Traditional Pig Feast Revives Local Culture and Politics in Albarè
Do you see Aleardo Merlin and Gustavo Franchetto embracing? Yet on Monday evening in Albarè, the President of the Province, a leading figure of the center-right, exchanged wide smiles with the Vice President of the Regional Council, a representative of the center-left. The same was true for mayors from Forza Italia and the Olive Tree coalition.
Historical compromise? No way: that’s stuff of the past. Here, it was about pig and the ganzéga. Meaning, the tradition of the feast celebrating the slaughter of the pig was revived. And if it was a playful meeting, you would have understood from the attire: everyone in aprons featuring a cut-up pig design.
The festival and its motivations
The energetic gastronomic gathering of politicians and administrators, centered on traditional pork dishes and offal, is an idea of Franco Ceradini, an innkeeper in Albarè, who manages the Cà del Ponte restaurant, and a butcher in Arbizzano, where he butchers pigs raised in Lessinia.
At Cà del Ponte, he reinvented the ganzéga, the festive dinner that marked the end of building, agricultural, or fishing work. Why this initiative? “Because nowadays, people don’t talk to each other at home,” Ceradini explains. And with a puzzled look, he adds: “Once, we used to talk by the fireside: it feels like just yesterday my grandmother was telling me her stories.”
And when the pig was slaughtered, there wasn’t a family that didn’t invite friends to eat the bones with pearà, to enjoy the ganzéga. Now everyone is in a rush, but that atmosphere should be valued again. So, I brought the festival back to the restaurant.”
Festival schedule and continuity
Thus, the ganzéga at Cà del Ponte will continue every Friday evening until December 14, with feasts of focaccia with cicolli, lard bruschetta, risotto with tastasàl, cotechino, beans with còdeghe, pig’s bones with pearà, fogàssa. It will be a sort of fair, at a controlled price, with folk music played by an accordion, all coordinated by the I Ghiottoni di Torri association and Slow Food del Garda Veronese.
The revival of ganzéga was said to be initiated by politicians, who, upon entering the restaurant, were presented with a white apron bearing the pig’s image: the same will happen to those who book for the following Fridays.
The value of traditions and political comments
“It’s important that these traditions are rediscovered,” Merlin emphasized. “The return to traditional festivities holds great value,” echoed Franchetto: both right and left agree, at least on rustic gastronomy.
“And we mustn’t forget the wine-making tradition,” added the provincial agriculture assessor, Albino Pezzini. “We aspire to see celebrations like these in our restaurants all year round,” remarked the President of the Montagna del Baldo community, Luigi Castelletti.
Strong support also came from Giuseppe Venturini, President of the Malcesine cable car company, mayors of Rivoli, Pastrengo, Ferrara di Monte Baldo, Caprino, Brenzone, deputy mayors of Costermano and Fumane. For one evening, they engaged in gambéti and pearà.
