Seasons in Basilicata by David Yeadon

Author:David Yeadon
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins

STIGLIANO POTTER

Michele showed us his kiln crammed with just-fired items, all now salmon pink and ready for his vigorous hand-painting with decorative borders and sprightly cockerels sporting flared blue tails, and other equally convincing birds created by four or five minimalistic brushstrokes. Almost Japanese in the freshness of the flourishes.

Maybe it was our smiles and exuberant praise, but we all walked away with personally signed gifts—olive oil and balsamic vinegar holders and a special pot for olio piccante (a redolent, throat-scorching mix of extra-virgin olive oil and peperoncini, that ubiquitous Basilicatan seasoning mix).

Not far from the pottery, we met a young man, a friend of Sebastiano’s, who invited us in for a “little coffee,” which we all readily accepted. As the young man flung open his cantina doors, we discovered that a full bacchanalian Italian family lunch was in progress. At least four generations were seated all together at a long table spread with salads, pasta, mounds of golden bread, wine bottles everywhere, and two huge casseroles of steaming pork stew, richly spiced with peperoncini (of course), anise, and big chunks of the same type of mushrooms Anne and I had been given as a gift earlier that day. So a “little coffee” actually turned out to be wine, stew, bread, fruit, grappa, and then finally the coffee.

The family seemed to enjoy our intrusion, and we certainly relished their hospitality. Then Sebastiano said he’d like to show us one more little delight before we all collapsed into a wine-and grappa-induced stupor.

And so it was that we met yet another friend of his, a man who had been a potter before his recent retirement. After a little prompting from Sebastiano, he asked if we would be interested in seeing his foot-powered potter’s wheel, which he kept “in storage” just outside town. Five minutes later we were all standing on a bare patch of land with amazing vistas across the Stigliano hills and even as far as the Mediterranean Sea, way in the distance near Metaponto. Close by stood a junk pile of discarded bricks and beams and old cement blocks. The potter, who bore a striking resemblance to Anthony Quinn in his Zorba role, pushed his way into a riot of weeds and straggly bushes and slowly pulled out an ancient and dilapidated four-foot-high contraption built out of wooden planks and metal disks. Daintily for a man of his bulk, he eased himself into the “seat” (a triangular slab of board) and proceeded to spin a three-foot-wide circular wooden plate with his right foot, which turned a one-foot-wide potter’s wheel. And with his hands crafting and sculpting nothing but air, he proceeded to show us how, in the days when he was a local professional potter, he used to create huge jugs, bowls, casserole dishes, and Greek-influenced amphora. The delicacy of his hands and fingers was such that we could almost see these finely shaped objects emerging from the nonexistent clay. Giuliano stood silently (a most unusual occurrence) watching those fingers with a childlike intensity.

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