Eating My Way Through Italy by Elizabeth Minchilli

Author:Elizabeth Minchilli
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: St. Martin's Press

Paola learned how to make filindeu from her mother-in-law. (Who also happened to be her second cousin.) Her husband’s mother had been making it for the twice-yearly festival of San Francesco di Lula ever since she was a teenager. “I was eighteen when they let me help them make the pasta that year,” recalled Paola. “We made 400 kilos and I became obsessed with learning how to do it.”

If Nuoro feels isolated, the Sanctuary of San Francesco is even more so. The twice-yearly festival is located about 30 kilometers away from city, outside the village of Lula, up in the mountains, at 446 meters altitude. The first festival takes place on October 1. Pilgrims gather at the Church of Madonna della Solitudine in Nuoro, and then, by foot, make their way to the Sanctuary in the hills, arriving the following morning. The second festival takes place over the course of ten days in May, and again attracts pilgrims from all over who come to celebrate the novena.

The pilgrims who come are offered nourishment in a very specific order. In the first room they are offered coffee and cookies, and then, in the next room, a bowl full of filindeu in broth. And finally, in a third room, a plate of the meat and potatoes that were used to make the broth.

The pasta is rarely served in restaurants, and only very locally. And if you do find somewhere that serves it, it is certain that either Paola, or one of her relatives, has made it. Paola apologized that she couldn’t serve me a bowl of soup, but her apartment is very small, she had other things to do, and besides “It’s quite time-consuming to make.” Although making a bowl of broth seemed pretty simple after the acrobatic and slightly magical feat of stretching the noodles.

But Paola didn’t leave me high and dry, since she had put me in touch with an agriturismo (a farm B&B) where she promised they would make it for me. And, in fact, as I left, she handed me a pack of filindeu she had made the previous day, already dried up, cut into manageable sheets, and ready to go. “Give these to Bastiano, he is expecting them.”

Heading to the Hills

As we left Nuoro, and followed our GPS, we soon left the main superstrada and kept turning onto smaller and smaller roads. Thick forests full of oak trees, which produced cork, lined the road. I was astounded not only by the beauty of the rugged landscape but also by the fact that we saw few people. When we did get into traffic jams, they were more likely to involve sheep, than humans. After a while even the GPS stopped working. We hadn’t even seen a sheep for at least a half hour. But it was beautiful and I figured, how lost could we get?

While our GPS never really kicked in, we did finally come across a sign: Agriturismo Testone. And as our car climbed, the landscape became even more spectacular.

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