August Holiday in Abruzzo with the Talami Festival of Orsogna
- In collaboration with www.paesaggiritrovati.it online newspaper of culture of the territory
It's said that the festival of the "biblical living four," is an event halfway between the sacred and the profane. Each year in Orsogna, a small center in the Chieti province, in Abruzzo, it's celebrated for Easter and occurs again in the summer to light up the nights of the August holiday. It has to do with the Sagra dei Talami (Talami Festival), a sort of traveling play of ancient origins, which recalls the "nuptial Talamo," It's from there, in effect, which the secular tradition starts; the talami, simple wooden altars remade and enhanced with living scenes from the Old and New Testaments, which, starting at 10 pm, spanning from August 15 to 16, for a couple of hours parades through the town's districts, coming from seven different ones.
The particularity of this event, however, is that it's repeated in the summer. Paradoxically, this does not occur in December during the San Nicola festival, the patron saint of Orsogna, but during the San Rocco one, an August (summer) Saint, so to speak, dedicated to those who in the 1950s and 60s emigrated to America and who today return to the town only during the working period.
This Abruzzo festival is one of the oldest popular religious events in Italy and is widespread throughout all of Europe, though with different names. Its origin dates back to 1300 and is tied to the Byzantine image of a black Madonna, the Madonna of Refuge, destroyed during the course of WWII, which, according to tradition, was able to change the color of its face and move its eyes. In its honor, the first Talami were born. Over time, however, the other European countries lost this tradition, while, to this day, in Italy, Orsogna remains the only place that preserves it almost like the original. The only exception in the rest of Europe is the "Mystery Plays" of York, in England, medieval reenactments, which adhere strictly to the authentic version.
Today, the Italian Talami festival is actually a lot more folkloric and more closely connected to the region. Out of seven of the parading platforms, six are put onto carts and pulled by a tractor, while the last one, called "The Resurrection," is brought to the shoulder of the mountains with a sign of hope a year after the terrible earthquake that devastated the heart of this region. Also, the name "Sagra" has the connotation of a gastronomical festival rather than a religious once, In fact, the Festival of the Talami is also has this meaning.
There are many different local Orsogna dishes during the time of this festival: from cucuccelle aribbinute, dried summer squash, which are revived in boiling water and cooked in tomato sauce with garlic and hot red pepper flakes and usually combined with pork sausage, to sardelle mprijadurije (dried sardines in purgatory), which are sardines packed in salt that, after being washed and deboned, are cooked in oil, a little water, garlic, parsley and hot red pepper flakes. Of course, there is cipollata, simple fried local onions in a sauce, which there is a saying about that the people of Orsogna remember, and which ironically indicates how little pleasure there was for the men: "La moje chi vvo' bbene a lu marite la sera ji fa ritruvà la cipullate" (the wife who loves her husband, for dinner, alas, she will give him cipollata). However, there are two main specialty dishes of Talami: pizz'e ffuje, a focaccia made of corn flour and vegetables, and gnuccune aristufate, a sort of homemade baked pasta, which was once kept hot using the warmth of an extinguished fireplace.
(Pictures provided by: Interno Ottica di Cavaliere Anna Maria)
It's said that the festival of the "biblical living four," is an event halfway between the sacred and the profane. Each year in Orsogna, a small center in the Chieti province, in Abruzzo, it's celebrated for Easter and occurs again in the summer to light up the nights of the August holiday. It has to do with the Sagra dei Talami (Talami Festival), a sort of traveling play of ancient origins, which recalls the "nuptial Talamo," It's from there, in effect, which the secular tradition starts; the talami, simple wooden altars remade and enhanced with living scenes from the Old and New Testaments, which, starting at 10 pm, spanning from August 15 to 16, for a couple of hours parades through the town's districts, coming from seven different ones.
The particularity of this event, however, is that it's repeated in the summer. Paradoxically, this does not occur in December during the San Nicola festival, the patron saint of Orsogna, but during the San Rocco one, an August (summer) Saint, so to speak, dedicated to those who in the 1950s and 60s emigrated to America and who today return to the town only during the working period.
This Abruzzo festival is one of the oldest popular religious events in Italy and is widespread throughout all of Europe, though with different names. Its origin dates back to 1300 and is tied to the Byzantine image of a black Madonna, the Madonna of Refuge, destroyed during the course of WWII, which, according to tradition, was able to change the color of its face and move its eyes. In its honor, the first Talami were born. Over time, however, the other European countries lost this tradition, while, to this day, in Italy, Orsogna remains the only place that preserves it almost like the original. The only exception in the rest of Europe is the "Mystery Plays" of York, in England, medieval reenactments, which adhere strictly to the authentic version.
Today, the Italian Talami festival is actually a lot more folkloric and more closely connected to the region. Out of seven of the parading platforms, six are put onto carts and pulled by a tractor, while the last one, called "The Resurrection," is brought to the shoulder of the mountains with a sign of hope a year after the terrible earthquake that devastated the heart of this region. Also, the name "Sagra" has the connotation of a gastronomical festival rather than a religious once, In fact, the Festival of the Talami is also has this meaning.
There are many different local Orsogna dishes during the time of this festival: from cucuccelle aribbinute, dried summer squash, which are revived in boiling water and cooked in tomato sauce with garlic and hot red pepper flakes and usually combined with pork sausage, to sardelle mprijadurije (dried sardines in purgatory), which are sardines packed in salt that, after being washed and deboned, are cooked in oil, a little water, garlic, parsley and hot red pepper flakes. Of course, there is cipollata, simple fried local onions in a sauce, which there is a saying about that the people of Orsogna remember, and which ironically indicates how little pleasure there was for the men: "La moje chi vvo' bbene a lu marite la sera ji fa ritruvà la cipullate" (the wife who loves her husband, for dinner, alas, she will give him cipollata). However, there are two main specialty dishes of Talami: pizz'e ffuje, a focaccia made of corn flour and vegetables, and gnuccune aristufate, a sort of homemade baked pasta, which was once kept hot using the warmth of an extinguished fireplace.
(Pictures provided by: Interno Ottica di Cavaliere Anna Maria)
