The Arcane Unnamed and the triumph of the cruschi peppers

"The tasty peppers had been toasted at Purgatory (which Monsignor de Luca, Lucano, made to taste Pope John) held on the ceilings for months, dried, dusted, crushed and preserved in the sacks, finally distributed crunchy, Paonazzi".
(Leonardo Sinisgalli)

The sculptor Giacomo Manzù managed to realize his "door of death" for the Basilica of San Pietro thanks to a particular "intercession" coming from Basilicata. Giuseppe Palumbo and Giulio Giordano tell us, two Lucanian masters of the comic, who inspired by an episode reminded by Leonardo Sinisgalli tell him about the story for images.

The door, bronze opera dedicated to Pope John XXIII, was built thanks to the fundamental intervention of the Priest Lucano Don Giuseppe De Luca which, in a lunch in the Vatican based on pasta and beans, wanted by Pope John XXIII, brought the beans and an envelope Of red peppers dried in the sun and suggested to the nun that dealt with pope meals how to prepare them (fried, then cruses).

Thus it was that at the Pope's table came a tureen with pasta and beans accompanied by the large dish with the peppers, polished and crispy, which attract the Pope's attention for the appearance and lit the interest at the time of tasting .

"A tablespoon of pasta and beans and a nice bite at the crux pepper!"

At that same time, Don Giuseppe said to the Pope of Manzù's cruccio for the "door" project that did not go on since 1947 (ten years before the meeting), for misunderstandings and divided with a special cardinal committee established to follow the realization of the work. The Pope then, between a pepper and the other, well devised by the atmosphere, said to Manzù: "You free of the legacles of the Commission and you finish the work within a year". And so it was.

(Detail of the door of death)

The brokerage of Don Giuseppe De Luca at Pope John XXIII, during this dinner based on Senise peppers, managed to give way to manzù's ideas (communist grown in the shadow of Christian values, and who wanted to represent his idea. of Christian secularism) and arrive within a year to the realization of the "door of death".

From the intense purple color, from medical, chemical virtues as well as gastronomic, the cruel pepper, also known as "red gold", is a true gastronomic excellence, which has always been linked to those that are the literary origins of a strong, passionate and true land : Lucania.

The known chef Lucano, CiboSofo, Federico Bands, prepared, inspired by our historic anecdote, a recipe that proposes the pasta and beans with the cruel peppers.