In small communities like ours, tradition is a difficult concept to tackle. On the one hand, there is what people expect “traditional Tuscany” to be. That is often “staged” authenticity more for the benefit of the visitors than of the locals. On the other hand, there is what is truly traditional. And that is usually revisited tradition.
It’s good. It’s where the new and the old blend.
It’s where the older people and the newer generation interact.
It’s when the traditional habits get reinterpreted with a contemporary eye. In other words, it’s how small villages like mine or the spirit of the neighbourhoods in larger towns and even cities survive and the national or regional culture and identity is preserved.
In the past, I have already written about the olive oil festival in my village. But this year, I would like to write about it again from a different perspective.
What is traditional about it?
Olive oil and the food served. In the old days, olive oil production was the main means of support for the people in my village. There were many olive presses, big and small, where people in the area used to bring their olives to be pressed. Most people in the village either worked as labourers in the olive groves or in the olive presses. The olive harvest lasted for weeks, and families relied on that income to save for the entire year. “Buchi unti” (greasy holes – yes, that hole…) is still the nickname by which we go today. If you are curious to know why, you can read about it here.
Olive oil is still a big resource for the people in the village. The old olive presses have been closed and transformed into homes, restaurants or just cellars. A brand new olive press, modern and functional, has been built just outside the village and between October and January employs a fair number of people from the village and the surrounding countryside.
Now, where’s the charm in a modern, semi-industrial olive press, you may think. Well, it’s in the fact that it keeps the tradition of olive oil making alive. And they make it as a cooperative enterprise. In 2015, like their 19th and 18th century ancestors and their ancestors long before them, men and women from the village have contributed funds to build the press, continue to work in it and keep the art of olive oil making alive. Just like their grandparents, and their great-grandparents. They do not use large hand-carved stone wheels anymore, nor do they store olive oil in terracotta vases (called “ziri”). They use modern stone wheels, and hygienic aluminum containers up to the modern standards of the food industry.
The olive oil festival is the perfect opportunity to stage their excellent product and to offer visitors an opportunity to discover our beautiful village and area and our great food.
The food offered at the festival is still prepared by the women and men of the village according to their recipes. It’s a social event as well, because in order to prepare food for hundreds of people, they spend days together getting ready. This was once the norm during the harvest time. So that is also a way in which tradition is preserved.