OCCITANO
Dante, Troubadours, Raschera
I Pastori - The Shepherds - a poem by Gabriele d’Annunzio, celebrates the autumn migration towards the sea, away from the snow, quite the opposite to my family, who gravitated up to the Occitan valleys and peaks in the winter, to ski and enjoy lunches of Cucina Bianca, the white cuisine associated with the food of this area.
There are thirteen Occitan valleys in total, Maira, Varaita, Po and Infernotto valleys in the Alps; and the higher Val di Susa and the Pellice, Chisone and Germanasca valleys in the province of Turin. They each have distinct dishes and traditions, but all are connected by the Romance language of Occitan.
There is a strong pride in this ancient culture; it’s little known despite having 6 main dialects, and many sub-dialects. It’s currently spoken by as many as 1.5 million people across the European Occitan region. In France, the Provençal dialect of the language is spoken widely while in Spain, there are similarities with Catalan. In fact, speakers of either Occitan or Catalan can usually understand each other.
The roots of this language go as far back as the middle ages - in the Divine Comedy, Dante pays homage to the language of the Occitan Medieval Troubadors, who roamed the area with songs and stories from the late 11th to the late 13th centuries. It is the first example of high status poetry written and performed in the vernacular, ie not Latin. It had a great influence on Western culture, crossing political and linguistic frontiers and was crucial in the development of the Renaissance.
Even women of aristicratic birth composed troubadour poetry - they were known as trobairitz and were exceptional in musical history as being the first known female composers of Western secular music, no mean feat when you remember we were coming out of the dark ages then.
Today Occitan is spoken most in Piedmonte, in 120 municipalities, from the upper Val Susa to the Valli de Monregalese. In Dronero stands the Museo Son Lenga di Espaci Occitan, an experiential museum dedicated to Occitan culture where we can learn more about this fascinating culture and even learn about the paths and routes the troubadours may have taken through some of the Occitan valleys. I like to think of them roaming the lush valleys in the spring and summer, performing to the pastoralists and shepherds that lived there, maybe swapping a Pastorela, a song telling the tale of a love request by a knight to a shepherdess for a block of Raschera cheese.
Raschera cheese is the speciality of the Southernmost Occitan village in Piedmonte, Raschera. A nutty, mild and creamy cheese, it is still to this day shaped into squares so it can be stacked into the saddlebags of the mules used to carry it down the valley to market. Maybe the troubadours carried it with them on their journeys, carrying along with them new ideas for songs and poems from the little visited areas of the Occitan.
