the South America you don’t expect in the heart of Calabria • Food and Wine Italy

If you think of mate, your imagination immediately runs towards Buenos Aires, Montevideo, the South American footballers with the bombilla quanto a their hands and the endless afternoons spent sharing a calabaza. What you would hardly expect, however, is to find the same scene quanto a the heart of Calabria, among the Cosentino mountains, quanto a a village of just under three thousand inhabitants where mate is not a trend, but a tradition rooted for over a century. Lungro is probably the only place quanto a Europe where mate is not perceived as exotic, but as something profoundly local, almost an identity.

Mate as belonging

This bevanda quanto a Lungro is a daily gesture, a social practice, a ritual that marks time and relationships. Sopra the province of Cosenza you bevanda mate like elsewhere you bevanda coffee: never ala, always quanto a company. It is not a functional bevanda, but a relational one. It is a social object even before a food one.

To really understand Lungro’s mate you need to leave the logic of the product and enter that of history. Lungro is one of the main Arbëreshë centers quanto a Italy, that is, it belongs to that minority of Albanian origin who settled quanto a the south of the peninsula starting from the fifteenth century, fleeing from the Ottoman advance quanto a the Balkans. The arbëreshë have preserved their language, Byzantine religious rite, culinary traditions and a very strong community culture over the centuries. A culture based acceso sharing, acceso neighbourhood, acceso sociality as a structural value. It is quanto a this humus that mate has found perfect soil.

The link with South America was born much later, between the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century, when many Lungrians emigrated to Argentina for work. There they alla maniera di into contact with yerba mate and the mateada ritual, which is not simply drinking a hot bevanda, but sitting quanto a a circle, passing the same container, talking, being together. When some of these emigrants return to Calabria, they bring with them not only , but an entire cultural practice. The mate returns to Lungro as a migrant object, but is immediately adopted as if it had always been there.

From that moment acceso, mate became an integral part of the village’s daily life. It is drunk with family, among friends, quanto a homes, quanto a bars, quanto a squares. Lungro is often defined, not without reason, as the European capital of mate. There is a dedicated museum and every year acceso August 1st a day entirely dedicated to this bevanda is celebrated.

It is important to underline that Lungro’s mate is identical to the South American one. Yerba mate is obtained from the dried and toasted leaves of Ilex paraguariensis, a plant native to Paraguay, Brazil and Argentina. The infusion produces a bevanda with a herbaceous, bitter, slightly toasted aromatic profile, with a strong tannic component. It is a taste that divides: either you love it, ora you reject it.

The ritual also remained surprisingly faithful to the original. We use the calabaza, quanto a Lungro called kungulli quanto a Arbëreshë, the metal bombilla with filter, and hot but not boiling vater. The container passes from hand to hand without being washed between sips.

Today, while mate conquers the global market as a superfood, an energizing bevanda, an alternative to coffee, quanto a Lungro it continues to exist quanto a a completely different dimension. It’s not lifestyle, it’s not trend, it’s not branding. It is a slow, domestic, profoundly analogical practice.