He likes meat but Giovanni Battista Gessa prefers to eat culurgionis. That's why even today, at the 100th anniversary lunch, he filled his plate more with carbohydrates than with roast pork and mutton. Yet the grandfather knows about meat: as a child he followed his father who had a farm and was a merchant of pecorino romano into the countryside.
«I've always been a shepherd and then I went to marrai ». On his 100th birthday, Giovanni Battista Gessa summed up his life in this way. Marked by work and sacrifice to raise the family together with his wife Adelina Brendas, who died in 2005. The couple had four children, three of whom are still alive, and today they spend their days listening to traditional music and taking a stroll near home.
The mayor of the town, Giulio Murgia, also hosted the festive lunch. Traditional menu: culurgionis and roast pork and mutton. The parish priest, Don Battista Mura, paid him a visit in the morning, celebrating mass which Mr. Giovanni Battista appreciated and in which he participated by receiving the Eucharist. «As long as I could, I went to church», says the grandfather who, for a short time, also emigrated to Milan ("I was a laborer") and rode a bicycle up to the age of 94. He has six grandchildren and three great-grandchildren.
