The Salento adoptive Helen Mirren is undoubtedly one of the most important actresses in the world, lately she is worthily devoting herself to the olive trees and praising Puglia as soon as she can as a holiday for the spirit. Chiara Ferragni, currently a guest in one of the most luxurious Apulian agriturismos, is one of the most skilful young Italian entrepreneurs and insisted on praising the goodness of our gastronomy on social networks: “Dreams of Focaccia e Orecchiette” and again “Focaccia “. Apulia’s heritage of humanity?». After all, orecchiette are the best dish in the northern hemisphere. But if you don’t sit down at the table, the focaccia wins. In short, to say Puglia: drink, kiss the letter of will. Apulia for life and gracias a la vida: You certainly don’t have to convince anyone of the beauty of life here.
That means that’s enough. Please stop. Let’s write about it at least once a year, in any case nothing changes… “Do we want to turn the remains of an archaic and authentic world into a luxury resort?” A community, that is, our daily life, in a commercial brand? Apulia as a barrel for merchandising influencer posts?» (La Gazzetta del Mezzogiorno, June 26, 2022).
A summer later, the questions remain the same. The region’s undeniable success in tourism, which is also the result of skillful political-institutional support, leaves some fundamental and long-term contradictions on the field or on the horizon. Ignoring them doesn’t help, because on the international stage the competition is mostly about the images and identities of the competing territories. What we want to be or become we must decide without letting ourselves be shaped by divas and divas who have no duty to go beyond the painterly. However, we do. And we suspect that just clinging to tradition, or rather, the patch of Puglia that used to be, isn’t best.
Have you ever seen someone, I don’t know, go to London or Porto and make big on Instagram fish and chips or the Lusitanian Francesinha (very heavy despite the diminutive)? Not at all, rather the newly inaugurated museum, the revolutionary urban intervention or the university campus overcrowded with Erasmus students are put on display. Bilbao was reborn 25 years ago thanks to the Guggenheim Museum. Milan “close to Europe” focuses more on the Prada Foundation or Piazza Gae Aulenti than the Milanese schnitzel. We return once more to Paris to discover the Yves Saint Laurent Museum and even the Roman Abulia, in the midst of omnivorous seagulls and garbage, has the beautiful surprises on display at the MAXXI, not just the artichoke alla giudia. And why, on the other hand, should we be doomed to the eternal orecchiette? Especially since there isn’t a hip Apulian restaurant that hasn’t made fusion cuisine a signature feature.
The pale imitation of the past, the pride of regression, the eternal return of the Panzerotto (Nietzsche in Nderr La’ Lanz) are often advocated by the administrators and – mea culpa – by the newspapers. A compulsion/breakfast to repeat that is not easy to escape, despite the great work of recent decades to illuminate on screens another Puglia: globalization center and tomorrow’s frontier for environment, energy, work, hospitality, research. Thanks to artists like Amelio, Olmi, Rubini, Winspeare, Piva etc.
In the end, it’s our future that loses out, the same future that young Southerners continue to flee. It is a new epochal exodus of talent and resources that, for the first time, does not generate remittances to regions of origin while driving the desertification of large areas of the South. So long live focaccia and squid, ciceri and tria, pancotto, giuncata and the more you eat, the more you eat. But are we really settling for the fate of others’ “playhouse” and exclusive vacations, including wacky prizes for us? No this can not be.