Matera

Matera

I arrived at my cousin’s in Matera without hitch, apart from a rather long hike around Terminal B in Rome’s Fumicino airport.  Having confirmed the gate for my onward flight to Bari, I walked the length of the terminal to present myself at it only to find that it had changed.  And then again………….As my cousin’s son Enrico said when I told him of this: “Ah, Alitalia; welcome to Italy.”

We all (myself, cousin, my daughter, her partner and my cousin’s family) met for lunch at a local hostelry.  The hostelry was on a farm that was part of a scheme in the region whereby a grant could be claimed if the farm served meals consisting of produce 75% grown\made on the premises.  Anyway, the food was excellent and copious.  A starter of types of ham, cheese and salads on a large platter, supplemented by more of the same that wouldn’t fit on the plate, was followed by two courses of pasta, one with mussels and the other with mushrooms.  Then came roast chicken and lamb with salad, again supplemented by more of the same that wouldn’t fit on the plates. Then came two dessert courses, fruit followed by pastry and ice cream, and finally a plate of cheese with which to finish off the dregs of the wine.  We’d started at 1.00 and left at 6.00.

I was fit only for a couch or bed after this but it had been decided that we should go on to visit the vineyard of another of my cousin’s sons, Matteo.  The domain is called Parco Dei Monaci and sits on a south-facing hillside outside the town.  The 20,000 vines are capable of producing the same number of litres of wine but Matteo and his wife carefully choose only half of the harvest to be made into wine.  A very slow fermentation process means that none is bottled until it is three years old.  The result is three wines: a rose made purely from primitivo grapes, a red wine made similarly, and finally a red wine made from a blend of primitivo, cabernet sauvignon and merlot grapes.  The latter has been awarded a gold medal and all three sell for between 15-25 euros a bottle.  Having drunk all three I can testify that they fully justify their price.

An evening at a favoured pizza restaurant produced a surprise.  The chef had found a trick with ice cream.  You place a mound of ice cream on a plate and put it in a very hot oven.  The key has to be in the temperature of the oven and the amount of time (30 seconds?) the ice cream is in it.  The result is a mound of ice cream, cold in the middle with a crust on top and surrounded by a puddle of melted ice cream.  Pretty neat, I thought.

A trip to the Sassi (stones) proved interesting.  The Sassi are part of the old town where there are caves that have been inhabited continuously for 30,000 years, one of the oldest continuously inhabited sites known on earth.  It was easy to see that much more could be made of them but a complex recent legal history apparently prevents that.  Part of the site was blocked off as a film was in the process of being shot.  Its title is “Jesus The Lord” or something like that.  Some 30 films have been shot partly or entirely here so its obviously a popular location.  Mel Gibson starred here in Passion Of The Christ and a remake of Ben Hur is scheduled to be shot there starting some time next year.  It appears there was some fall out from Mel Gibson’s time here at a local restaurant he favoured.  He wanted his pasta done a certain way and pasta alla Mel Gibson now features on the menu.