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La Parnada

3/10/2019

 
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La Panarda in Abruzzo

Campo di Giove is a small village in the Majella mountains of Abruzzo east of Rome near Sulmona. It is Carol Usher’s ancestral village on her father's (Sciuba) side. We visited a few times over the years meeting her cousins and attending a wedding.

On one visit many years ago we were invited by her cousin, Sergio Vella, and his wife Dora to a birthday party for her brother. In late April we were driven to a mountain restaurant high above the town at noon on a Saturday and walked a path still covered with winter snow in the woods to get there because the driveway was not passable. We expected a nice Italian lunch, cake, cookies and we'd be back in town by mid-afternoon.

It was midnight when we left and had consumed more Italian food than ever before or since. Had we realized we were attending a panarda we would not have filled up on the first three courses of an Abruzzo tradition since medieval times. Often 20, 30, or as many as 70 courses are served over the course of several hours. In this case on long tables like a banquet. There was music, karaoke solos, wine, many children and communal singing all celebrating the birthday and family and community. It was a fantastic unexpected experience.

At 6 o’clock, a priest came to say Mass, then the eating and festivities resumed continued until midnight.  We had been to la panarda but did not know that until later.

(A most interesting Abruzzese culinary tradition is la panarda, a multi-course feast of gargantuan proportions. A legend holds that la panarda was born when a young mother, gone to fetch water near her home, returned to find her newborn in the mouth of a wolf. Desperate, the woman prayed to Saint Anthony of Abate, and the wolf let the baby go. The grateful young mother promised to prepare a feast for Saint Anthony, starting a tradition that would be passed down from generation to generation for centuries to come. Most panarde consist of 35 to 50 courses and last all night, thus enabling guests to partake of every dish at a leisurely pace.)

Change is Coming

3/9/2019

 
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Change is Coming: I would like to bring you up to date on some changes that we are making in how we tell you about VICA activities. For more than 20 years we have published the quarterly newsletter, Il Messaggio. For the past five years Adrienne Donohue has served as the Il Messaggio editor. During that time, the newsletter has developed into a colorful collection of interesting stories from our members about their experiences in Italy and with Italian culture. Over the past year, Adrienne had forewarned the board that she was ready to pass the baton to another individual or team. The time has now come for her to retire from this commitment to pursue other interests, including more extensive travels with her husband Tom. Over the years Adrienne has promoted and advanced VICA’s mission to promote knowledge and appreciation of Italian culture. She was instrumental in establishing the Scholarship and Grants program which has developed into a signature program for VICA. We will miss her day-to-day involvement and patiently await her return. Mille grazie Adrienne!

While we were looking to replace Adrienne as editor, we learned that there have been a number of improvements in the technology used to communicate with members of organizations like ours. There are ways to communicate with members without having to wait for the next quarterly newsletter, there are ways to integrate alerts and other information to the membership and, very importantly, there are ways to share in the development of articles and updates without the burden falling to any one person. We are looking into various options and the board, the publicity committee, and the membership committee will determine which technology tools are the best fit for our organization. If you have an interest and/or expertise in this area and would like to help, please drop me a note (mcna8841@msn.com). The more eyes we have on this work the better.

    Author

    This blog has various authors and includes many VICA members who love to travel and often travel in Italy to places frequently “off the beaten path”.  We want to capture their stories to share with other members.

    We’d love to hear from you if you have a story you would share.  If you have a brief story about an experience you had travelling in Italy, please let me know (mcna8841@msn.com).  We are going to call this section “Storielle”.   (little stories).

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