29 Juni 2018

Back to the past: The boat of Saint Peter

When we were children, our father Luigino, on the evening of June 28 called us in the kitchen with our mom to make „the boat of Saint Peter„.

Don’t you know this tradition? Well, we’ll tell you …

During the feast of Saints Peter and Paul (June 29) it was customary to fill a bowl of water and immerse in an egg white (fresh from the day). The bowl had to be left for the whole night between June 28th and 29th, in the middle of a meadow, or a garden or on a window sill, so that during the night the egg white could absorb the dew. The day after the egg white had the appearance of ship sails produced just by the breath of St. Peter. Tradition says that this transformation takes place exclusively in this date and, depending on how the sails appeared, you could tell if the crop would have been abundant or not. The farmers also understood from the shape of the sails, the weather conditions: open sails meant good weather and warm temperature, sails closed meant the arrival of rain.

Last night we wanted to recreate once again what we did with our father and this morning we found this surprise:

Today, after so many years, we keep alive the tradition that our father, and even before him our grandfather and great-grandfather, handed down to us.

We do not know if this tradition is true, we do not know how the next harvest will be but what we definitely know is that redoing something we did with our father and our grandfather fills us with joy.

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