Tre Mille Anni Reflected
Tre mille anni. Tre mille anni. Tre mille anni. The words are repeated softly and with thoughtful astonishment by one of the two other people participating in the guided tour that I am taking part of this forenoon at Antica Masseria Brancati, one of the oldest olive oil producing farmhouses in the Mediterranean basin. He is on his way to have his picture taken in front of the most ancient tree growing in the land of this place, and his amazement with the legacy of this tree – its place in history relationally to his walking towards it – is clearly sensed. I recognize the feeling, that of being completely swept away of wonder, enchanted really, by the realization that the tree has grown in that spot for 3 000 years. 3 000 years. It is hard to take in, equally hard to let go off, once it hits, however it hits, repeatedly for some, the sensation that is. 3000 years.
Standing in this landscape, among remembrances of histories gone by and histories to come. Being present here, amid a few of the so-called natural monuments by which the landscape is characterized and protected through registers of sorts. Taking note — literally, by recorder, and experientially — of the narrations of time, place, people, and practice that Pietro, the tour guide, relate. Thinking about all of the above, I feel at once grounded and abstracted. In my being. In place. In time. I experience a sense of utmost hereness, simultaneously one of detachment. I take note of the tree, the supposedly 3000 years old one. Notice everything that surrounds it. Much like it, the tree you see, it being rooted in the ground and having been so long before time, such as known to us, became relevant, and it being abstracted through the historical accounts now recounted to us, I experience a state of being at once within and beyond. At once part and apart. Of what, I am uncertain. The setting maybe. I feel here in the sense that I attend to the being of myself and others, including the trees and the environment that surrounds us. I sense hereness in my attentiveness to the histories and assemblaged dynamics by which they — we all — become. Yet, I feel distanced from it all through thoughts and (field)notetaking about time, place, people, practice, and, most of all, perspective. Through what lens and by which means does a sense of coexistence occur? Not occur? Concur?
Our guided walk through the orchard is followed by tours of the underground and aboveground mills, and it ends with an olive oil tasting session. In brief, we are informed about conditions and techniques of cultivating olive trees and of producing olive oils. We are so in then and now terms. We get to know about multitude aspects of such practices and how they correlate the range of classifications inherent to different oils. We are made aware of characterizing features and of the differences between distinct olive oils. We learn that the variations become variants dependent of various environments, components, properties, processes, and practices. We are to know that these variations are afforded through ecological, physical, technological, and chemical means as well as by means of histories, certificates, and marketing strategies. Just to mention a few. Through our guided tour, we get a taste of history and a sense, not only of the patrimonial heritage by which it is advanced, but also of the social, material, temporal, and spatial matters mattering in situational materialization of particular olive oils.
It is my second time taking the tour. The first time took place last summer, as I conducted a reconnaissance trip, one out of two, so to become familiar with the places and practices that I had written about in my research proposal. At that point of time, novice as I was, I had no practical sense of olive cultivation or of olive oil production. Nor had I any personal experience of the 60 million trees that are rooted, also systematically itemized and registered, in the region. Indeed, I was unfamiliar with most of the things that I was intrigued to explore. This time around – still a novice, albeit a slightly more knowledgeable one, yet intrigued to explore – the tour was not meant so much to further familiarize myself as it was aimed to initiate the collaboration with a contact that I had established the previous year. And so, I sat after the tour down to talk about my research interests with the owner, Corrado, who represents the seventh generation running Masseria Brancati. We conversed about olivicoltura and olearia generally, of his understanding particularly. I noticed him speak compassionately about his love of the land and the trees, and skillfully about his job as an olive grower and olive oil producer. I took note of him correcting a visitor referring to the trees as large by explaining that the trees are not large, they are old. I was introduced to our shared interest in the history of olive oil production by a favorite book of his, and highly encouraged to read it, either by borrowing it or by visiting the premises. I chose the latter, so to build rapport until the busier time of the olive-oil-production year takes place, which is usually on October, as harvest and oil extraction season begins. Our chat ended in an agreement that I could learn-by-do about the practices and processes of olive cultivation and olive oil production by conducting participant practice – the methodology by which my project is undertaken – with them during my year of fieldwork. What a blast, getting to work with one of the oldest olive oil producers there is!
