il profumo d’Italia

Perhaps there is no sense more important to an ethnographer then the sense of smell. Unfortunately, we often get caught up in what we see. Sight is our default sense. For an ethnographer there can be no greater pitfall, for our eyes often lie to us. We see what we expect. Thus, the work of an ethnographer must be balanced by all the senses working in concert to help build an understanding the subtleties of the culture under study.

There is, perhaps, no better place to explore with one’s nose then Italy – to take in il profumo d’Italia. The streets of Italy team with life. And so it is here that our nose can explore what it means to be Italian, which changes by season and region, city and village. In the north near Bologna tigleo (linden) trees line the streets providing a sweet perfume. Jasmine hedges and ever-prized roses line the streets, while cascading bogenvelia fall from balconies. Thus, the experience of strolling or slipping quickly past on one’s bicycle is an aromatic delight with textures changing by season and location.

In Italy, food is often introduced to the nose before the tongue. A colleague recently returning from Siena came bearing gifts. He tenderly unwrapped a bulbous salame and held it up to my nose for my first experience of its delicacy. The pungent scent of the cured pork laced with garlic wafted upward.

Long before reaching a shop – il negozio – that sells meat and cheese one is greeted by its rich array of scents wafting out the door. Fruits are selected as much by their scent as their sight, but only in the protective hands of the shopkeeper – il ortorlano. And no kitchen or balcony is complete without an array of herbs whose scents fill Italian flats. In many ways the scent of food signifies the bond Italians have with the land.

Walking along the streets the yeasty sweetness of baking bread wafts down the block from many a local bakery – il forno. The complex scent of an Italian street is a comingling of bread and Jasmine, garlic and tigleo, along with the bitter bite of excessive cigarette smoke, which frequently curls into your nostrils. Though smoking is banded in nearly all buildings, the ban does not seem to have squelched Italians’ passion for smoking.

Italy’s crowded urban centers are also marked by other pungent earthy, and far less elegant, scents. In Rome where buses can be so packed that you could literally lift your feet off the floor and remain standing, the heat of the summer brings forth the musky scent of humanity in close proximity to one’s nose. And in the summer, the huge trash bins resting along each block viscerally signify the close proximity that most Italians share. On hot days the scent of jasmine and roses can be tempered by the stench of decaying refuse as one passes a bin. And in Naples, trash collection has become such a problem that one might suggest the scent of refuse has cast a long shadow over the aromatic gardens that line the balconies of its quiet streets.

The sea provides yet other sensory experience, its salty air floating above beaches up and down the coasts – its fragrance defining both heat and light. Yet, beaches are but a small part of the Italian seacoast. In fact cascading mountains, some with looming Cyprus, mark its jagged coast. The herbs and flowering shrubs that also grow on these craggy surfaces suffuse the air with a loamy smell that floats along the coast signifying Italy’s association with the sun and sea.

Interestingly, unlike the toiletry and household cleaning aisles in American supermarkets, Italian supermarkets offer a far smaller selection of scented products. Conversely perfume shops are far more common in Italy than in the U.S. It would seem that Italians are not easily lured into purchasing artificial fragrances, when their world is so rich with natural scent. Finally, the Italian words, which define scent, are as specific and emotive as the fragrances that drift past by – buon odore e profumo meraviglioso per good – cattivo e puzza per bad.

From city to sea, from shop to flat, scent naturally and with great nuance defines Italian life. La vita in Italia è complessa.

All photographs copyright: Jean Grow

Salume

In Italy, when it comes to food all things are sacred and nothing is wasted. In this respect, salume seems its own class of food. Ah, before I go any further, I must take a moment to introduce you to but one of the many intricacies of the Italian language – lest you think my fingers simply fumbled across the keyboard. Salume (class singular), salumi (class plural), salame (sausage singular), and salami (sausage plural) are all the ways one refers to this exquisite food. And, now onto the story that frames Italians wonderful ability to cherish all things edible.

A few nights ago I had dinner with some friends at il Contadino, Azienda Agrituristica, just outside of Reggio Emilia. Il Contadino was once a fully functioning farm. The proprietor, Guglielmo Punghellini, and his sons, who still raise pigs, opened a restaurant in half of the old farmhouse. The food –  è buonissimo – is prepared with only local slow food. It is no surprise that the slow food movement originated in Piedmont Italy in 1986. But I digress…

The jewel of il Contadino is the salame made from their pigs and which won a gold medal – suspended from Guglielmo’s neck. In the U.S. the same medal would, no doubt, be worn as a brand mark. Not so in Italy, where humility and pride seem to live side by side. Here the gold medal functions more like a wedding band worn by a man who married the most beautiful woman in the village.

The process of making salume is the ultimate in slow food – and of course very Italian. As they say, “Of the pig, nothing is wasted.” There are endless naturally cured varieties: salame, prosciutto, speck, culatello, coppa, pancetta, mortadella, ciccioli… The flavor and texture within each variety varies widely by region and even city. Most begin with locally raised pigs – very local in this case. The salume is cured at room temperature, preferably in darkness, air-drying to cause fermentation. When it is cured, the white powdery covering (mold or flour) becomes nearly airtight, preventing photo-oxidation. When it goes to market, and that too will most likely be local, the salume will be sold in shops specializing in multiple varieties. Of course, these shops that will never be open at midday when the very civilized Italians –shopkeepers included – are having lunch with family and/or friends.

Here’s the inside story. My friend’s father grew up in this house.  Guglielmo who was a friend of his father greeted us, took our order, and served us – and everyone else in the restaurant. He also gave us a tour of the curing rooms, while one of his sons prepared the food. But, of course, the father should give the tour. It would be no other way. Remember the symbolic association of the gold medal as a wedding band? Now think of us as the distant cousins coming to meet the beautiful bride. So up the back stairs we went for a tour of the old family home – now the curing rooms – one of which had been the bedroom of my friend’s aunt! Behold the scent of garlic, a hint of pepper and succulent ripening pork with a ceiling of dangling jewels all lit by a single bare bulb.

Recall my comment about a gold medal worn as a brand mark, in the U.S. Now, here’s an interesting branding twist. As the FDA regulates meat and most Italian salumi do not meet its standards, with few acceptations, most cannot be imported – such a pity. However, in San Francisco in the 1960s a group of Italian immigrants, each with a family history as salumi makers, trademarked the name “Italian Salami” for salame made in the U.S.

All photographs copyright: Jean Grow

Credere, Obbedire, Combattere

For the past six years Reggio Emilia has hosted Fotografia Europea, an amazing international photography festival, which runs for five weeks from mid-May to mid-June. Galleries, churches, museums, and many other public and private spaces from across the city host individual exhibitions. Photography is celebrated through events, lectures, theater, films, performances and readings. Each evening and on weekend afternoons people pour onto the streets and into the piazze, or town squares, in celebration of photography. I promise enchanting future posts about the festival. However, I must begin with unforgettable images of time and space.

One of the exhibitions was held in what was once Italy’s largest psychiatric hospital, Ospedale San Lazzaro. Though many of the buildings are now converted to commercial space one, Sezione Lombroso, has been restored and maintained as a tribute to the men and women who suffered there. The restoration exposes a painful history, a history not unlike other psychiatric hospitals of the time from across the globe. However, it also uncovered haunting and intimately Italian words and images scrawled onto the front walls of Sezione Lombroso.

Credere, Obbedire, Combattere (Believe, Obey, Fight), Mussolini’s branded fascist slogan, remains scrawled across the wall adjacent to the front door. Crude iconic imagery of wartime Italy reverberates against the walls suggesting the power of fascist ideology and the terror of war fused with the personal pain of the residents of Sezione Lombroso. The image on the upper left above the fuselage of the plane and below the slogan is a clear articulation of Mussolini himself.

The interior spaces cut a hole in my heart, while the inky black marks scrawled onto the classic ocher colored plaster walls chilled me to the bone. Even the Italian sun streaming into the portico could not warm me.

All photographs copyright: Jean Grow

1000 MIGLIA – the tradition continues

Mille Miglia is a luxury branders dream partner with a tradition rich in Italian and racing history, a global following, and a website populated with Italy’s ultimate luxury brands.

Mille Miglia established by the Brescia Automobile Club in 1927 evolved out of a racing rivalry between Brescia and Milan. At the time, the club had significant political influence because of board members with ties to the ruling national Fascist Party. At its origin the race was elite, with only marginal benefits for the general population – improvement of roads.

Early organizers understood the need for publicity and turned to an influential sports writer for the Gazzette dello Sport. With his help, and in an effort to flatter the government in Rome, the race was designed to begin in Brescia and end in Rome. The symbolic seeds of luxury and prowess were well sown and their efforts were immensely successful. For thirty year, from 1927-1957, Mille Miglia was the ultimate auto race successfully competing with the French Grand Prix and building a worldwide following.

However, in 1957 a tragic accident in the village of Guidizzolo killed five spectators and signaled the end of competitive racing in the Mille Miglia. Then, in 1977 Mille Miglia was revived as a historic race with the addition of antique cars parading along the original roadways across three days. Since then the race has come to symbolize the rich history of Italian culture, calling citizens into the streets to celebrate.

Today the elite tradition lives on, though reaching far beyond those who drive the coveted luxury Alfa Romeo, Ferrari, Maserati, and Porsche cars that pass by. In the finest of Italian tradition people fill the streets, sit in cafes to “take a coffee,” or pose as street performers. Above the streets fly old (horizontal stripes) and new (vertical stripes) Italian flags (the significance of which is the subject of a future post). And red remains the symbolic color of luxury and prowess – the most coveted color car a photographer can capture as it slides past on its way to Rome. Last Sunday, as I stood on Via Emilia, having just captured what I thought to be a wonderful photograph of a yellow car with its driver waving from the window, an Italian friend said to me, “Oh no, you must have a red one.”

Only one question remains – why is the distance measured with the, oh so American, mile? According to a charming story on official website one of the original Mille Miglia creators remarked that as the Romans measured distance in miles, they would simply follow Roman tradition.

Tradition is the essence of Italian life.

All photographs copyright: Jean Grow

Doors

Stepping through them we begin our journeys.

Some call us to places beyond the known or draw us within to memories of the past, just as with this gate in the Cinque Terre.

Others call us home and wrap us in warm shades of rose, as is so often in the case in Italy. Terrace vines draping over the top licking our brow as we enter. We are home.

Italian doors do not have windows and the shutters are often closed to keep out the hot summer sun or retain the heat in the damp winters. It often seems as if no one is home. So we climb the stone steps, ring the bell and wait. Avanti!

Roman doors open us unto history, like this one in the forum. Its heavy bronze glimmering with the patina of age stands as a stark contrast to the roughened dull hue of the ancient stones beyond its supporting columns.

A baby is welcomed in Ferarra. The thick chestnut door, protecting the privacy of the newest arrival, is adorned simply. While historically Italians may have tended toward the ornate, today it is simplicity that marks the elegant Italian culture.

Taking in these doors in Portofino Frank Sinatra’s voice echoes in my head. The house could quiet or bustling, but almost always, the shutters will be drawn. For me, it is an irony that Italians keep their homes so closed while their hearts are so open.

A bicycle is left beside what was once a leather shop and is now a real estate office in Ferarra’s medieval market. The bike’s owner, cell phone to ear, bends to pick up an article she has dropped. Bikes and cell phones – in Italy few leave home without them.

Glided doors to the baptistery in Firenze tell the biblical story of salvation, symbolically reminding the newest Christian of the perils of life here and the purported blessings in life in the here after. Today it is guarded by a gate of spires of leaping flames, lest we wish to caress its magnificence.

Weather and time have marked this door in Reggio Emilia. As with many doors, in towns throughout Italy, the luster of its heavy wood has long vanished. Yet, it stands durable to time framed by a wall that also knows its age.

Doors. Stepping through them we end our journeys.

All photography copyright: Jean Grow

Contextualizing Cultural Insights

I am immensely passionate about why people do what they do. I am also curious, and even a bit appalled, by the power of brands.

And just how do I make sense of my passion and curiosities? By contextualizing cultural insights.

Cultural geography helps me to make sense of how culture is expressed, individually and collectively, and how those expressions shape a sense of place. Some cultural geographers define themselves by the study of geography. I define myself – at least my work – through the lens of cultural studies using ethnography and semiotics. And so, cultural geography helps me to make sense of the trends that culturally and geographically shift and shape our world defining the sense of place within a global context.

This blog is the place I share my cultural insights. Join me as I track  consumption patterns – old and new, branded and unbranded, minuet and grand, individual and collective. I’ll launch my blog in May 2011 from Italy – though surely other countries will follow. If you want to know more about me or the work I do, I’m an email away at grow.cultural.geo@gmail.com.

Ciao!

Jean