Dancing with Medusa in Pantelleria
stories and recipes from Pantelleria; writing the body with Hélène Cixous amidst the climate emergency
Mornings in Pantelleria have a timing of their own, the air thick like breath yet we wake up breathless. I brew large pots of coffee to share with Ludo and to see us through the fog of our brains. We sit outside. Our terrace is overseeing the port where the lorries that bring goods to the island are boarding the morning ferry. It’ll leave for Sicily soon; I watch it every day. A different ferry (yellow) returns at 8:00 pm, except when the weather doesn’t allow it – this is my link with the rest of the world, this rusty carriage that breaches the horizon line. As for us, we study maps of the sea currents so we can get a head start over the jellyfish, and maps of the winds so we can jump off the rocks safely. There isn’t one sand beach in Pantelleria.
Pantelleria is a volcanic island. There was nothing, then an eruption that marked the beginning of hundred thousand years of geological transformations – until it reached its current state, 83 km2. Pantelleria, rocks sculpted by lava in the middle of the sea, fiercely independent and unique. Orange succulent plants root against the black of the Obsidian rocks; the green of the Zibibbo grapes, the red of the sun slipping south; the turquoise of the water North of the island, except in Punta Spadillo, where the depth drops suddenly, and the water turns to petrol. The phantom touch of the air at the Balata dei Turchi when the daylight slides on the other side of the cliff. Oh, the taste of tomatoes from the garden and their sunny bites in the pesto Pantesco. Indian figs pop over cacti and spark a midnight gelato; the oregano smells like an old match, fragrant and dry. The sky is different too, cotton-like, a haze between the relentless sun and the warming waters.
On the way to Pantelleria, we stopped in Trapani to visit Nonna. Ludo’s grandmother had never left Pantelleria until she was moved into a care home in Sicily, away from the rest of her family. There aren’t such facilities on the island of Pantelleria. ‘The cost of running the air cons would make it unaffordable,’ Ludo’s uncle explained to us, pragmatically, as we sat glued to a leather sofa under the blasting air conditioning in his house. Ludo has allowed me to share this personal information with you because it contextualises this newsletter.
Pantelleria is a place where its habitants can’t retire safely – the finishing line of a corrupted system. Like you’d expect from a place where the weather has always followed radical patterns, the current situation in Pantelleria is bleak. ‘The sea is full of jellyfish and the shelves at the fishmonger are empty,’ we were told on our first night. And there were days when we couldn’t swim because the sea was one amalgam of jellyfish. I felt grievance as I looked at the sea with my dry jelly shoes on; angry, helpless like I often do before my sickness. Jellyfish; ‘Ci sono meduse?’, everyone kept asking; méduse, ah Méduse. I photographed her hair made of snakes in my mind, petrified. I thought about my mothers and my sisters; help, I thought. I heard philosopher and writer Hélène Cixous’s ‘Laugh of Medusa’ (1975):
‘Write your self. Your body must be heard. Only then will the immense resources of the unconscious spring forth.’
(translated from French by Keith Cohen and Paula Cohen)
With this text, Cixous pioneered the écriture feminine – a concept that can be translated as ‘writing the body’ – a form that repositions the ‘I’ away from patriarchal grammars. ‘Write, let no one hold you back, let nothing stop you,’ encourages Cixous who argues that to alter language is to communicate social change. In The Laugh of Medusa, Cixous calls for writings to be detached from the history of reason, to write the present bodies however scarred, different, or unfit in comparison to the dominant discourse their experience may feel and look. To write the personal ‘and proclaim this unique empire’, so ‘other unacknowledged sovereigns, might exclaim: I, too, overflow’ – so I write today’s Onion Papers. I want to be writing my body in Pantelleria – as experienced before its beauty and realities, its sick organisms, its people and cultures – so I can learn a new language that reconsiders our individualities before the one of Earth. Oh, she hurts and she burns with fever and she screams.
We can learn from feminist writers when it comes to writing and speaking about the climate emergency. This is an experiment. In the meantime, I know that I’m writing the body because I, Margaux, want to denounce and to remember who the criminals are: capitalist machineries, oil companies, self-serving politicians, corporations that justify a higher retail price on the back of a ‘green label’ stuck on a product, obsessive profits. As for changes and solutions, we must listen to scientists who are sweating before our–and I include myself here–arrogance and protest our governments.
The following entries are observations and stories I was told in passing, felt through my unreliable perspective, an attempt to remember that we must look after each other and after the planet. That we can’t keep consuming the world the way we have done until now.
To rewind, a breakfast recipe of pane al pomodoro: slice some bread and one tomato. Brush the inside of the tomato against the bread and top up with the flesh. Sprinkle some salt and oregano.
The name of Pantelleria in Arabic is Bint al-Riyāh. The Daughter of the Winds because winds meet in Pantelleria. Libeccio, the ‘bringer of rain’ comes from the Southwest; Scirocco, the feared blow that triggers choppy sea, moist and warm; Levante is named after the sun rising and Ponente, the Western wind, shadows the descending sun. The Mistral is the most common wind – softer, it once gifted cool air, ‘the master wind’ that passes through Rome. The winds dictate everything in Pantelleria, from its architecture to its agriculture.
The landscape is lined with dry stone walls and dotted with Pantesco gardens. This is a round and high construction, made of rocky walls, that encloses one tree at its centre (often a cedar or orange kind) so the fruits can be sheltered from the winds and the sea salt. Rust is a venom too. There is so much to say about the Dammuso, the traditional home in Pantelleria, and I will follow-up on that in a second newsletter, dedicated to the cuisine of Pantelleria.
Roberta tells us that Pantelleria has the highest rate of Fiat Panda cars per habitant in Italy. She nicknames the island Pandelleria and I’m telling you this for the sole purpose of seeing Roberta smile again. Roberta always asks us about our days but she can’t believe that we stay at the seaside during the afternoon.
We drive a Panda around the island too. The coastline is just under 50 kilometres long with one main road, the Perimetrale. One of the most popular–and beautiful–rides is to cut through the Piana di Ghirlanda (u Chiánu dā Ghirlánna), which plunges in and out of an old volcanic crater. ‘It’s so green!’, I noted at dinner, and Ludo’s dad clarified that it had rained an abnormally large amount in June this year.
Panteschi know how to work the weather and soil in favour of their gardens. A striking example is the ‘alberello’ agriculture, whereby the wine grapes are not tied in vines but left to grow on their own. The plant stays close to the ground, protecting itself from the wind gusts, and the leaves safeguard the fruits from cooking under the sunlight. The grape in Pantelleria is called Zibibbo, also known as the Muscat of Alexandria, and its taste is distinctive and intense. The grapes are greenish, pulpy and thick.
We meet Caterina d’Ancona, who runs the Cantina d’Ancona. We had tried one of the production’s wines and we wanted to know more about its history and making – one evening, we knock on the door. We stay for a few hours, sampling wines, smoking cigarettes, discussing the challenges and wonders of growing wine in an environment like the one of Pantelleria. We also talk about traditions and letting go of some, like when d’Ancona started producing a natural wine, Fauno. Caterina tells us about the designer they hired to revamp the labels on the bottles and how she came to spend time on the island before starting her work; the result is stunning. The other two white wines at Ancona are named after the winds: Maestrale for a lighter, mineral glass; Scirocco, for a complex bottle.
We stay long enough to notice the light toning down. ‘You’ve two minutes to finish the cheese, but you can take your glass of wine with you,’ Caterina says authoritatively. We obey and we walk out of the garden, enclosed in dry stone walls, to be met with an incredible sunset. I thought I knew pink before, but I didn’t.
We’re drinking Passito di Pantelleria, the renowned dessert wine that is made with sun-dried grapes. The production is demanding and rigorous: the grapes are picked in August, put to dry under the sun and covered or returned inside (because they must stay dry) at night. The process lasts around 35 days, during which the grapes lose their water and unleash their sweetness, then the destemming of the grapes is carried by hand. Caterina insisted that no other methods, other than the pursuit of an ancestral tradition, is used to make Passito.
Zia Letizia hands me a dried tomato to sample. The salt slaps my tongue and I come back for second – she simply dries them under the sun with salt (to avoid mould forming). I watch her make salsa with her husband, Mario. He is passing tomatoes from their garden through an electric press machine, and she steps behind him to tie an apron onto his waist. She smiles as she watches him – tenderness. It’s nighttime and Venus stars high in the sky, bright and large. Zia and Mario light a fire in the garden. They pour the sauce into bottles and cover them with wet towels before placing them into a bucket filled with water. I keep looking, they don’t want my help. The flames spark the night – the sky is now thick and back. The water will evaporate, and the fire will stop on its own. The water will cool-down and the jar will be airtight, keeping bacteria away.
I’m surprised that I can’t hear cicadas singing, but I wish I could make you listen to the crickets at night.
Clara, our neighbour, has red spectacles and a jovial tone of voice. Clara loves islands and travels to a new one every year, always on her own and never with a car. We invite her to share the sughetto we are cooking with the fish Ludo caught this morning. She brings a bottle of Passito and sesame biscuits for dessert – Clara has many stories to tell and there is something to say about getting to know someone in a language of which I’ve a limited fluency. I look at Clara like I wouldn’t look at anyone else in an English-language context – I can’t hang onto the words she says, they flow. The next day, I wake up to find Clara has left us a letter on the table outside. I dry a tear and prepare some coffee.
In town –
We stop at il Timone to buy new fishing sinkers. The woman behind the till can guess the weight of each one of them by lifting the sinkers in the palm of her hands. Old press articles and photos cover the walls; I'm distracted, Ludo pays. I buy the saltiest olives at the market on Friday morning and the almond granita at Tikirriki cools my evenings. Aperitivo Pantesco, or a study in tomato variations, and the couscous at il Dammuso. The polpette di pesce spada at La Risacca.
Pizzette orders at the bakery Pinuzzu give rhythm to our days. You must know that by 13:30, when the bakers close the shop for lunch, they have sold-out. We buy two, which we each split in two, to share for our lunches. Our favourite combos:
onions and green olives, white / tuna and capers, red
courgettes and breadcrumbs, white / artichokes and mushrooms, red
Ludo tells me that there used to be a pub in one of the back streets, but we couldn’t find it this year. If you want to dance, you must head to the other port, in Scauri. It’s also there to welcome boats (but not the large ferries), when the weather is too bad to enter the main port.
Caper bushes grow about anywhere on the island. At the Museo del Cappero, I learned that the plant is harvested by hand from the end of May until the end of August. The branches continue to grow and produce flower buds throughout the season, so the same caper plant can be harvested every 8 to 10 days. The PGI Cappero di Pantelleria limits the collection to 1.5 kg per plant and 30 quintals per hectare. The caper of Pantelleria is the most common plant and, on an island where water is rare, farmers have had to adapt therefore capers here are matured in salt instead of brine. If you ask me, I’d say that capers in Pantelleria smell stronger than anywhere else; only there I can snack on capers as if they were crisps.
If you must insist on salt and vinegar for your crisps, accept this recipe for ravioli alla Pantesca, served with pesto Pantesco:
For the pesto Pantesco:
ripe tomatoes
garlic cloves, peeled
parsley, stems removed
peperoncino
oregano
capers
olive oil
S&P
A note before we start cooking so you know what you’re after: pesto Pantesco is fresh and rough, oily, but with a bite.
Start with making a small cross on the bottom of each tomato. Insert them into boiling water for 2 minutes, then into cold water. Peel and remove the seeds and placenta. Cut the tomatoes roughly and leave aside.
In a mortar, crush the garlic, parsley, peperoncino and capers until you have a paste. In a bowl, crush the tomatoes with a fork (keep them in bits). Incorporate the parsley, garlic, peperoncino and capers paste and mix thoroughly with a wooden spoon. Add some olive oil as you mix, salt and pepper to taste. Cover the bowl and store the pesto away to chill in the fridge – it will gain in flavour while you make the pasta.
For the ravioli alla Pantesca:
flour, 00
eggs
mint, fresh and thinly chopped
ricotta
egg white
S&P
Prepare the filling and set it aside in the fridge: in a bowl, mix the ricotta, mint, egg white, salt and pepper.
Onto pasta making: on a wooden surface, make a volcano with the flour. Draw a crater with the tip of your finger and crack an egg inside. Start kneading, adding more eggs as you go. I find that flour and egg pasta dough sticks – don’t despair! Only add the yolk of the egg if the dough feels wet enough but too sticky to be worked properly. Once you have a homogeneous dough, make a ball and let it rest under an upside-down bowl for 30 minutes.
With a rolling pin, stretch the dough lengthwise. Start passing each sheet through a pasta machine and keep going until you’ll reach the wanted thickness. It was number 4 on my machine this time: not too thin so the ravioli can hold its filling.
Ravioli alla Pantesca are crescent moons. I used a small tart dish to shape mine – look around your kitchen, and if yours must be square, that’s fine too. Cut the dough and drop a tear of filling at the centre of each parcel. Fold the dough in two and seal your ravioli with the help of a fork.
Once the ravioli are ready to be cooked: bring a large pot of water to boil. Cook the pasta and plate, spooning a generous amount of your pesto Pantesco on top. I also like to add ricotta salata and white pepper to mine.
When the seaside isn’t an option because the winds or the jellyfish reclaimed it, there is the Specchio di Venere. Venus’ mirror is a large lake and natural pool located in an ancient crater. The temperature can reach up to 50c in places and you can cover yourself in its mud if that’s your type of fun. The lake is composed of silica and sodium carbonate, furry and thermal waters, while soda foam accumulates on the shore (once upon a time it was used to wash laundry). There is an old man selling jewellery on the bank, his lean Collie hides under the table. ‘It’s too hot,’ he tells us as I wave at the dog. I stop to look at the earrings he designs with Obsidian rocks – the oldest legend says that Venus looked at herself in the lake’s water before meeting with Bacchus.
I wear the earrings on a rainy day back in London. It’s the 26th day of July and I’m tightening a light scarf around my neck, one that I can use to cover my head should it start raining on the way to the office. The weather is so rubbish in London. ‘Out, damned spot! out, I say! – One: two: why, then, ’tis time to do’t. – Hell is murky!’, I sleepwalk through the door.
The word I have been looking for is raw, not pure. The apparent geology of the ground, the dust that solidifies in the air and the endless sight – on the island, it’s impossible not to be reminded that human activities connect us via its repercussions, however remote a place might be. It took over 250,000 years for Pantelleria to reach its present geological stage and parts of the island were created at different periods. The colours and textures of the rocks, sometimes like clay, once so sharp, make this evident to an untrained eye.
When you drive south of the island, the radio switches between Radio Freccia and its Tunisian counterpart, Radio Monastir, mid-sentence. Pantelleria is located 70 km away from Tunisia and 100 km south of Sicily. The first trace of civilisation dates back from the Neolithic. History has witnessed more than one political regimen, religion and language in Pantelleria, which became a satellite island of Sicily in 1860. Still, you might want to brush up your Pantesco if you’re visiting.
If you look at a map of Pantelleria, you’ll find many places have names spelt with a ‘K’, yet the letter is absent from the Italian alphabet.
It was on our second date that Ludo told me about the ‘black pearl of the Mediterranean Sea’ for the first time. He was cooking mushroom risotto and I remember because the smile he allowed himself when he told me about driving around the island with Nonna is the gesture that introduced me to Ludo’s empathy. It’s a privilege to have someone you love showing you a place that saw them grow old, and I’m grateful for our days in Pantelleria.
A reverse story.
Although this is contested, some argue that Pantelleria is the mythological island of Ogygia, and that Calypso detained Ulysses in the cave of Sataría for seven years so she could make him fall in love with her. She promised him immortality, but all good things must end. Today Sataría is famous for its natural springs. There are more thermal springs and natural saunas around Pantelleria – the volcano is still active, with a last eruption recorded in 1891. Our host and friend, Ale, a tall man who moves around with his guitar, drove us for a midnight dip in Gadir. The stars were brilliant like a disco ball; a group of teenagers arrived around one in the morning. They jumped in the water without a second thought, cigarettes and stereos in hands, and the music bounced back with the waves hitting the rocks:
There is a natural sauna up in Sibà. The cave smells of fresh mint, it’s hotter inside than outside at 3:00 pm, until we come back outside. Cold sweat drips over our foreheads, a fresh breeze, the magic tricks of nature when humans let it be.
Sleeping is difficult when it’s still 32c at 9:00 pm. There are three women with perfect brushings (shoulder cuts) who are sitting outside of the house we pass when we head down to paese for an amaro. Garden chairs face the house, its front door open, the TV working loud images inside. I didn’t manage to catch which show they were watching because every time we walked past that house, it’s them who looked at me. I say fair play.
I read Our Share of Night during the said sleepless nights. This is Mariana Enríquez at her best – it’s horrific and beautiful and queer and poetic.
‘Write! and your self-seeking text will know itself better than flesh and blood, rising, insurrectionary dough kneading itself, with sonorous, perfumed ingredients, a lively combination of flying colors, leaves, and rivers plunging into the sea we feed. “Ah, there’s her sea,” he will say as he holds out to me a basin full of water from the little phallic mother from whom he’s inseparable. But look, our seas are what we make of them, full of fish or not, opaque or transparent, red or black, high or smooth, narrow or bankless; and we are ourselves sea, sand, coral, seaweed, beaches, tides, swimmers, children, waves…More or less wavily sea, earth, sky—what matter would rebuff us? We know how to speak them all.’ – The Laugh of Medusa by Hélène Cixous (translated from French by Keith Cohen and Paula Cohen)
a pearl crushed between an unforgiving climate, land and sea; frozen in time, lava rumbles inside her belly; Pantelleria, a salty storm —
Margaux
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