A FAREWELL TO MEAT

Carnevale has been in full swing in many Italian cities but in Modica there is no particular carnival tradition. This is, in some ways, a good thing as it does mean you can walk around without getting sprayed with coloured sludge but it also used to mean that children had few places to go where they could show off their carnival costumes.

This is changing, however and I think we should congratulate La Fortezza shopping centre for organising several events for children over the carnival season and for cheering us all up with their lighting:

The word carnevale is either a corruption of Italian carne levare, the withdrawal of meat or a joining together of Latin carne and vale, a farewell to meat. [As a linguist I favour the second theory.]

SOMETHING IN THE "ERBE"

Hats off to the person who had the idea of planting a herb garden all around Modica's new shopping centre, La Fortezza:

The herbs are planted in neat, clearly labelled rows 

and this week we learned that there may be more to the herb below right than meets the eye:

Oregano, say researchers in the US, has properties which can combat prostrate cancer.  The herb is used a lot in cookery here and this is how we buy it in its dried form.  [It is the only culinary herb I know of which is better dried than fresh.]

So maybe that's why cleaning lady Rosa's 90-year-old male clients still have the energy to chase her around the kitchen!

ADVENT IN MODICA

Sobrietà, or austerity, has certainly hit the modern Sorda area of Modica where I live:  there are few Christmas lights, many businesses are closing and there is no seasonal atmosphere at all.  Down in the historic centre of Modica Bassa, though, it's a different story and I liked this depiction of the Three Wise Men on their journey:  it is made totally of natural materials and has been set up in the main square, Piazza Matteotti:

 I especially took to this fellow

 and I like the way the palm trees have been decorated, too:

But where were the Modicani this evening?  Were they all admiring the crib?  They were not:  they had rushed en masse to La Fortezza, the city's first big shopping mall.  Judging by the hour-long traffic jam on the road approaching it and the number of people there, Modicans are about to follow the British in adopting shopping as their Sunday hobby.  

La Fortezza has three floors of stores and eateries and a nifty moving floor that you can take your trolley on to get to the top.  This evening there was even entertainment and I must say they serve a good portion of calories-don't-count-'cos-you're-out chips on the second floor.

I have just one plea for the Comune:  how about putting a bus on so that those of us without cars can actually get there?