Fornello Sustainable Preservation: Connecting to Culture
This article was written by our Director of Programming Theresa Felicetti in 2017 for the American Anthropological Association. Her Fornello experience is a great example of heritage preservation in action. The Fornello Sustainable Preservation Workshop is offered annually by an Italian organization called “Messors.” Messors is based in the rich cultural setting of Puglia and Basilicata in Southern Italy, supporting and promoting cultural heritage.
If you would like to learn more, Messors founder and director, Tonio Creanza, is the guest on Honouring the Peasant Civilization, the first episode of season three of The Open Door Podcast. And now… take it away Theresa! We hope you enjoy her reflections as much as we did.
Messors co-founder Tonio Creazna teaching participants how to make a traditional shepherd's lunch
I come from a family of food-loving Italians and mandatory Sunday lunches, where pasta sauce intake is as important as water intake. Food has always played a significant role in my life; especially my Nonna’s pasta sauce. Until recently, my focus was eating it rather than making it, as there didn’t seem to be a need to learn. My 83-year-old Nonna cooks with an unwavering energy that fools me into thinking we’ll be eating pasta at her house together until I’m in my 80s too. She crafts homemade pasta and sauce with such ease and consistency, I convinced myself it is an ability the women in my family are born with. Alas, it is not.
Theresa and others practicing traditional cheese making techniques
I decided to attempt Nonna’s recipes, to rid myself of the overwhelming anxiety that accompanied the thought of those flavours becoming only memories. Working side by side with my Nonna, I realized it was not the taste I feared losing most; it was the connection food creates to people in my life, past and present. Our yearly tomato jarring connects me to my grandparents’ life in rural Italy, as does our Sunday lunch, which is the traditional time to celebrate hard work and one another. My participation in the Fornello Project in Puglia, Italy mirrored this deep, connective experience between food, people, and the past - but on a broader cultural level.
A hands-on, holistic experience, the Fornello Project invites participants to help preserve shepherding culture and the slow food movement in southern Italy through the restoration of an ancient cave site. Historically, the site was home to shepherds and wheels of cheese, and the goal is to open the caves to both once again. While I was there, we spent time with the shepherds and made cheese with the cheesemakers. Our meals were prepared from local ingredients, and our participation in the cooking process was encouraged. Meals and wine were always shared together, making conversation unavoidable and allowing each meal to create a community among participants. As a group we travelled around the region to better understand the profound impact food has on Italian culture. We were immersed in the beautifully balanced pace of life that still exists in rural Italy, the heart of which is the creation and preparation of food. This inspired a unified passion that drove us in our work on the site. Each cave that was cleared of debris and each stone wall that was rebuilt became a mark of our contribution to preserving the serenity we experienced in the shepherd’s lifestyle. Each archeological discovery and fresco that was cleaned increased our understanding of the site’s importance to the region and development of the culture.
Participants working on the restoration of one the cave entrance walls
The project was inspired by the impact of recent EU regulations on the local food culture of Italy. Requirements involving expensive machinery are catering to cheese production on an industrial scale, disregarding the livelihood of cheesemakers whose families have served the area for many lifetimes. Many families who have made cheese in the traditional way for generations are no longer able to make a living. The diminishing local market for milk is also impacting the local shepherding culture, as shepherds are now forced to sell their milk to larger companies at as little as 75 cents per litre.
The gradual disappearance of the shepherd and his flock from the sun-drenched fields of Puglia would be more than an aesthetic tragedy. It could begin to signify the eradication of the slow food movement in southern Italy and a significant part of the region’s culture. I believe the pace in which food is produced has an affect on how it’s enjoyed. Throughout the world, Italy is known for its long dinners using fresh ingredients. Families grew and raised their own food, and then worked together to prepare it. Of course, they were going to sit down together for a lengthy meal to enjoy it! Just as it has in North America, industrialization is likely to mean that newer generations in Italy may lose that sense of appreciation for food and the passion for sharing it.
I participated in the Fornello project for the same reason I return to making homemade sauce with Nonna. They are both reminders that we can’t see ourselves; our values and our traditions, as the result of not only our own lifetime, but of many. To truly understand the social and cultural impact of these processes, we need to reconnect with their roots. Blindness ensures complacency as both the culture and the values it embodies are eroded. Through a tangible experience of history, Messors connects us to a culture, its history and its profound beauty, and in so doing, encourages us to help preserve it. Puglia without the shepherds and cheesemakers is, for the local population, the same as my imagining life without Nonna’s sauce. Working on a site that dates back to 6th century BCE opened my eyes to the longevity of a shared cultural value and its role in shaping the region. International participation in the project has imbued the locals with renewed pride, encouraging them to become more active in maintaining their culture and traditions. Often when we become accustomed to something we forget its value and outside reminders of them are needed. It is projects like these that will ensure we don’t compromise culture for progress, and instead find ways in which the two can go hand in hand.
Giovanni Ragone, co-founder of Messors, sitting inside the rupestrian cave church at Fornello.
*You are now entering a time warp*
Hello from present-day Theresa! As mentioned at the beginning, this piece was written in 2017 after I attended the Messors workshop in both 2015 & 2016. To this day, it is still one of my most talked about experiences and I have continued to stay in touch with the Messors team as well as some of the participants. I was happy to have the opportunity to connect The Brown Homestead with Messors to record the upcoming podcast episode which you will get to hear next week, as there are numerous similarities to not only our approach to heritage conservation but the challenges we face, despite being in different parts of the world.
I talk a lot about tradition and culture within the article, but I think a line from it that really encompasses both what The Brown Homestead and Messors are trying to accomplish in their work is ensuring we “don’t comprise culture for progress and instead find ways in which the two can work hand in hand,” or to add to that, ensuring we understand our histories to help inform how we make progress today.
Theresa working on the Attic Restoration Project in the John Brown House
What does that mean? It doesn’t mean a fear of change or an aversion to adapting to modern tools. It’s about being better informed, and more connected to the people and places who came before us. This helps to humble us, to teach us and to remind us we are a small part of the world, but the decisions we make can create impacts that echo into future generations. The hands-on and immersive approach that both Messors and The Brown Homestead use brings history a lot closer to us, and connects us to it in a way that I feel is vital to understanding our place in the world.
For example, if you follow us on social media, you have likely seen our series of restoration videos, which take you along as we research, uncover and share the process of restoring and adapting the John Brown House for the community today. One of our most popular videos showed our process of uncovering 13 different layers of wallpaper in our ballroom! I think that piece of information really gives a sense of how many hands over time have likely interacted with that space. Beyond sharing those moments of discovery though video, we hope to again bring people in to be more hands-on in the restoration process, to further create that connection. Additionally, the goal is to find unique ways to showcase those layers in the ballroom, so that when you come here for an event or program that is meaningful for the community today, you are still surrounded by the layers and stories of those before us — bringing both the past and present together in one place.