An island apart

Rugged and atmospheric, Corsica is a place of unspoiled tranquillity

September 11, 2011|By Colin Barraclough, Globe Correspondent

The French-controlled island of Corsica rises from the Mediterranean… (COLIN BARRACLOUGH FOR THE…)

VENACO, Corsica - The sonorous “parp’’ of a conch shell played like a hunting horn greeted me at the entrance to the marquee. It was followed first by a carillon of goat’s bells, then by gales of tipsy laughter.

Fifteen years ago, small-time producers of brocciu, a creamy, ewe’s-milk cheese from this Mediterranean island, launched an annual gathering to showcase their products. Since then, the “Fiera di u Casgiu’’ fair at Venaco, an ancient hamlet in the island’s heartland, has grown into a full-blown country festival.

Corsicans come to partake in cheese-making competitions, sheep-breeding shows, and outbursts of polyphonic song, a unique tradition rendered by all-male choirs. Bearded farmers display pig liver pâté, pork loin flavored with acorns, and prizuttu, a ham cured for three years to acquire its distinctive hazelnut tang. Dozens of stalls are laden with farm-produced vinegar, bone-handled knives, and liquors flavored by just about every nettle, root, and aromatic herb that grows in the Mediterranean basin.

As I soon discovered, the fair is also a good excuse for a party, Corsican-style.

Picking up a bottle of Pietra, a 6-percent-proof brew scented with chestnuts, I wandered into the music tent, where folk guitarists were bashing out country melodies. Without warning, a wild-looking farmhand clad in work jeans and Hawaiian shirt stumbled on stage. Flailing for the mike, he grinned lopsidedly, displaying his two remaining front teeth to great effect.

The band plowed on, still in rhythm, and the farmhand let loose, growling out the lyrics of a well-known ballad in a painful, gravelly monotone. Recognizing one of their own, the crowd roared for more. Uncomfortably off-key, the unannounced guest was slurring his way through a fourth consecutive song when the crowd gave a last cheer and he tumbled off-stage.

I had come to Corsica on a quest to understand its archaic, pastoral society. Best known as the birthplace of Napoleon Bonaparte, the 114-mile-long, French-controlled island rises abruptly from the Mediterranean to a tangle of craggy peaks, its population clustered in stone-built villages in remote valleys or skewered dramatically atop granite outcrops.

For a week, I drove switchbacks and hairpins through the island’s interior, finding a land that was everything the Mediterranean used to be: rugged, atmospheric, and almost devoid of people. Isolated by cliffs, gorges, and forests - and by its inhabitants’ fierce sense of independence - Corsica feels as if it got left behind while the rest of the world marched on.