THE COOK AND THE PASTRY MAKER
Decimo and Marsia
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The cook and the pastry maker Before reading exercise
Matching exercise Match the items on the right to the items on the left.
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Marsia
Muslim
Mohamed
Sicilian
Decimo
Sicilian
Written by students from Paolo Borsellino School Mazara Class 2nd D Paolo Agrusa Wasim Alaya Giorgia Arone Giulia Castiglione Aya Chatti Antonio Davoli Marco Diliberti Laura Fanella Antonio Giacalone Gabriele Gianformaggio Sara Indelicato Giovanni La Paola Valentina Lamia Virna Molinari Alice Mondonuovo Salvatore Orofino Giada Parrinello Miriam Russo Ivan Sinacori Illustated by English teacher Rocco Spanò
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Contents Pag. 2
Matching exercise
Pag. 6
Before reading exercise: quiz
Pag. 8
Decimo and his father
Pag. 9
After reading exercise crossword
Pag. 10
Decimo in the country
Pag. 11
After reading exercise: cloze
Pag. 12
Decimo’s mother
Pag. 13
After reading exercise: quiz
Pag. 14
Decimo and Mohamed
Pag. 15
After reading exercise: quiz
Pag. 16
Decimo and Marsia in the kitchen
Pag. 17
After reading exercise: Matching exercise
Pag. 18
Decimo, Marsia and Mohamed go to Lleida
Pag. 19
Lleida
Pag. 20
The Suda
Pag, 21
Decimo, Marsia and Mohamed meet two girls
Pag. 22
A big party
Pag. 23
The Muslims arrive in Sicily
Pag. 24
After reading exercise: quiz
Pag. 25
MAZARA TODAY
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THE COOK AND THE PASTRY MAKER
MAZARA 827
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Before reading exercise: quiz
answer the questions
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THE COOK AND THE PASTRY MAKER
Decimo and his father
MAZARA 827
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Decimo and his father
Decimo is 18. He lives in Mazar in St. Giovanni area, just in front of a Muslim family. He is very thin and tall. He likes wearing Arab clothes in fact his best friend is Mohamed. They spend a lot of time together. They like listening to medieval musical, playing chess and Marbles. They can stay together safely because they play in a courtyard where there are other boys playing the lute. Decimo gets up very early in the morning, he washes and he has breakfast and goes fishing with his father. They go fishing not far from Torretta because there are a lot of fish. They have lunch late in the morning.
In the afternoon they come back to the seaport and sell their fish in the fishing market. They usually fish sardines and mullets. People like their fish because they are fresh and they are not expansive.
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After reading exercise
Complete the crossword Across: 1: What kind of music does Decimo listen to? 3: How old is Decimo? 4: What kind of fish does Decimo fish? 6: Where is Decimo from? 7: What time does Decimo get up? Down: 1: What is the name of Decimo’s best friend? 2: What does Decimo do?
5: Where do they go fishing? 6: How does Decimo play?
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Decimo in the country
When he doesn't go fishing he stays at home and helps his mother in the kitchen, because he likes cooking and he is very good at it. Sometime Decimo and his father go to the country and help his aunt. He has a big field with oranges, mandarins and lemons and they have a big field of wheat. They produce lots of products because they can pour water in the fields with the new Arab technique. They pull water from the qubbe and put it to the container and then to the plants.
But Decimo has a dream; he would like to be a cook. His father is tall and fat, he is 45 years old and he is a fisherman. He has a small fishing boat. He is a friendly man and he likes to play chess and Nine Men’s Morris with his best friend Akim. They stay together and speak about their religion. He earns a lot of money. He likes his work and he is proud of his son. 10
After reading exercise Gap-fill exercise
Put the missing verbs in the past simple
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Decimo’s mother
His mother is housewife. She is very tall, and she is 43 years old. She spends a lot of time at home and in her free time she goes to the courtyard and meets some friends. Sometimes they sew new clothes and speak about how to cook some typical food. Amir has a sister her name’s Marsia. She is 16, she is fat and she likes cooking so she helps her mother at home. Marsia has the same dream like Amir. She would like to be a pastry chef. When it rains and when he doesn’t go fishing Decimo likes cooking and he is very innovative and creative.
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After reading exercise
Answer the questions
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Decimo and Mohamed Decimo and Mohamed play dice in the courtyard with other boys. They are playing just in front of Mohamed house where his mother Fatima is cooking cous-cous. Decimo says how nice the food smells and Mohamed invites him for lunch.
Decimo and Mohamed go home and have lunch together. Decimo asks to Mrs. Fatima the recipe because the food is delicious and he really likes it. After lunch he goes home. Mrs. Fatima is surprised because the boy is very sensitive and innovative. She asks how he is cooking the food but Decimo does not answer because it is a surprise for them and a new way of cooking it. Therefore, after lunch he goes home and tells everything to his mother.
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After reading exercise
Answer the questions 15
Decimo and Marsia in the kitchen
Decimo arrives home and tells his mother about the cous-cous. His mother is surprised and tells him to start a new way of cooking it with all fish they have at home and suggests to have a party with all people near their house. He cooks also pasta with sardines. His sister starts making almonds sweets and makes a kind of cake with ricotta cheese and candies “Sicilian cake”. Marsia makes also “arancini” rice’s balls. She make delicious sweets. All people living near their house can smell their food.
So they have a big party in their courtyard.
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After reading exercise: Matching exercise
What are the names of the main characters?
Decimo is a Chef
What does Decimo do?
Muslims
What does Marsia do?
Decimo and Marsia
Where does the story take place?
The story takes place in 827
When does the story take place?
Marsia is a Pastry Maker
Who conquered Sicily?
The story takes place in Mazara
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Decimo, Marsia and Mohamed go to Lleida
After a few days, Decimo meets Asab ibn al-Furà in the street. They talk and while they are talking, Asab ibn al-Furà smells something coming from a pastry-shop. Asab ibn al-Furà asks Decimo if he knows the pastry-maker, and Decimo says his sister is the pastrymaker. They enter in the pastry-shop and Asab ibn al-Furà asks Marzia what is that smell, Marzia says it is the “almonds sweet”. Marzia gives a sweet to him and he tastes it. After Asab ibn al-Furà asks them if they would like to go to Lleida. They are very happy to go there but first they have to ask their parents. After a few days, they leave with Mohamed by a big ship. 18
Lleida
Muslims Tamarite, Fraga and Monsoon conquered Lleida, with the same ease way as they did with the rest of the peninsula, in 714. The occupation occurred between 716 and 719. The emir Al-AAHM and then Al -Hur made capitulate to the city. The Aragonese tycoon Fortun converted to Islam to maintain his power, which would help the people to submission. In the city, life continued as before, without major changes in the customs, Christian cult in some well-defined areas, free cultivation of land, the same municipal system. The new council will be the renegades, who respect the pacts by which the clergymen did not have to leave town. At this time, the city was heavily fortified with the cathedral visigoda turned into mosque. A nobleman Arab, Sulayman ibn Muhammad ibn conquered LĂŠrida, and the whole area, to Zaragoza, and he became the King. In the Muslim Larida also other religions coexisted, bearing news of a Mozarabic district in the right Cavallers street "the Romeu". The Jews lived also in Larida "fossar jueus dels" a cemetery on the outskirts, but it is not known if they lived in a separate neighborhood.
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The Suda
Lleida, a Roman city, was a Visigothic episcopal see and later as “Larida the distant”, the northernmost Islamic capital. From the 11th century, it was the capital of a taifa kingdom. The original city of Lleida grew up as an acropolis, dominated by the Muslims’ fortress known as the Suda. The great mansions of the Islamic oligarchy were built around it. In 1149, the fortress be came a royal castle.
The tanneries The Christian conquest in the mid-12th century was very careful to seize the important Muslim tanneries. Leather working became the driving force behind economic progress in Lleida. 20
Decimo, Marsia and Mohamed meet two girls
After a few days, they arrive first in Barcelona and then they go to Lleida where they meet two girls. Sense and Sans are cousins and they are very happy to meet them and they start to speak about Sicilian food with the new Arab products almonds and glazed fruit. The girls make a very good cake and they call it “tortell” and a typical “torrò.” The tortell is a Catalan and Occitan pastry typically O-shaped, usually stuffed with marzipan or whipped cream that on some special occasions is topped with glazed fruit. The tortell de Reis contains two hidden surprises: a dried field bean, and a tiny figurine of one of the three kings. The person who gets the figurine in their cut gets to wear the paper crown. The person who gets the dried fava bean in their cut gets to pay for the tortell. Variants of this pastry are also popular in other places in Spain where it is known as roscón de Reyes. In Provence, the one who gets the dried field bean gets to wear the paper crown and is the king for the day. The torrò is a confection, typically made of honey, sugar, and egg white, with toasted almonds or other nuts, and usually shaped into either a rectangular tablet or a round cake. 21
A big party
The girls and the boys are very happy so they organized a big party for local authorities and their friends in a big garden not far from their house. All people can test their sweet and can meet Decimo and Marsia. Decimo and Marsia can understand Catalan and they also like Catalan food because it is so similar to Sicilian food and how Sicilian people cook their food.
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The Muslims arrive in Sicily
Asab ibn al-FurĂ first conquests Mazar in 827 and build the kasba in the old town centre. Seat of a powerful emirate thanks to the administrative capacity of Kaglebiti, Sicily becomes a rich and florid typically Muslim costume influences in language, culture and architectural constructions. They divide Sicily into three valleys (Val di Mazara, Val Demone and Val di Noto.) The territory is controlled by a kind of lordships entrusted to "Kaid". The Arabs leave religious freedom by making them pay the "Gizia", an annual tribute to keep thriving businesses. The Arabs build the town of Mazara like an Arab town.
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They build the walls around the town to protect all people living inside and build a castle. There are a lot of alleys, courtyards and irregular streets. They divide the urban space in the private and public life. The city is divided into several neighborhoods, the rabat, which connects to shari, that is the city's main street. This road axis connects two gates of the city, namely Bab al wadì (Rivers’ door) with Bab al Balarm (Palermo’s door). From the street Bathroom departs the little streets of the residential neighborhoods of San Francesco and Giudecca, with a number of secondary roads very articulate, from which branch off blind alleys and courtyards that create labyrinthine paths. They build also a big Mosque where nowadays there is the Cathedral and the Minaret is under the Statue of St. Vito in Piazza Della Repubblica. They build also the Walls aroud the town to protect people and build a castle, nowadays there is only a Norman arch. The Arabs also begin an impressive work of agricultural exploitation of the territory in Sicily, through the construction of architectural works improve and retrain large arable land making them, in particular dealing with the cultivation of citrus, papyrus, wheat and cotton. Strong development transforms the city from the point of view, becoming a regular destination of the main cargo traffic in the Mediterranean, for this reason it is also boosted the city's port.
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After reading exercise
Answer the questions
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MAZARA TODAY
Lots North Africans, people from Kosovo and from Albania live in the old town center. If you visit the Kasbah you see them playing in the street.
There is a Tunisian school where they study for 6 years and then they go to Italian school. 26
There are also Places where they can play.
They have butchers. They have also ceramics shops and some of them rebuilt their house like in Tunisia. There is also a Tunisian restaurant.
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The town center tells about our past with ceramics on the walls.
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Bibliography Abate Vito Pugliese, Selinunte Rediviva, 1810. Filippo Napoli, Storia della città di Mazara, Mazara del Vallo Enzo Gancitano, Mazara dopo i Musulmani fino alle Signorie - Dal Vescovado all'Inquisizione, Gian Giacomo Adria, Topographia inclitae civitatis Mazariae, Palermo, 1516. Gian Giacomo Adria, De valle Mazariae et laudibus Siciliae, Palermo, 1516. STORIA D’ITALIA Fratelli Fabbri editori Archivio Storico di Mazara, Libro Rosso. https://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Storia_della_Sicilia_islamica https://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Storia_di_Mazara_del_Vallo http://www.ilportaledelsud.org/siciliaaraba.htm http://www.comune.mazaradelvallo.tp.it/portale-informazioni/la-citta/la-storia http://www.imperobizantino.it/la-conquista-araba-della-sicilia-tra-leggenda-e-realta/ http://www.mazaraweb.com/index.php/la-storia-di-mazara-del-vallo/la-conquista-musulmana.html
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