Now over eighty, Raffaello started painting his maiolica masterpieces as a young boy. Massimo started young on the potter’s wheel, too, creating the vases, pitchers, urns Raffaello still decorates.
At a young age, too, Giuseppa learned to make homemade tagliatelle: another sort of art. She still does at her farm just outside of Deruta.
Each carries on their respective arts with the same motivating force: passione.
A visit to Deruta is an immersion in passione, evident as soon as you enter the town: in this Umbrian village, everyone lives – directly or indirectly – from maiolica. Storefronts on both sides of the main street leading up to the medieval center are filled with maiolica wonders and here and there, some shops display terracotta objects for gardens. Larger buildings hold the kilns used in maiolica or terracotta production and they are related to each other: terracotta is a clay object of a single firing, maiolica is a twice-fired (with decorative painting before the second firing) wonder.
The centro storico of Deruta is small and unassuming but with maiolica gems scattered here and there and not just in the shops: the bakery, city hall, and the police office have maiolica signs and a reproduction of the lost maiolica-tiled floor of the 14th-century San Francesco church is reproduced on a wall.
Outside of the town, giant vases signal the entrance to maioica factories where tables, immense vases are made. if you pass them and keep driving into the countryside, you might find the farm worked by Giuseppa and Paolo.
[lcaption]Giuseppa’s passione for homemade pasta[/lcaption]
Keep your eyes open: you might see Giuseppa near her outdoor wood-burning oven sliding a cheesebread out or maybe even a roast goose and a couple ducks. She might have baked bread or pizzas in the same oven earlier in the morning. If you’re lucky enough to be invited into lunch, she’ll slice her prized prosciutto for you before homemade tagliatelle, served in a maiolica bowl masterpiece.
The perfect coupling of two sorts of Deruta passione.
Read about Giuseppa’s grande passione
Click here to read more about Giuseppa
On Youtube, see Giuseppa as she bakes cheesebreads in her outdoor wood-overn.
Read about “delectable Deruta” and feasting with Giuseppa
Read about rural cuisine and rural warmth near Deruta
[lcaption]Maiolica passione in Deruta[/lcaption]
[lcaption]Culinary passione near Deruta[/lcaption]
I am interested in cooking classes for my daughter and maillica lessons for me in the end of September or October.
The trip to Deruta and the Spello trip are interesting. Half day would be fine. What is the cost of the tours?
Yvonne