A Weekend in Vita

A Weekend in Vita

         A good deal of people are familiar with the Italian word vita, perhaps from an “authentically” named local restaurant, or maybe from the popular Italian film La Vita è Bella. The word vita means life; concomitantly, Vita is also the name of the town that my ancestors are from. Vita is a small town located on the island of Sicily, within a province known as Trapani. In Italian history books, Vita shows up (albeit rarely) as the location where Giuseppe Garibaldi had gathered his troops prior to winning his first victory for Italian unification at Calatafimi on May 15, 1860. Let’s put it this way, Vita is not on most priority lists for tourists.

         For me, visiting Vita was a priority because it was historically relevant to me. A number of years ago I had wanted to visit my distant relatives in Vita and they eagerly welcomed me into their homes with open arms. At that time, I was a total stranger to them and vice versa. We are much closer now and during my trip this past summer, I rented a Fiat Panda with a friend and paid them a weekend visit as part of a road trip that we were taking. Like many of the adventures I have taken, what I ate can tell most of the story. Therefore, in an attempt to avoid being verbose, this story will be something you can sink your teeth into.

I had arrived early on a Saturday and shortly thereafter ate what my relatives would later refer to as nicu pranzu (small lunch): Pasta with a cream of fava, fried veal, tomato salad, and fresh oranges from their own trees. Afterwards, my cousin Franco and I went to Segesta, a local historic site with an unfinished Greek temple. By the time we returned to the house, the entire family had arrived and were in the garage cooking arancini (riceballs). The following day we went to the ancient city of Erice, where I would eat Genovesi (cream filled pastries) from the same bakery I had eaten at years before. After another “small lunch” with my relatives, we drove to the city of Castellammare del Golfo and finally up to the village of Scopello.

         My cousin Fabio referred to Scopello as “un posto particolare”, a particular place. Renowned for its beauty, this would be the location of the grand finale to my weekend eating adventures with my relatives: Pane Cunzato. Essentially, pane cunzato is a loaf of bread sliced in half, drizzled with olive oil, then layered with thin tomato slices, mozzarella cheese, sardines, and sprinkled with salt, pepper, and oregano. So there I sat, eating pane cunzato with my family as the Mediterranean breeze cooled me off underneath a fig tree.



“So it’s just a sandwich?”

        No, wrong, although ostensibly a sandwich, pane cunzato was much more than that. Just like the other foods I have mentioned, there was a story as well as an experience behind it. In this case, it was the incredible opportunity to spend a weekend with my family in and around Vita.

Tense - Past Perfect
        Feeling tense about the past perfect? I myself have had nightmares about when to use the trapassato prossimo, the Italian equivalent. The past perfect is used to express the idea that one event in the past has occurred prior to another event in the past. It is formed by using the verb had + the past participle. Let’s take a look at some examples from my story.

“Vita shows up as the location where Giuseppe Garibaldi had gathered his troops prior to winning his first victory for Italian unification at Calatafimi” – In this example, Garibaldi gathered his troops prior to winning the battle and therefore the past perfect is used.

“I had arrived early on a Saturday and shortly thereafter ate what my relatives…” - The past perfect is used here because me arriving occurred before I ate with my relatives.

“By the time we returned to the house, the entire family had arrived and were in the garage cooking arancini” – Although the most recent action comes first in this example, the family arriving still occurred first chronologically.




Here is a link to some good practice questions: Past Perfect Exercise

Vocabulary
 Concomitantly – Happening at the same time
Province – Area of land
Vice Versa – Latin for “the other way around”
Verbose – Using more words than are needed
Thereafter – After that time
Renowned – Famous
Ostensibly – On the outside, in appearance

Vocabulary Exercises – Use the vocabulary words above to fill in the blanks
1. The textbook was extremely _________, it took me a long time to read all of it.
2. He was _________ a gentleman, but under the surface he was really a jerk.
3. The man gave the woman his number and __________.
4. She is from a small __________ outside of the city.
5. As a search engine, Google is world ___________.
6. The baby’s birth and the wedding occurred ___________.
7. He sold his company and __________ spent the rest of his days in retirement.