| LIFE IN PUNTACROCE FIFTY AND MORE YEARS AGO (This is a recollection of the author, not a historic research) By Carmen Palazzolo Debianchi Presentation Carmen Palazzolo Debianchi was born at Puntacroce, present day Punta Kriza, in 1934. She left her town in 1946, and for a short period of time resided at Lussinpiccolo, where she attended part of her junior high school. In March of 1947 accompanied by her parents moved to Trieste, her actual residence. The long story that we are reproducing, which is divided in six parts has been published about a year ago in the“Comunita’ Chersina” of the Association “Francesco Patrizio”. The recollection of facts is a fruit of the author’s memories together with the memories of her mother, a lively lady in her ninety Part One: The beautiful and the bad, the homes, the sources of sustenance The beautiful and the bad Today, when it happens that I tell some one that was born in Puntacroce, in the island of Cherso, I hear always the same statement:” You are coming from a marvelous place! That stony-trail leading toward Cherso! That sage’s scent! The bounty of the sea! “But, Puntacroce, called today Punta Kriza, tiny town situated on a little hill overlooking the PI‘s bay at about 12 kilometers from Ossero, in my time it was a dispersed place in the middle of the fields and woods, without a carriage-road, water and electricity. The worst discomfort was not constituted by the need of water or electricity as much as the need of roads. As a matter of fact, the path leading toward the Pogana’s bay, from where with a tiny boat you were able to reach the two closer towns: Lussinpiccolo ed Ossero, it was so narrow and stony that there was no other way to go but, by foot This situation, before the time of radio, television and phone, deprived the residents of this town any possibility or by horse or, better likely, by donkey. This is how it was before the radio, the television and the telephone were introduced. The residents of this little town were deprived of any possibility of communication with the rest of the world. Regarding the water, all the houses were equipped with a cistern, where, the rain water was collected by the gutters and forwarded through the downspouts to the cistern. For the electric lighting, instead, petroleum lamps or candles or, in some cases, carburet lamps were used. The heating system was provided by the wood’s fire lighted on the Fogolar (fireplace) of the house, or by the spahert (wood stove) or by both. Today, when I hear people talking about the beauty and warmth of the fire places and the hearty welcome atmosphere that a fire place can offer, immediately my thoughts are going back to the houses of Puntacroce, where the atmosphere it could have been, hearty welcome but, definitely, the warmth of a fogolar (fire place) was not there. In effect the warm was only in the immediate vicinity of the fireplace but, as soon one was removing himself from the immediate vicinity or going to another room, especially the ones upstairs, he was caught by a very cold air, which I still remember and will never forget. The cold was not only because there was no heat in all the rooms, but to the fact that the outside air was infiltrating all the doors and windows not properly sealed. Who is used to the houses with a central heating system cannot even imagine what this could be. Aside the discomfort of the winter month and the communications difficulty, which were not much different from the other small villages , not only in Italy but, all over the world, It might be of interest to know how the people of this small town were living, was often different from those in nearby villages and varied from the actual. The town’s houses had a special characteristic structure built to conform with weather and family needs. My grandfather’s house was constructed with a walk-in entrance that led to the main floor. On the top floor were two large bedrooms that were joined by a shared door. The first room was for the children. The other room was used by the parents and had access only from the children’s room. The main level had two kitchens, one for summer and the other for winter. The summer one was accessible from the front of the house, the winter one from the back of the house. The most characteristic place of the house was undoubtedly the winter kitchen with its circular form and an open entrance without a door, at the far end was a narrow window. Above this room was a small terrace, this was also circular and accessible only from the master bedroom. In the middle of the room was a big, square fireplace that nearly occupied the entire area. Above the fireplace hung a heavy chain suspended from the ceiling with a large hook at the end. My grandparents hung their pots from this hook when cooking. A circular wooden bench was attached to the wall and surrounded the fireplace. This room, besides being very characteristic was also the warmest. The summer kitchen was more like a living room, because it was here that we received and entertained guests. On the left side of this kitchen were the stairs leading to the upstairs bedroom. Under the stairs was the opening of the water well and nearby was the cameniza, a container carved in stone closed by a wooden cover housing the olive oil produced by the family. On the right side of the kitchen entrance was the oven where home-made bread was baked. At the entrance door, between the summer and the winter kitchen, was a large and dark space. It was here that you were able to exit to the back of the house where my grandparents had a pig sty, a chicken coop and a vegetable garden. In this dark space between the doors, were two round milestones, one to grind the wheat and the other to grind the corn. On the other side, large containers held wine produced from the family’s vineyards. Hanging from the ceiling were hams and goat cheeses stocked on shelves to dry until it was time to cover them with olive oil and store them in boxes. Although the reserves of food, prepared by my grandparents, were quite abundant, the daily bread was used sparingly to have enough for the rest of the year. In fact, the motto of house was: “Children we’ll have to eat tomorrow too”. Once a week the summer kitchen was used to bake bread. The ritual started early in the morning with the yeast preparation: paneto = a piece of dough from the previous week, water and flour. The paneto was put in a kneading hutch, which resembled a cradle without legs. This mixture was left for a while to ferment . After the fermentation, more flour and water were added and left to ferment again to certain degree. This last step was very important, because if the limit of fermentation was excessive, the bread would be sour. Only years later, the bread was made by using barm yeast. In the spring, during the milking time and cheese preparation, they used the whey produced by the milk when making cheese, to prepare the bread instead of water. The result of this process was a softer and tastier bread. Generally, the fermentation process ended by the afternoon. At this time small branches of ivy were burned in the oven to warm it up. The perfect temperature was reached when the walls of the oven, constructed of bricks, became white. Burning charcoal and ash were put in a hole at the opening of the oven with a baker’s shovel. The bread mixture was divided into loafs and put in the oven to bake. Some of these loafs were used fresh and some were toasted. The loafs to be toasted were cut deeply with a knife before they were put in the oven. This process was used to allow easy cutting after baking time. As a matter of fact, as soon they were baked they were cut again and put in the warm oven to toast. This bread was used when the fresh bread was finished. Those who couldn’t eat the toasted bread, because it was too hard, was forced to wet it. Before Easter, this furnace was used to bake the pugace, sweet Easter bread. SOURCES OF NOURISHMENT The main sources of nourishment for the village’s inhabitants were agriculture, breeding sheep, fishing and lumber. Since the land was very stony, products were produced on a small scale and hence only for the family. Today, seeing the field uncultivated and full of rocks, it doesn’t seem possible that all the houses in those days had a flourishing vegetable garden in spite of the stony land. My grandfathers, who owned much land and many assets, cultivated peas, beans, eggplants, potatoes cabbage and other kinds of vegetables. In their garden one could find almost everything from parsley, onions, garlic to lettuce and scallions, which my grandmother prepared as a savory gravy, sliepi brudet. There was no lack of aromatic plants such as sage and rosemary. Where ground wasn’t cultivated, little plants of chamomile bloomed and more randomly bunches of lavender. The larger lots of land cultivated vines, wheat and corn. To my recollection, the wheat did not satisfy the family needs, but the corn did. Polenta was never missing at the evening meal. A hard working family did not suffer from hunger if they had land to cultivate, a place to cut lumber, and fields to graze sheep. In order to earn some money, the men of the village had to go to work in the coal mines, or in the lime mine or sell firewood from their own forest. As a last resort, they joined ships and set out to sea. Frequently, people immigrated, in particular to the United States. It could be a temporary state for one member of the family or a permanent one. In the first case, usually the head of the family left for a period of time in order to earn the necessary amount of money to achieve an objective. My grandfather, for example, went three times in America and accomplished buying a house and land. In the second case, the emigrated head of the family, after having found a job and housing, would call another member of his family or even a friend through the sponsorship of an American citizen. In other cases, men forgot their families and never came back. They re-married and formed new families. Although they never returned to their homeland, they continued to support their native wife and children. With regard to fishing, nearly all the families possessed a small boat, called a banana or a cacao. It seems that in my grandfather’s day the sea was abundant with fish, you could catch it with your hands. I can still savor the taste of the brunette, made from smoked polyps. An important ingredient of the local economy was sheep breeding. Still today, this resource is very important for Puntacroce’s supply of meat, wool, milk and cheese. To keep the sheep nourished, families maintained special land which was called pascoli. After the grass of one field was grazed, the animals were transferred to another field and so on until the winter. At this time, all the animals of the village were gathered in a large field on the city’s property called Comunada. For easy recognition, owners discerned their sheep by stamping a mark on their ears. PART II CULTIVATION, COOKING AND NOURISHMENT Nourishment and cooking were dependent on the availability of produce. Fifty years ago at Puntacroce, they cooked with produce from their garden such as potatoes, onions, garlic, scallions, cabbage, chicory , beans, string beans little tomatoes and some eggplants. Large pieces of land were used to grow vines to produce the wine that was bottled. There was a great abundance of fig-trees, while the growth of pear-trees and plum-trees were poor. In the middle of the village were huge mulberry-trees bearing delicious and savory berries that were white and black. There were no cherry-trees as there are none today. Olive trees were scarce in Puntacroce whereas in Cherso and the immediate suburbs there were plenty. As a result, produce from olive trees and cherry trees was poor. This was due the saline mist coupled with the strong bora wind that burned them. During my time, sheep, chickens and pork was the main meat. In fact, every house bred a pig in the back yard. The sea was offering an abundance of mackerel, sardines, gold-fish, octopus, bobe and many other kinds. Contrary to today, they didn’t fish scampi, lobster and other kinds of crustaceans. According to my mother, meat from crustaceans was not appreciated so this type of fishing was abandoned. Oddly enough, the people of that time did not use the produce that occurred naturally in abundance on the land, such as mushrooms from the nearby forests. The reason being that no one in the town was expert enough on this culinary treat. It was said that while cooking, one was supposed to boil them with a clove of garlic or a piece of silver, as these agents would turn black if the mushrooms were poisonous. Others instead, gave them to cats to see their reaction before eating them. Snails, so abundant after the rains, were not enjoyed either. Instead, in springtime, they picked wild asparagus which grew everywhere. These vegetables were kept in bunches, boiled and eaten with eggs. Among the ingredients that the garden and nature put at their disposal was potatoes, which reigned sovereign. They were used in everything: in soup, with the cabbage, in swiss chards, in meat sauce and, even in fish sauce. Meat and fish were not a daily meal on the table. The meat was ordinarily reserved for days of festivity. Chicken, in particular, was killed only to make a soup when someone in the household was ill. In fact still today, I cannot tolerate the odor of poultry much less the flavor since I associated it with sickness (as it true for most people). Fish that was brought on the table was never bought, but rather fished by the man of the house. If too much fish was caught and could not be consumed at a meal, it was salted in the case of sardines or mackerels. Cuttlefish or octopus was cleaned, opened and hung near the fireplace to be smoked. The smoked fish was consumed during the lean periods of winter. Shell fish was soaked in lukewarm water for a couple of hours before being cooked. This would soften them and provide the base for making brodetto with its particular aroma of soffritto of scallion with a smoked flavor. The ever present potatoes and polenta completed the dish. These dishes are no longer prepared, not even at Puntacroce. No one in the village is prepared to spend the time needed to dry and smoke fish, or to cultivate gardens. Today, produce is purchased at the village store or somewhere else. A characteristic Sunday dish was made from potato gnocchi, maccheroni or carpize flavored with sheep or lamb or chicken goulash. The pasta was home made with flour and water and cut in small squares of about three centimeters per side. Then two opposite sides of a small square were lifted curled around the finger of a hand, they attached one to the other to form the maccherone, which had a similar shape to what we call pennette. The carpize, instead were simply cut in a triangular shape. The traditional gnocchi were prepared instead with integral grain flour kneaded with boiling water. My mother never made them but she saw her sister-in-law, my aunt Gasparova make them. My aunt was an excellent cook and she often brought her husband gnocchi for lunch when he worked in the forest. Preparation of the potato gnocchi were started much later. Curiously, the homemade pasta was prepared without eggs even though each home had their own chicken coop and eggs were abundant. Another special dish was srobich made with corn meal and cooked in a broth produced from sheep or lamb intestines. The intestines were carefully cleaned and then boiled in salty water with onions. Once cooked, the tripe was strained along with the onions. The corn meal was then cooked in the remaining broth in a loose consistency. After it was cooked, it was poured in the plates and enriched with the previously prepared tripe. The intestine of the pig was cut in pieces and my grandmother, my mother’s mother, used it to prepare sweet salami that I had occasion to taste. To start with, when the pig was slaughtered it was necessary to prepare and put the intestines aside. They were cleaned, cut in to pieces, salted, blown and hung near the fire to dry. When it was time to fill them, my grandmother put some dry figs cut in small pieces to soak in lukewarm water. These figs served as sweetener. When they were soft, grandmother strained them forcefully in water in order to let all the food-stuff out. She then strained the mixture, threw the squeezed figs to the pig (as nothing was to be wasted!) and used the water. She prepared the filling with this water, white flour, pig’s fat and raisins. She used this filling to stuff the saved intestines. The salami at this point was ready to be cooked in boiling water. It was eaten warm immediately or, after it was cooled, it was cut in thin slices and roasted. It was a sweet that was above all eaten during Carnival time. In my town – strangely enough for those times! - they did not prepare sweet or salty preserves. They did not make sausages of any sort and they did not pickled fish. The women of the town seemed to ignore the techniques of food preservation as was practiced in other parts of Italy before the use of refrigeration. The only method used to preserve food from deterioration was salting, drying and smoking. Customarily, at noon, pea or bean soup was eaten, depending on the season. It was enriched with smoked pig meat and the never absent homemade lasagna. The dinner menu always consisted of polenta with milk or eggs and radicchio or grated sheep’s cheese and olive oil. Breeding, butchering and preservation of the pig Having a pig was considered a luxury. Not all families were able to afford it, because buying one and raising it was very costly. My mother remembers that a pig was bought at the end of the winter ( February or March) when it was only 40 days old. In 1920, it cost about 200 Italian lira, a rather high amount. Therefore, the animal was tended to with great care. Nevertheless, one year my grandfather lost the animal. He then immediately bought another one as my grandmother did not want to deprive her beloved ones of this alimentary source. At the start, the little pig was nourished with milk if they had it. As it grew, it was fed three times a day: in the morning, at lunchtime and in the evening. Its meal consisted of a composition of bran mixed with water and additional leftovers from the kitchen. During the year, depending on the season, it was also fed with cooked and raw vegetables, acorns, fruit, and cheese whey. Some people, such as my aunt Gasparova, was exceptionally good at breeding pigs and dedicated a lot of time to the animal. She talked to it, gave it an abundant meal and its preferred herbs. Therefore, at slaughtering time, the animal was almost always the fattest in town. However, at the moment of slaughtering, most of the animals had reached 100 kilograms. Most of the butchering was always done around Christmas time, preferably a week prior. The poor animal was first hit with a blow to the head and then its throat was cut right in the pig sty . Since nothing was wasted, the blood was collected in a container and boiled in salty water and consumed later with flavored olive oil. The body, brought in the house by two or three sturdy men, was placed on its side within a hollow container. While the men of the family attended to the butchering, the women heated great amounts of water to be thrown on the pig in order to scrape the bristles. This operation was done with an ordinary metal skimming spoon. At the end, the skin of the pig turned out smooth and rosy. Once the skin was scraped, the body was hung by the posterior legs, was opened from the anterior side in order to remove the intestines and all the inner organs. It was then left hung for two or three days. Once this process was completed, the animal was cut into pieces: the posterior quarters, the front quarters, the head, the flanks etc. The pieces were layered in the baia covered with salt. The baia was a large container made of wood with a cover. The base was large and round becoming slightly narrower at the opening. After a few days, the smallest pieces and then the largest pieces, were hung under the fireplace to be dried and smoked. Only a few parts of the pig were consumed fresh for example to make braciola, which was either barbequed or fried in a pan. La coradela (liver, spleen, lung ) was cooked in onion sauce and eaten by the family, unless they decided to offer it to the parish priest or some relative. In Puntacroce they did not prepare salami, at least not to my mother’s or my recollection. Sausage was prepared only by one family in town. The smoked pig meat enriched the meals for the entire year. The Sheep: Shearing and milking. The manufacture of ricotta, butter and cheese Another great resource for the families was attributable to sheep: the wool, the milk and the meat. In the summer, approximately at the end of the milking season, the sheep were sheared. The little animals, finding themselves so naked , at first didn’t recognize each other and butted heads. The wool was in part sold and in part utilized at home to fill mattresses and pillows or spinned to make covers or clothes. The journey of the wool, from the fleece that covers the animal’s skin to the yarn, was very long. The runi, the animal’s mantles, were freed from thorns, little pieces of wood or other impurities. They were washed in abundant lukewarm water in large containers until they became beautiful and white. Then, the washed wool was spread to dry on the masiere (walls made of stone) or on the hedges around the house. After drying, the wool was either hand reeled or combed with the help of special metal brushes, owned only by my maternal grandmother. She was very jealous of these brushes and never lend them to anybody. As a matter of fact, she would rather have gone to the house of those who needed them and do the job herself then loan her famous brushes. After this treatment, the wool acquired a characteristic similar to cotton/wool and was ready to be spun with the appropriate tools ( filarell). It may be of interest to know how the cheese, the ricotta ( sort of a cream cheese ) and the butter were made in those times. Milking the sheep was performed in the morning and in the evening. According to the quantity of the milk received, the cheese was made once or twice a day. The operation started by pouring the milk in a terracotta container. It was then lightly heated before the rennet was added. The rennet is an enzyme extracted from the fourth stomach of a un-weaned ruminant. This enzyme had coagulating properties in milk. The rennet (called caglio) was acquired in the pharmacy. An alternative method was to remove the stomach (flecic ) of a still suckling lamb, when it was killed. The little stomach was filled with two tablespoons of salt , closed at the extremities and put in a terracotta container. From this cured stomach, a liquid exuded which had the same properties as what was purchased at the pharmacy. When all the liquid was used, you could produce more by simply adding more salt in the little sack.. This process could be repeated a few times. The container holding the milk to be coagulated was kept warm near the fogolar (fireplace). The pot of milk was constantly rotated to diffuse the heat uniformly. When the milk started to transform into a solid mass, a mestolo, wooden stick with radiating branches was used to stir the new product. It was continually stirred until the solid cheese mass remained at the bottom of the pot leaving the serum on the surface. At this point the solid was manually squeezed of as much liquid as possible. It was then placed in the appropriate cylindrical shapes made of wood. The mass was continually squeezed to the bottom of the container in order to let all the excess liquid out. The container had a removable bottom and the walls were made of thin strips of wood, not well sealed and held together with a metal ring allowing the liquid to be further strained from the cheese. When this was complete, the mass was covered with a wooden cover. A heavy weight was put on top to shape the cheese and fully strain the cheese from all liquid. Evening and morning, the cheese was pulled out from the container to be reshaped by cutting the obreszi (irregular thin threads of cheese). These threads were very delicious, but they were spoil the shape of the cheese. These threads were formed due to the pressure of the mass against the openings of the container. The cheese was salted and put back in the container under a weight. After two or three days, the cheese was put in another container with equal diameter, but taller in order to hold more than one cheese. Here the cheeses were left for a few days, always carefully inspected and salted twice a day. As a new cheese was prepared, it was placed on top of the pile and the last one was pulled out. This was placed on a wooden rack hung from the ceiling of the basement to be seasoned. This rack was made from pieces of wood separated from one another in order to allow the cheese to breath. Finally, when the cheese was dry enough, it was placed in a case of wood with a cover in order to be preserved.. Even at this point, for a perfect preservation, every so often the cheese was taken from the case, cleaned with a rag and greased with the dregs of the oil, as my mother would say. The dregs are the dense and dark part of the oil that are deposited on the bottom of the cameniza (the quadrangular stone container used to hold the oil). The remaining serum gave start to a different chain of production: ricotta and butter. This serum was taken, poured in a large pot and hung on a chain over a light and gentle fire. Little by little, under the effect of the heat, a white, compact mass emerged: the ricotta. The pot was removed from the fire and cooled. At this point with a skimming spoon the ricotta was taken off and put on square piece of gauze. The extremities of the gauze were knotted together and hung up in a cool place to drip. The ricotta could be eaten as is or utilized in various ways in the kitchen. The tasty serum left in the pot could be drunk and used as a light laxative. It could be eaten with polenta (corn meal) or it could be used to knead the bread as a substitute for water giving it softness or to enrich the pig’s diet. The ricotta could also be used to make butter. In this case, some ricotta was collected, placed in a container and beaten for a while. When the compound became homogenous and creamy, very cold water was added while stirring continuously. In a short time, a white and creamy liquid emerged at the surface. It was collected and transferred into another container, which was put on top of burning charcoal. While heating, a yellow liquid appeared on the surface that consisted of the coarse and delicious butter of our lands. To preserve it, either glass, terracotta or porcelain containers were used. After the butter was removed, the pacia (residue) was left on the bottom of the pot. This remnant was not thrown out, but was given to the pigs as part of their meal. The liquid left after the preparation of the butter could also be utilized to make more ricotta. This type of ricotta was tasteless and therefore was called “crazy” ricotta. It was cut into slices and eaten with sprinkled sugar. |
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| Today, when I hear people talking about the beauty and warmth of the fire places and the hearty welcome atmosphere that a fireplace can offer, my thoughts immediately take me back to the homes of Puntacroce where the atmosphere may have been a hearty welcome, but the warmth of the fogolar was definitely not there. In fact, the heat was only generated in the immediate vicinity of the fireplace but, as soon as you moved away from the immediate area to another room, especially those upstairs, you were hit by very cold air, which I can still remember and will never forget. It was cold not only because there was no heat in all the rooms, but also because the outside air infiltrated all the doors and windows that were not properly sealed. If you’re used to houses with central heating systems, you can’t even imagine what this was like Aside from the uncomfortable winter months and the difficulty to communicate, which was not very different from what existed in other small towns, not just in Italy, but all over the world, it might be of interest to know how the people of this small town lived, often different from those in nearby villages, with great variety, and very different from today’s world. Today, electricity, television, telephone, computors, the internet, usable roads and the prevalent use of cars give towns the same comforts that cities have, in fact the quality of life in towns is better than that in city centers and in metropolis. The circumstances at Puntacroce could have been more pronounced than on terraferma, since it was then as it is today situated on a small island. Therefore, it was a terrible place, only the strongest survived. A neonatal could die in its parent’s arms or a woman could succumb to puerperol infection before a doctor could reach them or they could reach him. No one except the inhabitants of the island knew the existence of this small village, and certainly few islanders visited it. Puntacroce acquired notoriety when prosperity, coupled with a frenetic lifestyle, pressured by millions of engagements, traffic, and smog, pushed people to seek places far from all of it. Places where you could still breath clean air while taking walks, fishing, and hunting. And to attract and accentuate the imagination of a place where you can live according to nature, a camping area was built for nudists. Fifty years ago, the town was composed of a few houses, a church, and an elementary school, a bar that also sold meat and cold cuts, a general store and barracks for excise officers. This explains how my mother, a Lazzarich of the area, came to know and marry a Sicilian, Giovanni Palazzolo, an excise officer who was sent to this lost small town at the eastern boarders of the Reign of Italy, of the native of Scicli, situated in the Sicilian south-east. A little outside the town, close to the sea, on the side of Lussinpiccolo, surged a tiny cemetery with its chapel In my days, more that two hundred people lived in Puntacroce grouped in about thirty families. Other than my mother’s, the Lazzarichs, there lived the families Argentin, Badurina, Baicich, Benvin, Bernabich, Brussich, other family’s names I remember are Buscain, Butcovich, Cossich, Cremenich, Cuccich, Gaglianich, Harsich, Hroncich, Lechich, Lovrich, Marussich, Milussich, Muscardin, Tinesich, Plessich, Prendivoi, Rucconich, Sindicich, Toich, Vodarich, Zorovich. Some families lived in the stanze, sorts of farms displaced outside of town. These stanze could serve as the permanent residence of a family, as in the case of Marussich di Miclosuan; a place of work, lived in only during the time of milking and the fabrication of cheese; or as summer homes, as it was for the the Lemessi, who usually resided in Cherso and passed the summer in Lussan. Other stanze that surrounded the town were Murtovnic, Smriecie, Parhavaz, Peschi. During Fascist times, many of the mentioned last names, especially those ending in “ch”, were subject to a transformation where they lost these two constantans as in the case of Cremenich, that became Cremeni or Cuccich, that became Cucci, or the final ch was substituted by a syllable, for example as in my mother’s name Lazzarich was transformed into Lazzarini. Some families, besides their last name, were known by their nicknames. My maternal grandfather’s was for example Bisciga, therefore the members of the family were also called, alla Russian, Biscigovi. The Bernabich’s family nickname was Bastian, and that of Muscardin di Murtovinic, Rumbaz, and that of the family Badurina, Papa and that of another, Lugnan. |