On Persephone's Island by Mary Taylor Simeti

Author:Mary Taylor Simeti [Mary Taylor, Simeti]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-0-307-77311-1
Publisher: Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group
Published: 2010-12-08T05:00:00+00:00

The next day is Pasquetta, “Little Easter,” a day on which the family picnic in the country is as sacred a ritual as the procession is on Easter. This is a tradition that goes back for centuries; the famous “Sicilian Vespers,” the revolt that shifted the power structure of the Mediterranean and brought Sicily under Spanish domination, was supposedly touched off on Pasquetta in 1282 when a French soldier insulted a Sicilian girl who was coming out from the Vesper service at the then rural church of Santo Spirito, after having spent the day in the country with her young man and his family.

Until quite recently, Easter Monday morning found the country roads around Alcamo and Partinico full of cart-borne families heading out to the fields for their picnics. The horses were strapped into holiday harness, with bells jingling, brightly colored plumes and woolen pompoms nodding, and the sun flashing on tiny round mirrors. Behind them, balanced on two high wheels and beautifully carved and painted, with gay primary colors depicting the triumphs of Count Roger over the Saracens or of Garibaldi over the Bourbons, the carts themselves were bursting with people: the grandmother in black, sitting stiffly in a straight chair and holding a large black umbrella over her head to keep off the sun, a flock of grandchildren tucked in around her feet, the adults squeezed onto the driver’s seat; the family dog, tied to the axle of the cart, ran briskly along behind. (One of the great chestnuts of Sicilian humor is the touring Englishman who stops one of these carts and makes the peasant untie the dog, to the considerable bewilderment of both man and beast.)

This is a rare sight nowadays, since most families have a car to travel in, and many peasants even have a summer house, albeit tiny, by the sea that they prefer on holidays to the scene of their daily labors. But some still choose the countryside: I am out early in the morning, pruning the lavender bushes that border my herb garden, and as I work I can hear the landscape come alive with laughter, with shouting children and calling mothers, the voices traveling a long way in the quiet air. Some cheerful traditionalist has brought a record player that vibrates with the nasal twanging of the marranzanu, the iron mouth harp, over and over in a tireless tarantella. Before long I will see thin columns of smoke begin to rise here and there on the hillsides: you need a lot of embers for roasted artichokes, which are obligatory today and marvelous anytime. To achieve this apotheosis of the artichoke, you must grasp it firmly by the stem end and pound it vigorously on a stone until the leaves flatten and open out enough to allow you to poke in toward the heart a large pinch of garlic chopped up fine together with mint, salt, and pepper. Olive oil in generous quantity follows upon the garlic, and the artichoke is then

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