According to scientific studies conducted by a leading group of doctors and experts called Akea, set up 10 years ago to study and monitor longevity in Europe starting from the Sardinian phenomenon, the accentuated predisposition of the inhabitants of the island to live so far beyond expectation is only due to genetics for 30 per cent. What really makes a difference is the lifestyle and habits, which has been responsible for giving Sardinians 50 per cent more probability of passing the limit of the century.
In the Nuoro province there are literally thousands of small towns with less than 2000 inhabitants, and that is where the food eaten, air breathed in and nature surrounding make up the magical potion for longevity. The small villages of Orroli, Mandas, Isili, Serri, Gergei present a high centenary and over ninety year old population. The typical diet of these areas is made of soup, pasta, lamb and pork meat, sheep cheese and very good red Canonau wine. Gergei and the surrounding areas are famous on the island for the plantations of olive trees, which find a perfect climate and rich soils at the altitude ranging from 300 to 600 metres above sea level. All have agricultural and shepherd traditions which make up the hard working and healthy lifestyle recurring in all the centenaries of the area. The method of transport for them has been their legs and horses, which also comprise a fundamental part of the local heritage, even though now a days they are used only for seasonal celebrations and religious processions.
To hear Antonio Crabu, or Tonino from Isili, you would think he was born on a horse. All his life he travelled round and round the province to tame horses and he was well known in the villages well before reaching the age of 100. “If there was a difficult horse, male or female, they would call me…and I just mounted and rode it, and rode it and rode it, till I could come back and hand it over to the owner and tell him, now it’s fine. And that’s how it was, I solved any problem a horse would have…” he grins thinking of the real passion of his life. Now he doesn’t leave his son’s house too often as he says he doesn’t trust himself, but till a few years before you would find him sitting down only to eat his meals. And drink his wine of course, two glasses a day which nobody takes away from his diet.
Signora Assunta from Gergei is also well known in the area, especially because of her loquacity and her lively spirit, high and strung even more than when she was younger. “One thing I have not lost with my age is my tongue! I can talk for hours if I want…mind you if you give me my stick I could also walk for hours, it’s just that everyone is afraid to let me go, in case I get lost. But how can I get lost if I was born in this very village !” she jokes, as she tells me all the cultures of plants and vegetables her and her husband used to grow and sell. She likes talking of her childhood more than her closer past, of how they always used to leave her and her sister to attend the oxes, which all the families had for heavy transport of things or of how to make fresh bread to take to the public furnaces.
In Mandas another lady, Signora Bonaria, which means “good spirit”, also makes a point of telling me a few local cooking recipes, from the beginning to the end. “We used to eat all that we grew, fed and fattened ourselves, in our own fields with our own hands, and what we didn’t have we exchanged with our neighbours for something we had. Grains, olives, tomatoes, peas, maize, everything, and all the meat, sheep, pork, horse” then she changes subject, “because I have not lived till this age because I have been lazy, nobody can say I have rested to get to this age, you see I have done all jobs possible for my family and even if I did not go to school, when my children went I got them to teach me to read and write, because I had to do everything.” Indeed, you can still see all this energy in her eyes, full of knowledge and determination, which she is convinced is part of the reason why she is still on this earth.
For sure, everyone in the province, being extremely proud of their unique longevity records has their own theories and explanation. It is enough to go to any local square and ask, in the shade where the retired part of the population sits to “people watch” for most of the day, to spark of an infinite debate on the subject. However, if we were to really discover the magical potion to reach the centenaries, it would take away all the fascination of the beautiful and unique territory of this ancient island.
show gallery
