Not “show and tell” but “show and sell” is the theme of the Italian mostra mercato. These markets – generally open-air – can feature just a handful of vendors or hundreds and anything on display can be bought – and in some cases, tasted. For us, no better way to warm up a chilly November night than at the Mostra Mercato del Tartufo near Valtopina…
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Si! Naples has its woes. All the world knows about them. Naples has its treasures – and not all are known. Whenever I have a couple of free days from my tour work here in Umbria, Naples is often first choice for a jaunt with my frequent traveling companion, Roman friend, Silvana. We hadn’t been to Naples in two years – and I was feeling the first symptoms of “Naples withdrawal”…
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The truffle has always been the richest and most refined element of Mediterranean cuisine. Certainly not desired for its beauty – it resembles a measily rotten potato – the truffle grows underground, like the potato, far from light and air, taking its nourishment, like other mushrooms, from the forest undergrowth.
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Umbria, “Italy’s green heart”, is green all year thanks to the non-deciduous live oaks blanketing the mountains and the silver-green olive trees which cover our hills. Umbria boasts about 56,000 acres of olive trees in the region and 27,000 producers of top extra-virgin olive oils. This is a golden year for our liquid “gold”…
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Monteleone. The picturesque hilltown’s name, “Mount of the Lion”, denotes force, domination and greatness. The name might seem pretentious for this tiny mountaintop village in the Val Nerina area of Umbria, not far from Spoleto, nearly abandoned, with two cafés and one restaurant But the sixth-century B.C.gilded bronze biga (chariot) – unearthed here in 1902 – and now in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York – “was certainly owned by someone powerful,” local “chariot expert”, Roberto told us proudly. The chariot – of possible Etruscan workmanship – embodies a glorious past.
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Like bent over old men, dried cornstalks stand forlornly in fields joining our farm land. The corn has been picked and who knows if it has been pulverized for chicken feed or for the corn mash which will fatten the pigs, turning their rear thighs into tasty prosciutti? Then again, the corn might have been ground for corn flour for polenta or brustengolo, one of the few sweets which highlight Umbrian rural cuisine.
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Umbria, called “Italy’s green heart”, is green all year thanks to the non-deciduous live oaks blanketing the mountains of our region and the silver-green of the olive trees which cover our hills. The superb olive oils of Umbria (and particulary those of the Assisi/Spello area) – considered the best in the world by Alain Ducasse, famed French chef – are celebrated in the Frantoi Aperti (best translated “Open House at the Olive Oil Mills”) festival from the end of October to early December…
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November is bellissimo in Umbria, ie, fewer tourists and much to do: olive oil mills are open all over the region offering the newly milled oil on bruschetta to visitors…
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Umbria welcomes in the Feast of St. Martin, November 11th, with the saying “San Martino, San Martino, castagne e vino” (“St. Martin, St. Martin, chestnuts and wine”). As the days turn cooler, the smoke of the wood-buring stoves snakes out of farmhouse chimneys…
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