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Condofuri and its bergamot trees, Calabria, Italy

The bergamot is a citrus fruit mostly produced in southern Italy's Calabria. Production is mostly limited to the Ionian Sea coastal areas of the province of Reggio di Calabria, to such an extent that it is a symbol of the entire city. Most of the bergamot comes from a short stretch of land there, where the temperature is favourable.

Photos by @asprokalo and @sonia_martello

Condofuri, Calabria, Italy

Condofuri is a tiny village on the southernmost tip of Calabria. It's a place for locals seeking refuge from Calabria's intense summer sun. Look west across the Messina Strait and you see Sicily, with the menacing Mount Etna standing tall, and out of sight to the east is Greece.

Condofuri is part of the community of villages that is Bovesia, where Calabrian Greek can still be heard. You can read it on the road signs too, sandwiched between Calabrian and Italian. Italian is at the bottom of the list.

This coastal strip of Calabria, on the Ionian Sea, facing south, offers the bergamot an ideal habitat, protected from the northern winds by the Aspromonte mountains (a geopark protected by UNESCO).

Bergamot is a famous Calabrian citrus fruit of very ancient origins, whose essence is the basis of many perfumes and cosmetics. It is also used in the agricultural and food industry, in the production of candies, in "Earl Grey" tea, and every day it finds a new field of application. As a citrus fruit, it's classified as Citrus bergamia. The fruit has a spherical shape similar to the orange but is yellow like the lemon and the plant, by non-expert eyes, can be easily confused with both of the above mentioned citrus fruits.

Bergamot fruits grow exclusively in this area of Calabria, along the 140 km of Ionian coast.

Fertile soils and mild climate, widespread sun exposure and an average temperature among the highest in Italy, with minimal fluctuations between day and night and absence of winter frosts.

The view from Mount Scafi - Condofuri, Calabria, Italy

The importance of the goat in the Greek Calabrian mountains of Aspromonte

Overlooking the sunrise and the charms of the Southern Ionian coast of Calabria, the vast area of Bovesìa represents an ethno-cultural basin of ancient origins.

The presence of the Greek-Oriental communities that arrived on these shores was able to survive the Latinisation ordered by the Normans from the 11th century onwards, rigorously preserving the language of its origins, today known as the Greek dialect of Calabria, its traditions, music and food, establishing a true koinè.

Walking into the town of Gallicianò is like landing out-of-the-blue on a parched Aegean hillside. The road signs are in Greek; kids shriek and tease each other in Greek; the church is Greek Orthodox; even the flags are Greek.

Calabrians of the Greek area have about as many words for goat as the Inuit—according to that popular urban legend, on Baffin Island, say, or in northern Siberia—have for snow. There’s a poster in the museum in Bova, the capital of Calabria’s Aspromonte Grecanica region, listing dozens of goaty Greco-Calabrian terms, and to the untrained ear of a foreigner they could sound like invocations: O tragopuddho (a young billy goat); to rifi ozzopodi (a young goat that gets separated from the flock); asti tripimeno (a goat with a hole in its ear). A goat bell can be either a cambana, cuduni, cudhuneddho or cudunaci; not to be confused with enan ximerinaci (a bell worn by a small goat) or, god forbid, enan mpecurinaci—a bell worn by a lamb.

The goat is among the most agile and graceful animals of the Greek Aspromonte. Present since prehistoric times, it is perfectly adapted to its meager pastures and the steep walls of its mountains, thanks to its ability to balance which allows it to climb anywhere, even trees. The food requirement of a goat is in fact equal to a tenth of that of a cattle, despite its milk production being higher.

These animals were raised not only for their milk (gala) but also for their meat and skins, from which they made clothes and wineskins, drums and wind instruments such as bagpipes.

The Arab chronicler 'Abu al-Fida (1273-1331) later mentions the abundance of goats in the Ionian Aspromonte, when he refers to the large number of animals slaughtered on the slopes of the castle of San Niceto, during a Saracen incursion.

Since the Middle Ages, goat farming has played a considerable role in the local economy, to the point that the pastures were strictly regulated.

During the sixteenth century, goat farming was, together with silkworm farming, the major source of income.

Among the most important dairy products, a mention should be reserved for a traditional table cheese, consumed exclusively during the Easter period, called musulupu, "bite of the wolf". Similar to tuma, this fresh cheese is still prepared with artisanal methods and tools, packaged in particular anthropomorphic molds called musulupare. It goes well with seasonal vegetables, pasta and on Easter Eve it becomes the basis for a typical omelette from Bovesìa.

Even breeding follows ancient practices, the same as the Greek and Byzantine shepherds who for centuries led their flocks through transhumances from the coasts to the most inaccessible mountains of Aspromonte. Flocks of goats can be seen everywhere traveling the length and breadth of the Grecanica area.

Photo by Quelli che Reggio Calabria

CONDOFURI, FIACCOLATA DI DOLORE E PIANTO SULLA S.S.106. FOTO

PUGLIESE: «SE LE ASPETTATIVE DI AMMODERNAMENTO DELLA S.S.106 SARANNO TRADITE CI SARÀ UNA RISPOSTA DEI CITTADINI GIÀ DA SUBITO E SARÀ CHIARA ED ESEMPLARE» (more…)

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Terminato con successo un torneo di poker live a Condofuri RC con il sostegno dell'Amministrazione Comunale

Terminato con successo un torneo di poker live a Condofuri RC con il sostegno dell’Amministrazione Comunale

La terra calabrese ci regala da sempre grandi soddisfazioni e anche nel tanto discusso settore del Poker Live ha fatto la sua parte.

Non ce ne vogliano altri organizzatori che in precedenza, in altre parti d’Italia, hanno già effettuato con successo un evento simile (una su tutte la F.I.G.P.), ma a nostro parere questa volta c’è qualcosa di diverso.

Il 19 Agosto si è tenuto presso ilRisto-Pub…

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