local myth, unsubstantiated by any historical evidence, that Spartacus and his followers holed up here during the Third Servile War of 71 BCE.  It’s a wild and woolly place, so if they didn’t, they missed a good chance.

What is undoubtedly true is that the trail is absolutely gorgeous.  The little parking lot is right off the main highway to Giungano.  From there you hike up a local road and access the trail from the grounds of a former quarry.  You wander along the western flank of the torrente (seasonal stream) that carved the canyon, a stream that forms the headwaters of the Solofrone River which empties into the Tyrrhenian Sea near Agropoli.  

The view southward from the trail.

Looking north toward Monte Soprano.

Walking through the beautiful macchia.

To the left are the towering cliffs of Monte Cantenna, the western extension of Monte Sottano, to the right the valley of the torrente, and behind you to the south, sweeping panoramas over the agricultural plain and the hills and mountains of the Cilento.  You climb up through myrtle, broom, lentisk and other elements of our Cilentan macchia, ‘scrub’, most in flower and adding their ravishing scents to the oregano, thyme, rosemary, catmint and a half dozen other herbs that grow wild here in such profusion.  Our cute little local green lizards, which have the strange compulsion to run across a path or road any time they sense movement coming,  are the standard fauna.  The trail trends steadily upwards and is fairly steep in places, a challenge for the old geezers, but a good one. Soon, ahead of you appear the towering cliffs of Monte Sottano, karstic formations carved into the soft limestone of the mountain, some towering up to 1300’ and more.

Karstic cliffs of Monte Sottano

A bridge leading to the eastern side of the torrente.

There are several picnic areas along the trail.

Eventually the trail turns eastward and you cross a beautiful wooden bridge over the torrente, already dry after the winter rainy season but still beautiful in the verdant setting created by those same winter rains.  The trail traces the eastern flank of the stream for a stretch until you reach La Cascata, the cascade created by the steep northern slope of the canyon. No cascade this time of the year, but the huge boulders tumbled down by heavy floods gave some idea of the potential power of winter spates. 

The Cascata in March 2014.  Photo courtesy of Amatori Running Sele.

      We stopped and enjoyed some refreshment and a breather at a tranquil little picnic area, then made our way about a quarter mile up the eastern slope of the canyon before old knees began protesting.  For younger legs, the trail reaches the shoulder of of the mountain, immediately beneath some of those sheer cliffs, then ambles along eastward till it reaches a local highway.

The return hike was a bit difficult for the first bit; the soil and gravel of the trail is loose and the slope steep, making footing treacherous.  But soon the descent became a gentle downward slope and we enjoyed vista after vista down to the south and eastward to the towering cliff upon which lies the little town of Trentinara.

On the right, the plateau on which lies Trentinara.

And here's the view looking down from Trentinara's 'Terrazza del Cilento'.

Speaking of which, we have now examined the Vallone di Tremonti up and down.  Literally.  That first year we were here, Fabio and Fernando took us to the little town of Trentinara and introduced us to the Terrazza del Cilento, a huge, spectacular terrace at the western end of the town.  Since then we have been back repeatedly to gawk at the views. The name is apt:  from the terrace you can see all our three mountains, as well as a huge swath of the Paestum Plain, the ruins of Paestum, the cerulean sea beyond, and down toward the south our beloved Agropoli, Monte Tresino, and the mountains of the Cilentan highlands.  A good reminder that some things, no matter how right they may seem from one perspective, can be just as riveting from the opposite one as well.

Aperitivo!

We love the Cilento any time of the year,  but one of the things we loved about being here in September and October was the more relaxed pace of life in the Fall.  I’m happy to say the same applies to the Spring as well.  It’s not that people aren’t busy now, but without the hordes of tourists on the weekends in July and all during August, the logistics of work, school, and shopping are just much simpler.  Even the crazy Italian drivers seem more chill, unless I’m just becoming accustomed to some of their frivolity.

This atmosphere feels more genuinely Italian.  In general, Italians are hard-working folk, but they don’t worship work and materialism the way many Americans do.  Family, good food, friends, traditions—those are the keystones of a balanced life, and they require time.  Italians just prioritize time to slow down, socialize, get out to the piazza to schmooze.  And one of the most delightful manifestations of that urge is the aperitivo.

The aperitivo is similar to the Spanish tapas or even the stop by your local bar after work, but it’s also different.  There’s a great deal of debate as to when and where the aperitivo became a standard part of the Italian repertoire.  According to Andrea Adams’ article in the Huffington Post, from which I’m shamelessly cribbing here, some think it was invented in 1786 by Antonio Benedetto Carpano, creator of modern vermouth, as a way to hustle his hooch.  Others attribute the ritual to Gaspare Campari in the 1860s.  Campari opened a bar in Milano and began serving snacks and drinks which he mixed with his home-brewed Campari liqueur, now world famous.

Crunchies and drinks at Bar Anna.  On the right is the classic Aperol spritz.

Bread sticks wrapped with prosciutto

Personally, I think like so many food myths, these are both probably wrong.  For one thing, vermouth was invented, not in the eighteenth century, but in the first, by the Romans, who were entranced by a new drink called conditum, a mix of wine and various herbs and spices.  None other than crazy Nero supposedly introduced the fad of serving it as a chilled (with imported snow!) pre-dinner drink with nibbles.  And one of the standard herbs in the mixture was artemisia, otherwise known as wormwood, which gives both its name and its characteristic bitterness to vermouth.

Sandy's concoction, blood-orange juice with amaretto

Olives with local stracchino cheese

In any case, the name aperitivo comes from Latin aperire, ‘to open’ (as in aperture and April) to describe a slightly bitter, low-alcohol cocktail served with small bites to start the digestive juices flowing.  The aperitivo is drunk after work, sometime between 5 and 9, so that you’ll be ready for that cena at 9, the standard dining hour here except in winter.  Its opposite is the digestivo, also a bitter, in this case a tiny dram of an infused alcohol often flavored with bitter almonds or walnuts.  Here the idea is to aid digestion after a heavy meal.  Hey, it may sound weird, but it works.  Besides, its bad form to argue anything food with an Italian; trust me, you’ll make a fool of yourself.

Bitterish cocktails with foods appeared first in the modern world in the bars in Milan in the 1920s, and they have become widespread all over Italy.  In some of the big cities, the ritual has morphed into the apericena, a cocktail which gives you access to a buffet of appetizers, and in some cases free rein to go back for seconds or even thirds without buying another drink.  Needless to say, extremely popular with the college crowd.

Canapés are popular noshes.

An aperitivo overlooking the Greek  temples in Paestum

Typical drinks for an aperitivo are the Aperol and Campari spritzes; that is, either Aperol or Campari liqueur (both somewhat bitter from the chinotto, the bitter orange) mixed with sparkling wine  and soda.  Also popular are the Americano, which substitutes vermouth for the liqueurs, and the Negroni composed of Campari, gin and vermouth.  Drinks are beautifully presented and delicious.  Our favorite refinement is the straw made from compressed sugar which they use at Bar Nazionale. Foods are served in stylish serving dishes and are more or less elaborate.  At a minimum there will be salty, crunchy snacks such as peanuts, chips, or our local taralli, little baked biscuits in a donut shape.  Otherwise you may see olives, grilled veggies, tiny canapés of all sorts, Italian cheeses, even fresh pasta.  In some of the big cities, bars may resort to international foods such as curried chicken and couscous.

The redheads enjoy some social time.

In our area, bars offer strictly aperitivi, not apericene.  And that is fine with me.  A nice aperitivo for two people here in the Cilento, both food and drink, will set you back all of ten bucks. There are places in my home city where you can’t get a single, decent glass of wine for that price. If you’re still ravenous, the best pizza in the world will cost you six, and you can have a beer with that for an extra buck fifty.  Just don’t expect the wood-fired pizza ovens to be ready before 8:30.

The one essential ingredient of the aperitivo is that you find a sidewalk table, order a drink, kick back, relax, unwind, enjoy the luscious weather, and socialize with your friends.  And don’t get in a hurry; if you get up out of your seat in less than an hour, the barkeep will be highly insulted.  Miss Sandy and I often aren’t overflowing with conversation since we’re together 24-7, but that’s just fine as well.  The other after-work ritual here in the Mezzogiorno is the evening stroll, the passeggiatta, and it’s easily the best curbside show on earth:  couples ambling along together, friends of the same sex—both male and female—strolling along arm-in-arm, completely unselfconscious, teenagers and especially preteens doing the Italian version of the cruise, children riding scooters, trikes, bikes, and hover boards, proud mamas and papas pushing strollers, often with an even prouder nonna along, and dogs, dogs, dogs everywhere and all socializing as well.  I promise you, there is a wonderful communal vibe that is absolutely palpable.  And Sandy and I just sit and sip and smile, delighted to be even a small and unobtrusive part of that thrumming human context.

One of our favorites, in the beautiful hill town of Torchiara

Everybody enjoys the passeggiatta, even if you're just a spectator.