The night of San Martino: New Year's agrarian del Salento Lecce

The night of San Martino: New Year's agrarian del Salento Lecce
Antonio Bruno *

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The crop year runs from Lecce in Salento 12 November to 11 November the following year. So for those who have been accustomed to live out of the country on November 11 is the last agricultural year! In this note the traditions associated with this event.
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How not to recall the work of people immersed in the country lives? Already, the plant of the vine with its ripples, the trunk full of knots that will immediately give the perception of each year that leaves a mark, a node after another, until the fateful day 40 years of its production cycle after the end of which will be replaced by another plant. A plant at the man who chose to race for the conquest of the primacy of the tree top, the skill to give the grapes, the grapes from which then, almost miraculously, the wine oozes.
Already a miracle! From these clusters as a magic night of a specific day each year it happens that a liquid flowing and full of smells of a thousand flavors, red or white or pink, the wine!
The night of November 11, the night of St. Martin!
The beginning of the agricultural season is the corresponding vegetative cycle of crops that give annual income for the farm. The crop year runs from Lecce in Salento 12 November to 11 November the following year. So for those who have been accustomed to live out of the country on November 11 is the last agricultural year! The last of the calendar is New Year's Eve and the last agricultural year is San Martino!
For those who do not know what happened to the peasants that night, those who do not understand why the party, I mean the two states of mind who used to live in the hearts of those who had intended to spend his entire life in the camps, and two were opposite mood, the joy derived from the good harvest and the narrow escape the famine was reflected fear for what might happen in the new year, the ever-looming threat of famine for those who have all their belongings in the sky and should be entrusted to 'uncertainty of climatic his survival and that of the family.
Salento in Lecce on November 11, it evokes the combination of death-life. No other profession as
Agronomist and farmer that has to do with the theme of death and rebirth, which corresponds to the annual cycle of seasons. Perhaps only the family doctor, the one that follows all of our lives, has something in common, although I must say that he only partly similar to our task because it helps his patients to the birth or death, and only rarely can boast of having seen a person from cradle to grave. Instead, we farmers or Doctors of Agronomy live with ever-changing events, we are used to the rhythm of nature made quick fortunes and disasters that quickly in a precarious thrill, as if we were ever on a roller coaster!
The farmers were waiting for the St. Martin's Day because it is warmer than the winter cold for the phenomenon of Summer of St. Martin. A little 'heat to open the "ozze" (clay amphora), or the barrels and taste the new wine. All around the chest full of liquid gold which was resounding, wealth and prosperity for all! On that day focused the hopes of harvesting and sweat labor in the vineyards.
They were all gathered around a clay amphora, and after opening tasted the wine again, the first taste already understood, judged and defined the characteristics of the product, a genuine debate between the speakers and opinions with respect, a workshop experience , a share without limits in a ritual that left everyone breathless.
To taste the wine is no need to dine, to have something that can be accompanied drunkenness of the liquid, and behold, the cellar or winery goes into the kitchen, through the flavors and tastes of Salento Lecce flavor enhancers comparable new wine making, judging, gustabile and livable.
My memory is inextricably linked to the November 11 Friends of adolescence, buying sausage roast to be done on the grill, the delicious "pittule" (the "pittule" for non-Salento are made from wheat flour kneaded and leavened then fried in olive oil with fists) of chicory Galatina (Catalan) and to eat raw fennel, chestnuts, walnuts and quince paste.
St. Martin's dinner to be made between friends, without parents, including us. It was granted for that day to eat and drink alone, to celebrate the beginning of a crop year, which coincided with the sale of new wine, the fruit of human labor del Salento Lecce, the sale of an entire year's work family.
I have seen for years after the lottery prize award for the pluck of the vineyards of a wicked Common Agricultural Policy since the late '70s to the present day, hectare after hectare of all of us powerless to the extermination of "Espalier" and only " A Fistful of Euros "so that the ancient and beautiful stretches of vineyards cultivated in Puglia tree, similar to the vineyards that decorate the most beautiful landscapes of Italy, there is little left. Only a few areas retain the reddish color of the leaves in the autumn of lives that are ready to fall into the ground after a spring and a summer of hard work, because the screw can finally go into hibernation until next spring awakening.
But despite all this, despite the fact that most of the Salento Lecce did not gain any more than wine, in most families of Salento, Lecce, on the day of San Martino, 11 November, is still preparing the table with the roast grilled, vegetables and nuts and chestnuts, mandarin oranges, all accompanied with the nectar of the gods, the wine of Salento Lecce in a "conditioned reflex", a "repetition compulsion" worm which has been lost sense.
Already the sense, reason, why it is celebrated has been lost, forgotten and hidden from the thousand Hypermarkets "Kingdoms of the Consumer, cathedrals raised to the sale" on the shelf "where not even know where to come the wines and foods that are provided us with the cart hallucinated strollers that look, take, fill that basket with wheels and do not exchange a word with anyone!
The meetings with friends on November 11 to celebrate St. Martin continued in my life because I am part of a generation that has had a long adolescence, the result of university studies and a wedding too often delayed.
In the country house of a friend of mine then we have continued to celebrate for years and years, every November 11 and then finally married, I am to do it again at my house, despite not having a vineyard or wine for sale from which to obtain the sustenance for the whole year.
The truth is that we in the Salento Lecce continue to persist in implementing the ancient rites of initiation and the feast of St. Martin 11 November each year, it is one of the demonstrations.
Throughout the Salento Lecce is celebrated this festival, all aggregates and all aware that they can break in a release. In fact, on November 11, everyone is allowed to drink and get drunk, even the children in this way are welcomed into the circle of adults and then "initiated" for the breach.
Celebrating in San Martino in the house, before the fireplace with family and friends. I want to send a clarification addressed to those who, for the night of San Martin, buy the wine. In recent years there is a tradition of drinking wine novel Nov. 11 that, mind you, has nothing to do with the new wine. The new wine is not an invention of Salento Lecce nor any Italian can be ascribed to the invention of this wine. It 'was in France at the beginning of '900 in the area of the Beaujolais grape is vinified using the technique of carbonic maceration and the wine obtained, claiming the name of the location where it was produced for the first time, he was appointed Beaujolais Nouveau.
The cellars of the Salento Lecce produce it knowing full well that the novel is not a wine that can be stored for a long time because of lack of maceration on the skins, and that's why the bottles are about 720mila baked from Puglia are to be consumed in short time. So if San Martino You can have a bottle of new wine store it but not drink it now!
We will all, even for 2010, the feast of St. Martin because we know that represents a break from the usual outlets at a pizzeria, pubs and discos. On November 11 of each year is proof that you can have fun in a way is always the same for centuries and at the same time, so different from the fun of Movida beginning XXI century.
The truth is that all of us in the Salento Lecce know that whatever we organize for November 11 is fine! On that night the only important thing is to get together, gather around a table spread and eat what is dictated by the tradition (from the Latin traditiònem deriv. To betray = deliver, transmit).
The wine on 11 November each year, flowing waterfalls, rivers, seas, to cause fever and delirium of fun. All of us in front of the fireplace, all around the fire and before the inevitable to sing and play guitar.
On 11 November 2010 as did our fathers, we will be in front of the fire in his eyes
the red of embers, feel the warmth of being together, sing, laugh and dance and exchanged caresses. All around the fire, to live seriously, because we and the universe we are one whole!




Bibliography

Maria Irene Malecore: Sorcery Japigia: Ethnography and Folklore of Salento
Thomas Schirinzi: Santu MARTINU Story of a brand
Michele Bucci: Hello ... NOVELLO
Andrea Zanon: S. Martin, the crop year, the capital of anticipation