A Recipe for Disaster (# 7)
Food and Fame in the Italian countryside
An extraordinary day in Sarnano. “Extraordinary” = out of the ordinary. That’s because we had a ceremonial visit from the prime minister, Paolo Gentiloni, who came to open our new Scuola Materna. It was a lovely autumn day today, and the town was heaving. Familiar faces, but everyone seemed to have discovered a suit at the back of the wardrobe instead of coming out in their gardening clothes, which is the usual style. For a moment or two I thought I’d stepped onto the set of The Sopranos.
The new school is a great positive success story, revealing the very best of Italy. All three of our local schools were damaged beyond repair by last year’s earthquakes. When the kids did eventually get back to school after a few weeks it was in awful temporary accommodation. And we, of course, are not alone in this. Many of the towns and villages throughout the region have also lost their schools. But, for some wonderful reason, we here in Sarnano have been adopted by the good people of the Friuli Venezia Giulia region away to the north.
These wonderful people came to our rescue by putting up the money to build a new school, and what’s more, they sent a bunch of hard working men and women down to build it. Today, the prime minister came to open that school and to congratulate them on achieving it in 120 days. Amazing. Sarnano has never seen a day quite like it, and of course it was celebrated in true Italian style. There were speeches in the Sala di Congresso (there are ALWAYS speeches). Then there was a march down to the school, with our local band leading the way. If you look closely you can spot the PM in there somewhere — if you know what he looks like…
And then there was the blessing of the school by the local priest (they bless everything round here — our tennis court got done last year, and it’s been in terrific nick ever since), and then the band struck up with the national anthem. I marked this auspicious occasion by posting my first Facebook Live (see below). Not an unalloyed success as you will see. But the interesting bits (the blessing and the anthem) begin about 2'30" in.
After that they all piled into the school and I sloped off to walk the dog. On the way I passed a stream of schoolchildren — on their way, presumably, to take up residence, which I thought was a nice touch, involving them in the festivities. My walk back to the car took me through the parco dei giochi, which was decked out for the final (and most important) event of the day — lunch!
It looked lovely, and it is SUCH an Italian way of doing things. Even the waiters and waitresses were decked out in their regional dress — all this stuff is IMPORTANT here in Italy.
So that’s just a quick update from our somewhat battered region — and something good to report. Not, as it happens though, the only good thing to relate today. A new report apparently shows that the number of foreigners looking to move to Le Marche, or at least to buy themselves a holiday home is pretty much undiminished, with Le Marche propping up the top ten most popular regions, and our province of Macerata 29th out of 110 on the national list.
I’ll leave you with a nice pic of the new school (courtesy of Nicola Pecchi, one of the nice men from FVG), and don’t forget, if you’d like to know more about life here in Le Marche, try my book A Recipe for Disaster, and our downloadable cookery series, Cookucina.
