The people of Taranto are out in force on this Sunday morning, jogging along the coast in their brightest fitness apparel. By contrast, I’m lumbering along, still processing the croissant served at my breakfast that seemed to have been pumped full of a kilo of nutella. Add that to the list of things that shouldn’t be eaten by a man with a beard.
It takes a while to escape the urban sprawl, which includes a large, fortified enclosure and multiple highway interchanges. Throughout, though, I’m joined by Cammino Materano waymarks, insisting that the Via Jonica–which I had been assured doesn’t yet exist in any form–is doing just fine, thank you. While I didn’t follow those now-familiar yellow and green blazes loyally throughout the day, they popped up time and again, whenever my more direct approach intersected the almost-certainly meandering Materano.
My plan is simple–head due south to rejoin the coast, follow it for as long as the walking is good, and then veer eastward, through a series of small towns: Leporano, Pulsano, Torricella, and finally Maruggio. I lack the patience and care of the Materano folks in establishing my itinerary, so at times I sacrifice quality walking for a direct road with more auto traffic, but the hazards are few, and the payoff at the coast is worthwhile, where I hop along craggy rocks and around abandoned, sandy beaches in complete solitude.
By contrast, Leporano is thrumming with life. Men are gathered around the outside of the bar, immersed in animated discussions, while families fill the playground. The children are dressed up in costumes for some reason, as though it were Italian Halloween; one boy goes out of his way to model his fireman outfit for me, while I sit barefoot on a bench eating yogurt. As it happens, the 2.5 euros I spend at the grocery store here–mercifully, Italian grocery stores down here seem to be open on Sunday mornings, at least–will be the only money I spend today, and even without that knowledge of what will follow, I am satisfied with my financial restraint thus far. The longer I can hew to my limits, the longer I can sustain this lifestyle after all, so each sacrifice in a sense becomes another day on the road.
I barely have left Leporano before I arrive in Pulsano, neighboring towns with matching fortress towers. The latter is even livelier, with seemingly half the town attending mass in church and the other half milling around the central piazza, confetti coating their feet. I have arrived too late for the heart of the party, but the aftermath remains convivial. By contrast, the last town I pass through–Maruggio doesn’t count, as I only skirt the edge–is an absolute ghost town. I see three people in total as I move through Torricella, a sign that as morning tipped to afternoon, the gatherings shifted from the communal to the familial, and clans have by now dispersed for a languorous meal. I’d held some hope that I might grab a snack here, but I was quickly disabused of such notions.
Aside from Torricella, the second half of this walk is mostly spent in olive groves. A few farmers remain hard at work, but otherwise, as with town and beach, I’m isolated here as well. While I had already encountered some trulli along the way–rustic stone huts, which will become much more fashionable later in my walk–they proliferate here. It feels like nearly half the lots have their own, albeit in varied states of (dis)repair.
I’m listening to Tom Mueller’s Extra Virginity: The Sublime and Scandalous World of Olive Oil, and if the title initially put me off by seeming a little over the top, he certainly delivered a narrative worthy of such boasting. You’ll have to forgive my lack of specificity in this discussion; the downside of audiobooks is the lack of annotations afterward. Nonetheless, one figure jumped out at me: global olive oil prices have dipped as low as two euros per liter, and even a tick below that in the years following the book’s publication. In theory, that’s great news for consumers, even if it’s suboptimal for producers. As Mueller’s discussion makes clear, though, it’s disastrous for everyone.
First of all, that price is impossible to manage for traditional olive farmers, especially those working older trees that can’t be harvested through automated processes. Many of the kinds of groves I’m walking through require hand-picking or only the lightest of machine touches, because the aged wood cracks more easily when subjected to jostling. That alone pushes the price point to the 6-euro range. The profit margin remains razor thin even for high-tech operations, even when supplemented with EU subsidies. As I walk through grove after grove, I see a scattering of “Vendesi” (for sale) signs, suggesting perhaps that the olive is no longer worth the squeeze.
The major problem for consumers is that, when the profit line is so elusive, companies grow increasingly desperate to cut corners. This has resulted in corruption hounding the industry for decades. One simple way this has manifested is in the lowering of standards. Traditionally, only the highest caliber of olive oil was employed for human consumption; the rest was “lamp oil,” fit only for burning. The reality, though, is that much of what qualifies as olive oil, even “extra virgin” olive oil, in the USA is–in the best of cases–lamp oil. I write “in the best of cases,” because the alternative is the adulteration of olive oil with cheaper vegetable oils, which happens over and over again. Indeed, the odds are excellent that the olive oil you’re eating, especially in the USA, where food standards have already been lax and enforcement almost non-existent, is not pure olive oil. Unfortunately, while olive oil appears to offer substantial health benefits, many of those are lost through this process.
The saddest part to me, in reading about the ripple effects of this corruption, is that public tastes are being rewired to believe that the bad stuff is the good. A light, almost flavorless oil is increasingly perceived as the standard, the mark of purity. By contrast, exceptional olive oil is bitter and piquant, there’s a spiciness that tickles the nasal cavity. When we are cheap, as consumers, in this case, the consequences are substantial–it robs us of the superior product, undercuts traditional artisan labor, encourages corruption, and ultimately warps our sense of taste.
It’s a lot to ponder as I dash into my chosen abode for the night. Just above Maruggio, I find what would have surely been a mansion, overlooking the town, had the construction ever been completed. Instead, the stone and cement husk sits abandoned, coated inside with one layer of graffiti. It’s completely free of garbage, though, and shielded from outside eyes, so it offers a perfect spot for the night, with a price that can’t be beat. My budget will smile fondly upon this day.
The downside of stealth camping is the “stealth” part. Unless my isolation is absolute, I refrain from setting up camp until the sun has set, and then I hit the road before it rises again. It’s good to be on the road before sunrise, though–the first time so far on this young trip! Rosy fingered dawn finds me back amidst the olives, as Homer would have preferred, but within a couple hours I veer coastward, to the beach town of San Pietro in Bevagna. The bakery inside the small grocery has posted a statement of its dedication to the “slow food” movement, and with yesterday’s reading on my mind, I spring for a couple higher-priced rolls, with minced olive and onion within, and this proves to be a wise investment. At the nearby bar, the barista immediately offers to fill my water bottle, without me even needing to ask. Such gestures are all it takes for me to remember a town fondly.
I spend the rest of the day on or near the coast, passing through one abandoned beach town after another–Torre Colimena, Punto Prosciutto, Punta Grossa, Padula Fede, and the bigger Torre Lapillo. These are all in varying degrees of rough shape, with potholed gravel roads, garbage bags piled up, overgrown holiday homes, and graffiti. Most services are shuttered for the offseason. It’s understandable and also a little bleak. Fortunately, in the midst of that, I encounter a lake filled with flamingos! It’s difficult for my mind to process at first; the birds are just far enough away that I can’t see them with absolute precision, but I could swear that the white feathers are tinged with a pinkish shade. And the beaks seem curved in just the right way. Finally, an information sign confirms that I’m passing through a nature reserve, Salina dei Monaci, and that flamingos have quite contentedly taken up year-round residence here.
Soft sand beaches lead me ever onward. An occasional fisherman interrupts the isolation, but otherwise it feels at times like I’m the only person in this deserted land. Finally, I navigate one last turn along the coast and see my destination, Porto Cesareo, appear before me. While the port is hardly bustling, some fishing boats are drifting through the bay, enjoying the calm waters provided by small islands, while the town lies dormant on its shores. There’s a little more life here than I’ve encountered elsewhere on this day, but it’s still largely in hibernation. I see an amusement park, all static. I see night clubs, their neon signs stripped of light. I’ve decided that this would be a good gelato day, and yet the best gelaterias are all “closed temporarily” according to Google Maps.
My budget loves Porto Cesareo. I have a heavily discounted room, complete with a balcony, a roaring heater, and a good breakfast included in the price. I wouldn’t be able to get such a room in the summer, when frivolity reigns supreme here, and the town revels in its sunny glory. It’s a bargain, but at what cost?
