It was just past eight on the first Sunday in August, and the morning mass had just ended. Lucia had gathered everything needed to prepare orecchiette for Sunday lunch. She had asked her husband Ciro to buy semolina from the mill in Grottaglie, which had been supplying families in the historic center for years, and her daughter Maria to go fetch water from the community fountain, just outside Porta San Giorgio. Lucia's thoughts were all on that special Sunday because relatives from the countryside would be coming to gather in the 'nchioscia where Lucia and Ciro's house faced. The small house, inherited from Grandma Cosimina, could not accommodate the almost thirty people who would sit together for the family meal, so the 'nchioscia would be the space to be together outdoors with the privacy that the houses facing it could offer.
Each orecchietta had to be perfect
Lucia couldn't make a bad impression. A proper level of roughness would have been desirable to "capture" the sauce made with the tomatoes that her father grew just outside the village and had harvested at sunrise on that hot August Sunday. Lucia had started making orecchiette at the age of 5, thanks to the teaching first of her grandmother, then of her mother. So proud of the Grottaglie traditions, Lucia had taught the art of orecchiette to her daughter Maria, still a teenager, who that morning would help her, given the large amount of semolina to knead. "Maria, grab the matt-rah," her mother shouted to her, and so the young woman took the wooden board that her mother had inherited from her grandmother, along with the house and other ceramic utensils, including the "vummile" (a terracotta container used by farmers to keep water cool) that the girl had used to fetch water from the fountain to knead the semolina for the orecchiette.
The water temperature in the morning was just right, and so Lucia put the semolina in a mound on the countertop and then poured the water into the center, gradually making it absorbed with a rhythmic movement of her hands. The consistency of the dough needed to be both homogeneous and elastic to work it easily when making the orecchiette. As soon as she saw that her mother had finished the dough, Maria took the clean cloth, the one suitable for the orecchiette, and covered the dough to let it rest for about twenty minutes.
While the mother was kneading, Maria was washing the tomatoes.
Gathered by the grandfather and cut into pieces to be cooked for a simple sauce to dress the orecchiette. Lucia asked her daughter to get some basil from Rosa, the neighbor (the best of the women living in the 'nchioscia and whose basil was incredibly fragrant) and began to prepare the sauce with the extra virgin olive oil that her father had given her and that she carefully kept in the pantry because it was made from the olives of the family orchard. The olive harvest was a ritual that involved the whole family in the month of November. In a few days, from dawn to dusk, young and old worked together using their bare hands to gather as many olives directly from the tree.
As time passed quickly, Lucia separated small pieces of dough and rolled out thin strips from which she made orecchiette at an impressive speed, using a knife for assistance. Her daughter Maria, although she helped her mom every Sunday, was always amazed by the speed at which Lucia made the orecchiette. The shape reminded her of seashells, which she had only seen in school books, waiting for the day she could see the sea for real. Maria, seeing that mountain of orecchiette, dreamed of being by the sea and playing with the shells, all alike and perfectly shaped, as if they were made with a mold. She certainly did not imagine that, just that Sunday, Uncle Francesco would arrive to have lunch with them and then take her to the sea in his Fiat 500, which he had bought the previous December at the end of 1959.
Midday: the milk white tablecloths stood out in the small square.
The whole family was about to sit down at the table and start the Sunday lunch. Lucia realized that she had prepared an enormous amount of orecchiette and sauce enough to feed well over 50 people. She decided to call the neighbors whose houses face the ‘nchioscia: thus, men and women from the neighborhood arrived with jugs of wine and baskets of fruit to return Lucia's invitation. It was not the first time this had happened: the entire historical center knew Lucia well, both for her kindness and for her ability to prepare orecchiette with an unmistakable taste.
“Le ‘nchiosce” is a term used in the province of Taranto to indicate the closed alleys of the historical center of Grottaglie. Small and quaint streets on which the houses face, and which, in ancient times, served as protection and defense for residents in case of invasion. Here, today as more than sixty years ago, the rite of preparation and sharing of Grottaglie's orecchiette takes place.
It is precisely from here that the event Orecchiette nelle 'nchiosce takes its name,
A journey between culinary tradition and innovation
Organized by the Association "Ideas abound" and promoted by Slow Food Grottaglie Vigne e Ceramiche, now in its tenth edition: on August 6 and 7, in the historic center of Grottaglie, a well-known ceramic city, chefs and producers will gather to let people taste the typical orecchiette, many of which are produced and dressed using Slow Food Presidia raw materials.
From the more traditional to those revisited in a contemporary key with dried fava bean cream, onion, and grape salad, to those “all'acquasale” with barattieri tomatoes, red onion from Acquaviva, friggitelli, cacioricotta, and crunchy oregano bread, without forgetting the gluten-free version with Taranto mussels, yellow datterini tomatoes, stracciatella, and mint.
Local wineries and craft breweries will participate to further enhance the culinary experience, and a workshop will allow participants to learn how to make orecchiette. Actor Alfredo Traversa will engage attendees at the event with the memory of a distinguished fellow citizen, Walter Chiari, one hundred years after his birth. At two stations, it will be possible to participate in pottery workshops on the wheel with two young local artists. Street artists and musical groups will not be lacking and will ensure a lively and entertaining atmosphere throughout the event. And for the fans of Nunzia, the "Lady of Orecchiette" from Old Bari, it will be a celebration because they will have the opportunity to meet her around the 'nchiosce of Grottaglie.
