Baccalà and beer at Aristo's

Aristo’s bar in Barga Vecchia is tiny – no more than a corridor really but it is the unofficial cultural centre of Barga where Aristodemo Casciani has ruled supreme for more years than he cares to remember. He recounts to all who listen that he was brought in the bar, then owned by his grandfather, when he was still a babe in arms. If the shop got busy and she needed both hands to serve the customers his mother used to lay him in one of the large wooden drawers where the loose pasta was kept The place is in his blood and even though he retired a number of years ago allowing his son-in-law Marino to take over the helm, Aristo can still often be found in the bar recounting stories, playing his battered keyboard and whirling around, jabbing his finger in the air as a particular passage or phrase in the music touches his memory and sparks off another story from his past.{nolb}

This evening the bar was filled to bursting with a long table taking up most of the available space as twenty lucky customers sat down to eat one of the local delicacies – baccalà – dried cod. Most baccalà dishes require that the fish be soaked numerous times to remove excess saltiness and who better to prepare this tasty dish than Natale Bertolini famed in the area for his prowess at roasting chestnuts (article here) and preparing other local dishes in the traditional manner drawing upon his many years of experience. (article about Natale’s 80th birthday here)

Natale and his son cooked the baccalà on the home stove and then carried two saucepans through the piazzas to Aristo’s (also managing this way to keep his famous recipe for baccalà quietly in the family and still secret to the outside world*) As the images show there has been one large change in the traditional way of eating baccalà – modern Barghigiani, most of whom all seemed to be Lake Angels, seated at the table this evening all opted for beer and in industrial quantities, keeping Marino and Federica on their toes all evening. Strangely enough the only person seen with a glass of wine in their hand was Hamish Moore from Scotland who has made Barga his home as the Artist in Residence 2008 (articles from Hamish here) but that too seemed to be “medicinal” – a calmer before he left to play his pipes in a private concert at one of the villas in Barga Vecchia.

A newcomer to the bar asked this evening what was the cause of the celebration … was it a birthday party or something ? No, it was just a group of friends sitting down and enjoying a plate of fish together … in fact as one or two of the Lake Angels pointed out this evening, all things considered, taking into account the recent elections, there is actually very little to celebrate in Italy this week.

Life carries on and as the old saying says here in this area; “you don’t age at the table”

The Lake Angels site is here and all things Aristo are here

* EDIT – 16april2008 – Click on the link below to hear Natale talking about his recipe (in Italiano)

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