Aranciata Nuorese

Deep in the interior of the island on the fringes of the barbagia is Nuoro. It seemed a cultural suicide, wielded by unsentimental politicos over this past half century, that smote Nuoro’s picturesque and pastoral life. This, the place on Sardegna where Stone Age man first set his fires, the place least contaminated by the passing of the millennia, was swiftly, gracelessly swept away by those compelled to gentrify her. Little has changed about the Nuoresi themselves, though. As best they can midst their fresh new proscenium of concrete, they still dance their simple rhythms, honor legacy and heritage with their reserved sort of gaiety. A sweet—once made only by the Nuorese massaie, farmwives—is now fabricated in crisp, shiny laboratories and sent then, in its handsome trappings and tassels, to elegant shops on the Continent. Still, the women cook their ancestral aranciata at home for feast days, sometimes tucking it into bits of lace, placing little pouches of it at everyone’s place at table, then hiding an old silvered tin of it in the back seat of a new friend’s automobile.