'E fosse p''a neve - The snow holes

It's thousands of years that people have excavated holes on the mountain Cerreto, "'e fosse p''a neve". Going up the last bit up to the mountain peak there are still many where you can see the hard work done by men who moved snow and collected it in these huge holes with walls of Vesuvian lapilli. The snow, collected in the holes became ice during the night when it froze in winter. The following day men again went up the mountain starting from Cesarano, Pietre and Capitignano, all villages of Tramonti. First they put dry leaves on the ice, then holly oak branches and then everything was covered with a thick layer of soil to protect the frozen snow from the temperatures that were going to raise.

In the months of May and June, with the first festivities around, they went up again to the peak of mount Cerreto and they opened a small hole to get the ice and put it into small containers of wood, called cupiello, which then got covered with hemp. These containers with ice were put on the shoulders and carried down the valley. Then the precious ice was put into high troughs that had a copper cylinder, called 'o vasetto, covered with tin, so the cylinder was said to be stainato, with a smaller diameter than the wooden trough.
The ice maker was normally accompanied by his family that had to transport all the necessary equipment to make ice cream: the ice covered well with jute, water from the fount in a wooden barrel, lemons that still had leaves attached effusing the scent of the lemon garden, salt to add to the ice and sugar.

Then an old ritual began, hypnotizing us children. We were attracted by the presence of this man, the ice maker, called 'o subrettaro, which we knew very well and we stood in a row to buy some lemon sorbet. First he prepared a solution with water, sugar and fresh lemons from the lemon garden. This was filled into the copper-tin cylinder and he started to have this precious cylinder rotate in the ice. First all was liquid, then, bit by bit, one could see that small crystals formed on the inner surface of the cylinder and this layer of ice crystals became thicker and thicker while the ice maker went ahead to have the cylinder rotate … until finally all became manna mounted to snow. There was always a crowd around the ice maker to buy the lemon sorbet. The risk was quite high: once the ice cream in the cylinder was finished many of us children remained without getting anything. The ice maker, that is 'o subrettaro, started over with the ritual for another time and so you had to wait for the next round.

Alfonso Arpino, http://montedigrazia.it